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COLEKIDGE'S 
 TABLE TALK AND OMNIANA 
 
£?6*e-*€<s>~ cy, C 
 
 
 From an engraving after Thomas Phillips, R.A. 
 
OXFORD EDITION 
 
 THE TABLE TALK 
 
 AND 
 
 OMNIANA 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 WITH A NOTE ON COLERIDGE BY 
 COVENTRY PATMORE 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK 
 ~\ \ TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN BOMBAY 
 
 I9|7 
 
A A 5^\ go 2 
 
 
 
 >afi; 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 GREAT TALKERS— COLERIDGE [by Coventry Patmore] vii 
 
 PREFACE [by H. N. Coleridge] 3 
 
 TABLE TALK 33 
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOUTHEY'S 'OMNIANA', 1812 . 323 
 
 TABLE TALK [from Allsop'a Letters, Conversations, and 
 
 Recollections of 8. T. Coleridge, 1836] . . .411 
 
 INDEX • • -475 
 
GREAT TALKERS— COLERIDGE 
 
 [The article printed below was contributed anonymously 
 to the St. James's Gazette (March 13, 1886) as part of a series 
 of three — the other two ' Great Talkers ' being Goethe and 
 Luther (on March 20 and 30, 1886). They have been iden- 
 tified as Coventry Patmore's, and the first, with portions of 
 the second and third, are reprinted now for the first time 
 by kind permission of Mrs. Patmore. 
 
 If the date of the essay. (1886) is borne in mind, it will be 
 seen that the long series of quotations is intended to reflect 
 and confirm Coventry Patmore's own political convictions — 
 ' anti-Jacobin ', anti-Liberal, anti-Gladstonian.] 
 
 The published ' Table Talk ' of men like Coleridge, Goethe, 
 Luther, Johnson, and Selden, makes us almost wish that 
 they might have done nothing but talk, with some one by 
 to take notes. In talk they poured forth their best ; 
 uttering briefly, intelligibly, and with the animation of 
 sympathy and sympathetic conflict, that which is repeated 
 in their books, but there elaborated, often obscured, and 
 often compromised by the process of connecting and har- 
 monizing their ideas. This is signally true of Coleridge. 
 Most of the thoughts which, in the Aids to Reflection, the 
 Statesman's Manual, and other of his writings shine only 
 as the more lustrous points of luminous nebulae, in his 
 recorded conversations glitter as brightly and distinctly 
 as stars in a frosty night. It only needs a perusal of the 
 exquisite and now too rarely read volume of Coleridge's 
 Table Talk to remind us that to him, more than to any 
 other Englishman of the present century, we are indebted 
 for such ' sweetness and light ' as our present culture 
 
viii GREAT TALKERS 
 
 possesses. In everything in which he interested himself — ■ 
 and he interested himself in everything — he united depth 
 and ardour with breadth and charity ; and consequently 
 was, and is, loved and hated as a man of genius and charac- 
 ter should be. But haters are always more influential and 
 wise in their generation than lovers, and those who in our 
 day have felt themselves rebuked by his light have managed 
 to damage by ignoring the fame which they could not hurt 
 by attack. Coleridge's political and social sayings, uttered 
 between fifty and sixty years ago and in or about the 
 agitating times of Catholic Emancipation and the first 
 Reform Bill, are full of the most living meaning for the 
 present day. Here are a few of them : 
 
 ' You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify 
 all the ill prophecies that were made of it — low, vulgar, 
 meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, 
 flattering every base passion, and sneering at everything 
 refined and truly national.' (P. 226.) 
 
 ' In a country of any religion at all, liberty of conscience 
 can only be permanently preserved by means and under 
 the shadow of a national Church — a political establishment 
 connected with but distinct from the spiritual Church.' 
 (P. 304.) 
 
 ' The ideal Tory and the ideal Whig (and some such 
 there have really been) agreed in the necessity and benefit 
 of an exact balance of the three estates ; but the Tory was 
 more jealous of the balance being deranged by the people, 
 the Whig of its being deranged by the Crown. But this 
 was a habit, a jealousy only ; they both agreed in the 
 ultimate preservation of the balance ; and accordingly 
 they might each, under certain circumstances, without the 
 slightest inconsistency, pass from one side to the other as 
 the ultimate object required it.' (P. 166.) 
 
 ' England I see as a country, but the English nation seems 
 obliterated. What could redintegrate us again ? Must it 
 be another threat of foreign invasion ? ' (P. 291.) 
 
GREAT TALKERS ix 
 
 ' 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.' (P. 261.) 
 
 ' Your modern political economists say that it is a prin- 
 ciple in their science — that all things find their level ; — 
 which I deny ; and say, on the contrary, that the true 
 principle is, that all things are finding their level like water 
 in a storm.' (P. 243.) 
 
 ' It is God's mercy to our age that our Jacobins are in- 
 fidels and a scandal to all sober Christians. Had they been 
 like the old Puritans, they would have trodden Church and 
 King to the dust.' (P. 187.) 
 
 ' See how triumphant in debate and in action O'Connell 
 is ! Why ? Because he asserts a broad principle, and acts 
 up to it, rests all his body on it, and has faith in it. Our 
 ministers — true Whigs in that — have faith in nothing but 
 expedients de die in diem.' (P. 206.) 
 
 ' Now, after a long continuance of high national glory and 
 influence, when a revolution of a most searching and general 
 character is actually at work, and the old institutions of 
 the country are all awaiting their certain destruction or 
 violent modification — the people at large are perfectly 
 secure, sleeping or gambolling on the very brink of a 
 volcano.' (P. 245.) 
 
 The evilswhich Coleridge foresaw have been more tardy 
 in coming than he expected. A nation in the heart of which 
 there is so much vigour as there was in the England of fifty 
 years ago takes a good while a-dying ; but the alarmingly 
 diminished vitality of our present England more than 
 justifies the forebodings of the philosophic politician. 
 
x GREAT TALKERS 
 
 ' Slow,' writes the Greek tragedian, ' is the wrath of God, 
 but in the end not weak.' 
 
 We select, almost at random, and from a hundred as 
 good, the following remarks : 
 
 ' " Most women have no character at all," said Pope, 
 and meant it for satire. Shakespeare, who knew man and 
 woman much better, saw that it, in fact, was the perfection 
 of woman to be characterless. Every one wishes a Desde- 
 mona or Ophelia for a wife — creatures who, though they 
 may not always understand you, do always feel you, and 
 feel with you.' (P. 131.) 
 
 ' It seems, to my ear, that there is a great want of 
 harmony in Lord Byron's verses. Is it not unnatural to 
 be always connecting very great intellectual power with 
 utter depravity ? Does such a combination often really 
 exist in rerum naturd ? ' (P. 34.) 
 
 ' Poetry is certainly something more than good sense ; 
 but it must be good sense, at all events : just as a palace is 
 more than a house ; but it must be a house, at least.' 
 (P. 91.) 
 
 ' Shakespeare's intellectual action is wholly unlike that 
 of Ben Jonson, or Beaumont and Fletcher. The latter see 
 the totality of a sentence or a passage, and then project 
 it entire. Shakespeare goes on creating, and evolving B out 
 of A and C out of B, and so on ; just as a serpent moves, 
 which makes a fulcrum of its own body, and seems for ever 
 twisting and untwisting its own strength.' (P. 293.) 
 
 In the above extracts we have abstained from transcribing 
 any of Coleridge's deeper and most valuable sayings, because 
 they require more attention than could fairly be asked from 
 the readers of a newspaper ; but we cannot help giving one 
 passage which verges upon the philosophic, as an example 
 of the simple way in which Coleridge could dispose, in con- 
 versation, of a question which he would probably have 
 enveloped with a metaphysical mist had he been dealing 
 with it in a book : 
 
GREAT TALKERS xi 
 
 ' So you object, with old Hobbes, that I do good actions 
 for the pleasure of a good conscience ; and so, after all, 
 I am only a refined sensualist ! Heaven bless you, and 
 mend your logic ! Don't you see that if conscience, which 
 is in its nature a consequence, were thus anticipated and 
 made an antecedent — a party instead of a judge — it would 
 dishonour your draft upon it — it would not pay on demand ? 
 Don't you see that, in truth, the very fact of acting with 
 this motive properly and logically destroys all claim upon 
 conscience to give you any pleasure at all ? ' (P. 153.) 
 
 Some one has well applied to Goethe the words of Shelley : 
 
 Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
 Stain'd the white radiance of eternity. 
 
 In the talk of Coleridge truth seems to come to us as sun- 
 light through a sheet of crystal, carrying with it nothing 
 of the talker's personality but his love of and joyful sub- 
 jection to its inspiration. Goethe's conversation was not 
 only coloured by his own great and most interesting 
 individuality, but what made it most valuable was that it 
 was in large part about himself. Coleridge, in his love of 
 the pure truth, fell often into hopeless obscurity from 
 forgetfulness of the fact that truth is only intelligible in its 
 application to the realities of life. Goethe's truth is always 
 applied : 
 
 He knows what 'a what, and that 's as high 
 As metaphysic wit can fly. 
 
 The three men whom we have chosen as the greatest 
 examples of great talkers are curiously contrasted in the 
 relations of their minds to the truth they endeavoured to 
 serve. To Coleridge the truth was the pure white ray which 
 his intellect followed whithersoever it went ; that ray was 
 never deflected or decomposed by any personal interest or 
 
xii GREAT TALKERS 
 
 particular affection. 1 It was itself his one interest and 
 affection. 
 
 Goethe's mind was a prism that broke the ray into 
 splendid colours, varying with the varying surface of every 
 interest, but always remaining pure light. In Luther the 
 light of truth was mingled with and confused by the glare 
 of his own passions. 
 
 1 [Derwent Coleridge, in his preface to Hartley Coleridge's Essays and 
 Marginalia (1851), says of their father's literary remains, that they 
 ' speak with the abstraction of a proverb or an oracle, as if the words 
 were self originated.'] 
 
SPECIMENS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 TABLE TALK 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 [1835, revised 1836] 
 
 TABLE TALK 
 
TO 
 
 JAMES GILLMAN, ESQUIRE, 
 
 OF 
 
 THE GROVE, HIGHGATE, 
 AND TO 
 
 MRS. GILLMAN, 
 
 Cfjts Uolunu 
 is 
 
 GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It is nearly fifteen years since I was, for the first time, 
 enabled to become a frequent and attentive visitor in 
 Mr. Coleridge's domestic society. His exhibition of intel- 
 lectual power in living discourse struck me at once as 
 unique and transcendant ; and upon my return home, on 
 the very first evening which I spent with him after my 
 boyhood, I committed to writing, as well as I could, the 
 principal topics of his conversation in his own words. I had 
 no settled design at that time of continuing the work, but 
 simply made the note in something like a spirit of vexation 
 that such a strain of music as I had just heard, should not 
 last for ever. What I did once, I was easily induced by the 
 same feeling to do again ; and when, after many years of 
 affectionate communion between us, the painful existence 
 of my revered relative on earth was at length finished in 
 peace, my occasional notes of what he had said in my 
 presence had grown to a mass, of which this volume con- 
 tains only such parts as seem fit for present publication. 
 I know, better than any one can tell me, how inadequately 
 these specimens represent the peculiar splendour and 
 individuality of Mr. Coleridge's conversation. How should 
 it be otherwise ? Who could always follow to the turning- 
 point his long arrow-flights of thought ? Who could fix 
 those ejaculations of light, those tones of a prophet, which 
 at times have made me bend before him as before an 
 inspired man ? Such acts of spirit as these were too subtle 
 to be fettered down on paper ; they live — if they can live 
 anywhere — in the memories alone of those who witnessed 
 them. Yet I would fain hope that these pages will prove 
 that all is not lost ;-—that something of the wisdom, the 
 learning, and the eloquence of a great man's social con- 
 verse has been snatched from forgetfulness, and endowed 
 with a permanent shape for general use. And although, 
 in the judgement of many persons, I may incur a serious 
 
 B2 
 
4 TABLE TALK 
 
 responsibility by this publication ; I am, upon the whole, 
 willing to abide the result, in confidence that the fame of the 
 loved and lamented speaker will lose nothing hereby, and 
 that the cause of Truth and of Goodness will be every 
 way a gainer. This sprig, though slight and immature, 
 may yet become its place, in the Poet's wreath of honour, 
 among flowers of graver hue. 
 
 If the favour shown to several modern instances of works 
 nominally of the same description as the present were alone 
 to be considered, it might seem that the old maxim, that 
 nothing ought to be said of the dead but what is good, is 
 in a fair way of being dilated into an understanding that 
 everything is good that has been said by the dead. The 
 following pages do not, I trust, stand in need of so much 
 indulgence. Their contents may not, in every particular 
 passage, be of great intrinsic importance ; but they can 
 hardly be without some, and, I hope, a worthy, interest, 
 as coming from the lips of one at least of the most extra- 
 ordinary men of the age ; whilst to the best of my know- 
 ledge and intention, no living person's name is introduced, 
 whether for praise or for blame, except on literary or 
 political grounds of common notoriety. Upon the justice 
 of the remarks here published, it would be out of place in 
 me to say anything ; and a commentary of that kind is 
 the less needed, as, in almost every instance, the principles 
 upon which the speaker founded his observations are 
 expressly stated, and may be satisfactorily examined by 
 themselves. But, for the purpose of general elucidation, ft 
 seemed not improper to add a few notes, and to make some 
 quotations from Mr. Coleridge's own works ; and in doing 
 so, I was in addition actuated by an earnest wish to call 
 the attention of reflecting minds in general to the views of 
 political, moral, and religious philosophy contained in those 
 works, which, through an extensive, but now decreasing, 
 prejudice, have hitherto been deprived of that acceptance 
 with the public which their great preponderating merits 
 deserve, and will, as I believe, finally obtain. And I can 
 truly say, that if, in the course of the perusal of this little 
 work, any one of its readers shall gain a clearer insight into 
 the deep and pregnant principles, in the light of which 
 Mr. Coleridge was accustomed to regard God and the World 
 
PREFACE 5 
 
 — I shall look upon the publication as fortunate, and con- 
 sider myself abundantly rewarded for whatever trouble 
 it has cost me. 
 
 A cursory inspection will show that this volume lays no 
 claim to be ranked with those of Boswell in point of dramatic 
 interest. Coleridge differed not more from Johnson in 
 every characteristic of intellect, than in the habits and 
 circumstances of his life, during the greatest part of the 
 time in which I was intimately conversant with him. He 
 was naturally very fond of society, and continued to be so 
 to the last ; but the almost unceasing ill-health with which 
 he was afflicted, after fifty, confined him for many months 
 in every year to his own room, and, most commonly, to his 
 bed. He was then rarely seen except by single visitors ; 
 and few of them would feel any disposition upon such 
 occasions to interrupt him, whatever might have been the 
 length or mood of his discourse. And indeed, although I 
 have been present in mixed company, where Mr. Coleridge 
 has been questioned and opposed, and the scene has been 
 amusing for the moment — I own that it was always much 
 .more delightful to me to let the river wander at its own 
 sweet will, unruffled by aught but a certain breeze of 
 emotion which the stream itself produced. If the course it 
 took was not the shortest, it was generally the most 
 beautiful ; and what you saw by the way was as worthy of 
 note as the ultimate object to which you were journeying. 
 It is possible, indeed, that Coleridge did not, in fact, possess 
 the precise gladiatorial power of Johnson : yet he under- 
 stood a sword-play of his own ; and I have, upon several 
 occasions, seen him exhibit brilliant proofs of its effective- 
 ness upon disputants of considerable pretensions in their 
 particular lines. But he had a genuine dislike of the 
 practice in himself or others, and no slight provocation 
 could move him to any such exertion. He was, indeed, to 
 my observation, more distinguished from other great men 
 of letters by his moral thirst after the Truth — the ideal 
 Truth — in his own mind, than by his merely intellectual 
 qualifications. To leave the every-day circle of society in 
 which the literary and scientific rarely — the rest never — 
 break through the spell of personality ; — where Anecdote 
 reigns everlastingly paramount and exclusive, and the 
 
6 TABLE TALK 
 
 mildest attempt to generalize the Babel of facts, and to 
 control temporary and individual phenomena by the appli- 
 cation of eternal and overruling principles, is unintelligible 
 to many, and disagreeable to more ;— to leave this species 
 of converse — if converse it deserves to be called — and pass 
 an entire day with Coleridge, was a marvellous change 
 indeed. It was a Sabbath past expression deep, and 
 tranquil, and serene. You came to a man who had travelled 
 in many countries and in critical times ; who had seen and 
 felt the world in most of its ranks and in many of its 
 vicissitudes and weaknesses ; one to whom all literature 
 and genial art were absolutely subject, and to whom, with 
 a reasonable allowance as to technical details, all science 
 was in a most extraordinary degree familiar. Throughout 
 a long-drawn summer's day would this man talk to you in 
 low, equable, but clear and musical, tones, concerning 
 things human and divine ; marshalling all history, har- 
 monizing all experiment, probing the depths of your 
 consciousness, and revealing visions of glory and of terror 
 to the imagination ; but pouring withal such floods of light 
 upon the mind, that you might, for a season, like Palil, 
 become blind in the very act of conversion. And this he 
 would do, without so much as one allusion to himself, 
 without a word of reflection on others, save when any 
 given act fell naturally in the way of his discourse, — without 
 one anecdote that was not proof and illustration of a pre- 
 vious position ; — gratifying no passion, indulging no caprice, 
 but, with a calm mastery over your soul, leading you 
 onward and onward for ever through a thousand windings, 
 yet with no pause, to some magnificent point in which, 
 as in a focus, all the parti-coloured rays of his dis- 
 course should converge in light. In all this he was, in 
 truth, your teacher and guide ; but in a little while you 
 might forget that he was other than a fellow student and 
 the companion of your way, — so playful was his manner, 
 so simple his language, so affectionate the glance of his 
 pleasant eye ! 
 
 There were, indeed, some whom Coleridge tired, and some 
 whom he sent asleep. It would occasionally so happen, 
 when the abstruser mood was strong upon him, and the 
 visitor was narrow and ungenial. I have seen him at times 
 
PREFACE 7 
 
 when you could not incarnate him, — when he shook aside 
 your petty questions or doubts, and burst with some 
 impatience through the obstacles of common conversation. 
 Then, escaped from the flesh, he would soar upwards into 
 an atmosphere almost too rare to breathe, but which 
 seemed proper to him, and there he would float at ease. 
 Like enough, what Coleridge then said, his subtlest listener 
 would not understand as a man understands a newspaper ; 
 but upon such a listener there would steal an influence, and 
 an impression, and a sympathy ; there would be a gradual 
 attempering of his body and spirit, till his total being 
 vibrated with one pulse alone, and thought became merged 
 in contemplation : 
 
 And so, his senses gradually wrapt 
 In a half sleep, he'd dream of better worlds, 
 And dreaming hear thee still, singing lark, 
 That sangest like an angel in the clouds ! 
 
 But it would be a great mistake to suppose that the general 
 character of Mr. Coleridge's conversation was abstruse or 
 rhapsodical. The contents of the following pages may, I 
 think, be taken as pretty strong presumptive evidence that 
 his ordinary manner was plain and direct enough ; and 
 even when, as sometimes happened, he seemed to ramble 
 from the road, and to lose himself in a wilderness of digres- 
 sions, the truth was, that at that very time he was working 
 out his foreknown conclusion through an almost miraculous 
 logic, the difficulty of which consisted precisely in the very 
 fact of its minuteness and universality. He took so large 
 a scope, that, if he was interrupted before he got to the end, 
 he appeared to have been talking without an object ; 
 although, perhaps, a few steps more would have brought 
 you to a point, a retrospect from which would show you 
 the pertinence of all he had been saying. I have heard 
 persons complain that they could get no answer to a question 
 from Coleridge. The truth is, he answered, or meant to 
 answer, so fully that the querist should have no second 
 question to ask. In nine cases out of ten he saw the 
 question was short or misdirected ; and knew that a mere 
 yes or no answer could not embrace the truth — that is, 
 the whole truth— and might, very probably, by implication, 
 convey error. Hence that exhaustive, cyclical mode of 
 
8 TABLE TALK 
 
 discoursing in which he frequently indulged ; unfit, indeed, 
 for a dinner -table, and too long-breathed for the patience 
 of a chance visitor, — but which, to those who knew for what 
 they came, was the object of their profoundest admiration, 
 as it was the source of their most valuable instruction. 
 Mr. Coleridge's affectionate disciples learned their lessons 
 of philosophy and criticism from his own mouth. He was 
 to them as an old master of the Academy or Lyceum. The 
 more time he took, the better pleased were such visitors ; 
 for they came expressly to listen, and had ample proof how 
 truly he had declared, that whatever difficulties he might 
 feel, with pen in hand, in the expression of his meaning, he 
 never found the smallest hitch or impediment in the utter- 
 ance of his most subtle reasonings by word of mouth. How 
 many a time and oft have I felt his abstrusest thoughts steal 
 rhythmically on my soul, when chanted forth by him ! 
 Nay, how often have I fancied I heard rise up in answer 
 to his gentle touch, an interpreting music of my own, as 
 from the passive strings of some wind-smitten lyre ! 
 
 Mr. Coleridge's conversation at all times required atten- 
 tion, because what he said was so individual and unexpected. 
 But when he was dealing deeply with a question, the 
 demand upon the intellect of the hearer was very great ; 
 not so much for any hardness of language, for his diction 
 was always simple and easy ; nor for the abstruseness of 
 the thoughts, for they generally explained, or appeared to 
 explain, themselves ; but pre-eminently on account of the 
 seeming remoteness of his associations, and the exceeding 
 subtlety of his transitional links. Upon this point it is very 
 happily, though, according to my observation, too generally, 
 remarked, by one whose powers and opportunities of judging 
 were so eminent that the obliquity of his testimony in other 
 respects is the more unpardonable ;- — ' Coleridge, to many 
 people — and often I have heard the complaint — seemed to 
 wander ; and he seemed then to wander the most, when, in 
 fact, his resistance to the wandering instinct was greatest, — 
 viz. when the compass and huge circuit, by which Lis 
 illustrations moved, travelled farthest into remote regions, 
 before they began to revolve. Long before this coming- 
 round commenced, most people had lost him, and naturally 
 enough supposed that he had lost himself. They continued 
 
PREFACE 9 
 
 to admire the separate beauty of the thoughts, but did not 
 see their relations to the dominant theme. . . . However, 
 I can assert, upon my long and intimate knowledge of 
 Coleridge's mind, that logic the most severe was as inalien- 
 able from his modes of thinking, as grammar from his 
 language.' L True : his mind was a logic-vice ; let him 
 fasten it on the tiniest flourish of an error, he never slacked 
 his hold, till he had crushed body and tail to dust. He was 
 always ratiocinating in his own mind, and therefore some- 
 times seemed incoherent to the partial observer. It 
 happened to him as to Pindar, who in modern days has 
 been called a rambling rhapsodist, because the connexions 
 of his parts, though never arbitrary, are so fine that the 
 vulgar reader sees them not at all. But they are there 
 nevertheless, and may all be so distinctly shown, that no 
 one can doubt their existence ; and a little study will also 
 prove that the points of contact are those which the true 
 genius of lyric verse naturally evolved, and that the entire 
 Pindaric ode, instead of being the loose and lawless outburst 
 which -so many have fancied, is, without any exception, the 
 most artificial and highly wrought composition which Time 
 has spared to us from the wreck of the Greek Muse. So 
 I can well remember occasions in which, after listening to 
 Mr. Coleridge for several delightful hours, I have gone away 
 with divers splendid masses of reasoning in my head, the 
 separate beauty and coherency of which I deeply felt, but 
 how they had produced, or how they bore upon, each other, 
 I could not then perceive. In such cases I have mused 
 sometimes even for days afterwards upon the words, till 
 at length, spontaneously as it seemed, ' the fire would 
 kindle ', and the association, which had escaped my utmost 
 efforts of comprehension before, flash itself all at once upon 
 my mind with the clearness of noonday fight. 
 
 It may well be imagined that a style of conversation so 
 continuous and diffused as that which I have just attempted 
 to describe, presented remarkable difficulties to a mere 
 reporter by memory. It is easy to preserve the pithy 
 remark, the brilliant retort, or the pointed anecdote ; these 
 stick of themselves, and their retention requires no effort of 
 mind. But where the salient angles are comparatively few, 
 1 Tait's Mag., Sept. 1834, p. 514. 
 
10 TABLE TALK 
 
 and the object of attention is a long-drawn subtle dis- 
 coursing, you can never recollect, except by yourself 
 thinking the argument over again. In so doing, the order 
 and the characteristic expressions will for the most part 
 spontaneously arise ; and it is scarcely credible with what 
 degree of accuracy language may thus be preserved, where 
 practice has given some dexterity, and long familiarity 
 with the speaker has enabled, or almost forced, you to 
 catch the outlines of his manner. Yet with all this, so 
 peculiar were the flow and breadth of Mr. Coleridge's 
 conversation, that I am very sensible how much those who 
 can best judge will have to complain of my representation 
 of it. The following specimens will, I fear, seem too 
 fragmentary, and therefore deficient in one of the most 
 distinguishing properties of that which they are designed 
 to represent ; and this is true. Yet the reader will in most 
 instances have little difficulty in understanding the course 
 which the conversation took, although my recollections of 
 it are thrown into separate paragraphs for the sake of 
 superior precision. As I never attempted to give dialogue 
 — indeed, there was seldom much dialogue to give — the 
 great point with me was to condense what I could remember 
 on each particular topic into intelligible wholes with as little 
 injury to the living manner and diction as was possible. 
 With this explanation, I must leave it to those who still 
 have the tones of ' that old man eloquent ' ringing in their 
 ears, to say how far I have succeeded in this delicate enter- 
 prise of stamping his winged words with perpetuity. 
 
 In reviewing the contents of the following pages, I can 
 clearly see that I have admitted some passages which will 
 be pronounced illiberal by those who, in the present day, 
 emphatically call themselves liberal — the liberal. I allude 
 of course to Mr. Coleridge's remarks on the Reform Bill 
 and the Malthusian economists. The omission of such 
 passages would probably have rendered this publication 
 more generally agreeable, and my disposition does not lead 
 me to give gratuitous offence to anyone. But the opinions 
 of Mr. Coleridge on these subjects, however imperfectly 
 expressed by me, were deliberately entertained by him ; 
 and to have omitted, in so miscellaneous a collection as this, 
 what he was well known to have said, would have argued in 
 
PREFACE 11 
 
 me a disapprobation or a fear, which I disclaim. A few 
 words, however, may be pertinently employed here in 
 explaining the true bearing of Coleridge's mind on the 
 politics of our modern days. He was neither a Whig nor 
 a Tory, as those designations are usually understood; 
 well enough knowing that, for the most part, half-truths 
 only are involved in the Parliamentary tenets of one party 
 or the other. In the common struggles of a session, there- 
 fore, he took little interest ; and as to mere personal 
 sympathies, the friend of Frere and of Poole, the respected 
 guest of Canning and of Lord Lansdowne, could have 
 nothing to choose. But he threw the weight of his opinion 
 — and it was considerable — into the Tory or Conservative 
 scale, for these two reasons : First, generally, because he 
 had a deep conviction that the cause of freedom and of 
 truth is now seriously menaced by a democratical spirit, 
 growing more and more rabid every day, and giving no 
 doubtful promise of the tyranny to come ; and secondly, 
 in particular, because the national Church was to him the 
 ark of the covenant of his beloved country, and he saw 
 the Whigs about to coalesce with those whose avowed 
 principles lead them to lay the hand of spoliation upon it. 
 Add to these two grounds some relics of the indignation 
 which the efforts of the Whigs to thwart the generous 
 exertions of England in the great Spanish war had formerly 
 roused within him ; and all the constituents of any active 
 feeling in Mr. Coleridge's mind upon matters of State are, 
 I believe, fairly laid before the reader. The Reform 
 question in itself gave him little concern, except as he 
 foresaw the present attack on the Church to be the imme- 
 diate consequence of the passing of the Bill ; ' for let the 
 form of the House of Commons ', said he, ' be what it may, 
 it will be, for better or for worse, pretty much what the 
 country at large is ; but once invade that truly national 
 and essentially popular institution, the Church, and divert 
 its funds to the relief or aid of individual charity or public 
 taxation — how specious soever that pretext may be — and 
 you will never thereafter recover the lost means of per- 
 petual cultivation. Give back to the Church what the 
 nation originally consecrated to its use, and it ought then 
 to be charged with the education of the people ; but half 
 
12 TABLE TALK 
 
 of the original revenue has been already taken by force 
 from her, or lost to her through desuetude, legal decision, 
 or public opinion ; and are those whose very houses and 
 parks are part and parcel of what the nation designed for 
 the general purposes of the clergy, to be heard, when they 
 argue for making the Church support, out of her diminished 
 revenues, institutions, the intended means for maintain- 
 ing which they themselves hold under the sanction of 
 legal robbery ? ' Upon this subject Mr. Coleridge did 
 indeed feel very warmly, and was accustomed to express 
 himself accordingly. It weighed upon his mind night and 
 day, and he spoke upon it with an emotion, which I never 
 saw him betray upon any topic of common politics, how- 
 ever decided his opinion might be. In this, therefore, he 
 was felix opportunitate mortis ; non enim vidit . . . ; and 
 the just and honest of all parties will heartily admit over 
 his grave, that as his principles and opinions were untainted 
 by any sordid interest, so he maintained them in the 
 purest spirit of a reflective patriotism, without spleen, or 
 bitterness, or breach of social union. 1 
 
 1 [These volumes have had the rather singular fortune of being made 
 the subject of three several reviews before publication. One of them 
 requires notice. 
 
 The only materials for the Westminster reviewer were the extracts in 
 the Quarterly ; and his single object being to abuse and degrade, he takes 
 no notice of any even of these, except those'which happen to be at variance 
 with his principles in politics or political economy. To have reflected on 
 the memory of Coleridge for not having been either a Benthamite or a 
 Malthusian economist, might perhaps have been just and proper, and the 
 censure certainly would have been borne by his friends in patience. The 
 Westminster Review has, of course, just as good a right to find fault with 
 those who differ from it in opinion as any other review. But neither the 
 Westminster nor any review has a right to say that which is untrue, more 
 especially when the misrepresentation is employed for the express purpose 
 of injury and detraction. Amongst a great deal of coarse language un- 
 becoming the character of the Review or its editor, there is the following 
 passsage : ' The trampling on the labouring classes is the religion that is 
 at the bottom of his heart,— for the simple reason that he (Coleridge) is 
 himself supported out of that last resource of the enemies of the people, 
 the Pension List.' And Mr. Coleridge is afterwards called » ' Tory 
 pensioner ', ' a puffed up partisan ', &c. 
 
 Now the only pension, from any public source or character whatever, 
 received by Mr. Coleridge throughout his whole life, was the following : 
 
 In 1821 or 1822, George the Fourth founded the Royal Society of 
 Literature, which was [incorporated by Charter in 1825. The king gave 
 
PREFACE . 13 
 
 It would require a rare pen to do justice to the con- 
 stitution of Coleridge's mind. It was too deep, subtle, 
 and peculiar, to be fathomed by a morning visitor. Few 
 persons knew much of it in anything below the surface ; 
 scarcely three or four ever got to understand it in all its 
 marvellous completeness. Mere personal familiarity with 
 this extraordinary man did not put you in possession of 
 him ; his pursuits and aspirations, though in their mighty 
 
 a thousand guineas a year out of his own private pocket to be distributed 
 amongst ten literary men, to be called Royal Associates, and to be selected 
 at the discretion of the Council. It is true that this was done under a Tory 
 Government ; but I believe the Government had no more to do with it 
 than the Westminster Review. It was the mere act of George the Fourth's 
 own princely temper. The gentlemen chosen to receive this bounty were 
 the following : 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge ; 
 
 Rev. Edward Da vies ; 
 
 Rev. John Jamieson, D.D. ; 
 
 Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus ; 
 
 Thomas James Mathias ; 
 
 James Millingen ; 
 
 Sir William Ouseley ; 
 
 William Roscoe ; ' 
 
 Rev. Henry John Todd ; 
 
 Sharon Turner. 
 
 I have been told that a majority of these persons — all the world knows 
 that three or four at least of them — were Whigs of strong water ; but 
 probably no one ever before imagined that their political opinions had 
 anything to do with their being chosen Royal Associates. I have heard 
 and believe that their only qualifications were literature and misfortune ; 
 and so the king wished. This annual donation of £105 a year was received 
 by Mr. Coleridge during the remainder of George the Fourth's life. In the 
 first year of the present reign the payment was stopped without notice, 
 in the middle of a current quarter ; and was not recontinued during 
 Coleridge's life. It is true that this resumption of the royal bounty took 
 place under a Whig Government ; but I believe the Whigs cannot justly 
 claim any merit with the Westminster Review for having advised that 
 act — on the contrary, to the best of my knowledge, Lord Grey, Lord 
 Brougham, and some other members of the Whig Ministry disapproved 
 and regretted it. But the money was private money, and they could of 
 course have no control over it. 
 
 If the Westminster reviewer is acquainted with any other publio 
 pension, Tory, Whig, or Radical, received by Mr. Coleridge, he has an 
 opportunity every quarter of stating it. In the meantime, I must take 
 the liberty of charging him with the utterance of a calumnious untruth. 
 jj NCI 
 
 Here and throughout the text of the Table Talk the passages enclosed 
 in square brackets were omitted in the second edition, 1836. 
 
14 . TABLE TALK 
 
 range presenting points of contact and sympathy for all, 
 transcended in their ultimate reach the extremest limits 
 of most men's imaginations. For the last thirty years of 
 his life, at least, Coleridge was really and truly a philo- 
 sopher of the antique cast. He had his esoteric views ; 
 and all his prose works from the Friend to the Church and 
 State were little more than feelers, pioneers, disciplinants 
 for the last and complete exposition of them. Of the art 
 of making books he knew little, and cared less ; but had 
 he been as much an adept in it as a modern novelist, he 
 never could have succeeded in rendering popular or even 
 tolerable, at first, his attempt to push Locke and Paley 
 from their common throne in England. A little more 
 working in the trenches might have brought him closer 
 to the walls with less personal damage ; but it is better 
 for Christian philosophy as it is, though the assailant was 
 sacrificed in the bold and artless attack. Mr. Coleridge's 
 prose works had so very limited a sale, that although 
 published in a technical sense, they could scarcely be said 
 to have ever become publici juris. He did not think them 
 such himself, with the exception, perhaps, of the Aids to 
 Reflection, and generally made a particular remark if he 
 met any person who professed or showed that he had 
 read the Friend or any of his other books. And I have 
 no doubt that had he lived to complete his great work 
 on Philosophy reconciled with Christian Religion, he would 
 without scruple have used in that work any part or parts 
 of his preliminary treatises, as their intrinsic fitness required. 
 Hence in every one of his prose writings there are repeti- 
 tions, either literal or substantial, of passages to be found 
 in some others of those writings ; and there are several 
 particular positions and reasonings, which he considered 
 of vital importance, reiterated in the Friend, the Literary 
 Life, the Lay Sermons, the Aids to Reflection, and the 
 Church and State. He was always deepening and widen- 
 ing the foundation, and cared not how often he used the 
 same stone. In thinking passionately of the principle, he 
 forgot the authorship — and sowed beside many waters, if 
 peradventure some chance seedling might take root and 
 bear fruit to the glory of God and the spiritualization 
 of Man. 
 
PREFACE 15 
 
 His mere reading was immense, and the quality and 
 direction of much of it well considered, almost unique in 
 this age of the world. He had gone through most of the 
 Fathers, and, I believe, all the Schoolmen of any eminence ; 
 whilst his familiarity with all the more common depart- 
 ments of literature in every language is notorious. The 
 early age at which some of these acquisitions were made, 
 and his ardent self-abandonment in the strange pursuit, 
 might, according to a common notion, have seemed adverse 
 to increase and maturity of power in after-life : yet it 
 was not so ; he lost, indeedj»for ever the chance of being 
 a popular writer ; but Lamb's inspired charity-boy of 
 twelve years of age continued to his dying day, when 
 sixty-two, the eloquent centre of all companies, and the 
 standard of intellectual greatness to hundreds of affectionate 
 disciples far and near. Had Coleridge been master of his 
 genius, and not, alas ! mastered by it ; — had. he less roman- 
 tically fought a single-handed fight against the whole 
 prejudices of his age, nor so mercilessly racked his fine 
 powers on the problem of a universal Christian philosophy, 
 — he might have easily won all that a reading public can 
 give to a favourite, and have left a name — not greater nor 
 more enduring indeed — but — better known, and more 
 prized, than now it is, amongst the wise, the gentle, and 
 the good, throughout all ranks of society. Nevertheless, 
 desultory as his labours, fragmentary as his productions 
 at present may seem to the cursory observer — my un- 
 doubting belief is, that in the end it will be found that 
 Coleridge did, in his vocation, the day's work of a giant. 
 He has been melted into the very heart of the rising litera- 
 tures of England and America ; and the principles he has 
 taught are the master -light of the moral and intellectual 
 being of men, who, if they shall fail to save, will assuredly 
 illustrate and condemn the age in which they live. As it 
 is, they bide their time. 
 
 [I might here * properly end what will, perhaps, seem 
 more than enough of preface for such a work as this ; but 
 I know not how I could reconcile with the duty, which 
 I owe to the memory of Coleridge, a total silence on the 
 
 1 The matter between [ ], pages 15 to 28 , was omitted in the second 
 edition, 1836. 
 
16 TABLE TALK 
 
 charges which have been made against him by a distin- 
 guished writer in one of the monthly publications. I allude, 
 of course, to the papers which have appeared since his death 
 in several numbers of Tait's Magazine. To Mr. Dequincey 
 (for he will excuse my dropping his other name) I am 
 unknown ; but many years ago I learned to admire his 
 genius, his learning, his pure and happy style — every- 
 thing, indeed, about his writing except the subject. I knew, 
 besides, that he was a gentleman by birth and in manners, 
 and I never doubted his delicacy or his uprightness. His 
 opportunities of seeing Mr (stoleridge were at a particular 
 period considerable, and congeniality of powers and pur- 
 suits would necessarily make those opportunities especially 
 valuable to the critical reminiscent. Coleridge was also 
 his friend, and moreover the earth lay freshly heaped upon 
 the grave of the departed ! 
 
 Now to all the incredible meannesses of thought, allusion, 
 or language perpetrated in these papers, especially the first, 
 in respect of any other person, man or woman, besides 
 Mr. Coleridge himself — I say nothing. Let me in silent 
 wonder pass them by on the other side. I wish nothing 
 but well to the writer. But even had I any interest in 
 his punishment, what could be added to that which a return- 
 ing sense of honour and gentlemanly feeling must surely 
 at some time or other inflict on such a spirit as his ! 
 
 Nor, even with regard to Coleridge, is this the time or 
 place — if it were ever or anywhere worth the while — to 
 expose the wild mistakes and the monstrous caricature 
 prevailing throughout the lighter parts of Mr. Dequincey's 
 reminiscences. That with such a subject before him, such 
 a writer should descend so very low as he has done, is 
 indeed wonderful ; but I suppose the eloquence and acute- 
 ness of the better parts of these papers were thought to 
 require some garnish, and with the taste shown in its 
 selection it would be idle to quarrel. Two points only 
 call for remark. The first is, Mr. Dequincey's charge of 
 plagiarism, which he worthily introduces in the following 
 manner : 
 
 ' Returning late (August, 1807) from this interesting 
 survey, we found ourselves without company at dinner ; 
 and, being thus seated tUe-a-Ute, Mr. Poole propounded 
 
PREFACE 17 
 
 the following question to me, which I mention, because it 
 furnished me with the first hint of a singular infirmity 
 besetting Coleridge's mind :— " Pray, my young friend, did 
 you ever form any opinion, or rather, did it ever happen 
 to you to meet with any rational opinion or conjecture of 
 others, upon that most irrational dogma of Pythagoras 
 about beans ? You know what I mean : that monstrous 
 doctrine in which he asserts that a man might as well, for 
 the wickedness of the thing, eat his own grandmother as 
 meddle with beans." " Yes," I replied—" the line is in 
 the Golden Verses. I remember it well." 
 
 'P. " True : now our dear excellent friend Coleridge, 
 than whom God never made a creature more divinely 
 endowed, yet, strange it is to say, sometimes steals from 
 other people, just as you or I might do ; I beg your pardon, 
 — just as a poor creature like myself might do, that some- 
 times have not wherewithal to make a figure from my own 
 exchequer : and the other day, at a dinner party, this 
 question arising about Pythagoras and his beans, Coleridge 
 gave us an interpretation, which, from his manner, I sus- 
 pect to have been not original. Think, therefore, if you 
 have anywhere read a plausible solution." 
 
 ' " I have : and it was in a German author. This Ger- 
 man, understand, is a poor stick of a man, not to be named 
 on the same day with Coleridge : so that, if it should 
 appear that Coleridge has robbed him, be assured that he 
 has done the scamp too much honour." 
 
 'P. " Well : what says the German ? " 
 
 ' " Why, you know the use made in Greece of beans in 
 voting and balloting ? Well : the German says that 
 Pythagoras speaks symbolically ; meaning that electioneer- 
 ing, or, more generally, all interference with political 
 intrigues, is fatal to a philosopher's pursuits and their 
 appropriate serenity. Therefore, says he, follower of 
 mine, abstain from public affairs as you would from 
 parricide." 
 
 'P. " Well, then, Coleridge has done the scamp too 
 much honour ; for, by Jove, that is the very explanation 
 he gave us ! ' " 
 
 ' Here was a trait of Coleridge's mind, to be first made 
 known to me by his best friend, and first published to the 
 
 TABLE TALK C 
 
18 TABLE TALK 
 
 world by me, the foremost of his admirers ! But both of 
 us had sufficient reasons,' &c. 
 
 As Mr. Dequincey has asserted that all this dialogue 
 took place twenty-eight years ago, I waive all objections 
 to its apparent improbability. And I know nothing about 
 this ' poor stick ' of a German, whose name, by the by, 
 Mr. Dequincey does not mention ; but this I know, that 
 I was a little boy at Eton in the fifth form, some six or 
 seven years after this dialogue is said to have taken place, 
 and I can testify, what I am sure I could bring fifty of 
 my contemporaries at a week's notice to corroborate, that 
 this solution of the Pythagorean abstinence from beans 
 was regularly taught us in school, as a matter of course, 
 whenever occasion arose. Whether this great discovery 
 was a peculium of Eton I know not ; nor can I precisely 
 say that Dr. Keate, and the present Provost of King's, 
 and the Bishop of Chester, and other assistant masters 
 (for they all had the secret), did not in fact learn it from 
 this German ; but I exceedingly doubt their doing so, 
 unless Mr. Dequincey will assure me that there was an 
 English translation of the German book, if the book was 
 in German, existing at that time. If I am asked whence 
 the interpretation came, I must confess my ignorance," 
 except that I very well remember that in Lucian's Vitarum 
 audio, a favourite school treatise of ours, upon the bidder 
 demanding of Pythagoras, who is put up to sale, why he 
 had an aversion to beans, the philosopher says that he has 
 no such aversion ; but that beans are sacred things, first, 
 for a physical reason there mentioned ; but principally, 
 because, amongst the Athenians, all elections for offices 
 in the Government took place by means of them. Of the 
 correctness of this interpretation, if the Golden Verses were 
 in fact genuine, which they are not, we might, indeed, well 
 doubt ; for there are numerous authorities which would 
 lead us to believe that the practice of voting by beans or 
 ballot was long subsequent to the time of Pythagoras, to 
 whom in all probability the cheirotonia or natural mode 
 of election by a show of hands was alone known. But let 
 that pass. Mr. Coleridge, it seems, at a dinner party of 
 country gentlemen in Somersetshire, mentioned this solu- 
 tion of the difficulty — a solution commonly taught at 
 
PREFACE 19 
 
 Eton then, and, as far as I can learn, for fifty years before, 
 and I believe also at Westminster, Winchester, &c. — not 
 to say a word of Oxford or Cambridge— and, because he 
 did not refer to a ' poor stick ' of a German, of whom and 
 his book we even now know nothing, 'the foremost of 
 Coleridge's admirers ' publishes the tale as ' the first hint 
 he received of a singular infirmity besetting Coleridge's 
 mind ' ! Very sharp, learned, and charitable at least ; 
 but let us go on. 
 
 Mr. Dequincey says, that Coleridge in one of his Odes 
 describes France as — 
 
 Her footsteps insupportably advancing (sic) ; 
 
 and his charge is, not that the words were borrowed 
 without marks of quotation, but — that Coleridge ' thought 
 fit positively to deny that he was indebted to Milton ' for 
 them. Now, without any view of defending Mr. Coleridge 
 upon such grounds, but simply to show the universal care- 
 lessness with which Mr. Dequincey has made all these 
 insinuations, I must observe that there is no such line in 
 Coleridge's Ode ; the word ' footsteps ' is neither in 
 Samson Agonistes nor the Ode ; the line in the first being — 
 
 When insupportably his foot advanced ; 
 
 and in the second, simply, 
 
 When, insupportably advancing. 
 
 But this is unimportant. That these latter words were 
 in Milton was a mere fact about which, with a book-shelf 
 at hand, there could of course be no dispute ; — if, therefore, 
 Mr. Coleridge denied that he was indebted to Milton for 
 them, I believe — (as who in the world, but this ' foremost 
 of admirers ', would not believe ?) — that he meant to deny 
 any distinct consciousness of their Miltonic origin, at the 
 moment of his using them in his Ode. A metaphysician 
 like Mr. Dequincey can explain what every common person, 
 who has read half a dozen standard books in his life, knows 
 —that thoughts, words, and phrases, not our own, rise up 
 day by day, from the depths of the passive memory, and 
 suggest themselves as it were to the hand, without any 
 effort of recollection on our part. Such thoughts are 
 
 02 
 
20 TABLE TALK 
 
 indeed not natural born, but they are denizens at least ; 
 and Coleridge could have meant no more. And so it seems 
 that in Shelvocke's Voyage, there is a passage showing 
 how ' Hatley, being a melancholy man, was possessed by 
 a fancy that some long season of foul weather was due 
 to an albatross which had steadily pursued the ship ; 
 upon which he shot the bird, but without mending their 
 condition.' This Mr. Dequincey considers the germ — 
 a prolific one to be sure — of ' The Ancient Mariner ' ; and he 
 says, that upon a question being put to Mr. Coleridge by 
 him on the subject, Mr. Coleridge ' disowned so slight an 
 obligation '. If he did, I firmly believe he had no recollec- 
 tion of it. 
 
 What Mr. Dequincey says about the Hymn in the vale 
 of Chamouni is just. This glorious composition, of upwards 
 of ninety lines, is truly indebted for many images and 
 some striking expressions to Frederica Brun's little poem. 
 The obligation is so clear that a reference to the original 
 ought certainly to have been given, as Coleridge gave in 
 other instances. Yet, as to any ungenerous wish on the 
 part of Mr. Coleridge to conceal the obligation, I for one 
 totally disbelieve it ; the words and images that are taken 
 are taken bodily and without alteration, and not the 
 slightest art is used — and a little would have sufficed — 
 to disguise the fact of any community between the two 
 poems. The German is in twenty lines, and I print them 
 here with a very bald English translation, that all my 
 readers may compare them as a curiosity with their glorifica- 
 tion in Coleridge : 
 
 Aus tiefem Schatten des schweigenden Tannenhains 
 Erbliok' ich bebend dioh, Soheitel der Ewigkeit, 
 Blendender Gipfel, von dessen Hohe 
 Ahndend mein Geist ins Unendliche sohwebet ! 
 
 Wer senkte den Pfeiler tief in der Erde Schooss, 
 Der, seit Jahrtausenden, fest deine Masse stutzt ? 
 Wer thiirmte hoch in des Aethers Wolbung 
 Machtig und kuhn dein umstrahltes Antlitz ? 
 
 Wer goss Euch hoch aus des ewigen Winters Reich, 
 O Zackenstrome, mit Donnergetos' herab ? 
 Und wer gebietet laut mit der AUmacht Stimme : 
 ' Hier sollen ruhen die starrenden Wogen ' ? 
 
PREFACE 21 
 
 Wer zeiohnet dort dem Morgensterne die Bahn ? 
 Wer kranzt mit Bliithen des ewigen Frostes Saum ? 
 Wem tont in schreckliohen Harmonieen, 
 Wilder Arveiron, dein Wogengetiimmel ? 
 
 Jehovah ! Jehovah ! Kracht's im berstenden Eis : 
 Lawinendonner rollen's die Kluft hinab : 
 Jehovah Bauscht's in den hellen Wipfeln, 
 Fliistert's an rieselnden Silberbachen. 
 
 CHAMOUNI AT SUNBISE. 
 TO Klopstook. 
 
 Out of the deep shade of the silent fir-grove trembling I survey 
 thee, mountain head of eternity, dazzling (blinding) summit, from 
 whose height my dimly perceiving spirit.floats into the everlasting 
 (or hovers, is suspended in the everlasting). 
 
 Who sank the pillar deep into the lap of earth, which for centuries 
 past props (or sustains) thy mass ? Who up-reared (thurmte, 
 up-towered) high in the vault of ether mighty and bold thy beaming 
 countenance ? (umstrahltes, beamed around). 
 
 Who poured you from on high out of eternal winter's realm, 
 J a gg e d streams (ZacJcenstrdme), downward with thunder noise ? 
 And who commanded loud, with the voice of Omnipotence, ' Here 
 shall the stiffening billows rest ' ? 
 
 Who marks out there the path for the morning star ? Who 
 wreathes with blossoms the edge (skirt, border) of eternal frost ? 
 To whom, wild Arveiron, does thy wave-commotion (or wave- 
 dizziness, hurly-burly, or tumult of waves, Wogentiimmel) sound in 
 terrible harmonies ? 
 
 Jehovah ! Jehovah ! crashes in the bursting ice ; avalanche- 
 thunders roll it down the chasm (cleft, ravine). Jehovah ! rustles 
 (or murmurs) in the bright tree-tops ; it whispers in the purling 
 silver brooks. 
 
 Mr. Dequincey proceeds thus : ' All these cases amount 
 to nothing at all as cases of plagiarism, and for that xeason 
 expose the more conspicuously that obliquity of feeling 
 which could seek to decline the very slight acknowledge- 
 ments required. But now I come to a case of real and 
 palpable plagiarism ; yet that too of a nature to be quite 
 unaccountable in a man of Coleridge's attainments.' 
 
 I will leave all the rest to the pen of Julius Hare. 
 
22 TABLE TALK 
 
 ' I have been speaking on the supposition that the charges 
 of plagiarism and insincerity brought by the Opium-eater 
 against Coleridge are strictly, accurately, true — that 
 Coleridge is guilty to the full amount and tale of the 
 offences imputed to him. Even in this case it indicates 
 a singular " obliquity of feeling", thus to drag them forth 
 and thrust them forward. But are they true ? Doubtless, 
 — seeing that he who thrusts them forward can only do it 
 out of a painful and rankling love of truth and justice ; 
 seeing that the voice which comes forth from his . . . mask 
 proclaims him to be " the foremost of Coleridge's admirers ". 
 Reader, be not deluded and put to sleep by a name ; look 
 into the charges ; sift them. Among them, the accuser 
 himself acknowledges that there is only one of any moment, 
 the others having been lugged in to swell the counts of the 
 indictment, through a somewhat over -anxious fear — a fear 
 which would have been deemed malicious in any one but 
 the foremost of his admirers — lest any tittle that could 
 tell against Coleridge should be forgotten. One case, 
 however, there is, he assures us, " of real and palpable 
 plagiarism:" so, lest "some cursed reviewer", "eight 
 hundred or a thousand years hence," should "make the 
 discovery ", he determines to prevent him by forestalling 
 him, and states it in full, as in admirership bound. The 
 dissertation in the Biographia Literaria " on the reciprocal 
 relations of the esse and the cogitare " is asserted to be 
 a translation from an essay in the volume of Schelling's 
 Philosophische Schriften. True : the Opium-eater is indeed 
 mistaken in the name of the book ; but that is of little 
 moment, except as an additional mark of audacious care- 
 lessness in impeaching a great man's honour. The disserta- 
 tion, as it stands in the Biographia Literaria, vol. i, pp. 
 254-61, is a literal translation from the introduction to 
 Schelling's system of Transcendental Idealism ; and though 
 the assertion that there is "no attempt in a single instance 
 to appropriate the paper, by developing the arguments, 
 or by diversifying the illustrations ", is not quite borne out 
 by the fact, Coleridge's additions are few and slight. But 
 the Opium-eater further says, that " Coleridge's essay is 
 prefaced by a few words, in which, aware of his coincidence 
 with Schelling, he declares his willingness to acknowledge 
 
PREFACE 23 
 
 himself indebted to so great a man, in any case where the 
 truth would allow him to do so ; but in this particular 
 case, insisting on the impossibility that he could have 
 borrowed arguments which he had first seen some years 
 after he had thought out the whole hypothesis proprio 
 marte ". That Coleridge never can have been guilty of 
 such a piece of scandalous dishonesty is clear even on the 
 face of the charge : he never could apply the word hypo- 
 thesis to that which has nothing hypothetical in it. The 
 Opium-eater also is much too precise in his use of words 
 to have done so, if he had known or considered what he 
 was talking about. But he did not ; and owing to this 
 slovenly rashness of assertion, he has brought forward 
 a heavy accusation, which is utterly false and groundless, 
 the distorted offspring of a benighted memory under the 
 incubus of — what shall we say ? — an ardent admiration. 
 Not a single word does Coleridge say about the originality 
 of his essay one way or other. It is not prefaced by any 
 remark. No mention is made of Schelling within a hundred 
 pages of it, further than a quotation from him in page 247, 
 and a reference to him in page 250. In an earlier part of 
 the work, however, where Coleridge is giving an account 
 of his philosophical education, there does occur a passage 
 (pp. 149-53) about his obligations to Schelling, and his 
 coincidences with him. This, no doubt, is the passage 
 which the Opium-eater had in his head ; but strangely 
 indeed has he metamorphosed it. For Coleridge's vindica- 
 tion it is necessary to quote it somewhat at length : 
 
 ' " It would be but a mere act of justice to myself, were 
 I to warn my future readers, that an identity of thought, or 
 even similarity of phrase, will not be at all times a certain 
 proof that the passage has been borrowed from Schelling, 
 or that the conceptions were originally learnt from him. . . 
 Many of the most striking resemblances, indeed all the 
 main and fundamental ideas, were born and matured in 
 my mind before I had ever seen a page of the German 
 philosopher. . . . God forbid ! that I should be suspected of 
 a wish to enter into a rivalry with Schelling for the honours 
 so unequivocally his right, not only as a great and original 
 genius, but as the founder of the Philosophy of Nature, 
 and as the most successful improver of the Dynamic 
 
24 TABLE TALK 
 
 system. . . To Schelling we owe the completion, and the 
 most important victories, of this revolution in philosophy. 
 To me it will be happiness and honour enough, should 
 I succeed in rendering the system itself intelligible to my 
 countrymen, and in the application of it to the most 
 awful of subjects for the most important of purposes. 
 Whether a work is the offspring of a man's own spirit, and 
 the product of original thinking, will be discovered by 
 those who are its sole legitimate judges, by better tests 
 than the mere reference to dates. For readers in general, 
 let whatever shall be found in this or any future work of mine, 
 that resembles, or coincides with, the doctrines of my German 
 predecessor, though contemporary, be wholly attributed to 
 him ; provided that the absence of direct references to his 
 boohs, which I could not at all times make with truth, as 
 designating citations or thoughts actually derived from him ; 
 and which, I trust, would, after this general acknowledge- 
 ment, be superfluous, be not charged on me as an ungenerous 
 concealment or intentional plagiarism." 
 
 ' Yet the charge, which he thus earnestly deprecates, 
 has been brought against him ; and that, too, by a person 
 entitling himself " the foremost of his admirers ". Heaven 
 preserve all honest men from such forward admirers ! 
 The boy who rendered nil admirari, not to be admired, 
 must have had something of prophecy in him, when he 
 pronounced this to be an indispensable recipe for happi- 
 ness. Coleridge, we see, was so far from denying or 
 shuffling about his debts to Schelling, that he makes over 
 every passage to him on which the stamp of his mind could 
 be discovered. Of a truth too, if he had been disposed to 
 purloin, he never would have stolen half a dozen pages 
 from the head and front of that very work of Sehelling's 
 which was the likeliest to fall into his reader's hands, 
 and the first sentence of which one could not read without 
 detecting the plagiarism. Would any man think of pilfer- 
 ing a column from the porch of St. Paul's ? The high 
 praise which Coleridge bestows on Schelling would naturally 
 excite a wish, in such of his readers as felt an interest in 
 his philosophy, to know more of the great German. The 
 first books of his they would take up would be his Natur- 
 philosophie and his Transcendental Idealism : these are 
 
PREFACE 25 
 
 the works which Coleridge himself mentions ; and the 
 latter, from its subject, would attract them the most. 
 For the maturer exposition of Schelling's philosophy, in 
 the Zeitschrift fiir spekulative Physik, is hardly to be met 
 with in England, having never been published except in 
 that journal ; and being still no more than a fragment. 
 Indeed, Coleridge himself does not seem to have known 
 it ; and Germany has, for thirty years, been looking in 
 vain expectation for the doctrine of the greatest of her 
 philosophers. 
 
 ' But, even with the fullest conviction that Coleridge 
 cannot have been guilty of intentional plagiarism, the 
 reader will, probably, deem it strange that he should 
 have transferred half a dozen pages of Schelling into his 
 volume without any reference to their source. And strange 
 it undoubtedly is. The only way I see of accounting for 
 it is from his practice of keeping note-books, or journals 
 of his thoughts, filled with observations and brief disserta- 
 tions on such matters as happened to strike him, with 
 a sprinkling now and then of extracts and abstracts from 
 the books he was reading. If the name of the author 
 from whom he took an extract was left out, he might 
 easily, years after, forget whose property it was ; especially 
 when he had made it in some measure his own, by trans- 
 fusing it into his own English. That this may happen 
 I know from my own experience, having myself been 
 lately puzzled by a passage which I had translated from 
 Kant some years ago, and which cost me a good deal of 
 search before I ascertained that it was not my own. Yet 
 my memory in such minutiae is tolerably accurate, while 
 Coleridge's was notoriously irretentive. That this solution 
 is the true one may, I think, be collected from the refer- 
 ences to Schelling, in pages 247 and 250. In both these 
 places we find a couple of pages translated, with some 
 changes and additions from the latter part of Schelling's 
 Abhandlungen zur Erlduterung des Idealismus der Wissen- 
 schaftslehre. In neither place are we told that we are 
 reading a translation. Yet that the author cannot be 
 conscious of any intentional plagiarism is clear, from his 
 mentioning Schelling's name, and, in the latter place, 
 even that of this particular work. Here, again, I would 
 
26 TABLE TALK 
 
 conjecture that the passages must have been transcribed 
 from some old note-book ; only in these instances, Schel- 
 ling's name was marked down at the end of the first extract 
 and at the beginning of the second ; and so the end of 
 the first extract is ascribed to him, and he is cited at the 
 beginning of the second. 
 
 ' There is also another passage about the mystics, in 
 pages 140, 141, acknowledged to be translated from 
 a recent continental writer, which comes from Schelling's 
 pamphlet against Fichte. In this case, Coleridge knew 
 that he was setting forth what he had borrowed from 
 another : for he had not been long acquainted with this 
 work of Schelling's, as may be gathered from his way of 
 speaking of it in p. 153, and from his saying, in p. 150, 
 that Schelling has " lately avowed his affectionate reverence 
 for Behmen". Schelling's pamphlet had appeared eleven 
 years before ; but, perhaps, it did not find its way to 
 England till the peace ; and Coleridge, having read it but 
 recently, inferred that it was a recent publication. These 
 passages form well-nigh the sum of Coleridge's loans from 
 Schelling ; and, with regard to these, on the grounds here 
 stated, though I do not presume to rank myself among 
 the foremost of his admirers, I readily acquit him of all 
 suspicion of " ungenerous concealment or intentional pla- 
 giarism".' * 
 
 A single word more. It is said that Mr. Coleridge was 
 " an unconscionable plagiary, like Byron '. 2 With sub- 
 
 [} British Magazine, January 1835.] 
 
 [ 2 Edinburgh Review, cxxiii. Of course I have no intention of answering 
 the criticisms or correcting all the mistakes of the Edinburgh Reviewer ; 
 but one of his remarks deserves notice. He quotes two passages, the one 
 beginning — ' Negatively, there may be more of the philosophy of Socrates 
 in the Memorabilia of Xenophon,' &c. (p. 40), and the other begin- 
 ning — ' Plato's works are logical exercises for the mind,' &c. (p. 55), 
 and says they are contradictory. They might, perhaps, have been more 
 clearly expressed ; but no contradiction was intended, nor do the words 
 imply any. Mr. C. meant in both, that Xenophon had preserved the most 
 of the man Socrates ; that he was the best Boswell ; and that Socrates, 
 as a persona dialogi, was little more than a poetical phantom in Plato's 
 hands. On the other hand, he says that Plato is more Socratic, that is, 
 more of a philosopher in the Socratio mode of reasoning (Cicero calls the 
 Platonic writings generally, Socratici libri) ; and Mr. C. also says, that in 
 the metaphysical disquisitions Plato is Pythagorean, meaning, that he 
 
PREFACE 27 
 
 mission, nothing could possibly be more unlike. The 
 charge against Lord Byron— not his own affected one, but 
 the real one, is this — that having borrowed liberally from 
 particular passages, and being deeply, although indefin- 
 ably, indebted to the spirit of the writings of Wordsworth 
 and Coleridge — yes, and of Southey, too — he not only 
 made no acknowledgement — that was not necessary, — but 
 upon the principle of the odisse quern laeseris he took 
 every opportunity, and broke through every decency of 
 literature, and even common manners, to malign, degrade, 
 and, as far as in him lay, to destroy the public and private 
 characters of those great men. He did this in works 
 published by himself in his own lifetime, and what is more, 
 he did it in violation of his knowledge and convictions to 
 the contrary ; for his own previous written and spoken 
 admiration of the genius of those whom he so traduced 
 and affected to contemn was, and still is, on record ; so 
 that well might one of his invulnerable antagonists say ; — 
 ' Lord Byron must have known that I had the flocci of 
 his eulogium to balance the nauci of his scorn ; and that 
 the one would have nihili-pilified the other, even if I had 
 not well understood the worthlessness of both.' 1 
 
 Now, let the taking on the part of Coleridge be allowed, 
 — need I, after the preceding passage cited by Mr. Hare, 
 expressly draw the contrast as to the manner 1 Verily of 
 Lord Byron, morally and intellectually considered, it may 
 be said : 
 
 Si non alium late spirasset odorem, 
 Laurus erat. 
 
 It was in my heart to have adverted to one other point 
 
 worked on the supposed ideal or transcendental principles of the extra- 
 ordinary founder of the Italian school. 
 
 And I cannot forbear expressing my surprise that the Edinburgh 
 Reviewer — so imperfectly acquainted with Mr. Coleridge's writings as 
 he evidently is — should have permitted himself the use of such language 
 as that ' Coleridge was an unconscionable plagiary ', and that ' he pillaged 
 from himself and others ' ; — charges which a little more knowledge of his 
 subject, or a little less reliance on the already exposed misrepresentations 
 of a magazine, would surely have prevented him from flinging out so 
 hastily against the memory of a great man. H. N. C] 
 
 [» Southey's Essays, Moral and Political. Vol. ii, Letter concerning 
 Lord Byron.] 
 
28 TABLE TALK 
 
 of a different and graver character, in respect of which the 
 unfeeling petulance and imperfect knowledge of Mr. 
 Dequincey have contributed to make what he says upon 
 it a cruel calumny on Coleridge. But I refrain. This is 
 not the place. A time will come when Coleridge's Life 
 may be written without wounding the feelings or gratifying 
 the malice of any one ; — and then, amongst other mis- 
 representations, that as to the origin of his recourse to 
 opium will be made manifest ; and the tale of his long 
 and passionate struggles with, and final victory over, the 
 habit, will form one of the brightest as well as most interest- 
 ing traits of the moral and religious being of this humble, 
 this exalted, Christian. 
 
 — But how could this writer trust to the discretion of 
 Coleridge's friends and relatives ? What, if a justly pro- 
 voked anger had burst the bounds of compassion ! Does 
 not Mr. Dequincey well know that with regard to this as 
 well as every other article in his vile heap of personalities, 
 the little finger of recrimination would bruise his head in 
 the dust ?— ] 
 
 Coleridge himself — blessings on his gentle memory ! — 
 Coleridge was a frail mortal. He had indeed his peculiar 
 weaknesses as well as his unique powers ; sensibilities that 
 an averted look would rack, a heart which would have beaten 
 calmly in the tremblings of an earthquake. He shrank from 
 mere uneasiness like a child, and bore the preparatory 
 agonies of his death-attack like a martyr. Sinned against 
 a thousand times more than sinning, he himself suffered an 
 almost life-long punishment for his errors, whilst the world 
 at large has the unwithering fruits of his labours, his genius, 
 and his sacrifice. Necesse est tanquam immaturam mortem 
 eius defleam ; si tamen fas est aut flere, aut omnino mortem 
 vocare, qua tanti viri mortalitas magis finita quam vita est. 
 Vivit enim, vivetque semper, atque etiam latius in memoria 
 hommum et sermone versabitur, postquam ah oculis recessit. 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the youngest child of the 
 Reverend John Coleridge, vicar of the parish of Ottery 
 ht. Mary, m the county of Devon, and master of Henry the 
 Eighth s Free Grammar School in that town. His mother's 
 
PREFACE 29 
 
 maiden name was Ann Bowdon. He was born at Otter y 
 on October 21, 1772, ' about eleven o'clock in the fore- 
 noon ', as his father the Vicar has, with rather a curious 
 particularity, entered it in the register. 
 
 He died on July 25, 1834, in Mr. Gillman's house, in the 
 Grove, Highgate, and is buried in the old church-yard, by 
 the road side. 
 
 AI AE TEAI ZOOY2IN AHAONE2 • 
 
 H. N. C. 
 
TABLE TALK 
 
TABLE TALK 
 
 December 29, 1822. 
 
 CHARACTER OF OTHELLO. — SCHILLER'S ROBBERS. — SHAKE- 
 SPEARE. SCOTCH NOVELS. — LORD BYRON. — JOHN 
 
 KEMBLE. — MATHEWS. 
 
 Othello must not be conceived as a negro, but a high 
 and chivalrous Moorish chief. Shakespeare learned the 
 spirit of the character from the Spanish poetry, which was 
 prevalent in England in his time. 1 Jealousy does not 
 strike me as the point in his passion ; I take it to be rather 
 an agony that the creature, whom he had believed angelic, 
 with whom he had garnered up his heart, and whom he 
 could not help still loving, should be proved impure and 
 worthless. It was the struggle not to love her. It was 
 a moral indignation and regret that virtue should so fall : 
 ' But yet the pity of it, Iago ! — Iago ! the pity of it, 
 Iago ! ' In addition to this, his honour was concerned : 
 Iago would not have succeeded but by hinting that his 
 honour was compromised. There is no ferocity in Othello ; 
 his mind is majestic and composed. He deliberately 
 determines to die ; and speaks his last speech with a view 
 of showing his attachment to the Venetian state, though 
 it had superseded him. 
 
 Schiller has the material Sublime 2 ; to produce an effect, 
 he sets you a whole town on fire, and throws infants with 
 their mothers into the flames, or locks up a father in an 
 
 1 Caballeros Granadinos, 
 Aunque Moros, hijos d'algo. — H. N. C. 
 2 This expression — ' material sublime ' — like a hundred others which 
 have slipped into general use, came originally from Mr. Coleridge, and 
 was by him, in the first instance, applied to Schiller's Bobbers.— See Act i v, 
 sc. 5.— H. N. C. 
 
 TABLE TALK D 
 
34 TABLE TALK 
 
 old tower. But Shakespeare drops a handkerchief, and the 
 same or greater effects follow. 
 
 Lear is the most tremendous effort of Shakespeare as 
 a poet ; Hamlet as a philosopher or meditator ; and 
 Othello is the union of the two. There is something 
 gigantic and unformed in the former two ; but in the 
 latter, everything assumes its due place and proportion, 
 and the whole mature powers of his mind are displayed 
 in admirable equilibrium. 
 
 I think Old Mortality and Guy Mannering the best of the 
 Scotch novels. 
 
 It seems, to my ear, that there is a sad want of harmony 
 in Lord Byron's verses. Is it not unnatural to be always 
 connecting very great intellectual power with utter de- 
 pravity ? Does such a combination often really exist 
 in rerum naturd ? 
 
 I always had a great liking — I may say, a sort of non- 
 descript reverence — for John Kemble. What a quaint 
 creature he was ! I remember a party, in which he was 
 discoursing in his measured manner after dinner, when the 
 servant announced his carriage. He nodded, and went on. 
 The announcement took place twice afterwards ; Kemble 
 each time nodding his head a little more impatiently, but 
 still going on. At last, and for the fourth time, the servant 
 entered, and said : ' Mrs. Kemble says, sir, she has the 
 rheumatise, and cannot stay.' 'Add ism!' dropped John, 
 in a parenthesis, and proceeded quietly in his harangue. 
 
 Kemble would correct, anybody, at any time, and in 
 any place. Dear Charles* Mathews — a true genius in his 
 line, in my judgement — told me he was once performing 
 privately before the King. The King was much pleased 
 with the imitation of Kemble, and said : ' I liked Kemble 
 very much. He was one of my earliest friends. I remem- 
 ber once he was talking, and found himself out of snuff. 
 I offered him my box. He declined taking any — "he, 
 a poor actor, could not put his fingers into a royal box." . 
 
JOHN KEMBLE 35 
 
 I said, " Take some, pray ; you will obleege me." Upon 
 which Kemble replied — " It would become your royal 
 mouth better to say, oblige me ; " and took a pinch.' 
 
 It is not easy to put me out of countenance, or interrupt 
 the feeling of the time by mere external noise or circum- 
 stance ; yet once I was thoroughly done up, as you would 
 say. I was reciting, at a particular house, the Remorse; 
 and was in the midst of Alhadra's description 1 of the 
 
 1 Alhadra. This night your chieftain armed himself. 
 And hurried from me. But I followed him 
 At distance, till I saw him enter — there ! 
 
 Naomi. The cavern ? 
 , Alhadra. Yes, the mouth of yonder cavern. 
 
 After a while I saw the son of Valdez 
 Bush by with flaring torch : he likewise entered. 
 .There was another and a longer pause ; 
 And once, methought I heard the clash of swords ! 
 And soon the son of Valdez re-appeared : 
 He flung his torch towards the moon in sport, 
 And seemed as he were mirthful I I stood listening, 
 Impatient for the footsteps of my husband. 
 
 Naomi. Thou called' st him ? 
 
 Alhadra. I crept into the cavern — 
 'Twas dark and very silent. 
 What saidst thou ? 
 No ! No ! I did not dare call, Isidore, 
 Lest I should hear no answer ! A brief while, 
 Belike, I lost all thought and memory 
 Of that for which I came ! After that pause, 
 
 Heaven ! I heard a groan, and followed it ; 
 And yet another groan, which guided me 
 Into a strange recess — and there was light, 
 
 A hideous light ! his torch lay on the ground ; 
 Its flame burnt dimly o'er a chasm's brink : 
 
 1 spake ; and whilst I spake, » feeble groan 
 
 Came from that chasm ! it was his last ! his death-groan ! 
 
 Naomi. Comfort her, Alia ! 
 
 Alhadra. I stood in unimaginable trance 
 And agony that cannot be remembered, 
 Listening with horrid hope to hear a groan ! 
 Bat I had heard his last : my husband's death-groan ! 
 
 Naomi. Haste ! let us onward. 
 
 Alhadra. I looked far down the pit — 
 My sight was bounded by a jutting fragment : 
 And it was stained with blood. Then first I shrieked, 
 My eye-balls burnt, my brain grew hot as fire, 
 And all the hanging drops of the wet roof 
 D2 
 
36 TABLE TALK 
 
 death of her husband, when a scrubby boy, with a shining 
 face set in dirt, burst open the door and cried out, ' Please, 
 ma'am, master says, Will you ha', or will you not ha', the 
 pin-round ? ' 
 
 January 1, 1823. 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE. — PERMANENCY AND PROGRES- 
 SION OF NATIONS. — KANT'S RACES OF MANKIND. 
 
 Privilege is a substitution for Law, where, from the 
 nature of the circumstances, a law cannot act without 
 clashing with greater and more general principles. The 
 House of Commons must, of course, have the power ,of 
 taking cognizance of offences against its own rights. Sir 
 Francis Burdett might have been properly sent to the 
 Tower for the speech he made in the House ; x but when 
 afterwards he published it in Cobbett, and they took 
 cognizance of it as a breach of privilege, they violated the 
 plain distinction between privilege and law. As a speech 
 in the House, the House could alone animadvert upon it, 
 consistently with the effective preservation of its most 
 necessary prerogative of freedom of debate ; but when that 
 speech became a book, then the law was to look to it ; 
 
 Turned into blood — I saw them turn to blood ! 
 
 And I was leaping wildly down the chasm. 
 
 When on the farther brink I saw his sword, 
 
 And it said, Vengeance ! — Curses on my tongue ! 
 
 The moon hath moved in Heaven, and I am here, - 
 
 And he hath not had vengeance ! Isidore ! 
 
 Spirit of Isidore ! thy murderer lives ! 
 
 Away ! away !— Act iv, sc. 3. 
 1 March 12, 1810. Sir Francis Burdett made a motion in the House of 
 Commons for the discharge of Mr. Gale Jones, who had been committed to 
 Newgate by a resolution of the House on the 21st of February preceding. 
 Sir Francis afterwards published, in Cobbett's Political Register, of the 
 24th of the same month of March, a ' Letter to his Constituents, denying 
 the power of the House of Commons to imprison the people of England,' 
 and he accompanied the letter with an argument in support of his position. 
 On the 27th of March a complaint of breach of privilege, founded on this 
 publication, was made in the House by Mr. (now Sir Thomas) Lethbridge, 
 and after several long debates, a motion that Sir Francis Burdett should 
 be committed to the Tower was made on the 5th of April, 1810, by Sir 
 Robert Salisbury, and carried by a majority of 38. — H. N. C. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE 37 
 
 and there being a law of libel, commensurate with every 
 possible object of attack in the state, privilege, which acts, 
 or ought to act, only as a substitute for other laws, could 
 have nothing to do with it. I have heard that one dis- 
 tinguished individual said — ' That he, for one, would not 
 shrink from affirming, that if the House of Commons chose 
 to bum one of their own members in Palace Yard, it had 
 an inherent power and right by the constitution to do so.' 
 This was said, if at all, by a moderate-minded man ; and 
 may show to what atrocious tyranny some persons may 
 advance in theory, under shadow of this word privilege. 
 
 There are two principles in every European and Christian 
 state : Permanency and Progression. 1 In the civil wars 
 of the seventeenth century in England, which are as new 
 and fresh now as they were a hundred and sixty years ago, 
 and will be so for ever to us, these two principles came to 
 a struggle. It was natural that the great and the good of 
 the nation should be found in the ranks of either side. 
 In the Mohammedan states, there is no principle of per- 
 manence ; and, therefore, they sink directly. They 
 existed, and could only exist, in their efforts at progression ; 
 when they ceased to conquer, they fell in pieces. Turkey 
 would long since have fallen, had it not been supported 
 
 1 See this position stated and illustrated in detail in Mr. Coleridge's 
 work, On the Constitution of the Church and State, according to the Idea 
 of each, p. 21, 2nd ed., 1830. Well acquainted as I am with the fact of 
 the comparatively small acceptation which Mr. Coleridge's prose works 
 have ever found in the literary world, and with the reasons, and, what is 
 more, with the causes, of it, I still wonder that this particular treatise has 
 not been more noticed : first, because it is a little book ; secondly, because 
 it is, or at least nineteen-twentieths of it are, written in a popular style ; 
 and thirdly, because it is the only work, that I know or have ever heard 
 mentioned, that even attempts a solution of the difficulty in which an 
 ingenious enemy of the church of England may easily involve most of its 
 modern defenders in Parliament, or through the press, upon their own 
 principles and admissions. Mr. Coleridge himself prized this little work 
 highly, although he admitted its incompleteness as a composition : ' But 
 I don't care a rush about it,' he said to me, ' as an author. The saving 
 distinctions are plainly stated in it, and I am sure nothing is wanted to 
 make them tell, but that some kind friend should steal them from their 
 obscure hiding-place, and just tumble them down before the public as his 
 own.'— H. N. C. 
 
38 TABLE TALK 
 
 by the rival and conflicting interests of Christian Europe. 
 The Turks have no church ; religion and state are one ; 
 hence there is no counterpoise, no mutual support. This 
 is the very essence of their Unitarianism. They have no 
 past ; they are not an historical people ; they exist only 
 in the present. China is an instance of a permanency 
 without progression. The Persians are a superior race : 
 they have a history and a literature ; they were always 
 considered by the Greeks as quite distinct from the other 
 barbarians. The Afghans are a remarkable people. They 
 have a sort of republic. Europeans and Orientalists may 
 be well represented by two figures standing back to back : 
 the latter looking to the east, that is, backwards ; the 
 former looking westwards, or forwards. 
 
 Kant assigns three great races of mankind. If two 
 individuals of distinct races cross, a third, or tertium aliquid, 
 is invariably produced, different from either, as a white 
 and a negro produce a mulatto. But when different 
 varieties of the same race cross, the offspring is according 
 to what we call chance ; it is now like one, now like the 
 other parent. Note this, when you see the children of any 
 couple of distinct European complexions — as English and 
 Spanish, German and Italian, Russian and Portuguese, 
 and so on. 
 
 January 3, 1823. 
 
 MATERIALISM . GHOSTS . 
 
 Either we have an immortal soul, or we have not. If we 
 have not, we are beasts ; the first and wisest of beasts, 
 it may be ; but still true beasts. 1 We shall only differ in 
 degree, and not in kind ; just as the elephant differs from 
 
 1 ' Try to conceive a man without the ideas of God, eternity, freedom, 
 will, absolute truth ; of the good, the true, the beautiful, the infinite. 
 An. animal endowed with a memory of appearances and facts might re- 
 main. But the man will have vanished, and you have instead a creature 
 more subtle than any beast of the field, but likewise cursed above every 
 beast of the field ; upon the belly must it go, and dust must it eat all the 
 days of its life.' — Church and State, p. 54 n. 
 
MATERIALISM— GHOSTS 39 
 
 the slug. But by the concession of all the materialists of 
 all the schools, or almost all, we are not of the same kind as 
 beasts — and this also we say from our own consciousness. 
 Therefore, methinks, it must be the possession of a soul 
 within us that makes the difference. 
 
 Read the first chapter of Genesis without prejudice, 
 and you will be convinced at once. After the narrative of 
 the creation of the earth and brute animals, Moses seems 
 to pause, and says : ' And God said, Let us make man in 
 our image, after our likeness.' And in the next chapter, 
 he repeats the narrative : ' And the Lord God formed man 
 of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils 
 the breath of life ; ' and then he adds these words — ' and 
 man became a living soul.' Materialism will never explain 
 those last words. 
 
 Define a vulgar ghost with reference to all that is called 
 ghost-like. It is visibility without tangibility ; which is 
 also the definition of a shadow. Therefore, a vulgar ghost 
 and a shadow would be the same ; because two different 
 things cannot properly have the same definition. A visible 
 substance without susceptibility of impact, I maintain to 
 be an absurdity. Unless there be an external substance, 
 the bodily eye cannot see it ; therefore, in all such cases, 
 that which is supposed to be seen is, in fact, not seen, but 
 is an image of the brain. External objects naturally pro- 
 duce sensation ; but here, in truth, sensation produces, 
 as it were, the external object. 
 
 In certain states of the nerves, however, I do believe 
 that the eye, although not consciously so directed, may, 
 by a slight convulsion, see a portion of the body, as if 
 opposite to it. The part actually seen will by common 
 association seem the whole ; and the whole body will then 
 constitute an external object, which explains many stories 
 of persons seeing themselves lying dead. Bishop Berkeley 
 once experienced this. He had the presence of mind to 
 ring the bell, and feel his pulse ; keeping his eye still fixed 
 on his own figure right opposite to him. He was in a high 
 fever, and the brain image died away as the door opened. 
 
40 TABLE TALK 
 
 I observed something very like it once at Grasmere ; and 
 was so conscious of the cause, that I told a person what 
 I was experiencing, whilst the image still remained. 
 
 Of course, if the vulgar ghost be really a shadow, there 
 must be some substance of which it is the shadow. These 
 visible and intangible shadows, without substances to cause 
 them, are absurd. 
 
 January 4, 1823. 
 
 CHARACTER 01" THE AGE FOR LOGIC. — PLATO AND XENOPHON. 
 — GREEK DRAMA. — KOTZEBTJE. — BURKE. — PLAGIARISTS. 
 
 This is not a logical age. A friend lately gave me some 
 political pamphlets of the times of Charles I and the 
 Cromwellate. In them the premisses are frequently wrong, 
 but the deductions are almost always legitimate ; whereas, 
 in the writings of the present day, the premisses are 
 commonly sound, but the conclusions false. I think a 
 great deal of commendation is due to the University of 
 Oxford for preserving the study of logic in the schools. 
 It is a great mistake to suppose geometry any substitute 
 for it. 
 
 Negatively, there may be more of the philosophy of 
 Socrates in the Memorabilia of Xenophon than in Plato : 
 that is, there is less of what does not belong to Socrates ; 
 but the general spirit of, and impression left by, Plato, are 
 more Socratic. 1 
 
 In Aeschylus religion appears terrible, malignant, and 
 persecuting : Sophocles is the mildest of the three tra- 
 gedians, but the persecuting aspect is still maintained : 
 
 1 See p. 55. Mr. Coleridge meant in both these passages, that Xeno- 
 phon had preserved the most of the man Socrates ; that he was the best 
 Boswell ; and that Socrates, as a persona dialogi, was little more than a 
 poetical phantom in Plato's hands. On the other hand, he says that Plato 
 is more Socratic, that is, more of a philosopher in the Socratic mode of 
 reasoning (Cicero calls the Platonic writings generally, Socratici libri) ; 
 and Mr. C. also says, that in the metaphysical disquisitions Plato is Pytha- 
 gorean, meaning, that he worked on the supposed ideal or transcendental 
 principles of the extraordinary founder of the Italian school. — [H. N. C] 
 
PLATO AND XENOPHON— GREEK DRAMA 41 
 
 Euripides is like a modern Frenchman, never so happy 
 as when giving a slap at the gods altogether. 
 
 Kotzebue represents the petty kings of the islands in 
 the Pacific Ocean exactly as so many Homeric chiefs. 
 Riches command universal influence, and all the kings 
 are supposed to be descended from the gods. 
 
 I confess I doubt the Homeric genuineness of SaKpvotv 
 yeXdoraaa. 1 It sounds to me much more like a prettiness of 
 Bion or Moschus. 
 
 The very greatest writers write best when calm, and 
 exerting themselves upon subjects unconnected with party. 
 Burke rarely shows all his powers, unless where he is in 
 a passion. The French Revolution was alone a subject fit 
 for him. We are not yet aware of all the consequences of 
 that event. We are too near it. 
 
 Goldsmith did everything happily. 
 
 You abuse snuff ! Perhaps it is the final cause of the 
 human nose. 
 
 A rogue is a roundabout fool ; a fool in circumbendibus. 
 
 Omne ignotum pro magnifico. A dunghill at a distance 
 sometimes smells like musk, and a dead dog like elder- 
 flowers. 
 
 Plagiarists are always suspicious of being stolen from — 
 as pickpockets are observed commonly to walk with their 
 hands in their breeches' pockets. 
 
 1 &s einaiv a\6x<".o <j>i\r)S h> xfpalv i6t)Ki 
 7raf5' e6v ij 8' apa puv KrjuiSe'i Se£aTo tcdkna, 
 $anpvoev yeXaaaaa. — Iliad Z. vi. 482 ? [452]. 
 
42 TABLE TALK 
 
 January 6, 1823. 
 
 ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL. CHRISTIANITY. — EPISTLE TO THE 
 
 HEBREWS.— THE LOGOS. — REASON AND UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 St. John had a twofold object in his Gospel and his 
 Epistles — to prove the divinity, and also the actual human 
 nature and bodily suffering, of Jesus Christ — that He was 
 God and Man. The notion that the effusion of blood and 
 water from the Saviour's side was intended to prove the 
 real death of the sufferer originated, I believe, with some 
 modern Germans, and seems to me ridiculous : there is, 
 indeed, a very small quantity of water occasionally in the 
 praecordia : but in the pleura, where wounds are not 
 generally mortal, there is a great deal. St. John did not 
 mean, I apprehend, to insinuate that the spear -thrust made 
 the death, merely as such, certain or evident, but that the 
 effusion showed the human nature. ' I saw it ', he would 
 say, ' with my own eyes. It was real blood, composed of 
 lymph and crassamentum, and not a mere celestial ichor, 
 as the Phantasmists allege.' 
 
 I think the verse of the three witnesses (1 John v. 7) 
 spurious, not only because the balance of external authority 
 is against it, as Porson seems to have shown ; but also, 
 because, in my way of looking at it, it spoils the reasoning. 
 
 St. John's logic is Oriental, and consists chiefly in 
 position and parallel; whilst St. Paul displays all the 
 intricacies of the Greek system. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the genuineness or authority 
 of any part of the book of Daniel, it makes no difference in 
 my belief in Christianity ; for Christianity is within a man, 
 even as he is a being gifted with reason ; it is associated 
 with your mother's chair, and with the first-remembered 
 tones of her blessed voice. 
 
 I do not believe St. Paul to be the author of the Epistle 
 
CHRISTIANITY 43 
 
 to the Hebrews. Luther's conjecture is very probable, 
 that it was by Apollos, an Alexandrian Jew. The plan is 
 too studiously regular for St. Paul. It was evidently 
 written during the yet existing glories of the Temple. 
 For three hundred years the Church did not affix St. Paul's 
 name to it ; but its apostolical or catholic character, 
 independently of its genuineness as to St. Paul, was never 
 much doubted. 
 
 The first three Gospels show the history, that is, the 
 fulfilment of the prophecies in the facts. St. John declares 
 explicitly the doctrine, oracularly, and without comment, 
 because, being pure reason, it can only be proved by itself. 
 For Christianity proves itself, as the sun is seen by its 
 own light. Its evidence is involved in its existence. 
 St. Paul writes more particularly for the dialectic under- 
 standing ; and proves those doctrines, which were capable 
 of such proof, by common logic. 
 
 St. John used the term 6 Ao'yos technically. Philo- 
 Judaeus had so used it several years before the probable 
 date of the composition of this Gospel ; and it was commonly 
 understood amongst the Jewish Rabbis at that time, and 
 afterwards, of the manifested God. 
 
 Our translators, unfortunately, as I think, render the 
 clause Trpos rbv Oeov, 1 ' with God ; ' that would be right, 
 if the Greek were ow t£ ®ea>. By the preposition 71-pds in 
 this place, is meant the utmost possible proximity, without 
 confusion ; likeness, without sameness. The Jewish Church 
 understood the Messiah to be a divine person. Philo 
 expressly cautions against any one's supposing the Logos 
 to be a mere personification, or symbol. He says, the 
 Logos is a substantial, self-existent Being. The Gnostics, 
 as they were afterwards called, were a kind of Arians ; 
 and thought the Logos was an after-birth. They placed 
 "A/Jvo-o-os and 2iy?7 (the Abyss and Silence) before him. 
 Therefore it was that St. John said, with emphasis, iv 
 "■PXV V v ° Aoyos — 'In the beginning was the Word.' He 
 1 St. John i. 1,2. 
 
44 TABLE TALK 
 
 was begotten in the first simultaneous burst of Godhead, if 
 such an expression may be pardoned, in speaking of eternal 
 existence. 
 
 The Understanding suggests the materials of reasoning : 
 the Reason decides upon them. The first can only say — 
 This is, or ought to be so The last says — It must be so. 1 
 
 April 27, 1823. 
 
 KEAN. — SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.— SIR H. DAVY. — ROBERT 
 SMITH. — CANNING. — NATIONAL DEBT. — POOR LAWS. 
 
 Kean is original ; but he copies from himself. His rapid 
 descents from the hyper -tragic to the infra-colloquial, 
 though sometimes productive of great effect, are often 
 unreasonable. To see him act, is like reading Shakespeare 
 by flashes of lightning. I do not think him thorough-bred 
 gentleman enough to play Othello. 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh is the king of the men of talent. 
 He is a most elegant converser. How well I remember 
 his giving breakfast to me and Sir Humphry Davy, at that 
 time an unknown young man, and our having a very 
 spirited talk about Locke and Newton, and so forth ! 
 When Davy was gone, Mackintosh said to me, ' That 's 
 a very extraordinary young man ; but he is gone wrong 
 on some points.' But Davy was, at that time at least, 
 a man of genius ; and I doubt if Mackintosh ever heartily 
 appreciated an eminently original man. He is uncom- 
 monly powerful in his own line ; but it is not the line of 
 a first-rate man. After all his fluency and brilliant eru- 
 
 1 I have preserved this, and several other equivalent remarks, out of a 
 dutiful wish to popularize, by all the honest means in my power, this fun- 
 damental distinction ; a thorough mastery of which Mr. Coleridge con- 
 sidered necessary to any sound system of psychology ; and in the denial 
 or neglect of which, he delighted to point out the source of most of the 
 vulgar errors in philosophy and religion. The distinction itself is implied 
 throughout almost all Mr. C.'s works, whether in verse or prose ; but it 
 may be found minutely argued in the Aids to Reflection, p. 206, &c. 
 2nd ed., 1831.— H.N.C. l 
 
MACKINTOSH— POOR LAWS 45 
 
 dition, you can rarely carry off anything worth preserving. 
 You might not improperly write on his forehead, ' Ware- 
 house to let ! ' He always dealt too much in generalities 
 for a lawyer. He is deficient in power in applying his 
 principles to the points in debate. I remember Robert 
 Smith had much more logical ability ; but Smith aimed at 
 conquest by any gladiatorial shift, whereas Mackintosh 
 was uniformly candid in argument. I am speaking now 
 from old recollections. 
 
 Canning is very irritable, surprisingly so for a wit who 
 is always giving such hard knocks. He should have put 
 on an ass's skin before he went into Parliament. Lord 
 Liverpool is the single stay of this Ministry, but he is not 
 a man of a directing mind. He cannot ride on the whirl- 
 wind. He serves as the isthmus_ to connect one-half of the 
 Cabinet with the other. He always gives you the common 
 sense of the matter, and in that it is that his strength in 
 debate lies. 
 
 The national debt has, in fact, made more men rich 
 than have a right to be so, or, rather, any ultimate power, 
 in case of a struggle, of actualizing their riches. It is, in 
 effect, like an ordinary, where three hundred tickets have 
 been distributed, but where there is, in truth, room only 
 for one hundred. So long as you can amuse the company 
 with anything else, or make them come in successively, 
 all is well, and the whole three hundred fancy themselves 
 sure of a dinner ; but if any suspicion of a hoax should 
 arise, and they were all to rush into the room at once, there 
 would be two hundred without a potato for their money ; 
 and the table would be occupied by the landholders, who 
 live on the spot. 
 
 Poor-laws are the inevitable accompaniments of an 
 extensive commerce and a manufacturing system. In 
 Scotland they did without them, till Glasgow and Paisley 
 became great manufacturing places, and then people said, 
 ' We must subscribe for the poor, or else we shall have 
 poor-laws.' That is to say, they enacted for themselves 
 a poor-law in order to avoid having a poor-law enacted 
 
46 TABLE TALK 
 
 for them. It is absurd to talk of Queen Elizabeth's act 
 as creating the poor-laws of this country. The poor-rates 
 are the consideration paid by, or on behalf of, capitalists 
 for having labour at demand. It is the price, and nothing 
 else. The hardship consists in the agricultural interest 
 having to pay an undue proportion of the rates ; for 
 although, perhaps, in the end, the land becomes more 
 valuable, yet, at the first, the landowners have to bear all 
 the brunt. I think there ought to be a fixed revolving 
 period for the equalization of rates. 
 
 April 28, 1823. 
 
 CONDUCT OF THE WHIGS. — REFOEM OF THE HOUSE OF 
 COMMONS. 
 
 The conduct of the Whigs is extravagantly inconsistent. 
 It originated in the fatal error which Fox committed, in 
 persisting, after the first three years of the French Revolu- 
 tion, when every shadow of freedom in France had vanished, 
 in eulogizing the men and measures of that shallow-hearted 
 people. So he went on gradually, further and further 
 departing from all the principles of English policy and 
 wisdom, till at length he became the panegyrist, through 
 thick and thin, of a military frenzy, under the influence 
 of which the very name of liberty was detested. And thus 
 it was that, in course of time, Fox's party became the 
 absolute abettors of the Buonapartean invasion of Spain, 
 and did all in their power to thwart the generous efforts 
 of this country to resist it. Now, when the invasion is by 
 a Bourbon, and the cause of the Spanish nation neither 
 united nor, indeed, sound in many respects, the Whigs 
 would precipitate this country into a crusade to fight up 
 the cause of a faction. 
 
 I have the honour of being slightly known to my lord 
 Darnley. In 1808-9 I met him accidentally, when, after 
 a few words of salutation, he said to me, ' Are you mad, 
 Mr. Coleridge ? ' — ' Not that I know, my lord,' I replied ; 
 ' what have I done which argues any derangement of mind ? ' 
 — ' Why, I mean,' said he, * those letters of yours in the 
 Courier, " On the Hopes and Fears of a People invaded by 
 
THE WHIGS— REFORM 47 
 
 foreign Armies." The Spaniards are absolutely conquered ; 
 it is absurd to talk of their chance of resisting.' — ' Very 
 well, my lord,' I said, ' we shall see. But will your lordship 
 permit me, in the course of a year or two, to retort your 
 question upon you, if I should have grounds for so doing ? ' 
 — ' Certainly ! ' said he ; ' that is fair ! ' Two years after- 
 wards, when affairs were altered in Spain, I met Lord 
 Darnley again, and, after some conversation, ventured to 
 say to him, ' Does your lordship recollect giving me leave 
 to retort a certain question upon you about the Spaniards ? 
 Who is mad now ? ' — ' Very true, very true, Mr. Coleridge,' 
 cried he : ' you are right. It is very extraordinary. It was 
 a very happy and bold guess.' Upon which I remarked, 
 ' I think guess is hardly a fair term. For, has anything 
 happened that has happened, from any other causes, or 
 under any other conditions, than such as I laid down 
 beforehand ? ' Lord Darnley, who was always very 
 courteous to me, took this with a pleasant nod of his head. 
 
 Many votes are given for reform in the House of Commons, 
 which are not honest. Whilst it is well known that the 
 measure will not be carried in Parliament, it is as well to 
 purchase some popularity by voting for it. When Hunt 
 and his associates, before the Six Acts, created a panic, 
 the ministers lay on their oars for three or four months, 
 until the general cry, even from the Opposition, was, ' Why 
 don't the ministers come forward with some protective 
 measure ? ' The present Ministry exists on the weakness 
 and desperate character of the Opposition. The sober part 
 of the nation are afraid of the latter getting into power, 
 lest they should redeem some of their pledges. 
 
 April 29, 1823. 
 
 CHTJBCH OF EOME. 
 
 The present adherents of the Church of Rome are not, 
 in my judgement, Catholics. We are the Catholics. We 
 can prove that we hold the doctrines of the primitive 
 Church for the first three hundred years. The Council of 
 
48 TABLE TALK 
 
 Trent made the Papists what they are. 1 A foreign Eomish 
 bishop 2 has declared that the Protestants of his acquain- 
 tance were more like what he conceived the enlightened 
 Catholics to have been before the Council of Trent, than 
 the best of the latter in his days. Perhaps you will say, 
 this bishop was not a good Catholic. I cannot answer for 
 that. The course of Christianity and the Christian Church 
 may not unaptly be likened to a mighty river, which filled 
 a wide channel, and bore along with its waters mud, and 
 gravel, and weeds, till it met a great rock in the middle of 
 its stream. By some means or other, the water flows purely, 
 and separated from the filth, in a deeper and narrower 
 course on one side of the rock, and the refuse of the dirt 
 and troubled water goes off on the other in a broader 
 current, and then cries out, ' We are the river ! ' 
 
 A person said to me lately, ' But you will, for civility's 
 sake, call them Catholics, will you not ? ' I answered that 
 I would not ; for I would not tell a lie upon any, much less 
 upon so solemn an, occasion. The adherents of the Church 
 of Rome, I repeat, are not Catholic Christians. If they are, 
 then it follows that we Protestants are heretics and schis- 
 matics, as, indeed, the Papists very logically, from their 
 own premisses, call us. And ' Roman Catholics ' makes no 
 difference. Catholicism is not capable of degrees or local 
 apportionments. There can be but one body of Catholics, 
 ex vi termini. To talk strictly of Irish or Scotch Roman 
 Catholics is a mere absurdity. 
 
 It is common to hear it said, that, if the legal disabilities 
 are removed, the Romish Church will lose ground in this 
 country. I think the reverse : the Romish religion is, or, 
 in certain hands, is capable of being made, so flattering 
 to the passions and self-delusion of men, that it is impos- 
 sible to say how far it would spread, amongst the higher 
 orders of society especially, if the secular disadvantages 
 now attending its profession were removed. 3 
 
 1 See Aids to Reflection, p. 180 n. 
 
 ° Mr. Coleridge named him, but the name was strange to me, and I have 
 been unable to recover it. — H. N. C. 
 3 Here, at least, the prophecy has been fulfilled. The wisdom of our 
 
ZENDAVESTA 49 
 
 April 30, 1823. 
 
 ZENDAVESTA.— PANTHEISM AND IDOLATRY. 
 
 The Zendavesta must, I think, have been copied in parts 
 from the writings of Moses. In the description of the 
 creation, the first chapter of Genesis is taken almost liter- 
 ally, except that the sun is created before the light, and 
 then the herbs and the plants after the sun ; which are 
 precisely the two points they did not understand, and 
 therefore altered as errors. 1 
 
 There are only two acts of creation, properly so called, 
 in the Mosaic account — the material universe and man. 
 The intermediate acts seem more as the results of secondary 
 causes, or, at any rate, of a modification of prepared 
 materials. 
 
 Pantheism and idolatry naturally end in each other ; 
 for all extremes meet. The Judaic religion is the exact 
 medium, the true compromise. 
 
 May 1, 1823. 
 
 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STORIES OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS. — 
 PHANTOM PORTRAIT. — WITCH OF ENDOR. — SOCINIANISM. 
 
 There is a great difference in the credibility to be attached 
 to stories of dreams and stories of ghosts. Dreams have 
 nothing in them which are absurd and nonsensical ; and, 
 though most of the coincidences may be readily explained 
 by the diseased system of the dreamer, and the great and 
 surprising power of association, yet it is impossible to say 
 whether an inner sense does not really exist in the mind, 
 
 ancestors, in the reign of King William III, would have been jealous of 
 the daily increase in the numbers of the Romish Church in England, of 
 which every attentive observer must be aware. See Sancti Dominici 
 Pallium, in Mr. Coleridge's Poems [Oxford edition, p. 448]. — H. N. C. 
 
 1 The Zend, or Zendavesta, is the sacred book-ascribed to Zoroaster, or 
 Zerdusht, the founder or reformer of the Magian religion. The modern 
 edition or paraphrase of this work, called the Sadda, written in the 
 Persian of the day, was, I believe, composed about three hundred years 
 ago.— H. N. C. 
 
 TABLE TALK E 
 
50 TABLE TALK 
 
 seldom developed, indeed, but which may have a power 
 of presentiment. 1 All the external senses have their corre- 
 spondents in the mind ; the eye can see an object before 
 it is distinctly apprehended ; — why may there not be 
 a corresponding power in the soul ? The power of prophecy 
 might have been merely a spiritual excitation of this dor- 
 mant faculty. Hence you will observe that the Hebrew 
 seers sometimes seem to have required music, as in the 
 instance of Elisha before Jehoram : ' But now bring me 
 a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, 
 that the hand of the Lord came upon him.' 2 Everything 
 in nature has a tendency to move in cycles ; and it would 
 be a miracle if, out of such myriads of cycles moving con- 
 currently, some coincidences did not take place. No doubt, 
 many such take place in the daytime ; but then our senses 
 drive out the remembrance of them, and render the impres- 
 sion hardly felt ; but when we sleep, the mind acts without 
 interruption. Terror and the heated imagination will, evenin 
 the daytime, create all sorts of features, shapes, and colours 
 out of a simple object possessing none of them in reality. 
 
 But ghost stories are absurd. Whenever a real ghost 
 appears — by which I mean some man or woman dressed 
 up to frighten another — if the supernatural character of 
 the apparition has been for a moment believed, the effects 
 on the spectator have always been most terrible — convul- 
 sion, idiocy, madness, or even death on the spot. Consider 
 
 1 See this point suggested and reasoned with extraordinary subtlety in 
 the third essay (marked C), in the Appendix to the Statesman's Manual, 
 or first Lay Sermon, p. xix, &c. One beautiful paragraph I will venture to 
 quote : ' Not only may we expect that men of strong religious feelings, 
 but little religious knowledge, will occasionally be tempted to regard such 
 occurrences as supernatural visitations ; but it ought not to surprise us if 
 Buch dreams should sometimes be confirmed by the event, as though they 
 had actually possessed a character of divination. For who shall decide 
 how far a perfect reminiscence of past experiences (of many, perhaps, that 
 had escaped our reflex consciousness at the time) — who shall determine 
 to what extent this reproductive imagination, unsophisticated by the will, 
 and undistracted by intrusions from the senses, may or may not be con- 
 centred and sublimed into foresight and presentiment ? There would be 
 nothing herein either to foster superstition on the one hand, or to justify 
 contemptuous disbelief on the other. Incredulity is but Credulity seen 
 from behind, bowing and nodding assent to the Habitual and the Fashion- 
 able.'— H. N. 0. 
 
 2 2 Kings iii. 15, and see I Sam. x. 5.— H. N. C. 
 
GHOSTS 51 
 
 the awful descriptions in the Old Testament of the effects 
 of a spiritual presence on the prophets and seers of the 
 Hebrews ; the terror, the exceeding great dread, the utter 
 loss of all animal power. But in our common ghost stories, 
 you always find that the seer, after a most appalling 
 apparition, as you are to believe, is quite well the next day. 
 Perhaps he may have had a headache ; but that is the 
 outside of the effect produced Allston, a man of genius, 
 and the best painter yet produced by America, when he 
 was in England told me an anecdote which confirms what 
 I have been saying. It was, I think, in the University of 
 Cambridge, near Boston, that a certain youth took it into 
 his wise head to endeavour to convert a Tom-Painish com- 
 panion of his by appearing as a ghost before him. He 
 accordingly dressed himself up in the usual way, having 
 previously extracted the ball from the pistol which always 
 lay near the head of his friend's bed. Upon first awaking, 
 and seeing the apparition, the youth who was to be 
 frightened, A., very coolly looked his companion the ghost 
 in the face, and said, ' I know you. This is a good joke ; 
 but you see I am not frightened. Now you may vanish ! ' 
 The ghost stood still. ' Come,' said A., ' that is enough. 
 I shall get angry. Away ! ' Still the ghost moved not. 
 
 ' By ,' ejaculated A., ' if you do not in three minutes 
 
 go away, I'll shoot you. 1 He waited the time, deliberately 
 levelled the pistol, fired, and, with a scream at the immo- 
 bility of the figure, became convulsed, and afterwards died. 
 The very instant he believed it to be a ghost, his human 
 nature fell before it. 
 
 1 ' Last Thursday my uncle, S. T. C, dined with us, and 
 several men came to meet him. I have heard him more 
 brilliant, but he was very fine, and delighted every one 
 very much. It is impossible to carry off, or commit to 
 paper, his long trains of argument ; indeed, it is not always 
 possible to understand them, he lays the foundation so 
 deep, and views every question in so original a manner. 
 Nothing can be finer than the principles which he lays 
 down in morals and religion. His deep study of Scripture 
 
 1 What follows in the text within commas was written about this time, 
 and communicated to me by Mr. Justice Coleridge. — H. N. C. 
 
 E2 
 
52 TABLE TALK 
 
 is very astonishing ; the rest of the party were but as 
 children in his hands, not merely in general views of 
 theology, but in nice verbal criticism. He thinks it clear 
 that St. Paul did not write the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 but that it must have been the work of some Alexandrian 
 Greek, and he thinks Apollos. It seemed to him a desirable 
 thing for Christianity that it should have been written by 
 some other person than St. Paul ; because, its inspiration 
 being unquestioned, it added another independent teacher 
 and expounder of the faith. 
 
 ' We fell upon ghosts, and he exposed many of the stories 
 physically and metaphysically. He seemed to think it 
 impossible that you should really see with the bodily eye 
 what was impalpable, unless it were a shadow ; and if 
 what you fancied you saw with the bodily eye was in fact 
 only an impression on the imagination, then you were 
 seeing something out of your senses, and your testimony 
 was full of uncertainty. He observed how uniformly, in 
 all the best-attested stories of spectres, the appearance 
 might be accounted for from the disturbed state of the 
 mind or body of the seer, as in the instances of Dion and 
 Brutus. Upon some one's saying that he wished to believe 
 these stories true, thinking that they constituted a useful 
 subsidiary testimony of another state of existence, Mr. C. 
 differed, and said he thought it a dangerous testimony, 
 and one not wanted : it was Saul, with the Scriptures and 
 the Prophet before him, calling upon the witch of Endor 
 to certify him of the truth ! He explained very ingeniously, 
 yet very naturally, what has often startled people in ghost 
 stories — such as Lord Lyttelton's — namely, that when a 
 real person has appeared, habited like the phantom, the 
 ghost -seer has immediately seen two, the real man and the 
 phantom. He said that such must be the case. The man 
 under the morbid delusion sees with the eye of the imagina- 
 tion, and sees with the bodily eye too ; if no one were really 
 present, he would see the spectre with one, and the bed- 
 curtains with the other. When, therefore, a real person 
 comes, he sees the real man as he would have seen any one 
 else in the same place, and he sees the spectre not a whit 
 the less : being perceptible by different powers of vision, 
 so to say, the appearances do not interfere with each other. 
 
THE PHANTOM PORTRAIT 53 
 
 ' He told us the following story of the Phantom Portrait : 
 1 ' A stranger came recommended to a merchant's house 
 at Lubeck. He was hospitably received ; but, the house 
 being full, he was lodged at night in an apartment hand- 
 somely furnished, but not often used. There was nothing 
 that struck him particularly in the room when left alone, 
 till he happened to cast his eyes on a picture, which imme- 
 diately arrested his attention. It was a single head ; but 
 there was something so uncommon, so frightful and un- 
 earthly, in its expression, though by no means ugly, that 
 he found himself irresistibly attracted to look at it. In 
 fact, he could not tear himself from the fascination of this 
 portrait, till his imagination was filled by it, and his rest 
 broken. He retired to bed, dreamed, and awoke from time 
 to time with the head glaring on him. In the morning, his 
 host saw by his looks that he had slept ill, and inquired 
 the cause, which was told. The master of the house was 
 much vexed, and said that the picture ought to have been 
 removed, that it was an oversight, and that it always was 
 removed when the chamber was used. The picture, he 
 said, was, indeed, terrible to every one ; but it was so fine, 
 and had come into the family in so curious a way, that he 
 could not make up his mind to part with it, or to destroy 
 it. The story of it was this : " My father ", said he, " was 
 at Hamburg on business, and, whilst dining at a coffee- 
 house, he observed a young man of a remarkable appear- 
 ance enter, seat himself alone in a corner, and commence 
 a solitary meal. His countenance bespoke the extreme 
 of mental distress, and every now and then he turned his 
 head quickly round, as if he heard something, then shudder, 
 grow pale, and go on with his meal after an effort as before. 
 My father saw this same man at the same place for two or 
 three successive days ; and at length became so much 
 interested about him, that he spoke to him. The address 
 was not repulsed, and the stranger seemed to find some 
 comfort in the tone of sympathy and kindness which my 
 father used. He was an Italian, well informed, poor but 
 
 1 This ia the story which Mr. Washington Irving has dressed up very 
 prettily in the first volume of his Tales of a Traveller, pp. 84-119 ; pro- 
 fessing in his preface that he could not remember whence he had derived 
 the anecdote. — H. N. C. 
 
54 TABLE TALK 
 
 not destitute, and living economically upon the profits of 
 his art as a painter. Their intimacy increased ; and at 
 length the Italian, seeing my father's involuntary emotion 
 at his convulsive turnings and shudderings, which con- 
 tinued as formerly, interrupting their conversation from 
 time to time, told him his story. He was a native of Rome, 
 and had lived in some familiarity with, and been much 
 patronized by, a young nobleman ; but upon some slight 
 occasion they had fallen out, and his patron, besides using 
 many reproachful expressions, had struck him. The painter 
 brooded over the disgrace of the blow. He could not 
 challenge the nobleman, on account of his rank ; he there- 
 fore watched for an opportunity, and assassinated him. 
 Of course he fled from his country, and finally had reached 
 Hamburg. He had not, however, passed many weeks from 
 the night of the murder, before, one day, in the crowded 
 street, he heard his name called by a voice familiar to him : 
 he turned short round, and saw the face of his victim look- 
 ing at him with a fixed eye. From that moment he had no 
 peace : at all hours, in all places, and amidst all companies, 
 however engaged he might be, he heard the voice, and 
 could never help looking round ; and, whenever he so 
 looked round, he always encountered the same face staring 
 close upon him. At last, in a mood of desperation, he had 
 fixed himself face to face, and eye to eye, and deliberately 
 drawn the phantom visage as it glared upon him ; and this 
 was the picture so drawn. The Italian said he had struggled 
 long, but life was a burden which he could now no longer 
 bear ; and he was resolved, when he had made money 
 enough to return to Rome, to surrender himself to justice, 
 and expiate his crime on the scaffold. He gave the finished 
 picture to my father, in return for the kindness which he 
 had shown to him." ' 
 
 I have no doubt that the Jews believed generally in 
 a future state, independently of the Mosaic law. The story 
 of the witch of Endor is a proof of it. What we translate 
 ' witch ', or ' familiar spirit ', is, in the Hebrew, Ob, that is, 
 a bottle or bladder, and means a person whose belly is 
 swelled like a leathern bottle by divine inflation. In the 
 Greek it is e-yyaorpi/u>#o;, a ventriloquist. The text (1 Sam. 
 
WITCH OF ENDOR— SOCINIANISM 55 
 
 xxyiii) is a simple record of the facts, the solution of 
 which the sacred historian leaves to the reader. I take it 
 to have been a trick of ventriloquism, got up by the 
 courtiers and friends of Saul, to prevent him, if possible, 
 from hazarding an engagement with an army despondent 
 and oppressed with bodings of defeat. Saul is not said to 
 have seen Samuel ; the woman only pretends to see him. 
 And then what does this Samuel do ? He merely repeats 
 the prophecy known to all Israel, which the true Samuel 
 had uttered some years before. Read Captain Lyon's 
 account of the scene in the cabin with the Esquimaux 
 bladder or conjurer ; it is impossible not to be reminded 
 of the witch of Endor. I recommend you also to look at 
 Webster's admirable treatise on Witchcraft. 
 
 The pet texts of a Socinian are quite enough for his con- 
 futation with acute thinkers. If Christ had been a mere 
 man, it would have been ridiculous in him to call himself 
 ' the Son of man ' ; but being God and man, it then became, 
 in his own assumption of it, a peculiar and mysterious title. 
 So, if Christ had been a mere man, his saying, ' My Father 
 is greater than I ' (John xv. 28), would have been as un- 
 meaning. It would be laughable enough, for example, to 
 hear me say, ' My " Remorse " succeeded, indeed, but 
 Shakespeare is a greater dramatist than I.' But how 
 immeasurably more foolish, more monstrous, would it not 
 be for a man, however honest, good, or wise, to say, ' But 
 Jehovah is greater than I ! ' 
 
 May 8, 1824. 
 
 PLATO AND XENOPHON. — RELIGIONS OF THE GREEKS. — 
 EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. MILTON. VIRGIL. 
 
 Plato's works are logical exercises for the mind. Little 
 that is positive is advanced in them. Socrates may be 
 fairly represented by Plato in the more moral parts ; but 
 in all the metaphysical disquisitions it is Pythagoras. 
 Xenophon's representation of his master is quite different. 1 
 
 1 See p. 40 n— H. N. C. 
 
56 TABLE TALK 
 
 Observe the remarkable contrast between the religion 
 of the tragic and other poets of Greece. The former are 
 always opposed in heart to the popular divinities. In tact, 
 there are the popular, the sacerdotal, and the mysterious 
 religions of Greece, represented roughly by Homer Pindar, 
 and Aeschylus. The ancients had no notion of a fall of man, 
 though they had of his gradual degeneracy. Prometheus, 
 in the old mythus, and for the most part in Aeschylus, is 
 the Redeemer and the Devil jumbled together. 
 
 I cannot say I expect much from mere Egyptian antiqui- 
 ties. Almost everything really, that is, intellectually, great 
 in that country seems to me of Grecian origin. 
 
 I think nothing can be added to Milton's definition or 
 rule of poetry— that it ought to be simple, sensuous, and 
 impassioned ; that is to say, single in conception, abounding 
 in sensible images, and informing them all with the spirit 
 of the mind. 
 
 Milton's Latin style is, I think, better and easier than 
 his English. His style, in prose, is quite as characteristic 
 of him as a philosophic republican, as Cowley's is of Mm 
 as a first-rate gentleman. 
 
 If you take from Virgil his diction and metre, what do 
 you leave him 1 
 
 June 2, 1824. 
 
 GRANVILLE PENN AND THE DELUGE. — RAINBOW. 
 
 I confess I have small patience with Mr. Granville Penn's 
 book against Professor Buckland. Science will be super- 
 seded, if every phenomenon is to be referred in this manner 
 to an actual miracle. I think it absurd to attribute so much 
 to the Deluge. An inundation, which left an olive-tree 
 standing, and bore up the ark peacefully on its bosom, 
 could scarcely have been the sole cause of the rents and 
 dislocations observable on the face of the earth. How 
 
GRANVILLE PENN AND THE DELUGE 57 
 
 could the tropical animals, which have been discovered in 
 England and in Russia in a perfectly natural state, have 
 been transported thither by such a flood ? Those animals 
 must evidently have been natives of the countries in which 
 they have been found. The climates must have been 
 altered. Assume a sudden evaporation upon the retiring 
 of the Deluge to have caused an intense cold, the solar 
 heat might not be sufficient afterwards to overcome it. I 
 do not think that the polar cold is adequately explained by 
 mere comparative distance from the sun. 
 
 You will observe, that there is no mention of rain 
 previously to the Deluge. Hence it may be inferred, that 
 the rainbow was exhibited for the first time after God's 
 covenant with Noah. However, I only suggest this. 
 
 The Earth with its scarred face is the symbol of the Past ; 
 the Air and Heaven, of Futurity. 
 
 June 5, 1824. 
 
 ENGLISH AND GREEK DANCING. — GREEK ACOUSTICS. 
 
 The fondness for dancing in English women is the reaction 
 of their reserved manners. It is the only way in which they 
 can throw themselves forth in natural liberty. We have 
 no adequate conception of the perfection of the ancient 
 tragic dance. The pleasure which the Greeks received 
 from it had ior its basis Difference ; and the, more unfit 
 the vehicle, the more lively was the curiosity and intense 
 the delight at seeing the difficulty overcome. 
 
 The ancients certainly seem to have understood some 
 principles in acoustics which we have lost, or, at least, they 
 applied them better. They contrived to convey the voice 
 distinctly in their huge theatres by means of pipes, which 
 created no echo or confusion. Our theatres — Drury Lane 
 and Covent Garden— are fit for nothing : they are too large 
 for acting, and too small for a bull-fight. 
 
58 TABLE TALK 
 
 June 7, 1824. 
 
 LORD BYRON *S VERSIFICATION, AND DON JUAN. 
 
 How lamentably the art of versification is neglected by 
 most of the poets of the present day ! — by Lord Byron, 
 as it strikes me, in particular, among those of eminence for 
 other qualities. Upon the whole, I think the part of Don 
 Juan in which Lambro's return to his home, and Lambro 
 himself, are described, is the best, that is, the most indi- 
 vidual, thing in all I know of Lord B.'s works. The festal 
 abandonment puts one in mind of Nicholas Poussin's 
 pictures. 1 
 
 June 10, 1824. 
 
 PARENTAL CONTROL IN MARRIAGE.- — MARRIAGE OF 
 COUSINS. — DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTER. 
 
 Up to twenty-one, I hold a father to have power over 
 his children as to marriage ; after that age, authority and 
 influence only. Show me one couple unhappy merely on 
 account of their limited circumstances, and I will show 
 you ten that are wretched from other causes. 
 
 If the matter were quite open, I should incline to dis- 
 approve the intermarriage of first cousins ; but the Church 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge particularly noticed, for its classical air, the 32nd stanza 
 of this Canto (the third) : 
 
 ■ A band of children, round a snow-white ram, 
 There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers, 
 While, peaceful as if still an unwean'd lamb, 
 The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers 
 His sober head, majestically tame, 
 
 Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers 
 His brow, as if in act to butt, and then 
 Yielding to their small hands, draws back again.' 
 But Mr. C. said that then, and again, made no rhyme to his ear. Why 
 should not the old form agen be lawful in verse ? We wilfully abridge 
 ourselves of the liberty which our great poets achieved.and sanctioned for 
 us in innumerable instances. — H. N. C. 
 
MARRIAGE— SOLOMON 59 
 
 has decided otherwise on the authority of Augustine, and 
 that seems enough upon such a point. 
 
 You may depend upon it, that a slight contrast of 
 character is very material to happiness in marriage. 
 
 February 24, 1827. 
 
 BLUMENBACH AND KANT'S BACES. IAPETIC AND SEMITIC. — 
 
 HEBREW. — SOLOMON. 
 
 Blumenbach makes five races ; Kant, three. Blumen- 
 bach's scale of dignity may be thus figured : 
 
 1. 
 Caucasian or European. 
 
 American. 
 
 Mongolian = 
 'ifegro. 3.\ Asiatic. 
 
 There was, I conceive, one great Iapetic original of 
 language, under which Greek, Latin, and other European 
 dialects, and, perhaps, Sanscrit, range as species. The 
 Iapetic race, 'IaWs, separated into two branches ; one, 
 with a tendency to migrate south-west — Greeks, Italians, 
 &c. ; and the other north-west — Goths, Germans, Swedes, 
 &c. The Hebrew is Semitic. 
 
 Hebrew, in point of force and purity, seems at its height 
 in Isaiah. It is most corrupt in Daniel, and not much less 
 so in Ecclesiastes ; which I cannot believe to have been 
 actually composed by Solomon, but rather suppose to have 
 been so attributed by the Jews, in their passion for ascribing 
 all works of that sort to their grand monarque. 
 
60 TABLE TALK 
 
 March 10, 1827. 
 
 JEWISH HISTORY. — SPINOZISTIC AND HEBREW SCHEMES. 
 
 The people of all other nations, but the Jewish, seem to 
 look backwards and also to exist for the present ; but in 
 the Jewish scheme everything is prospective and prepara- 
 tory ; nothing, however trifling, is done for itself alone, but 
 all is typical of something yet to come. 
 
 I would rather call the book of Proverbs Solomonian 
 than as actually a work of Solomon's. So I apprehend 
 many of the Psalms to be Davidical only, not David's own 
 compositions. 
 
 You may state the Pantheism of Spinoza, in contrast 
 with the Hebrew or Christian scheme, shortly, as thus : 
 
 Spinozism. 
 
 W-G = ; i. e. the World without God is an impos- 
 sible idea. 
 G-W = ; i. e. God without the World is so likewise. 
 
 Hebrew or Christian scheme. 
 
 W — G = ; i. e. The same as Spinoza's premiss. 
 
 But G-W = G ; i. e. God without the World is God the 
 
 self-subsistent. 
 
 March 12, 1827. 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLICS. — ENERGY OF MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS. 
 
 — Shakespeare in minimis. — faux sarpi. — bartram's 
 
 TRAVELS. 
 
 I have no doubt that the real object closest to the hearts 
 of the leading Irish Romanists is the destruction of the 
 Irish Protestant Church, and the re-establishment of their 
 own. I think more is involved in the manner than the 
 matter of legislating upon the civil disabilities of the 
 members of the Church of Rome ; and, for one, I should be 
 willing to vote for a removal of those disabilities, with two 
 or three exceptions, upon a solemn declaration being made 
 
ROMAN CATHOLICS— BARTRAM'S TRAVELS 61 
 
 legislatively in parliament, that at no time, nor under any 
 circumstances, could or should a branch of the Romish 
 hierarchy, as at present constituted, become an estate of 
 this realm. 1 
 
 Internal or mental energy and external or corporeal 
 modificabihty are in inverse proportions. In man, internal 
 energy is greater than in any other animal ; and you will 
 see that he is less changed by climate than any animal. 
 For the highest and lowest specimens of man are not one 
 half as much apart from each other as the different kinds 
 even of dogs, animals of great internal energy themselves. 
 
 For an instance of Shakespeare's power in minimis, I 
 generally quote James Gurney's character in King John. 
 How individual and comical he is with the four words 
 allowed to his dramatic life ! 2 And pray look at Skelton's 
 Richard Sparrow also ! 
 
 Paul Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent deserves your 
 study. It is very interesting. 
 
 The latest book of travels I know, written in the 
 
 1 See Church and State, part II, p. 189. 
 
 2 ' Enter Lady Palconbridge and James Gubney. 
 Bast. O me ! it is my mother :— How now, good lady ? 
 
 What brings you here to court so hastily ? 
 
 Lady F. Where is that slave, thy brother ? where is he ? 
 That holds in chase mine honour up and down ? 
 
 Bast. My brother Robert ? Old Sir Robert's son ? 
 Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man ? 
 Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so ? 
 
 Lady IT. Sir Robert's son ! Ay, thou unreverend boy, 
 Sir Robert's son : why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert ? 
 He is Sir Robert's son ; and so art thou. 
 
 Bast. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while ? 
 
 Gub. Good leave, good Philip. 
 
 Bast. Philip ? — Sparrow ! James, 
 There 's toys abroad ; anon I '11 tell thee more. 
 
 [Exit Gubney.' 
 The very exit Ourney is a stroke of James's character. — H. N. C. 
 
62 TABLE TALK 
 
 spirit of the old travellers, is Bartram's account of 
 his tour in the Floridas. It is a work of high merit 
 every way. 1 
 
 March 13, 1827. 
 
 THE UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 A pun will sometimes facilitate explanation, as thus — 
 the Understanding is that which stands under the pheno- 
 menon, and gives it objectivity. You know what a thing 
 is by it. It is also worthy of remark, that the Hebrew 
 word for the understanding, Bineh, comes from a root 
 meaning between or distinguishing. 
 
 March 18, 1827. 
 
 PARTS OF SPEECH. — GRAMMAR. 
 
 There are seven parts of speech, and they agree with 
 the five grand and universal divisions into which all things 
 finite, by which I mean to exclude the idea of God, will 
 be found to fall ; that is, as you will often see it stated in 
 my writings, especially in the Aids to Reflection : 2 
 
 Prothesis. 
 1. 
 Thesis. Mesothesis. Antithesis. 
 
 2. 4. 3. 
 
 Synthesis. 
 5. 
 Conceive it thus : 
 
 1. Prothesis, the noun- verb, or verb-substantive, / am, 
 which is the previous form, and implies identity of being 
 and act. 
 
 1 'Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and 
 West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the extensive territories of the 
 Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws, &o. 
 By William Bartram.' Philadelphia, 1791. London, 1792. 8vo. The 
 expedition was made at the request of Dr. Fothergill, the Quaker phy- 
 sician, in 1773, and was particularly directed to botanical discoveries. — 
 H. N. C. 
 
 2 P. 170, 2nd edition. 
 
PARTS OF SPEECH— GRAMMAR 63 
 
 2. Thesis, the noun. 
 
 3. Antithesis, the verb. 
 
 Note, each of these may be 
 converted ; that is, they 
 are only opposed to each 
 other. 
 
 4. Mesothesis, the infinitive mood, or the indifference 
 of the verb and noun, it being either the one or the other, 
 or both at the same time, in different relations. 
 
 5.- Synthesis, the participle, or the community of verb 
 and noun ; being and acting at once. 
 
 Now, modify the noun by the verb, that is, by an act, 
 and you have — 
 
 6. The adnoun, or adjective. 
 
 Modify the verb by the noun, that is, by being, and 
 you have — 
 
 7. The adverb. 
 
 Interjections are parts of sound, not of speech. Con- 
 junctions are the same as prepositions ; but they are 
 prefixed to a sentence, or to a member of a sentence, 
 instead of to a single word. 
 
 The inflexions of nouns are modifications as to place ; 
 the inflexions of verbs, as to time. 
 
 The genitive case denotes dependence ; the dative, 
 transmission. It is absurd to talk of verbs governing. 
 In Thucydides, I believe, every case has been found 
 absolute. 1 
 
 The inflexions of the tenses of a verb are formed by 
 adjuncts of the verb substantive. In Greek it is obvious. 
 The E is the prefix significative of a past time. 
 
 ' Nominative absolute : 6iSiv Si <p 6Pos tj avBpaircov vipos oiSds anttpye, 
 
 rb piv npivovrti iv dpoia KaX <r40eiv mi pr) twv iia.imprrfiw.rwv 
 
 ovSels hXiri(wr pixP 1 tou Siieijv ytvio6(u 0ious h.v ri)v Tipapiav avrtSovvai. 
 — Thuc. ii. 53. , „ 
 
 Dative: tlpyo/tivois avTOts rijs Odkaaoris mt Hard yijv nopeov- 
 ftivois ivfx t 'm<*& v w« rpos 'AOqvaiavs ayayetv ri)v itoKiv. — Thuc. viii. 24. 
 "This is the Latin usage. 
 
 Accusative.— I do not remember an instance of the proper accusative 
 absolute in Thucydides ; but it seems not uncommon in other authors : 
 5 (ftv(, pr) $avpa& Ttpin rb Knrapis, 
 tckv' el tbavivr' aiXirra p.i)Kvvoi Koyov. 
 
 V Soph. Oed. C. 1119. 
 
 Yet all such instances may be nominatives ; for I cannot find an example 
 of the accusative absolute in the masculine or feminine gender, where tne 
 difference of inflexion would show the case. — H. N. C. 
 
64 TABLE TALK 
 
 June 15, 1827. 
 
 MAGNETISM. — ELECTRICITY. — GALVANISM. 
 
 Perhaps the attribution or analogy may seem fanciful 
 at first sight, but I am in the habit of realizing to myself 
 Magnetism as length ; Electricity as breadth or surface ; 
 and Galvanism as depth. 
 
 June 24, 1827. 
 
 SPENSER. — CHARACTER OF OTHELLO. — HAMLET. — POLONIUS. 
 — PRINCIPLES AND MAXIMS. — LOVE. — MEASURE FOR 
 MEASURE. — BEN JONSON. — BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 
 — VERSION OF THE BIBLE. — SPURZHEIM. — CRANIOLOGY. 
 
 Spenser's Epithalamion is truly sublime ; and pray mark 
 the swan-like movement of his exquisite Prothalamion. 1 
 His attention to metre and rhythm is sometimes so extremely 
 
 1 How well I remember this Midsummer-day ! I shall never pass such 
 another. The sun was setting behind Caen Wood, and the calm of the 
 evening was so exceedingly deep that it arrested Mr. Coleridge's attention. 
 We were alone together in Mr. Gillman's drawing-room, and Mr. C. left 
 off talking, and fell into an almost trance-like state for ten minutes whilst 
 contemplating the beautiful prospect before us. His eyes swam in tears, 
 his head inclined a little forward, and there was a slight uplifting of the 
 fingers, which seemed to tell me that he was in prayer. I was awe- 
 stricken, and remained absorbed in looking at the man, in f orgetfulness of 
 external nature, when he recovered himself, and after a word or two fell 
 by some secret link of association upon Spenser's poetry. Upon my telling 
 him that I did not very well recollect the Prothalamion : Then I must 
 read you a bit of it,' said he ; and, fetching the book from the next room, 
 he recited the whole of it in his finest and most musical manner. I par- 
 ticularly bear in mind the sensible diversity of tone and rhythm with which 
 he gave : 
 
 Sweet Thames ! run softly till I end my song, 
 
 the concluding line of each of the ten strophes of the poem. 
 
 When I look upon the scanty memorial, which I have alone preserved 
 of this afternoon's converse, I am tempted to burn these pages in despair. 
 Mr. Coleridge talked a volume of criticism that day, which, printed ver- 
 batim as he spoke it, would have made the reputation of any other person 
 but himself. He was, indeed, particularly brilliant and enchanting ; and 
 I left him at night so thoroughly magnetized, that I could not for two or 
 three days afterwards reflect enough to put anything on paper. — H. N. C. 
 
CHARACTER OF OTHELLO— HAMLET 65 
 
 minute as to be painful even to my ear, and you know 
 how highly I prize good versification. 
 
 I have often told you that I do not think there is any 
 jealousy, properly so called, in the character of Othello. 
 There is no predisposition to suspicion, which I take to be 
 an essential term in the definition of the word. Desde- 
 mona very truly told Emilia that he was not jealous, that 
 is, of a jealous habit, and he says so as truly of himself. 
 Iago's suggestions, you see, are quite new to him ; they 
 do not correspond with anything of a like nature previously 
 in his mind. ■ If Desdemona had, in fact, been guilty, no 
 one would have thought of calling Othello's conduct that 
 of a jealous man. He could not act otherwise than he did 
 with the lights he had ; whereas jealousy can never be 
 strictly right. See how utterly unlike Othello is to Leontes, 
 in the Winter's Tale, or even to Leonatus, in Cymbeline ! 
 The jealousy of the first proceeds from an evident trifle, 
 and something like hatred is mingled with, it ; and the 
 conduct of Leonatus in accepting the wager, and exposing 
 his wife to the trial, denotes a jealous temper already 
 formed. 
 
 Hamlet's character is the prevalence of the abstracting 
 and generalizing habit over the practical. He does not 
 want courage, skill, will, or opportunity ; but every 
 incident sets him thinking ; and it is curious, and at the 
 same time strictly natural, that Hamlet, who all the play 
 seems reason itself, should be impelled, at last, by mere 
 accident to effect his object. I have a smack of Hamlet 
 myself, if I may say so. 
 
 A Maxim is a conclusion upon observation of matters 
 of fact, and is merely retrospective : an Idea, or, if you 
 like, a Principle, carries knowledge within itself, and is 
 prospective. Polonius is a man of maxims. Whilst he is 
 descanting on matters of past experience, as in that 
 excellent speech to Laertes before he sets out on his travels 1 , 
 he is admirable ; but when he comes to advise or project, 
 
 • Act i, so. 3. 
 
 TABLE TALK J? 
 
66 TABLE TALK 
 
 he is a mere dotard. You see Hamlet, as the man of ideas, 
 despises him. 
 
 A man of maxims only is like a Cyclops with one eye, 
 and that eye placed in the back of his head. 
 
 In the scene with Ophelia, in the third act, 1 Hamlet 
 is beginning with great and unfeigned tenderness ; but, 
 perceiving her reserve and coyness, fancies there are some 
 listeners, and then, to sustain his part, breaks out into all 
 that coarseness. 
 
 Love is the admiration and cherishing of the amiable 
 qualities of the beloved person, upon the condition of 
 yourself being the object of their action. The qualities 
 of the sexes correspond. The man's courage is loved 
 by the woman, whose fortitude again is coveted by the 
 man. His vigorous intellect is answered by her infallible 
 tact. Can it be true, what is so constantly affirmed, that 
 there is no sex in souls ? — I doubt it, I doubt it exceedingly. 2 
 
 « Sc. 1. 
 
 2 Mr. Coleridge was a great master in the art of love, but he had not 
 studied in Ovid's school. Hear his account of the matter : — 
 
 ' Love, truly such, is itself not the most common thing in the world : 
 and mutual love still less so. But that enduring personal attachment, so 
 beautifully delineated by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly, 
 perhaps, in the well-known ballad, John Anderson, my Jo, John, in 
 addition to a depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence, 
 supposes a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature ; a constitutional 
 communicativeness and wtterancy of heart and soul ; a delight in the 
 detail of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament 
 within — to count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But, above 
 all, it supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide of life, 
 — even in the lustihood of health and strength, had felt oftenest and prized 
 highest that whioh age cannot take away and which, in all our lovings, is 
 the Love ... I mean that willing sense of the insufficingness of the self for 
 itself, which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the total being of 
 another, the supplement and completion of its own; — that quiet perpetual 
 seeking which the presence of the beloved object modulates, not suspends, 
 where the heart momently finds, and, finding, again seeks on ; — lastly, 
 when ' life's changeful orb has pass'd the full,' a confirmed faith in the 
 nobleness of humanity, thus brought home and pressed, as it were, to 
 the very bosom of hourly experience ; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt rever- 
 ence for worth, not the less deep because divested of its solemnity by 
 habit, by familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of 
 
MEASURE FOR MEASURE 67 
 
 Measure for Measure is the single exception to the 
 delightfulness of Shakespeare's plays. It is a hateful 
 work, although Shakespearian throughout. Our feelings 
 of justice are grossly wounded in Angelo's escape. Isabella 
 herself contrives to be unamiable, and Claudio is detestable. 
 
 I am inclined to consider The Fox as the greatest of 
 Ben Jonson's works. But his smaller works are full of 
 poetry. 
 
 Monsieur Thomas and the Little French Lawyer are 
 great favourites of mine amongst Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 plays. How those plays overflow with wit ! And yet 
 I scarcely know a more deeply tragic scene anywhere than 
 that in Bollo, in which Edith pleads for her father's life, 
 and then, when she cannot prevail, rises up and imprecates 
 vengeance on his murderer. 1 
 
 modesty which will arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious of 
 possessing the same, or the correspondent excellence in their own charac- 
 ters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the beautiful 
 and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of love appro- 
 priates it, can call Goodness its Playfellow; and dares make sport of time 
 and infirmity, while, in the person of a thousand-f oldly endeared partner, 
 we feel for aged Virtue the caressing fondness that belongs to the Inno- 
 cence of childhood, and repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies 
 which had been dictated by the same affection to the same object when 
 attired in feminine loveliness or in manly beauty.' (Poetical Works, 
 Oxf. Edn. p. 464.)— H. N. C. 
 1 Act iii, sc. 1 : — 
 
 ' Roixo. Hew off her hands I 
 Hamond. Lady, hold off ! 
 
 Edith. No ! hew 'em ; 
 
 Hew off my innocent hands, as he commands you ! 
 They'll hang the faster on for death's convulsion. — 
 Thou seed of rocks, will nothing move thee, then ? 
 Are all my tears lost, all my righteous prayers 
 Drown'd in thy drunken wrath ? I stand up thus, then, 
 Thou boldly bloody tyrant, 
 
 And to thy face, in heav'n's high name defy thee ! 
 And may sweet mercy, when thy soul sighs for it, — 
 When under thy black mischiefs thy flesh trembles, — 
 When neither strength, nor youth, nor friends, nor gold, 
 Can stay one hour ; when thy most wretched conscience, 
 Waked from her dream of death, like fire shall melt thee, — 
 When all thy mother's tears, thy brother's wounds, 
 Thy people's fears, and curses, and my loss,' 
 P2 
 
68 TABLE TALK 
 
 Our version of the Bjble is to be loved and prized for 
 
 this, as for a thousand other things — that it has preserved 
 a purity of meaning to many terms of natural objects. 
 Without this holdfast, our vitiated imaginations would 
 refine away language to mere abstractions. Hence the 
 French have lost their poetical language ; and Mr. Blanco 
 White says the same thing has happened to the Spanish. 
 [By the way, I must say dear Mr. Sotheby's translation, 
 in the Georgics, of 
 
 Solve mares ; mitte in venerem pecuaria primus ; 
 Loose the fierce savage to the genial bed ; 
 and 
 
 Frigidus in venerem senior ; x 
 
 Nor urge reluctant to laborious love ; 
 
 are the most ludicrous instances I remember of the modern 
 slip-slop.] 
 
 I have the perception of individual images very strong, 
 but a dim one of the relation of place. I remember the 
 man or the tree, but where I saw them I mostly forget. 2 
 
 Craniology is worth some consideration, although it is 
 merely in its rudiments and guesses yet. But all the 
 
 My aged father's loss, shall stand before thee 
 
 Roixo. Save him, I say ; run, save him, save her father ; 
 
 Fly and redeem his head ! 
 Edith. May then that pity,' &c. 
 
 1 [Virg. Qe.org. Hi. 64 and 97.] 
 
 2 There was no man whose opinion in morals, or even in a matter of 
 
 feneral conduct in life, if you furnished the pertinent circumstances, 
 would have sooner adopted than Mr. Coleridge's ; but I would not 
 take him as a guide through streets or fields or earthly roads. He had 
 much of the geometrician about him j but he could not find his way. 
 In this, as in many other peculiarities of more importance, he inherited 
 strongly from his learned and excellent father, who deserves, and will, 
 I trust, obtain, a separate notice for himself when his greater son's life 
 comes to be written. I believe the beginning of Mr. C.'s liking for Dr. 
 Spurzheim was the hearty good humour with which the Doctor bore the 
 laughter of a party, in the presence of which he, unknowing of his man, 
 denied any Ideality, and awarded an unusual share of Locality, to the 
 majestic silver-haired head of my dear uncle and father-in-law. But 
 Mr. Coleridge immediately shielded the eraniologist under the distinction 
 preserved in the text, and perhaps, since that time, there may be a couple 
 of organs assigned to the latter faculty. — H. N. C. 
 
CRANIOLOGY— THE TRINITY 69 
 
 coincidences which have been observed could scarcely be 
 by accident. The confusion and absurdity, however, will 
 be endless until some names or proper terms are discovered 
 for the organs, which are not taken from their mental 
 application or significancy. The forepart of the head is 
 generally given up to the higher intellectual powers ; the 
 hinder part to the sensual emotions. 
 
 Silence does not always mark wisdom. I was at dinner, 
 some time ago, in company with a man, who listened to 
 me and said nothing for a long time ; but he nodded his 
 head, and I thought him intelligent. At length, towards 
 the, end of the dinner, some apple dumplings were placed 
 on the table, and my man had no sooner seen them, than 
 he burst forth with : ' Them 's the jockies for me ! ' I wish 
 Spurzheim could have examined the fellow's head. 
 
 Some folks apply epithets as boys do in making Latin 
 verses. When I first looked upon the Falls of the Clyde, 
 I was unable to find a word to express my feelings. At 
 last, a man, a stranger to me, who arrived about the same 
 time, said,- ' How majestic ! ' — (It was the precise term, 
 and I turned round and was saying, ' Thank you, sir ! 
 that is the exact word for it ', when he added, eodem 
 flatu) — ' Yes ! how very pretty ! ' 
 
 July 8, 1827. 
 
 BULL AND WATERLAND. — THE TRINITY. 
 
 Bull and Waterland are the classical writers on the 
 
 Trinity. 1 In the Trinity there is, 1. Ipseity. 2. Alterity. 
 
 3. Community. You may express the formula thus : 
 
 God, the absolute Will or Identity = Prothesis. 
 
 The Father = Thesis. The Son = Antithesis. The Spirit 
 
 = Synthesis. 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge's admiration of Bull and Waterland as high theologians 
 was very great. Bull he used to read in the Latin Defensio Fidei Nicaenae, 
 using the Jesuit Zola's edition of 1784, which, I think, he bought at Rome. 
 He told me once, that when he was reading a Protestant English bishop's 
 work on the Trinity, in a copy edited by an Italian Jesuit in Italy, he felt 
 proud of the Church of England, and in good humour with the Church of 
 Rome.— H. N. C. 
 
70 TABLE TALK 
 
 The author of the Athanasian Creed is unknown. It is, 
 in my judgement, heretical in the omission, or implicit 
 denial, of the Filial subordination in the Godhead, which 
 is the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, and for which Bull 
 and Waterland have so fervently and triumphantly con- 
 tended ; and by not holding to which, Sherlock staggered 
 to and fro between Tritheism and Sabellianism. This 
 creed is also tautological, and, if not persecuting, which 
 I will not discuss, certainly containing harsh and ill- 
 conceived language. 
 
 How much I regret that so many religious persons of 
 the present day think it necessary to adopt a certain cant 
 of manner and phraseology as a token to each other. 
 They must improve this and that text, and they must do 
 so and so in a prayerful way ; and so on. Why not use 
 common language ? A young lady the other day urged 
 upon me that such and such feelings were the marrow of 
 all religion ; upon which I recommended her to try to 
 walk to London upon her marrow-bones only. 
 
 July 9, 1827. 
 
 SCALE OF ANIMAL BEING. 
 
 In the very lowest link in the vast and mysterious 
 chain of Being, there is an effort, although scarcely 
 apparent, at individualization ; but it is almost lost in 
 the mere nature. A little higher up, the individual is 
 apparent and separate, but subordinate to anything in 
 man. At length, the animal rises to be on a par with the 
 lowest power of the human nature. There are some of 
 our natural desires which only remain in our most perfect 
 state on earth as means of the higher powers' acting. 1 
 
 ' These remarks seem to call for a citation of that wonderful passage, 
 transcendent alike in eloquence and philosophic depth, which the readers 
 of the Aids to Reflection have long since laid up in cedar : — 
 
 ' Every rank of creatures, as it ascends in the scale of creation, leaves 
 death behind it or under it. The metal at its height of being seems a 
 mute prophecy of the coming vegetation, into a mimic semblance of which 
 it crystallizes. The blossom and flower, the acme of vegetable life, divides 
 
POPEDOM 71 
 
 July 12, 1827. 
 
 POPEDOM. — SOANDERBEG. — THOMAS A. BEOKET. PURE 
 
 AGES OE GREEK, ITALIAN, AND ENGLISH. LUTHER. — 
 
 BAXTER. — ALGERNON SIDNEY'S STYLE. — ARIOSTO AND 
 TASSO. — PROSE AND POETRY. — THE FATHERS.- — RHEN- 
 EERD. JACOB BEHMEN. 
 
 What a grand subject for a history the Popedom is ! 
 The Pope ought never to have affected temporal sway, 
 but to have lived retired within St. Angelo, and to have 
 trusted to the superstitious awe inspired by his character 
 
 into correspondent organs with reciprocal functions, and by instinctive 
 motions and approximations seems impatient of that fixture, by which it is 
 differenced in kind from the flower-shaped Psyche that flutters with free 
 wing above it. And wonderfully in the insect realm doth the irritability, 
 the proper seat of instinct, while yet the nascent sensibility is subordinated 
 thereto, — most wonderfully, I say, doth the muscular life in the insect, 
 and the musculo-arterial in the bird, imitate and typically rehearse the 
 adaptive understanding, yea, and the moral affections and charities, of 
 man. Let us carry ourselves back, in spirit, to the mysterious week, the 
 teeming work-days of the Creator, as they rose in vision before the eye of 
 the inspired historian " of the generations of the heaven and earth, in the 
 days that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens ". And who that 
 hath watched their ways with an understanding heart, could, as the vision 
 evolving still advanced towards him, contemplate the filial and loyal bee ; 
 the home-building, wedded, and divorceless swallow ; and, above all, the 
 manifoldly intelligent ant tribes, with their commonwealths and confede- 
 racies, their warriors and miners, the husband-folk, that fold in their tiny 
 flocks on the honied leaf, and the virgin sisters with the holy instincts of 
 maternal love, detached and in selfless purity — and not say to himself, 
 Behold the shadow of approaching Humanity, the sun rising from behind, 
 in the kindling morn of creation ! Thus all lower natures find their highest 
 good in semblances and seekings of that which is higher and better. All 
 things strive to ascend, and ascend in their striving. And shall man 
 alone stoop 1 Shall his pursuits and desires, the reflections of his inward 
 life, be like the reflected image of a tree on the edge of a pool, that grows 
 downward, and seeks a mock heaven in the unstable element beneath it, 
 in neighbourhood with the slim water-weeds and oozy bottom-grass that 
 are yet better than itself and more noble, in as far as substances that 
 appear as shadows are preferable to shadows mistaken for substance ! 
 No I it must be a higher good to make you happy. While you labour for 
 any thing below your proper humanity, you seek a happy life in the region 
 of death. Well saith the moral poet : — 
 
 Unless above himself he can 
 Erect himself, how mean a thing is man ! ' 
 P. 105, 2nd edition.— H. N. C. 
 
72 TABLE TALK 
 
 and office. He spoiled his chance when he meddled in 
 the petty Italian politics. 
 
 Scanderbeg would be a very fine subject for Walter 
 Scott ; and so would Thomas a Becket, if it is not rather 
 too much for him. It involves in essence the conflict 
 between arms, or force, and the men of letters. 
 
 Observe the superior truth of language, in Greek, to 
 Theocritus inclusively ; in Latin, to the Augustan age 
 exclusively ; in Italian, to Tasso exclusively ; and in 
 English, to Taylor and Barrow inclusively. 
 
 Luther is, in parts, the most evangelical writer I know, 
 after the apostles and apostolic men. 
 
 Pray read with great attention Baxter's Life of himself. 
 It is an inestimable work. 1 I may not unfrequently doubt 
 Baxter's memory, or even his competence, in consequence 
 of his particular modes of thinking ; but I could almost 
 as soon doubt the Gospel verity as his veracity. 
 
 I am not enough read in Puritan divinity to know the 
 particular objections to the surplice, over and above the 
 general prejudice against the retenta of Popery. Perhaps 
 that was the only ground — a foolish one enough. 
 
 In my judgement Bolingbroke's style is not in any 
 respect equal to that of Cowley or Dryden. Read Algernon 
 Sidney ; his style reminds you as little of books as of 
 blackguards. What a gentleman he was ! 
 
 1 This, a very thick folio of the old sort, was one of Mr. Coleridge's 
 text-books for English Church history. He used to say that there was no 
 substitute for it in a course of study for a clergyman or public man, and 
 that the modern political Dissenters, who affected to glory in Baxter as 
 a leader, would read a bitter lecture on themselves in every page of it. In 
 a marginal note I find Mr. C. writing thus : 'Alas! in how many respects 
 does my lot resemble Baxter's ! But how much less have my bodily evils 
 been, and yet how very much greater an impediment have I suffered them 
 
 to be I But verily Baxter's labours seem miracles of supporting (trace.' 
 
 H. N. C. 6 6 
 
BURKE— NON-PERCEPTION OF COLOURS 73 
 
 Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful seems to 
 me a poor thing ; and what he says upon Taste is neither 
 profound nor accurate. 
 
 Well ! I am for Ariosto against Tasso ; though I would 
 rather praise Ariosto's poetry than his poem. 
 
 I wish our clever young poets would remember my 
 homely definitions of prose and poetry ; that is, prose = 
 words in their best order ; — poetry = the best words in 
 the best order. 
 
 I conceive Origen, Jerome, and Augustine to be the 
 three great fathers in respect of theology, and Basil, 
 Gregory Nazianzen, and Chrysostom in respect of rhetoric. 
 
 Rhenferd possessed the immense learning and robust 
 sense of Selden, with the acuteness and wit of Jortin. 
 
 Jacob Behmen remarked, that it was not wonderful 
 that there were separate languages for England, France, 
 Germany, &c. ; but rather that there was not a different 
 language for every degree of latitude. In confirmation of 
 which, see the infinite variety of languages amongst the 
 barbarous tribes of South America. 
 
 July 2d, 1827. 
 
 NON-PEKCEPTION OF COLOURS 
 
 What is said of some persons not being able to dis- 
 tinguish colours, I believe. It may proceed from general 
 weakness, which will render the differences imperceptible, 
 just as the dusk or twilight makes all colours one. This 
 defect is most usual in the blue ray, the negative pole. 
 
 I conjecture that when finer experiments have been 
 applied, the red, yellow, and orange rays will be found 
 as capable of communicating magnetic action as the other 
 
74 TABLE TALK 
 
 rays, though, perhaps, under different circumstances. 
 Remember this, if you are alive twenty years hence, and 
 think of me. 
 
 July 21, 1827. 
 
 RESTORATION. — REFORMATION. 
 
 The elements had been well shaken together during the 
 civil wars and interregnum under the Long Parliament 
 and Protectorate ; and nothing but the cowardliness and 
 impolicy of the Nonconformists, at the Restoration, could 
 have prevented a real reformation on a wider basis. But 
 the truth is, by going over to Breda with their stiff flatteries 
 to the hollow-hearted king, they put Sheldon and the 
 bishops on the side of the constitution. 
 
 The Reformation in the sixteenth century narrowed 
 Reform. As soon as men began to call themselves names, 
 all hope of further amendment was lost. 
 
 July 23, 1827. 
 
 WILLIAM HI. — BERKELEY. — SPINOZA. — GENITTS. — ENVY. — 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 William the Third was a greater and much honester man 
 than any of his ministers. I believe every one of them, 
 except Shrewsbury, has now been detected in correspon- 
 dence with James. 
 
 Berkeley can only be confuted, or answered, by one 
 sentence. So it is with Spinoza. His premiss granted, the 
 deduction is a chain of adamant. 
 
 Genius may co-exist with wildness, idleness, folly, even 
 with crime ; but not long, believe me, with selfishness, 
 and the indulgence of an envious disposition. Envy is 
 Ka'/ao-ros koX SiKaioTaToi 0eds, as I once saw it expressed 
 somewhere in a page of Stobaeus : it dwarfs and withers 
 its worshippers. 
 
LOVE— IDEAS 75 
 
 The man's desire is for the woman ; but the woman's 
 desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man. 1 
 
 August 29, 1827. 
 
 JEKEMY TAYLOR. — HOOKEK.— IDEAS. — KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor is an excellent author for a young man 
 to study, for the purpose of imbibing noble principles, 
 and at the same time of learning to exercise caution and 
 thought in detecting his numerous errors. 
 
 I must acknowledge, with some hesitation, that I think 
 Hooker has been a little over-credited for his judgement. 
 
 Take as an instance of an idea, 2 the continuity and 
 coincident distinctness of nature ; or this — vegetable life is 
 always striving to be something that it is not ; animal 
 life to be itself. Hence, in a plant the parts, as the root, 
 
 1 ' A woman's friendship,' I find written by Mr. C. on a page dyed red 
 with an imprisoned rose-leaf, ' a woman's friendship borders more closely 
 on love than man's. Men affect each other in the reflection of noble or 
 friendly acts ; whilst women ask fewer proofs, and more signs and expres- 
 sions of attachment.' — H. N. C. 
 
 2 The reader who has never studied Plato, Bacon, Kant, or Coleridge, 
 in their philosophic works, will need to be told that the word Idea is not 
 used in this passage in the sense adopted by ' Dr. Holofernes, who in a 
 lecture on metaphysics, delivered at one of the Mechanics' Institutions, 
 explodes all ideas but those of sensation ; whilst his friend, deputy Cos- 
 tard, has no idea of a better-flavoured haunch of venison, than he dined 
 off at the London Tavern last week. He admits (for the deputy has 
 travelled) that the French have an excellent idea of oooking in general ; 
 but holds that their most accomplished mail/res d» cuisine have no more 
 idea of dressing a turtle, than the Parisian gourmands themselves have 
 any real idea of the true taste and colour of the fat.' Church and State, 
 p. 78. No I what Mr. Coleridge meant by an idea in this place may be 
 expressed in various ways out of his own works. I subjoin a sufficient 
 definition from the Church and State, p. 6. ' That which, contemplated 
 objectively (that is, as existing externally to the mind), we call a law ; the 
 same contemplated subjectively (that is, as existing in a subject or mind) 
 is an idea. Hence Plato often names Ideas, Laws ; and Lord Bacon, the 
 British Plato, describes the laws of the material universe as the ideas in 
 nature, Quod in natura naturata Lex, in natura naturante Idea dicitur.' 
 A more subtle limitation of the word may be found in the last paragraph 
 of Essay (E) in the Appendix to the Statesman's Manual. — H. N. C. 
 
76 TABLE TALK 
 
 the stem, the branches, leaves, &c, remain after they 
 have each produced or contributed to produce a different 
 status of the whole plant : in an animal nothing of the 
 previous states remains distinct, but is incorporated into, 
 and constitutes progressively, the very self. 
 
 To know anything for certain is to have a clear insight 
 into the inseparability of the predicate from the subject 
 (the matter from the form), and vice versa. This is a verbal 
 definition— a real definition of a thing absolutely known 
 is impossible. I know a circle, when I perceive that the 
 equality of all possible radii from the centre to the circum- 
 ference is inseparable from the idea of a circle. 
 
 August 30, 1827. 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 Painting is the intermediate somewhat between a thought 
 and a thing. 
 
 April 13, 1830. 
 
 PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. MESSIAH. — JEWS. — 
 
 THE TRINITY. 
 
 If the prophecies of the Old Testament are not rightly 
 interpreted of Jesus our Christ, then there is no prediction 
 whatever contained in it of that stupendous event — the 
 rise and establishment of Christianity — in comparison with 
 which all the preceding Jewish history is as nothing. With 
 the exception of the book of Daniel, which the Jews them- 
 selves never classed among the prophecies, and an obscure 
 text of Jeremiah, there is not a passage in all the Old 
 Testament which favours the notion of a temporal Messiah. 
 What moral object was there, for which such a Messiah 
 should come ? What could he have been but a sort of 
 virtuous Sesostris or Buonaparte ? 
 
 I know that some excellent men — Israelites without 
 guile — do not, in fact, expect the advent of any Messiah ; 
 
THE MESSIAH— THE TRINITY 77 
 
 but believe, or suggest, that it may possibly have been 
 God's will and meaning, that the Jews should remain a 
 quiet light among the nations for the purpose of pointing 
 at the doctrine of the unity of God. To which I say, that 
 this truth of the essential unity of God has been preserved, 
 and gloriously preached, by Christianity alone. The 
 Romans never shut up their temples, nor ceased to worship 
 a hundred or a thousand gods and goddesses, at the bidding 
 of the Jews ; the Persians, the Hindus, the Chinese, learned 
 nothing of this great truth from the Jews. But from 
 Christians they did learn it in various degrees, and are 
 still learning it. The religion of the Jews is, indeed, 
 a light ; but it is as the light of the glow-worm, 
 which gives no heat, and illumines nothing but itself. 
 
 It has been objected to me, that the vulgar notions of 
 the Trinity are at variance with this doctrine ; and it was 
 added, whether as flattery or sarcasm matters not, that few 
 believers in the Trinity thought of it as I did. To which 
 again humbly, yet confidently, I reply, that my superior 
 light, if superior, consists in nothing more than this — that 
 I more clearly see that the doctrine of Trinal Unity is 
 an absolute truth transcending my human means of under- 
 standing it, or demonstrating it. I may or may not be 
 able to utter the formula of my faith in this mystery in 
 more logical terms than some others ; but this I say, Go 
 and ask the most ordinary man, a professed believer in 
 this doctrine, whether he believes in and worships a plurality 
 of Gods, and he will start with horror at the bare sugges- 
 tion. He may not be able to explain his creed in exact 
 terms ; but he will tell you that he does believe in one God, 
 and in one God only — reason about it as you may. 
 
 What all the Churches of the East and West, what 
 Romanist and Protestant believe in common, that I call 
 Christianity. In no proper sense of the word can I call 
 Unitarians and Socinians believers in Christ ; at least, not 
 in the only Christ of whom I have read or know anything. 
 
7£ TABLE TALK 
 
 April 14, 1830. 
 
 CONVERSION OF THE JEWS. — JEWS IN POLAND. 
 
 There is no hope of converting the Jews in the way and 
 with the spirit unhappily adopted by our Church ; and, 
 indeed, by all other modern Churches. In the first age, 
 the Jewish Christians undoubtedly considered themselves 
 as the seed of Abraham, to whom the promise had been 
 made ; and, as such, a superior order. Witness the account 
 of St. Peter's conduct in the Acts, 1 and the Epistle to the 
 Galatians. 2 St. Paul protested against this, so far as it went 
 to make Jewish observances compulsory on Christians who 
 were not of Jewish blood, and so far as it in any way led 
 to bottom the religion on the Mosaic covenant of works ; 
 but he never denied the birthright of the chosen seed : on 
 the contrary, he himself evidently believed that the Jews 
 would ultimately be restored : and he says : If the Gentiles 
 have been so blest by the rejection of the Jews, how much 
 rather shall they be blest by the conversion and restoration 
 of Israel ! Why do we expect the Jews to abandon their 
 national customs and distinctions ? The Abyssinian Church 
 said that they claimed a descent from Abraham ; and that, 
 in virtue of such ancestry, they observed circumcision : 
 but declaring withal, that they rejected the covenant of 
 works, and rested on the promise fulfilled in Jesus Christ. 
 In consequence of this appeal, the Abyssinians were per- 
 mitted to retain their customs. 
 
 If Pihenferd's Essays were translated — if the Jews were 
 made acquainted with the real argument — if they were 
 addressed kindly, and were not required to abandon their 
 distinctive customs and national type, but were invited 
 to become Christians as of the seed of Abraham — I believe 
 there would be a Christian synagogue in a year's time. As 
 it is, the Jews of the lower orders are the very lowest of 
 mankind ; they have not a principle of honesty in them ; 
 to grasp and be getting money for ever is their single and 
 exclusive occupation. A learned Jew once said to me, upon 
 this subject : ' sir ! make the inhabitants of Holywell 
 
 1 Chap. xv. * Chap. ii. 
 
CONVERSION OF THE JEWS 79 
 
 Street and Duke's Place Israelites first, and then we may 
 debate about making them Christians.' x 
 
 In Poland, the Jews are great landholders, and are the 
 worst of tyrants. They have no kind of sympathy with 
 their labourers and dependants. They never meet them 
 in common worship. Land, in the hand of a large number 
 of Jews, instead of being, what it ought to be, the organ 
 of permanence, would become the organ of rigidity, in 
 a nation ; by their intermarriages within their own pale, 
 it would be in fact perpetually entailed. Then, again, if 
 a popular tumult were to take place in Poland, who can 
 doubt that the Jews would be the first objects of murder 
 and spoliation ? 
 
 April 17, 1830. 
 
 MOSAIC MIRACLES. — PANTHEISM. 
 
 In the miracles of Moses, there is a remarkable inter- 
 mingling of acts, which we should nowadays call simply 
 providential, with such as we should still call miraculous. 
 The passing of the Jordan, in the third chapter of the Book 
 of Joshua, is perhaps the purest and sheerest miracle 
 recorded in the Bible ; it seems to have been wrought for 
 the miracle's sake, and so thereby to show to the Jews — 
 the descendants of those who had come out of Egypt — 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge had a very friendly acquaintance with several learned 
 Jews in this country, and he told me that, whenever he had fallen in with 
 a Jew of thorough education and literary habits, he had always found him 
 possessed of a strong natural capacity for metaphysical disquisitions. I 
 may mention here the best known of his Jewish friends, one whom he 
 deeply respected, Hyman Hurwitz. 
 
 [Mr. C. once told me that he had for a long time been amusing himself 
 with a clandestine attempt upon the faith of three or four persons, whom 
 he was in the habit of seeing occasionally. I think he was undermining, 
 at the time he mentioned this to me, a Jew, a Swedenborgian, a Roman 
 Catholic, and a New Jerusalemite, or by whatsoever other name the 
 members of that somewhat small, but very respectable, Church planted 
 in the neighbourhood of Lincoln's Inn Fields, delight to be known. He 
 said he had made most way with the disciple of Swedenborg, who 
 might be considered as a convert, that he had perplexed the Jew, and had 
 put the Roman Catholic into a bad humour ; but that upon the New 
 Jerusalemite he had made no more impression than if he had been argu- 
 ing with the man in the moon.] — H. N. C. 
 
80 TABLE TALK 
 
 that the same God who had appeared to their fathers, and 
 who had by miracles, in many respects providential only, 
 preserved them in the wilderness, was their God also. The- 
 manna and quails were ordinary provisions of Providence, 
 rendered miraculous by certain laws and qualities annexed 
 to them in the particular instance. The passage of the 
 Red Sea was effected by a strong wind, which, we are told, 
 drove back the waters ; and so on. But then, again, the 
 death of the first-born was purely miraculous. Hence, 
 then, both Jews and Egyptians might take occasion to 
 learn, that it was one and the same God who interfered 
 specially, and who governed all generally. 
 
 Take away the first verse of the book of Genesis, and 
 then what immediately follows is an exact history or sketch 
 of Pantheism. Pantheism was taught in the mysteries of 
 Greece ; of which the Samothracian or Cabeiric were 
 probably the purest and the most ancient. 
 
 April 18, 1830. 
 
 POETIC PROMISE. 
 
 In the present age it is next to impossible to predict 
 from specimens, however favourable, that a young man 
 will turn out a great poet, or rather a poet at all. Poetic 
 taste, dexterity in composition, and ingenious imitation, 
 often produce poems that are very promising in appear- 
 ance. But genius, or the power of doing something new, 
 is another thing. Mr. Tennyson's 1 sonnets, such as I have 
 seen, have many of the characteristic excellences of those 
 of Wordsworth and Southey. 
 
 April 19, 1830. 
 
 It is a small thing that the patient knows of his own 
 state ; yet some things he does know better than his 
 physician. 
 
 1 i. e. Charles Tennyson, afterwards Tennyson-Turner. 
 
POETIC PROMISE— NOMINALISTS 81 
 
 I never had, and never could feel, any horror at death, 
 simply as death. 
 
 Good and bad men are each less so than they seem. 
 April 30, 1830. 
 
 NOMINALISTS AND REALISTS. — BRITISH SCHOOLMEN. — 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 The result of my system will be, to show, that, so far 
 from the world being a goddess in petticoats, it is rather 
 the Devil in a strait waistcoat. 
 
 The controversy of the Nominalists and Realists was 
 one of the greatest and most important that ever occupied 
 the human mind. They were both right, and both wrong. 
 They each maintained opposite poles of the same truth ; 
 which truth neither of them saw, for want of a higher pre- 
 miss. Duns Scotus was the head of the Realists ; Ockham \ 
 
 1 John Duns Scotus was born in 1274, at Dunstone in the parish of 
 Emildune, near Alnwick. He was a fellow of Merton College, and Profes- 
 sor of Divinity at Oxford. After acquiring an uncommon reputation at 
 his own university, he went to Paris, and thence to Cologne, and there 
 died in 1308, at the early age of thirty-four years. He was called the 
 Subtle Doctor, and found time to compose works which now fill twelve 
 volumes in folio. See the Lyons edition, by Luke Wadding, in 1639. 
 
 William Ockham was an Englishman, and died about 1347 ; but the 
 place and year of his birth are not clearly ascertained. He was styled the 
 Invincible Doctor, and wrote bitterly against Pope John XXII. We all 
 remember Butler's account of these worthies : — 
 
 He knew what 's what, and that 'a as high 
 
 As metaphysic wit can fly ; 
 
 In school divinity as able 
 
 As he that hight Irrefragable, 
 
 A second Thomas, or at once 
 
 To name them all, another Dunse ; 
 
 Profound in all the Nominal 
 
 And Real ways beyond them all ; 
 
 For he a rope of sand could twist 
 
 As tough as learned Sorbonist. 
 
 Hudibras, part I, canto i, v. 149. 
 
 The Irrefragable Doctor was Alexander Hales, a, native of Gloucester- 
 shire who died in 1245. Amongst his pupils at Paris, was Fidanza, better 
 
 TABLE TALK G 
 
82 TABLE TALK 
 
 his own disciple, of the Nominalists. Ockham, though 
 certainly very prolix, is a most extraordinary writer. 
 
 It is remarkable, that two-thirds of the eminent school- 
 men were of British birth. It was the schoolmen who 
 made the languages of Europe what they now are. We 
 laugh at the quiddities of those writers now, but, in 
 truth, these quiddities are just the parts of their language 
 which we have rejected ; whilst we never think of the 
 mass which we have adopted, and have in daily use. 
 
 One of the scholastic definitions of God is this : Deus 
 est, cui omne quod est est esse omne quod est : as long a sen- 
 tence made up of as few words, and those as oligosyllabic, 
 as any I remember. By the by, that oligosyllabic is 
 a word happily illustrative of its own meaning, ex opposite. 
 
 Spinoza, at the very end of his life, seems to have gained 
 a glimpse of the truth. In the last letter published in his 
 works, it appears that he began to suspect his premiss. 
 His unica substantia is, in fact, a mere notion — a subject 
 of the mind, and no object at all. 
 
 Plato's works are preparatory exercises for the mind. 
 He leads you to see that propositions involving in them- 
 
 known by the name of Bonaventura, the Seraphic Doctor. The contro- 
 versy of the Realists and the Nominalists cannot be explained in a note ; 
 but in substance the original point of dispute may be thus stated. The 
 Realists held generally with Aristotle, that there were universal ideas or 
 essences impressed upon matter, and coeval with, and inherent in, their 
 objects. Plato held that these universal forms existed as exemplars in 
 the divine mind previously to, and independently of, matter ; but both 
 maintained, under one shape or other, the real existence of universal 
 forms. On the other hand, Zeno and the old Stoics denied the existence of 
 these universals, and contended that they were no more than mere terms 
 and nominal representatives of their particular objects. The Nominalists 
 were the followers of Zeno, and held that universal forms are merely 
 modes of conception, and exist solely in and for the mind. It does not 
 require much reflection to see how great an influence these different 
 systems might have upon the enunciation of the higher doctrines of 
 Christianity.— H. N. C. 
 
SCHOLASTIC DEFINITION OF GOD 83 
 
 selves contradictory conceptions are nevertheless true ; 
 and which, therefore, must belong to a higher logic — that 
 of ideas. They are contradictory only in the Aristotelian 
 logic, which is the instrument of the understanding. I have 
 read most of the works of Plato several times with pro- 
 found attention, but not all his writings. In fact, I soon 
 found that I had read Plato by anticipation. He was 
 a consummate genius. 1 
 
 My mind is in a state of philosophical doubt as to animal 
 magnetism. Von Spix, the eminent naturalist, makes 
 no doubt of the matter, and talks coolly of giving doses 
 of it. The torpedo affects a third or external object, by 
 an exertion of its own will : such a power is not properly 
 electrical ; for electricity acts invariably under the same 
 circumstances. A steady gaze will make many persons of 
 fair complexions blush deeply. Account for that. 2 
 
 1 ' This is the test and character of a truth so affirmed (a truth of the 
 reason, an Idea), that in its own proper form it ia inconceivable. For to 
 conceive is a function of the understanding, which can be exercised only 
 on subjects subordinate thereto. And yet to the forms of the understand- 
 ing all truth must be reduced, that is to be fixed as an object of reflection, 
 and to be rendered expressible. And here we have a second test and sign 
 of a truth so affirmed, that it can come forth out of the moulds of the 
 understanding only in the disguise of two contradictory conceptions, each 
 of which is partially true, and the conjunction of both conceptions becomes 
 the representative or expression (the exponent) of a truth beyond con- 
 ception and inexpressible. Examples : Before Abraham was, i am. God 
 is a circle, the centre of which is everywhere, and the circumference no- 
 where. The soul is all in every part.' Aids to Reflection, p. 224 n. See 
 also Church and State, p. 12. — H. N. C. 
 
 2 I find the following remarkable passage in p. 301, vol. i of the richly 
 annotated copy of Mr. Southey's Life of Wesley, which Mr. C. bequeathed 
 as his ' darling book and the favourite of his library ' to its great and 
 honoured author and donor : — 
 
 ' The coincidence throughout of all these Methodist cases with those of 
 the Magnetists makes one wish a solution that would apply to all. Now 
 this sense or appearance of a sense of the distant, both in time and space, 
 is common to almost all the magnetic patients in Denmark, Germany, 
 France, and North Italy, to many of which the same or a similar solution 
 could not apply. Likewise, many have been recorded at the same 
 time, in different countries, by men who had never heard of each other's 
 names, and where the simultaneity of publication proves the independence 
 of the testimony. And among the Magnetizers and Attesters are to be 
 found names of men, whose competence in respect of integrity and in- 
 capability of intentional falsehood ia fully equal to Wesley's, and 
 
 G2 
 
84 TABLE TALK 
 
 May 1, 1830. 
 
 FALL OF MAN. — MADNESS. — BROWN AND DARWIN. — NITROUS 
 
 OXIDE. 
 
 A fall of some sort or other — the creation, as it were, 
 of the non-absolute — is the fundamental postulate of the 
 moral history of man. Without this hypothesis, man is 
 unintelligible ; with it, every phenomenon is explicable. 
 The mystery itself is too profound for human insight. 
 
 Madness is not simply a bodily disease. It is the sleep 
 of the spirit with certain conditions of wakefulness, that 
 is to say, lucid intervals. During this sleep, or recession 
 of the spirit, the lower or bestial states of life rise up into 
 action and prominence. It is an awful thing to be eternally 
 tempted by the perverted senses. The reason may resist 
 
 their competence in respect of physio- and psycho-logical insight and 
 attainments incomparably greater. Who would dream, indeed, of com- 
 paring Wesley with a Cuvier, Hufeland, Blumenbach, Eschenmeyer, 
 Tteil, &c. ? Were I asked what 7 think, my answer would be, that the 
 evidence enforces scepticism and a mom liquet ; — too strong and consen- 
 taneous for a candid mind to be satisfied of its falsehood, or its solvability 
 on the supposition of imposture or casual coincidence ; too fugacious and 
 infixable to support any theory that supposes the always potential, and, 
 under certain conditions and circumstances, occasionally active, existence 
 of a correspondent faculty in the human soul. And nothing less than 
 such an hypothesis would be adequate to the satisfactory explanation of 
 the facts ; — though that of a metastasis of specific functions of the nervous 
 energy, taken in conjunction with extreme nervous excitement, plus some 
 delusion, plus some illusion, plus some imposition, plus some chances and 
 accidental coincidences, might determine the direction in which the scep- 
 ticism vibrated. Nine years has the subject of zoo-magnetism been 
 before me. I have traced it historically, collected a mass of documents in 
 French, German, Italian, and the Latinists of the sixteenth century, have 
 never neglected an opportunity of questioning eye-witnesses, e. g. Tieck, 
 Treviranus, De Prati, Meyer, and others of literary or medical celebrity, 
 and I remain where I was, and where the first perusal of Klug's work had 
 left me, without having advanced an inch backward or forward. Tre- 
 viranus, the famous botanist's reply to me, when he was in London, is 
 worth recording : — " Ich habe gesehen was (ich weiss das) ieh nicht wtirde 
 geglaubt haben auf Ihre Erzahlung," &c. " I have seen what I am 
 certain I would not have believed on your telling ; and in all reason, 
 therefore, I oan neither expect nor wish that you should believe on mine." ' 
 — H. N. C. 
 
MADNESS— DOG 85 
 
 —it does resist — for a long time ; but too often, at length, 
 it yields for a moment, and the man is mad for ever. An 
 act of the will is, in many instances, precedent to complete 
 insanity. I think it was Bishop Butler who said, that he 
 was all his life struggling against the devilish suggestions 
 of his senses, which would have maddened him, if he had 
 relaxed the stern wakefulness of his reason for a single 
 moment. 
 
 Brown's and Darwin's theories are both ingenious ; but 
 the first will not account for sleep, and the last will not 
 account for death : considerable defects, you must allow. 
 
 It is said that every excitation is followed by a com- 
 mensurate exhaustion. That is not so. The excitation 
 caused by inhaling nitrous oxide is an exception at least ; 
 it leaves no exhaustion on the bursting of the bubble. 
 The operation of this gas is to prevent the decarbonating 
 of the blood ; and, consequently, if taken excessively, it 
 would produce apoplexy. The blood becomes black as 
 ink. The voluptuous sensation attending the inhalation 
 is produced by the compression and resistance. 
 
 May 2, 1830. 
 
 PLANTS. — INSECTS. MEN. — DOG. — ANT AND BEE. 
 
 Plants exist in themselves. Insects by, or by means of, 
 themselves. Men, for themselves. The perfection of 
 irrational animals is that which is best for them ; the 
 perfection of man is that which is absolutely best. There 
 is growth only in plants ; but there is irritability, or, 
 a better word, instinctivity, in insects. 
 
 You may understand by insect, life in sections — diffused 
 generally over all the parts. 
 
 The dog alone, of all brute animals, has a a-ropyrj, or 
 affection upwards to man. 
 
86 TABLE TALK 
 
 The ant and the bee are, I think, much nearer man in 
 the understanding or faculty of adapting means to proxi- 
 mate ends than the elephant. 1 
 
 May 3, 1830. 
 
 BLACK COLONEL. 
 
 What an excellent character is the black Colonel in 
 Mrs. Bennett's Beggar Girl ! 2 
 
 If an inscription be put upon my tomb, it may be that 
 I was an enthusiastic lover of the Church ; and as enthu- 
 siastic a hater of those who have betrayed it, be they who 
 they may. 3 
 
 May 4, 1830. 
 
 HOLLAND AND THE DUTCH. 
 
 Holland and the Netherlands ought to be seen once, 
 because no other country is like them. Everything is 
 artificial. You will be struck with the combinations of 
 vivid greenery, and water, and building ; but everything 
 is so distinct and rememberable, that you would not improve 
 your conception by visiting the country a hundred times 
 over. It is interesting to see a country and a nature 
 made, as it were, by man, and to compare it with God's 
 nature. 4 
 
 1 I remember Mr. C. was acoustomed to consider the ant as the most 
 intellectual, and the dog as the most affectionate, of the irrational 
 creatures, so far as our present acquaintance with the facts of natural 
 history enables us to judge. — H. N. C. 
 
 2 This character was frequently a subject of pleasant description and 
 enlargement with Mr. Coleridge, and he generally passed from it to a high 
 commendation of Miss Austen's novels, as being in their way perfectly 
 genuine and individual productions. — H. N. C. 
 
 3 This was a strong way of expressing a deep-rooted feeling. A better 
 and a truer character would be, that Coleridge was a lover of the Church, 
 and a defender of the faith I This last expression is the utterance of a 
 conviotion so profound that it can patiently wait for time to prove its 
 truth.— H. N. C. 
 
 1 In the summer of 1828, Mr. Coleridge made an excursion with Mr. 
 
HOLLAND— WOMEN AND MEN 87 
 
 If you go, remark (indeed you will be forced to do so 
 in spite of yourself), remark, I say, the identity (for it is 
 more than proximity) of a disgusting dirtiness in all that 
 concerns the dignity of, and reverence for, the human 
 person ; and a persecuting painted cleanliness in every- 
 thing connected with property. You must not walk in 
 their gardens ; nay, you must hardly look into them. 
 
 The Dutch seem very happy and comfortable, certainly ; 
 but it is the happiness of animals. In vain do you look for 
 the sweet breath of hope and advancement among them. 1 
 
 In fact, as to their villas and gardens, they are not to 
 be compared to an ordinary London merchant's box. 
 
 May 5, 1830. 
 
 RELIGION GENTILIZES. — WOMEN AND MEN. — BIBLICAL COM- 
 MENTATORS. — WALKERITE CREED. 
 
 You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the 
 most gentlemanly thing in the world. It will alone gentilize, 
 if unmixed with cant ; and I know nothing else that will, 
 alone. Certainly not the army, which is thought to be the 
 grand embellisher of manners. 
 
 A woman's head is usually over ears in her heart. Man 
 seems to have been designed for the superior being of the 
 two ; but as things are, I think women are generally 
 better creatures than men. They have, taken universally, 
 weaker appetites and weaker intellects, but they have 
 much stronger affections. A man with a bad heart has 
 been sometimes saved by a strong head ; but a corrupt 
 woman is lost for ever. 
 
 Wordsworth in Holland, Flanders, and up the Rhine, as far as Bergen. 
 He came back delighted, especially with his stay near Bonn, but with an 
 abiding disgust at the filthy habits of the people. Upon Cologne, in 
 particular, ne avenged himself in two epigrams. See Poetical Works 
 (Oxford Edition, p. 477).— H. N. C. 
 
 1 For every gift of noble origin 
 Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath. 
 
 WoEDSWOETH. 
 
88 TABLE TALK 
 
 I never could get much information out of the biblical 
 commentators. Cocceius has told me the most ; but he, 
 and all of them, have a notable trick of passing siccissimis 
 pedibus over the parts which puzzle a man of reflection. 
 
 The Walkerite creed, or doctrine of the New Church, 
 as it is called, appears to be a miscellany of Calvinism 
 and Quakerism ; but it is hard to understand it. 
 
 May 7, 1830. 
 
 HOENE TOOKE. — DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY. — GENDER OE THE 
 
 SUN IN GERMAN. 
 
 Home Tooke was pre-eminently a ready-witted man. 
 He had that clearness which is founded on shallowness. 
 He doubted nothing ; and, therefore, gave you all that 
 he himself knew, or meant, with great completeness. His 
 voice was very fine, and his tones exquisitely discriminating. 
 His mind had no progression or development. All that is 
 worth anything (and that is but little) in the Diversions 
 of Purley is contained in a short pamphlet-letter which 
 he addressed to Mr. Dunning ; then it was enlarged to 
 an octavo, but there was not a foot of progression beyond 
 the pamphlet ; at last, a quarto volume, I believe, came 
 out ; and yet, verily, excepting newspaper lampoons and 
 political insinuations, there was no addition to the argu- 
 ment of the pamphlet. It shows a base and unpoetical 
 mind to convert so beautiful, so divine, a subject as 
 language into the vehicle or make-weight of political 
 squibs. All that is true in Home Tooke's book is taken 
 from Lennep, who gave it for so much as it was worth, 
 and never pretended to make a system of it. Tooke affects 
 to explain the origin and whole philosophy of language 
 by what is, in fact, only a mere accident of the history of 
 one language, or one or two languages. His abuse of Harris 
 is most shallow and unfair. Harris, in the Hermes, was 
 dealing — not very profoundly, it is true — with the philo- 
 sophy of language, the moral, physical, and metaphysical 
 causes and conditions of it, &c. Home Tooke, in writing 
 about the formation of words only, thought he was explain- 
 
GENDER OF THE SUN IN GERMAN 89 
 
 ing the philosophy of language, which is a very different 
 thing. In point of fact, he was very shallow in the Gothic 
 dialects. I must say, all that decantata fabula about the 
 genders of the sun and moon in German seems to me great 
 stuff. Originally, I apprehend, in the Platt-Deutsch of the 
 north of Germany there were only two definite articles — 
 die for masculine and feminine, and das for neuter. Then 
 it was die Sonne, in a masculine sense, as we say with the 
 same word as article, the sun. Luther, in constructing the 
 Hoch-Deutsch (for really his miraculous and providential 
 translation of the Bible was the fundamental act of con- 
 struction of the literary German), took for his distinct 
 masculine article the der of the Ober-Deutsch, and thus 
 constituted the three articles of the present High German, 
 der, die, das. Naturally, therefore, it would then have 
 been der Sonne ; but here the analogy of the Greek grammar 
 prevailed, and as Sonne had the arbitrary feminine termina- 
 tion of the Greek, it was left with its old article die, which, 
 originally including masculine and feminine both, had 
 grown to designate the feminine only. To the best of my 
 recollection, the Minnesingers and all the old poets always 
 use the sun as masculine ; and, since Luther's time, the 
 poets feel the awkwardness of the classical gender affixed 
 to the sun so much, that they more commonly introduce 
 Phoebus or some other synonym instead. I must acknow- 
 ledge my doubts, whether, upon more accurate investiga- 
 tion, it can be shown that there ever was a nation that 
 considered the sun in itself, and apart from language, as 
 the feminine power. The moon does not so clearly demand 
 a feminine as the sun does a masculine sex : it might be 
 considered negatively or neuter — yet if the reception of 
 its light from the sun were known, that would have been 
 a good reason for making her feminine, as being the reci- 
 pient body. 
 
 As our the was the German die, so I believe our that 
 stood for das, and was used as a neuter definite article. 
 
 The Platt-Deutsch was a compact language like the 
 English, not admitting much agglutination. The Ober- 
 Deutsch was fuller, and fonder of agglutinating words 
 together, although it was not so soft in its sounds. 
 
90 TABLE TALK 
 
 May 8, 1830. 
 
 HOBNE TOOKE. — JACOBINS. 
 
 Home Tooke said that his friends might, if they pleased, 
 go as far as Slough — he should go no farther than Hounslow ; 
 but that was no reason why he should not keep them 
 company so far as their roads were the same. The answer 
 is easy. Suppose you know, or suspect, that a man is about 
 to commit a robbery at Slough, though you do not mean 
 to be his accomplice, have you a moral right to walk arm 
 in arm with him to Hounslow, and, by thus giving him 
 your countenance, prevent his being taken up ? The 
 history of all the world tells us, that immoral means will 
 ever intercept good ends. 
 
 Enlist the interests of stern morality and religious 
 enthusiasm in the cause of political liberty, as in the 
 time of the old Puritans, and it will be irresistible ; but 
 the Jacobins played the whole game of religion, and 
 morals, and domestic happiness into the hands of the 
 aristocrats. Thank God that they did so ! England was 
 saved from civil war by their enormous, their providential, 
 blundering. 
 
 Can a politician, a statesman, slight the feelings and 
 the convictions of the whole matronage of his country ? 
 The women are as influential upon such national interests 
 as the men. 
 
 Home Tooke was always making a butt of Mr. Godwin ; 
 who, nevertheless, had that in him which Tooke could 
 never have understood. I saw a good deal of Tooke at 
 one time : he left upon me the impression of his being 
 a keen, iron man. 
 
 May 9, 1830. 
 
 PERSIAN AND ARABIC POETRY. — MILESIAN TALES. 
 
 I must acknowledge I never could see much merit in 
 the Persian poetry, which I have read in translation. 
 There is not a ray of imagination in it,. and but a glimmer- 
 
PERSIAN AND ARABIC POETRY 91 
 
 ing of fancy. It is, in fact, so far as I know, deficient in 
 truth. Poetry is certainly something more than good 
 sense, but it must be good sense, at all events ; just as 
 a palace is more than a house, but it must be a house, at 
 least. The Arabian Nights' Tales are a different thing — 
 they are delightful, but I cannot help surmising that there 
 is a good deal of Greek fancy in them. No doubt we have 
 had a great loss in the Milesian Tales. 1 The book of Job 
 is pure Arab poetry of the highest and most antique cast. 
 
 Think of the sublimity, I should rather say the pro- 
 fundity, of that passage in Ezekiel, 2 ' Son of man, can 
 these bones live ? And I answered, Lord God, thou 
 knowest.' I know nothing like it. 
 
 May 11, 1830. 
 
 SIR T. MTJNRO. — SIR S. RAFFLES. — CANNING. 
 
 Sir Thomas Munro and Sir Stamford Raffles were both 
 great men ; but I recognize more genius in the latter, 
 though, I believe, the world says otherwise. 
 
 1 The Milesiacs were so called, because written or composed by Aristides 
 of Miletus, and also because the scene of all or most of them was placed in 
 that rich and luxurious city. Harpocration cites the sixth book of this 
 collection. Nothing, I believe, is now known of the age or history of this 
 Aristides, except what may be inferred from the fact that Lucius Corne- 
 lius Sisenna translated the tales into Latin, as we learn from Ovid : — 
 
 lunxit Aristides Milesia crimina secum; 
 and afterwards, 
 
 Vertit Aristidem Sisenna, nee obfuit illi 
 Historiae turpes inseruisse iocos. 
 
 Tristia, ii. 413, 443. 
 and also from the incident mentioned in the Plutarchian life of Crassus, 
 that after the defeat at Carrhae, a copy of the Milesiacs of Aristides was 
 found in the baggage of a Roman officer, and that Surena (who, by the by, 
 if history has not done him injustice, was not a man to be over-scrupulous 
 in such a case) caused the book to be brought into the senate house of 
 Seleueia, and a portion of it read aloud, for the purpose of insulting the 
 Romans, who, even during war, he said, could not abstain from the peru- 
 sal of such infamous compositions — c. 32. The immoral character of these 
 tales, therefore, may be considered pretty clearly established ; they were 
 the Decameron and Heptameron of antiquity. — H. N. C. 
 
 2 Chap, xxxvii. v. 3. 
 
92 TABLE TALK 
 
 I never found what I call an idea in any speech or 
 
 writing of 's. Those enormously prolix harangues 
 
 are a proof of weakness in the higher intellectual grasp. 
 
 Canning had a sense of the beautiful and the good ; 
 
 rarely speaks but to abuse, detract, and degrade. I confine 
 myself to institutions, of course, and do not mean personal 
 detraction. In my judgement, no man can rightly appre- 
 hend an abuse till he has first mastered the idea of the use 
 of an institution. How fine, for example, is the idea of 
 the unhired magistracy of England, taking in and linking 
 together the duke to the country gentleman in the primary 
 distribution of justice, or in the preservation of order and 
 execution of law at least throughout the country ! Yet 
 some men never seem to have thought of it for one moment, 
 but as connected with brewers, and barristers, and tyran- 
 nical Squire Westerns ! From what I saw of Horner, 
 I thought him a superior man, in real intellectual great- 
 ness. 
 
 Canning flashed such a light around the constitution, 
 that it was difficult to see the ruins of the fabric through it. 
 
 May 12, 1830. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. — MILTON. — HOMER. 
 
 Shakespeare is the Spinozistic deity — an omnipresent 
 creativeness. Milton is the deity of prescience ; he stands 
 ah extra, and drives a fiery chariot and four, making the 
 horses feel the iron curb which holds them in. Shake- 
 speare's poetry is characterless ; that is, it does not reflect 
 the individual Shakespeare ; but John Milton himself is 
 in every line of the Paradise Lost. Shakespeare's rhymed 
 verses are excessively condensed — epigrams with the point 
 everywhere ; but in his blank dramatic verse he is diffused, 
 with a linked sweetness long drawn out. No one can 
 understand Shakespeare'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 
 Shakespeare's own. His rhythm is so perfect, that you 
 
SHAKESPEARE— HOMEE 93 
 
 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 that instead of 
 
 -the twiiui'd stones 
 
 Upon the number' d beach 
 
 in Cymbeline, 1 it ought to be read thus : 
 
 the grimed stones 
 
 Upon the umber' d beach. 
 
 So, in Henry V, 2 instead of 
 
 His mountain (or mounting) sire on mountains standings — 
 
 it ought to be read — ' his monarch sire ' — that is, Edward 
 the Third.] 
 
 I have no doubt whatever that Homer is a mere concrete 
 name for the rhapsodies of the Iliad. 2 Of course there 
 was a Homer, and twenty besides. I will engage to com- 
 pile 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 
 
 1 Acti.sc. 7. ' 2 Actii, so. 4. 
 
 ' 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.' — H. N. C. 
 
94 TABLE TALK 
 
 is a subjectivity of the persona, or dramatic character, as 
 in all Shakespeare's great creations, Hamlet, Lear, &c. 
 
 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 diffi- 
 culties 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 discrepan- 
 cies 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 
 transcendent 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 anything which 
 he thought he could not use in the pulpit. I told him the 
 certain consequence would be, that he would fall into 
 
THE THREE PATRIARCHS— JACOB 95 
 
 grievous errors. Sometimes he has five or six pages 
 together of the purest eloquence, and then an outbreak 
 of almost madman's babble. 1 
 
 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 Arab 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. 2 Isaac 
 does it beforehand, and without any apparent necessity. 
 
 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 
 
 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 for- 
 gotten, Irving's name will live in the splendid eulogies of his friend. See 
 Church and State, p. 180 ».— H. N. 0. 
 
 2 Gen. xxvi. 6. 
 
96 TABLE TALK 
 
 abstinence which we have a right to demand from Chris- 
 tians. Jacob is always careful not to commit any violence ; 
 he shudders at bloodshed. See his demeanour after the 
 vengeance taken on the Shechemites. 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. 
 
 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 
 it to, 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 
 
 1 Gen. xxxiv. 
 
LORD ELDON'S DOCTRINE 97 
 
 of the history and literature of the sixteenth century. 
 Ben Jonson uses the term ' grammar ' without any refer- 
 ence to the learned languages. 
 
 It is intolerable when men, who have no other know- 
 ledge, have not even a competent understanding of that 
 world in which they are always living, and to which they 
 refer everything. 
 
 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 con- 
 spicuously as another. 
 
 A democracy, according to the prescript of pure reason, 
 would, in fact, be a church. There would be 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 PRO- 
 PHECIES. 
 
 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.; 1 but the beginning had been much earlier. 
 In Clement, indeed, the mystery is treated as it was treated 
 by St. John and St. 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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.' — H. N. C. 
 
 TABLE TALK H 
 
98 TABLE TALK 
 
 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 evan- 
 gelist 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 be 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 irre- 
 sistible against the low sacramentary doctrine. 
 
 The sacrament of baptism applies itself, and has refer- 
 ence to the faith or conviction, and is, therefore, only 
 to be performed once — it is the fight of man. The sacra- 
 ment 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, el /x.^ ty a-oi SeSo/xevov 
 avwOev, ' 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 mean- 
 ing, where is the force or connexion of the following clause, 
 Sia tovto, ' 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 
 
MEANING OF A PASSAGE IN ST. JOHN 99 
 
 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 — igovo-iav 
 — over Him, if it had not been given by the Sanhedrim, 
 the av<« fiovXr), 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 ass\iming 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. 1 ' 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 
 
 1 Matt. xxvi. 63 ; Markxiv. 61. 
 H 2 
 
100 TABLE TALK 
 
 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 polygamizing. Now, 
 would such prohibitions have been fabricated in those 
 kings' reigns, or afterwards ? Impossible. 
 
 The manner of the predictions of Moses is very remark- 
 able. 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 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL AND FUNCTIONAL LIFE 101 
 
 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 dis- 
 order 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 counter- 
 feiting so many diseases — even death itself. 
 
 Hydro-carbonic gas produces the most death-like exhaus- 
 tion, without any previous excitement. I think this gas 
 should be inhaled by way of experiment in cases of hydro- 
 phobia. 
 
 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 
 
102 TABLE TALK 
 
 of a bitter and a tonic ; but no perfect medical combina- 
 tion 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 COLOSSI ANS. — 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 pre- 
 cepts 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 judgement, 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 26th 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. 
 
 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 
 
 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. — H. N. C. 
 
FLOGGING— THE AMERICANS 103 
 
 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 absur- 
 dity ; 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 ! — 
 
 *fi f38ekvpe, KavaioyyVTi, koli Tokpvrjpk tru, 
 Km fuape, Kal Trap.fJi.tape, Kal puapioTare. 
 
 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, Jackanapes ! Why I could go on 
 for a minute more ! 
 
 May 28, 1830. 
 
 THE AMEBIC ANS. 
 
 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 
 anything said of them in any other country. The Americans 
 are excessively pleased with any kind or favourable expres- 
 sions, and never forgive or forget any slight or abuse. It 
 would be better for them if they were a trifle thicker- 
 skinned. 
 
 1 In The Frogs.— H. N. C. 
 
104 TABLE TALK 
 
 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, 1 
 ' I know that my Redeemer liveth,' &c, may fairly be 
 taken as a burst of determination, a quasi prophecy. 
 ' I know not how this can be ; but in spite of all my diffi- 
 culties, this I do know, that I shall be recompensed.' 
 
 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 circiiitor, the accusing spirit, a dramatic attorney- 
 general. But after the prologue, which was necessary to 
 
 1 Chap. xix. 25, 26. 
 
THE BOOK OF JOB 105 
 
 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 connexion 
 and force of the sentences would have been better perceived. 1 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge, like so many of the elder divines of the Christian 
 Church, had an affectionate reverence for the moral and evangelical por- 
 tion 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 pro- 
 phetic or allusive character so largely as is done by Home 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 
 1 note upon the 22nd Psalm written by himself, I believe, many years pre- 
 viously, but which, he said, he approved at that time. It will find as 
 appropriate a niche here as anywhere 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 22nd 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 men- 
 tally, 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, 
 
106 TABLE TALK. 
 
 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 prob- 
 ability, I owned that that might admit some question ; but 
 as to the want of a moral, I told her that in my own judge- 
 ment 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 
 
 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.' — H. N. C. 
 
 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 down 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 threaten- 
 ing 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 ! " — 
 " 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 port- 
 manteau, 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 
 
UNDINE— MARTIN 107 
 
 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. 
 
 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 
 
 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. 2 
 
 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. — H. N. C. 
 
 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. — H. N. C. 
 
 2 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. 
 
108 TABLE TALK. 
 
 The wood-cut of Slay-good x 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. 2 
 
 June 1, 1830. 
 
 PEAYEE. — CHUECH-SINGING. — HOOKEE. — DEEAMS. 
 
 There are three sorts of prayer : ] . Public ; 2. Domestic ; 
 3. Solitary. Each has its peculiar uses and character. I 
 think the Church ought to publish and authorize a directory 
 of forms for the latter two. Yet I fear the execution would 
 
 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. — H. N. C. 
 
 1 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.' — H. N. C. 
 
 2 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, acoording to my judgement and ex- 
 perience, 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 
 theohgiae evangelicae ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired. ' 
 June 14, 1830.— H. N. C. 
 
PRAYER— CHURCH SINGING 109 
 
 be inadequate. There is a great decay of devotional unction 
 in the numerous books of prayers put out nowadays. 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 atten- 
 tion 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 ! 
 
 1 ' I will add, at the risk of appearing to dwell too long on religious 
 topics, that on this my first introduction to Coleridge, he reverted with 
 strong compunction to a sentiment which he had expressed in earlier days, 
 upon prayer. In one of his youthful poems, speaking of God, he had said, — 
 — Of whose all-seeing eye 
 Aught to demand were impotence of mind. 
 This sentiment he now so utterly condemned, that, on the contrary, he 
 told me, as his own peculiar opinion, that the act of praying was the very 
 highest energy of which the human heart was capable ; praying, that is, 
 with the total concentration of the faculties ; and the great mass of 
 worldly men, and of learned men, he pronounced absolutely incapable of 
 prayer.' — Tait's Magazine, September 1834, p. 515. 
 
 Mr. Coleridge within two years of his death very solemnly declared to 
 me his conviction upon the same subject. I was sitting by his bedside one 
 afternoon, and he fell, an unusual thing for him, into a long account of 
 many passages of his past life, lamenting some things, condemning others, 
 but complaining withal, though very gently, of the way in which many 
 of his most innocent acts had been cruelly misrepresented. ' But I have 
 no difficulty,' said he, ' in forgiveness ; indeed, I know not how to say 
 with sincerity the clause in the Lord's Prayer, which asks forgiveness 
 as we forgive. I feel nothing answering to it in my heart. Neither do I 
 find, or reckon, the most solemn faith in God as a real object, the most ar- 
 duous act of the reason and will. no, my dear, it is to pray, to pray, as 
 God would have us ; this is what at times makes me turn cold to my soul. 
 Believe me, to pray with all your heart and strength, with the reason and 
 the will, to believe vividly that God will listen to your voice through 
 Christ, and verily do the thing he pleaseth thereupon — this is the last, 
 the greatest achievement of the Christian warfare upon earth. Teach us 
 to pray, O Lord ! ' And then he burst into a flood of tears, and begged me 
 to pray for him. O what a sight was there ! — H. N. C. 
 
110 TABLE TALK. 
 
 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 Refor- 
 mation 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. No 
 doubt this defect in our service proceeded from the dread 
 which the English Reformers had of being charged with 
 introducing anything into the worship of God but the text 
 of Scripture. 
 
 Hooker said, that by looking for that in the Bible which 
 it is impossible that any book can have, we lose the benefits 
 which we might reap from its being the best of all books. 
 
 You will observe, that even in dreams nothing is fancied 
 without an antecedent quasi cause. It could not be 
 otherwise. 
 
 June 4, 1830. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. — ENGLISH REFORMATION. 
 
 Taylor's 1 was a great and lovely mind ; yet how much 
 and injuriously was it perverted by his being a favourite 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge placed Jeremy Taylor amongst the four great geniuses 
 of old English literature. I think he used to reckon Shakespeare and 
 Bacon, Milton and Taylor, four-square, each against each. In mere 
 eloquence, he thought the Bishop without any fellow. He called him 
 Chrysostom. Further, he loved the man, and was anxious to find excuses 
 for some weak parts in his character. But Mr. Coleridge's assent to 
 Taylor's views of many of the fundamental positions of Christianity was 
 very limited ; and, indeed, he considered him as the least sound in point of 
 doctrine of any of the old divines, comprehending, within that designa- 
 tion, the writers to the middle of Charles II's reign. He speaks of Taylor 
 in The Friend, in the following terms : ' Among the numerous examples 
 with which I might enforce this warning, I refer, not without reluctance, 
 to the most eloquent, and one of the most learned, of our divines ; a 
 rigorist, indeed, concerning the authority of the Church, but a latitudi- 
 narian in the articles of its faith ; who stretched the latter almost to the 
 advanced posts of Socinianism, and strained the former to a hazardous 
 conformity with the assumptions of the Roman hierarchy.' Vol. ii, t>. 108. 
 H. N. C. F 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR. Ill 
 
 and follower of Laud, and by his intensely popish feelings 
 of Church authority. His Liberty of Prophesying is a work 
 of wonderful eloquence and skill ; but if we believe the 
 argument, what do we come to ? Why, to nothing more 
 or less than this, that — so much can be said for every 
 opinion and sect — so impossible is it to settle anything by 
 reasoning or authority of Scripture — we must appeal to 
 some positive jurisdiction on earth, ut sit finis controver- 
 siarum. In fact, the whole book is the precise argument 
 used by the Papists to induce men to admit the necessity 
 of a supreme and infallible head of the Church on earth. 
 It is one of the works which pre-eminently gives coun- 
 tenance to the saying of Charles or James II, I forget 
 which : ' When you of the Church of England contend 
 with the Catholics, .you use the arguments of the Puritans ; 
 when you contend with the Puritans, you immediately 
 adopt all the weapons of the Catholics.' Taylor never 
 speaks with the slightest symptom of affection or respect 
 of Luther, Calvin, or any other of the great reformers — at 
 least, not in any of his learned works ; but he saints every 
 trumpery monk and friar, down to the very latest canoni- 
 zations by the modern popes. I fear you will think me 
 harsh, when I say that I believe Taylor was, perhaps 
 unconsciously, half a Socinian in heart. Such a strange 
 inconsistency would not be impossible. The Romish Church 
 has produced many such devout Socinians. The cross of 
 Christ is dimly seen in Taylor's works. Compare him in 
 this particular with Donne, and you will feel the difference 
 in a moment. Why are not Donne's volumes of sermons 
 reprinted at Oxford ? 1 
 
 In the reign of Edward VI the Reformers feared to 
 admit almost anything on human authority alone. They 
 
 1 Why not, indeed ! It is really quite unaccountable that the sermons 
 of this great divine of the English Church should be so little known as 
 they are, even to very literary clergymen of the present day. It might 
 have been expected, that the sermons of the greatest preacher of his age, 
 the admired of Ben Jonson, Selden, and all that splendid band of poets and 
 scholars .would even as curiosities have been reprinted, when works, which 
 are curious for nothing, are every year sent forth afresh under the most 
 authoritative auspices. Dr. Donne was educated at both universities, 
 at Hart Hall, Oxford, first, and afterwards at Cambridge, but at what 
 college Walton does not mention. — H. N. C. 
 
112 TABLE TALK. 
 
 had seen and felt the abuses consequent on the popish 
 theory of Christianity ; and I doubt not they wished and 
 intended to reconstruct the religion and the Church, as 
 far as was possible, upon the plan of the primitive ages. 
 But the Puritans pushed this bias to an absolute biblio- 
 latry. They would not put on a corn-plaster without 
 scraping a text over it. Men of learning, however, soon 
 felt that this was wrong in the other extreme, and indeed 
 united itself to the very abuse it seemed to shun. They 
 saw that a knowledge of the Fathers, and of early tradition, 
 was absolutely necessary ; and unhappily, in many in- 
 stances, the excess of the Puritans drove the men of learn- 
 ing into the old popish extreme of denying the Scriptures 
 to be capable of affording a rule of faith without the dogmas 
 of the Church. I Taylor is a striking instance how far a Pro- 
 testant might be driven in this direction. 
 
 June 6, 1830. 
 
 CATHOLICITY. — GNOSIS. — TERTULLIAN. — ST. JOHN. 
 
 In the first century, catholicity was the test of a book 
 or epistle — whether it were of the Evangelicon or Apos- 
 tolicon — being canonical. This catholic spirit was opposed 
 to the gnostic or peculiar spirit — the humour of fantastical 
 interpretation of the old Scriptures into Christian meanings. 
 It is this gnosis, or hnowingness, which the Apostle says 
 pufleth up — not knowledge, as we translate it. The Epistle 
 of Barnabas, of the genuineness of which I have no sort 
 of doubt, is an example of this gnostic spirit. The Epistle 
 to the Hebrews is the only instance of gnosis in the canon : 
 it was written evidently by some apostolical man before 
 the destruction of the Temple, and probably at Alexandria. 
 For three hundred years, and more, it was not admitted 
 into the canon, especially not by the Latin Church, on 
 account of this difference in it from the other Scriptures. 
 But its merit was so great, and the gnosis in it is so kept 
 within due bounds, that its admirers at last succeeded, 
 especially by affixing St. Paul's name to it, to have it 
 included in the canon ; which was first done, I think, by 
 
CATHOLICITY— PRINCIPLES OP A REVIEW 113 
 
 the council of Laodicea in the middle of the fourth century. 
 Fortunately for us it was so. 
 
 I beg Tertullian's pardon ; but amongst his many 
 bravuras, he says something about St. Paul's autograph. 
 Origen expressly declares the reverse. 
 
 It is delightful to think, that the beloved apostle was 
 born a Plato. To him was left the almost oracular utterance 
 of the mysteries of the Christian religion ; 1 while to St. Paul 
 was committed the task of explanation, defence, and asser- 
 tion of all the doctrines, and especially of those meta- 
 physical ones touching the will and grace ; for which 
 purpose his active mind, his learned education, and his 
 Greek logic, made him pre-eminently fit. 
 
 June 7, 1830. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF A REVIEW. — PARTY-SPIRIT. 
 
 Notwithstanding what you say, I am persuaded that a 
 review would amply succeed even now, which should be 
 started upon a published code of principles, critical, moral, 
 political, and religious ; which should announce what sort 
 of books it would review, namely, works of literature as 
 contradistinguished from all that offspring of the press, 
 which in the present age supplies food for the craving 
 caused by the extended ability of reading without any 
 correspondent education of the mind, and which formerly 
 was done by conversation, and which should really give 
 a fair account of what the author intended to do, and in 
 his own words, if possible, and in addition, afford one or 
 two fair specimens of the execution, — itself never descending 
 for one moment to any personality. It should also be 
 provided before the commencement with a dozen powerful 
 articles upon fundamental topics to appear in succession, 
 [By such a plan I raised the sale of the Morning Post from 
 
 1 ' The imperative and oracular form of the inspired Scripture is the 
 form of reason itself in all things purely rational and moral.' — Statesman's 
 Manual, p. 22. 
 
 TABLE TALK I 
 
114 TABLE TALK 
 
 an inconsiderable number to 7,000 a day, in the course of 
 one year.] You see the great reviewers are now ashamed 
 of reviewing works in the old style, and have taken up 
 essay writing instead. Hence arose such publications as 
 the Literary Gazette and others, which are set up for the 
 purpose — not a useless one — of advertising new books of 
 all sorts for the circulating libraries. A mean between the 
 two extremes still remains to be taken. [I profoundly 
 revere Blanco White ; his Doblado's Letters are exquisite ; 
 but his Review 1 was commenced without a single apparent 
 principle to direct it, and with the absurd disclaimer of 
 certain public topics of discussion.] 
 
 Party men always hate a slightly differing friend more 
 than a downright enemy. I quite calculate on my being 
 one day or other holden in worse repute by many Christians 
 than the Unitarians and open infidels. It must be under- 
 gone by every one who loves the truth for its own sake 
 beyond all other things. 
 
 Truth is a good dog ; but beware of barking too close 
 to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out. 
 
 June 10, 1830. 
 
 SOUTHEY'S LIFE OF BUNYAN. — LAUD. — PURITANS AND CAVA- 
 LIERS. — PRESBYTERIANS, INDEPENDENTS, AND BISHOPS. 
 
 Southey's Life of Bunyan is beautiful. I wish he had 
 illustrated that mood of mind which exaggerates, and still 
 more, mistakes, the inward depravation, as in Bunyan, 
 Nelson, and others, by extracts from Baxter's Life of him- 
 self. What genuine superstition is exemplified in that 
 bandying of texts and half-texts, and demi-semi-texts, 
 just as memory happened to suggest them, or chance 
 brought them before Bunyan's mind ! His tract, entitled, 
 Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners, 2 is a study for 
 
 1 The London Review, of which two numbers appeared in 1828, 1829 
 
 H.N. C. 
 
 2 Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners, in a faithful Account of the Life 
 and Death of John Bunyan, &c. 
 
LAUD— BUNYAN 115 
 
 a philosopher. Is it not, however, an historical error to 
 call the Puritans dissenters ? Before St. Bartholomew's 
 day, they were essentially a part of the Church, and had 
 as determined opinions in favour of a Church establishment 
 as the bishops themselves. 
 
 Laud was not exactly a Papist to be sure ; but he was 
 on the road with the Church with him to a point, where 
 declared popery would have been inevitable. A wise and 
 vigorous Papist king would very soon, and very justifiably 
 too, in that case, have effected a reconciliation between 
 the Churches of Rome and England, when the line of 
 demarcation had become so very faint. 
 
 The faults of the Puritans were many ; but surely their 
 morality will, in general, be^r comparison with that of the 
 Cavaliers after the Restoration. 
 
 The Presbyterians hated the Independents much more 
 than they did the bishops, which induced them to co-operate 
 in effecting the Restoration. 
 
 The conduct of the bishops towards Charles, whilst at 
 Breda, was wise and constitutional. They knew, however, 
 that when the forms of the constitution were once restored, 
 all their power would revive again as of course. 
 
 June 14, 1830. 
 
 STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Intense study of the Bible will keep any writer from 
 being vulgar, in point of style. 
 
 June 15, 1830. 
 
 RABELAIS. SWIFT. — BENTLEY. — BURNET. 
 
 Rabelais is a most wonderful writer. Pantagruel is th> 
 Reason ; Panurge the Understanding,— the pollarded man, 
 
 12 
 
116 TABLE TALK 
 
 the man with every faculty except the reason. I scarcely 
 know an example more illustrative of the distinction between 
 the two. Rabelais had no mode of speaking the truth in 
 those days but in such a form as this ; as it was, he was 
 indebted to the king's protection for his life. Some of the 
 commentators talk about his book being all political ; there 
 are contemporary politics in it, of course, but the real scope 
 is much higher and more philosophical. It is in vain to 
 look about for a hidden meaning in all that he has written ; 
 you will observe that, after any particularly deep thrust, 
 as the Papimania, 1 for example, Rabelais, as if to break 
 the blow, and to appear unconscious of what he has done, 
 writes a chapter or two of pure buffoonery. He, every 
 now and then, flashes you a glimpse of a real face from his 
 magic lantern, and then buries the whole scene in mist. 
 The morality of the work is of the most refined and exalted 
 kind ; as for the manners, to be sure, I cannot say much. 
 
 Swift was anima Rabelaisii habitans in sicco — the soul 
 of Rabelais dwelling in a dry place. 
 
 Yet Swift was rare. Can anything beat his remark 
 on King William's motto, Eecepit, non rapuit, ' that the 
 receiver was as bad as the thief ' ? 
 
 The effect of the Tory wits attacking Bentley with such 
 acrimony has been to make them appear a set of shallow 
 and incompetent scholars. Neither Bentley nor Burnet 
 suffered from the hostility of the wits. Burnet's History 
 of his Own Times is a truly valuable book. His credulity 
 is great, but his simplicity is equally great ; and he never 
 deceives you for a moment. 
 
 June 25, 1830. 
 
 GIOTTO. — PAINTING. 
 
 The fresco paintings by Giotto 2 and others, in the 
 cemetery at Pisa, are most noble. Giotto was a contem- 
 
 * Book iv, chap, xlviii. ' Comment Pantagruel descendit en l'lsle de 
 Papimanes.' See the five following chapters, especially chap. 1 ; and 
 note also chap, ix of the fifth book : ' Comment nous fut monstre Papegaut 
 a grande difficult.'— H. N. C. 
 
 * Giotto, or Angiolotto's birth is fixed by Vasari in 1276, but there is 
 
GIOTTO— PAINTING— SENECA 117 
 
 porary of Dante : and it is a curious question, whether the 
 painters borrowed from the poet, or vice versa. Certainly 
 M. Angelo and Raffael fed their imaginations highly with 
 these grand drawings, especially M. Angelo, who took 
 from them his bold yet graceful lines. 
 
 People may say what they please about the gradual 
 improvement of the arts. It is not true of the substance. 
 The Arts and the Muses both spring forth in the youth 
 of nations, like Minerva from the front of Jupiter, all 
 armed : manual dexterity may, indeed, be improved by 
 practice. 
 
 Painting went on in power till, in Raffael, it attained 
 the zenith, and in him too it showed signs of a tendency 
 downwards by another path. The painter began to think 
 of overcoming difficulties. After this the descent was rapid, 
 till sculptors began to work inveterate likenesses of peri- 
 wigs in marble — as see Algarotti's tomb in the cemetery 
 at Pisa — and painters did nothing but copy, as well as 
 they could, the external face of nature. Now, in this age, 
 we have a sort of reviviscence, — not, I fear, of the power, 
 but of a taste for the power, of the early times. 
 
 June 26, 1830. 
 
 SENECA. 
 
 You may get a motto for every sect in religion, or line 
 of thought in morals or philosophy, from Seneca ; but 
 nothing is ever thought out by him. 
 
 some reason to think that he was born a little earlier. Dante, who was 
 his friend, was born in 1265. Giotto was the pupil of Cimabue, whom 
 he entirely eclipsed, as Dante testifies in the well-known lines in the 
 Purgatorio : 
 
 O vanagloria dell' umane posse ! 
 
 Com' pooo verde in su la cima dura, 
 
 Se non e giunta dall' etati grosse ! 
 Credette Cimabue nella pintura 
 
 Tener lo campo : ed ora ha Giotto il grido, 
 
 Si che la fama di colui e oscura. — Canto xi, v. 91. 
 His six great frescoes in the cemetery at Pisa are upon the sufferings and 
 patience of Job. — H. N. C. 
 
118 TABLE TALK 
 
 July 2, 1830. 
 
 PLATO. — ARISTOTLE. 
 
 Every man is born an Aristotelian, or a Platonist. I do 
 not think it possible that any one born an Aristotelian can 
 become a Platonist ; and I am sure no born Platonist can 
 ever change into an Aristotelian. They are the two classes 
 of men, beside which it is next to impossible to conceive 
 a third. The one considers reason a quality, or attribute ; 
 the other considers it a power. I believe that Aristotle 
 never could get to understand what Plato meant by an idea. 
 There is a passage, indeed, in the Eudemian Ethics which 
 looks like an exception ; but I doubt not of its being 
 spurious, as that whole work is supposed by some to be. 
 With. Plato ideas are constitutive in themselves. 1 
 
 Aristotle was, and still is, the sovereign lord of the under- 
 standing ; the faculty judging by the senses. He was a 
 conceptualist, and never could raise himself into that higher 
 state, which was natural to Plato, and has been so to others, 
 in which the understanding is distinctly contemplated, 
 and, as it were, looked down upon from the throne of 
 actual ideas, or living, inborn, essential truths. 
 
 Yet what a mind was Aristotle's — only not the greatest 
 that ever animated the human form ! — the parent of 
 science, properly so called, the master of criticism, and the 
 founder or editor of logic ! But he confounded science 
 with philosophy, which is an error. Philosophy is the 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge said the Eudemian Ethics ; but I half suspect he must 
 have meant the Metaphysics, although I do not know that all the fourteen 
 books under that title have been considered non-genuine. The 'Iiei«d 
 EiSfifid a are not Aristotle's. To what passage in particular allusion is 
 here made, I cannot exactly say ; many might be alleged, but not one 
 seems to express the true Platonic idea, as Mr. Coleridge used to under- 
 stand it ; and as, I believe, he ultimately considered ideas in his own 
 philosophy. Fourteen or fifteen years previously, he seems to havo been 
 undecided upon this point. ' Whether ', he says, ' ideas are regulative 
 only, according to Aristotle and Kant ; or likewise constitutive, and one 
 with the power and life of nature, according to Plato and Plotinus ( — iv 
 \6-fcp (ait/ t)V, teal f/ (ai) jjv t6 ipais tSiv avepanraiv — ), is the highest problem 
 of philosophy, and not part of its nomenclature.' Essay (E) in the 
 Appendix to the Statesman's Manual, 1816. — H. N. C. 
 
ARISTOTLE— BOURRIENNE 119 
 
 middle state between science, or knowledge, and sophia, or 
 wisdom. 
 
 July 4. 1830. 
 
 _DUKE OF WELLINGTON. MONEYED INTEREST.— CANNING. 
 
 I sometimes fear the Duke of Wellington is too much 
 disposed to imagine that he can govern a great nation by 
 word of command, in the same way in which he governed 
 a highly disciplined army. He seems to be unaccustomed 
 to, and to despise, the inconsistencies, the weaknesses, the 
 bursts of heroism followed by prostration and cowardice, 
 which invariably characterize all popular efforts. He 
 forgets that, after all, it is from such efforts that all the 
 great and noble institutions of the world have come ; and 
 that, on the other hand, the discipline and organization 
 of armies have been only like the flight of the cannon-ball, 
 the object of which is destruction. 1 
 
 The stock-jobbing and moneyed interest js so strong in 
 this country, that it has more than once prevailed in our 
 foreign councils over national honour and national justice. 
 The country gentlemen are not slow to join in this influence. 
 Canning felt this very keenly, and said he was unable to 
 contend against the city trained-bands. 
 
 July 6, 1830. 
 
 BOUKBIENNE. 
 
 Bourrienne is admirable. He is the French Pepys, — 
 a man with right feelings, but always wishing to participate 
 in what is going on, be it what it may. He has one remark, 
 when comparing Buonaparte with Charlemagne, the sub- 
 stance of which I have attempted to express in The Friend? 
 
 1 Straight forward goes 
 The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path 
 Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid, 
 Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches. 
 
 WaUenstein, Part I, Act. i, sc. 4. 
 
 2 Vol. i, Essay 12, p. 133. 
 
120 TABLE TALK 
 
 but which Bourrienne has condensed into a sentence worthy 
 of Tacitus, or Machiavel, or Bacon. It is this ; that 
 Charlemagne was above his age, whilst Buonaparte was 
 only above his competitors, but under his age ! Bour- 
 rienne has done more than any one else to show Buonaparte 
 to the world as he really was, — always contemptible, except 
 when acting a part, and that part not his own. 
 
 July 8, 1830. 
 
 JEWS. 
 
 The other day I was what you would call floored by 
 a Jew. He passed me several times crying out for old 
 clothes in the most nasal and extraordinary tone I ever 
 heard. At last I was so provoked, that I said to him, 
 ' Pray, why can't you say " old clothes " in a plain way 
 as I do now ? ' The Jew stopped, and looking very gravely 
 at me, said in a clear and even fine accent, ' Sir, I can say 
 " old clothes " as well as you can ; but if you had to say 
 so ten times a. minute, for an hour together, you would 
 say Ogh Glo as I do now ' ; and so he marched off. I was 
 so confounded with the justice of his retort, that I followed 
 and gave him a shilling, the only one I had. 
 
 I have had a good deal to do with Jews in the course 
 of my life, although I never borrowed any money of them. 
 Once I sat in a coach opposite a Jew — a symbol of old 
 clothes' bags— an Isaiah of Holywell Street. He would 
 close the window ; I opened it. He closed it again ; upon 
 which, in a very solemn tone, I said to him, ' Son of Abra- 
 ham ! thou smellest ; son of Isaac ! thou art offensive ; 
 son of Jacob ! thou stinkest foully. See the man in the 
 moon ! he is holding his nose at thee at that distance ; 
 dost thou think that I, sitting here, can endure it any 
 longer ? ' My Jew was astounded, opened the window 
 forthwith himself, and said, 'he was sorry he did not 
 know before I was so great a gentleman '. 
 
THE REFORMATION— LEO X 121 
 
 July 24, 1830. 
 
 THE PAPACY AND THE REFORMATION. — LEO X. 
 
 During the early part of the Middle Ages, the papacy 
 was nothing, in fact, but a confederation of the learned 
 men in the west of Europe against the barbarism and 
 ignorance of the times. The Pope was chief of this con- 
 federacy ; and so long as he retained that character 
 exclusively, his power was just and irresistible. It was 
 the principal mean of preserving for us and for our posterity 
 all that we now have of the illumination of past ages< 
 But as soon as the Pope made a separation between his 
 character as premier clerk in Christendom and as a secular 
 prince ; as soon as he began to squabble for towns and 
 castles ; then he at once broke the charm, and gave birth 
 to a revolution. From that moment, those who remained 
 firm to the cause of truth and knowledge became necessary 
 enemies to the Roman See. The great British sfihoolmen 
 led the way ; then Wicliffe rose, Huss, Jerome, and 
 others ; — in short, everywhere, but especially throughout 
 the north of Europe, the breach of feeling and sympathy 
 went on widening, — so that all Germany, England, Scotland, 
 and other countries started like giants out of their sleep 
 at the first blast of Luther's trumpet. In France, one-half 
 of the people — and that the most wealthy and enlightened 
 — embraced the Reformation. The seeds of it were deeply 
 and widely spread in Spain and in Italy ; and as to the latter, 
 if James I had been an Elizabeth, I have no doubt at all 
 that Venice would have publicly declared itself against 
 Rome. It is a profound question to answer, why it is, 
 that since the middle of the sixteenth century the Reforma- 
 tion has not advanced one step in Europe. 
 
 In the time of Leo X atheism, or infidelity of some sort, 
 was almost universal in Italy amongst the high dignitaries 
 of the Romish Church. 
 
122 TABLE TALK 
 
 July 27, 1830. 
 
 THELWALL. — SWIFT. — STELLA. 
 
 John Thelwall had something very good about him. 
 We were once sitting in a beautiful recess in the Quantocks, 
 when I said to him, ' Citizen John, this is a fine place to 
 talk treason in ! ' — ' Nay ! Citizen Samuel,' replied he, 
 ' it is rather a place to make a man forget that there is 
 any necessity for treason ! ' 
 
 Thelwall thought it very unfair to influence a child's 
 mind by inculcating any opinions before it should have 
 come to years of discretion, and be able to choose for 
 itself. I showed him my garden, and told him it was my 
 botanical garden. ' How so ? ' said he, ' it is covered 
 with weeds'. — 'Oh,' I replied, 'that is only because it 
 has not yet come to its age of discretion and choice. The 
 weeds, you see, have taken the liberty to grow, and 
 I thought it unfair in me to prejudice the soil towards roses 
 and strawberries.' 
 
 I think Swift adopted the name of Stella, which is 
 a man's name, with a feminine termination, to denote the 
 mysterious epicene relation in which poor Miss Johnston 
 stood to him. 
 
 July 28, 1830. 
 
 INIQUITOUS LEGISLATION. 
 
 That legislation is iniquitous which sets law in conflict 
 with the common and unsophisticated feelings of our 
 nature. If I were a clergyman in a smuggling town, 
 I would not preach against smuggling. I would not be 
 made a sort x>f clerical revenue officer. Let the Govern- 
 ment, which by absurd duties fosters smuggling, prevent 
 it itself, if it can. How could I- show my hearers the 
 immorality of going twenty miles in a boat, and honestly 
 buying with their money a keg of brandy, except by 
 a long deduction which they could not understand ? But 
 were I in a place where wrecking went on, see if I would 
 preach on anything else ! 
 
SPURZHEIM AND CRANIOLOGY 123 
 
 July 29, 1830. 
 
 SPURZHEIM AND CKANIOLOGY. 
 
 Spurzheim is a good man, and I like him ; but he is 
 dense, and the most ignorant German I ever knew. If 
 he had been content with stating certain remarkable 
 coincidences between the moral qualities and the con- 
 figuration of the skull, it would have been well ; but when 
 he began to map out the cranium dogmatically, he fell 
 into infinite absurdities. You know that every intellectual 
 act, however you may distinguish it by name in respect 
 of the originating faculties, is truly the act of the entire 
 man ; the notion of distinct material organs, therefore, in 
 the brain itself, is plainly absurd. Pressed by this, Spurz- 
 heim has, at length, been guilty of some sheer quackery ; 
 and ventures to say that he has actually discovered a 
 different material in the different parts or organs of the 
 brain, so that he can tell a piece of benevolence from a bit 
 of destructiveness, and so forth. Observe, also, that it is 
 constantly found, that so far from there being a concavity 
 in the interior surface of the cranium answering to the 
 convexity apparent on the exterior — the interior is convex 
 too. Dr. Baillie thought there was something in the 
 system, because the notion of the brain being an extendible 
 net helped to explain those cases where the intellect 
 remained after the solid substance of the brain was dis- 
 solved in water. 1 
 
 1 ' The very marked, positive as well as comparative, magnitude and 
 prominence of the bump, entitled benevolence (see Spurzheim's Map of 
 the Human Skull), on the head of the late Mr. John Tnurtell, has wofully 
 unsettled the faith of many ardent phrenologists, and strengthened the 
 previous doubts of a still greater number into utter disbelief. On my 
 mind this fact (for a, fact it is) produced the directly contrary effect ; and 
 inclined me to suspect, for the first time, that there may be some truth 
 in the Spurzheimian scheme. Whether future oraniologists may not see 
 cause to new-name this and one or two others of these convex gnomons, 
 is quite a different question. At present, and according to the present use 
 of words, any such change would be premature ; and we must be content 
 to say, that Mr. Thurtell's benevolence was insufficiently modified by the 
 unprotrusi ve and unindicated convolutes of the brain, that secrete honesty 
 and common sense. The organ of destructiveness was indirectly poten- 
 tiated by the absence or imperfect development of the glands of reason and 
 conscience in this " unfortunate gentleman ".' — Aids to Reflection, p. 143 n. 
 
124 TABLE TALK 
 
 That a greater or less development of the forepart of 
 the head is generally coincident with more or less of 
 reasoning power, is certain. The line across the forehead, 
 also, denoting musical power, is very common. 
 
 August 20, 1830. 
 
 FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1830. — CAPTAIN B. HALL AND 
 THE AMERICANS. 
 
 The French must have greatly improved under the 
 influence of a free and regular government (for such it, 
 in general, has been since the Restoration), to have con- 
 ducted themselves with so much moderation in success 
 as thev seem to have done, and to be disposed to do. 
 
 I must say I cannot see much in Captain B. Hall's 
 account of the Americans, but weaknesses — some of which 
 make me like the Yankees all the better. How much more 
 amiable is the American fidgetiness and anxiety about the 
 opinion of other nations, and especially of the English, 
 than the John Bullism, which affects to despise the senti- 
 ments of the rest of the world. 1 
 
 1 ' There exists in England a gentlemanly oharaoter, a gentlemanly 
 feeling, very different even from that which is the most like it, — the 
 character of a well-born Spaniard, and unexampled in the rest of Europe. 
 This feeling originated in the fortunate circumstance, that the titles of 
 our English nobility follow the law of their property, and are inherited by 
 the eldest sons only. From this source, under the influences of our con- 
 stitution and of our astonishing trade, it has diffused itself in different 
 modifications through the whole country. The uniformity of our dress 
 among all classes above that of the day labourer, while it has authorized 
 all ranks to assume the appearance of gentlemen, has at the same time 
 inspired the wish to conform their manners, and still more their ordinary 
 actions in social intercourse, to their notions of the gentlemanly ; the most 
 commonly received attribute of which character is a certain generosity 
 in trifles. On the other hand, the encroachments of the lower classes on 
 the higher, occasioned and favoured by this resemblance in exteriors, 
 by this absence of any cognizable marks of distinction, have rendered 
 each class more reserved and jealous in their general communion ; and, 
 far more than our climate or natural temper, have caused that haughtiness 
 and reBerve in our outward demeanour, which is so generally complained 
 
CAPTAIN B. HALL AND THE AMERICANS. 125 
 
 As to what Captain Hall says about the English loyalty 
 to the person of the king— -I can only say, I feel none of 
 it. I respect the man while, and only while, the king is 
 translucent through him : I reverence the glass case for 
 the saint's sake within ; except for that it is to me mere 
 glazier's work — putty, and glass, and wood. 
 
 September 8, 1830. 
 
 ENGLISH REFORMATION. 
 
 The fatal error into which the peculiar character of the 
 English Reformation threw our Church, has borne bitter 
 fruit ever since, — I mean that of its clinging to court and 
 State, instead of cultivating the people. The Church 
 ought to be a mediator between the people and the Govern- 
 ment, between the poor and the rich. As it is, I fear the 
 Church has let the hearts of the common people be stolen 
 from it. See how differently the Church of Rome — wiser 
 
 of among foreigners. Far be it from me to depreciate the value of this 
 gentlemanly feeling : I respect it under all its forms and varieties, from 
 the House of Commons l to the gentleman in the one-shilling gallery. It 
 is always the ornament of virtue, and oftentimes a support ; but it is a 
 wretched substitute for it. Its worth, as a moral good, is by no means in 
 proportion to its value as a social advantage. These observations are not 
 irrelevant : for to the want of reflection that this diffusion of gentlemanly 
 feeling among us is not the growth of our moral excellence, but the effect 
 of various accidental advantages peculiar to England ; to our not con- 
 sidering that it is unreasonable and uncharitable to expect the same 
 consequences, where the same causes have not existed to produce them; 
 and lastly, to our proneness to regard the absence of this character (which, 
 as I have before said, does, for the greater part, and in the common appre- 
 hension, consist in a certain frankness and generosity in the detail of 
 action) as decisive against the sum total of personal or national worth ; 
 we must, I am convinced, attribute a large portion of that conduct, which 
 in many instances has left the inhabitants of countries conquered or 
 appropriated by Great Britain doubtful whether the various solid 
 advantages which they have derived from our protection and just govern- 
 ment were not bought dearly by the wounds inflicted on their feelings and 
 prejudices, by the contemptuous and insolent demeanour of the English, 
 as individuals.' — Friend, vol. iii, p. 322. 
 
 1 This was written long before the Reform Act. — H. N. C. 
 
126 TABLE TALK 
 
 in its generation — has always acted in this particular. 
 For a long time past the' Church of England seems to me 
 to have been blighted with prudence, as it is called. I wish 
 with all my heart we had a little zealous imprudence. 
 
 September 19, 1830. 
 
 DEMOCRACY. — IDEA OF A STATE. — CHTTRCH. 
 
 It has never yet been seen, or clearly announced, that 
 democracy, as such, is no proper element in the constitu- 
 tion of a State. The idea of a State is undoubtedly a Govern- 
 ment ck tu>v apio-T<av — an aristocracy. Democracy is the 
 healthful life-blood which circulates through the veins and 
 arteries, which supports the system, but which ought 
 never to appear externally, and as the mere blood itself. 
 
 A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State 
 regards classes, and not individuals ; and it estimates 
 classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as 
 property, birth, &c. But a Church does the reverse of 
 this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at 
 men as individual persons, allowing no gradation of ranks, 
 but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness 
 ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only 
 pure democracy. The Church, so considered, and the 
 State, exclusively of the Church, constitute together the 
 idea of a State in its largest sense. 
 
 September 20, 1830. 
 
 GOVERNMENT. — FRENCH GEND'ARMERIE. 
 
 All temporal government must rest on a compromise 
 of interests and abstract rights. Who would listen to the 
 county of Bedford, if it were to declare itself disannexed 
 from the British Empire, and to set up for itself ? 
 
 The most desirable thing that can happen to France, 
 with her immense army of gensd'armes, is, that the service 
 
FRENCH GEND'ARMERIE— PHILOSOPHY 127 
 
 may at first become very irksome to the men themselves, 
 and ultimately, by not being called into real service, fall 
 into general ridicule, like our trained bands. The evil in 
 France, and throughout Europe, seems now especially to 
 be the subordination of the legislative power to the direct 
 physical force of the people. The French legislature was 
 weak enough before the late revolution ; now it is abso- 
 lutely powerless, and manifestly depends even for its 
 existence on the will of a popular commander of an irre- 
 sistible army. There is now in France a daily tendency 
 to reduce the legislative body to a mere deputation from 
 the provinces and towns. 
 
 September 21, 1830. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF YOUNG MEN AT THE PRESENT DAY. 
 
 I do not know whether I deceive myself, but it seems 
 to me that the young men, who were my contemporaries, 
 fixed certain principles in their minds, and followed them 
 out to their legitimate consequences, in a way which 
 I rarely witness now. No one seems to have any distinct 
 convictions, right or wrong ; the mind is completely at 
 sea, rolling and pitching on the waves of facts and personal 
 
 experiences. Mr. is, I suppose, one of the rising 
 
 young men of the day ; yet he went on talking, the other 
 evening, and making remarks with great earnestness, some 
 of which were palpably irreconcilable with each other. 
 He told me that facts gave birth to, and were the absolute 
 ground of, principles ; to which I said, that unless he had 
 a principle of selection, he would not have taken notice 
 of those facts upon which he grounded his principle. You 
 must have a. lantern in your hand to give light, otherwise 
 all the materials in the world are useless, for you cannot 
 find them ; and if you could, you could not arrange 
 them. ' But then ', said Mr. , ' that principle of selec- 
 tion came from facts ! ' — ' To be sure ! ' I replied ; ' but 
 there must have been again an antecedent light to see 
 those antecedent facts. The relapse may be carried in 
 imagination backwards for ever, — but go back as you 
 may, you cannot come to a man without a previous aim or 
 
128 TABLE TALK 
 
 principle.' He then asked me what I had to say to 
 Bacon's induction : I told him I had a good deal to say, 
 if need were ; but that it was perhaps enough for the 
 occasion to remark, that what he was evidently taking 
 for the Baconian induction was mere deduction — a very 
 different thing. 1 
 
 September 22, 1830. 
 
 THTJCYDIDES AND TACITUS. — POETRY. — MODERN METRE. 
 
 The object of Thucydides was to show the ills resulting 
 to Greece from the separation and conflict of the spirits 
 or elements of democracy and oligarchy. The object of 
 Tacitus was to demonstrate the desperate consequences of 
 the loss of liberty on the minds and hearts of men. 
 
 A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket : let him 
 borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of 
 borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from 
 recollection ; and trust more to your imagination than to 
 your memory. 
 
 Really the metre of some of the modern poems I have 
 read, bears about the same relation to metre properly 
 understood, that dumb-bells do to music ; both are for 
 exercise, and pretty severe too, I think. 
 
 Nothing ever left a stain on that gentle creature's 
 mind, which looked upon the degraded men and things 
 around him like moonshine on a dunghill, which shines 
 and takes no pollution. All things are shadows to him, 
 except those which move his affections. 
 
 1 As far as I can judge, the most complete and masterly thing ever done 
 by Mr. Coleridge in prose, is the analysis and reconcilement of the Platonic 
 and Baconian methods of philosophy, contained in the third volume of 
 The Friend, pp. 176-216. No edition of the Novum Organum should ever 
 be published without a transcript of it. — H. N. C. 
 
LOGIC— SOCRATES 129 
 
 September 23, 1830. 
 
 LOGIC. 
 
 There are two kinds of logic : 1. Syllogistic. 2. Cri- 
 tenonal. How any one can by any spinning make out 
 more than ten or a dozen pages about the first, is incon- 
 ceivable to me ; all those absurd forms of syllogisms are 
 one half pure sophisms, and the other half mere forms of 
 rhetoric. 
 
 All syllogistic logic is — 1. /Seclusion ; 2. Zwclusion ; 
 3. Conclusion ; which answer to the understanding, the 
 experience, and the reason. The first says, this ought to 
 be ; the second adds, this is ; and the last pronounces, 
 this must be so. The criterional logic, or logic of premisses, 
 is, of course, much the most important ; and it has never 
 yet been treated. 
 
 The object of rhetoric is persuasion; of logic, con- 
 viction ; of grammar, significancy. A fourth term is 
 wanting, the rhematic, or logic of sentences. 
 
 September 24, 1830. 
 
 VARRO. SOCRATES. GREEK PHILOSOPHY. — PLOTINUS. — 
 
 TERTULLIAN. 
 
 What a loss we have had in Varro's mythological and 
 critical works ! It is said that the works of Epicurus are 
 probably amongst the Herculanean manuscripts. I do not 
 feel much interest about them, because, by the consent 
 of all antiquity, Lucretius has preserved a complete view 
 of his system. But I regret the loss of the works of the 
 old Stoics, Zeno and others, exceedingly. 
 
 Socrates, as such, was only a poetical character to Plato, 
 who worked upon his own ground. The several disciples 
 of Socrates caught some particular points from him, and 
 made systems of philosophy upon them according to their 
 own views. Socrates himself had no system. 
 
 TABLE TALK ]£ 
 
130 TABLE TALK 
 
 I hold all claims set up for Egypt having given birth to 
 the Greek philosophy, to be groundless. It sprang up in 
 Greece itself, and began with physics only. Then it took 
 in the idea of a living cause, and made pantheism out of 
 the two. Socrates introduced ethics, and taught duties ; 
 and then, finally, Plato asserted or re-asserted the idea 
 of a God the maker of the world. The measure of human 
 philosophy was thus full, when Christianity came to add 
 what before was wanting — assurance. After this again, 
 the Neo-Platonists joined theurgy with philosophy, which 
 ultimately degenerated into magic and mere mysticism. 
 
 Plotinus was a man of wonderful ability, and some of 
 the sublimest passages I ever read are in his works. 
 
 I was amused the other day with reading in Tertullian, 
 that spirits or demons dilate and contract themselves, and 
 wriggle about like worms — lumbricis similes. 
 
 September 26, 1830. 
 
 SCOTCH AND ENGLISH LAKES. 
 
 The five finest things in Scotland are — 1. Edinburgh ; 
 2. The antechamber of the Pall of Foyers ; 3. The view 
 of Loch Lomond from Inch Tavannach, the highest of the 
 islands ; 4. The Trosachs ; 5. The view of the Hebrides 
 from a point, the name of which I forget. But the intervals 
 between the fine things in Scotland are very dreary ; 
 whereas in Cumberland and Westmoreland there is a cabinet 
 of beauties — each thing being beautiful in itself, and the 
 very passage from one lake, mountain, or valley, to another, 
 is itself a beautiful thing again. The Scotch lakes are 
 so like one another, from their great size, that in a picture 
 you are obliged to read their names ; but the English 
 lakes, especially Derwent Water, or rather the whole vale 
 of Keswick, is so rememberable, that, after having been 
 once seen, no one ever requires to be told what it is when 
 drawn . This vale is about as large a basin as Loch Lomond ; 
 
SCOTCH AND ENGLISH LAKES 131 
 
 the latter is covered with water ; but in the former instance, 
 we have two lakes with a charming river to connect them, 
 and lovely villages at the foot of the mountain, and other 
 habitations, which give an air of life and cheerfulness to 
 the whole place. 
 
 The land imagery of the north of Devon is most delightful. 
 
 September 27, 1830. 
 
 LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP OPPOSED. — MARRIAGE. CHARACTER- 
 LESSNESS OF WOMEN. 
 
 A person once said to me, that he could make nothing 
 of love, except that it was friendship accidentally com- 
 bined with desire. Whence I concluded that he had never 
 been in love. For what shall we say of the feeling which 
 a man of sensibility has towards his wife with her baby 
 at her breast ! How pure from sensual desire ! yet how 
 different from friendship ! 
 
 Sympathy constitutes friendship ; but in love there is 
 a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to 
 be the other, and both together make up one whole. 
 
 Luther has sketched the most beautiful picture of the 
 nature, and ends, and duties of the wedded life I ever read. 
 St. Paul says it is a great symbol, not mystery, as we 
 translate it. 1 
 
 ' Most women have no character at all,' said Pope , 2 
 and meant it for satire. Shakespeare, who knew man and 
 woman much better, saw that it, in fact, was the perfection 
 of woman to be characterless. Every one wishes a Desde- 
 mona or Ophelia for a wife — creatures who, though they 
 
 1 Kai taovrat oi 5vo els ffapica yxav. rd nvaT-fjpiov tovto fitya iariv lyw 
 Si \iyai «'s Xpurjiv nal €<s t^k ixxKrjaiav. Eph. v. 31, 32. 
 
 2 Nothing so true as what you once let fall — 
 ' Most women have no character at all,' — 
 Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear, 
 And best distinguish'd by black, brown, and fair. 
 
 Epist. to a Lady, v. 1. 
 
 K2 
 
132 TABLE TALK 
 
 may not always understand you, do always feel you, and 
 feel with you. 
 
 September 28, 1830. 
 
 MENTAL ANABCHY. 
 
 Why need we talk of a fiery hell ? If the will, which is 
 the law of our nature, were withdrawn from our memory, 
 fancy, understanding, and reason, no other hell could 
 equal, for a spiritual being, what we should then feel, 
 from the anarchy of our powers. It would be conscious 
 madness — a horrid thought ! 
 
 October 5, 1830. 
 
 EAE AND TASTE FOB MUSIC DIFFERENT. — ENGLISH LITURGY. 
 ■ — BELGIAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 In politics, what begins in fear usuaUy ends in folly. 
 
 An ear for music is a very different thing from a taste 
 for music. I have no ear whatever ; I could not sing an 
 air to save my life ; but I have the intensest delight in 
 music, and can detect good from bad. Naldi, a good 
 fellow, remarked to me once at a concert, that I did not 
 seem much interested with a piece of Rossini's which had 
 just been performed. I said, it sounded to me like nonsense 
 verses. But I could scarcely contain myself when a thing 
 of Beethoven's followed. 
 
 I never distinctly felt the heavenly superiority of the 
 prayers in the English liturgy, till I had attended some 
 kirks in the country parts of Scotland. 
 
 I call these strings of school boys or girls which we 
 meet near London — walking advertisements. 
 
 The Brussels riot — I cannot bring myself to dignify it 
 with a higher name — is a wretched parody on the last 
 
BELGIAN REVOLUTION— NEWTON 133 
 
 French Revolution. Were I King William, I would banish 
 the Belgians, as Coriolanus banishes the Romans in Shake- 
 speare. 1 It is a wicked rebellion without one just cause. 
 
 October 8, 1830. 
 
 GALILEO, NEWTON, KEPLER, BACON. 
 
 Galileo was a great genius, and so was Newton ; but it 
 would take two or three Galileos and Newtons to make 
 one Kepler. 2 It is in the order of Providence, that the 
 inventive, generative, constitutive mind — the Kepler- 
 should come first ; and then that the patient and collective 
 mind — the Newton — should follow, and elaborate the preg- 
 nant queries and illumining guesses of the former. The 
 laws of the planetary system are, in fact, due to Kepler. 
 There is not a more glorious achievement of scientific 
 genius upon record, than Kepler's guesses, prophecies, and 
 ultimate apprehension of the law 3 of the mean distances 
 of the planets as connected with the periods of their 
 revolutions round the sun. Gravitation, too, he had fully 
 conceived ; but, because it seemed inconsistent with some 
 received observations on light, he gave it up, in allegiance, 
 as he says, to Nature. Yet the idea vexed and haunted 
 his mind ; ' Vexat me et lacessit ' are his words, I believe. 
 
 We praise Newton's clearness and steadiness. He was 
 clear and steady, no doubt, whilst working out, by the help 
 of an admirable geometry, the idea brought forth by 
 another. Newton had his ether, and could not rest in — 
 he could not conceive — the idea of a law. He thought it 
 a physical thing after all. As for his chronology, I believe, 
 
 1 You common cry of curs ! whose breath I hate 
 As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize 
 As the dead carcasses of unburied men 
 That do corrupt my air, I banish you ; 
 And here remain toith your uncertainty ! 
 
 Act iii, sc. 3. 
 a Galileo Galilei was born at Pisa on February 15, 1564. John Kepler 
 was born at Weil, in the duchy of Wiitemberg, on December 21, 1571.— 
 
 H. N. C. . ,,.*.,_. 
 
 3 Namely, that the squares of their times vary as the cubes of their 
 
 distances. — H. N. C. 
 
134 TABLE TALK , 
 
 those who are most competent to judge, rely on it less and 
 less every day. His lucubrations on Daniel and the Reve- 
 lations seem to me little less than mere raving. 
 
 Personal experiment is necessary, in order to correct 
 our own observation of the experiments which Nature 
 herself makes for us — I mean, the phenomena of the 
 universe. But then observation is, in turn, wanted to 
 direct and substantiate the course of experiment. Experi- 
 ments alone cannot advance knowledge, without obser- 
 vation ; they amuse for a time, and then pass off the scene 
 and leave no trace behind them. 
 
 Bacon, when like himself — for no man was ever more 
 inconsistent — says, ' Prudens quaestio . . . dimidium scientiae 
 est.' 
 
 October 20, 1830. 
 
 THE REFORMATION. 
 
 At the Reformation the first reformers were beset with 
 an almost morbid anxiety not to be considered heretical 
 in point of doctrine. They knew that the Romanists were 
 on the watch to fasten the brand of heresy upon them 
 whenever a fair pretext could be found ; and I have no 
 doubt it was the excess of this fear which at once led to 
 the burning of Servetus, and also to the thanks offered by 
 all the Protestant churches, to Calvin and the Church of 
 Geneva, for burning him. 
 
 November 21, 1830. 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 never makes a figure in quietude. He astounds 
 
 the vulgar with a certain enormity of exertion ; he takes 
 an acre of canvas, on which he scrawls everything. He 
 thinks aloud ; everything in his mind, good, bad, or 
 indifferent, out it comes ; he is like the Newgate gutter, 
 flowing with garbage, dead dogs, and mud. He is pre- 
 
HOUSE OP COMMONS 135 
 
 eminently a man of many thoughts, with no ideas : hence 
 he is always so lengthy, because he must go through every- 
 thing to see anything. 
 
 It is a melancholy thing to live when there is no vision 
 in the land. Where are our statesmen to meet this emer- 
 gency ? I see no reformer who asks himself the question, 
 What is it that I propose to myself to effect in the result ? 
 
 Is the House of Commons to be reconstructed on the 
 principle of a representation of interests, or of a delegation . 
 of men ? If on the former, we may, perhaps, see our way ; 
 if on the latter, you can never, in reason, stop short of 
 universal suffrage ; and in that case I am sure that women 
 have as good a right to vote as men. 1 
 
 1 In Mr. Coleridge's masterly analysis and confutation of the physio- 
 cratic system of the early French revolutionists, in The Friend, he has the 
 following passage in the nature of a reductio ad absurdum. ' Rousseau 
 indeed, asserts that there is an inalienable sovereignty inherent in every 
 human being possessed of reason ; and from this the framers of the Con- 
 stitution of 1791 deduce, that the people itself is its own sole rightful 
 legislator, and at most dare only recede so far from its right as to delegate 
 to chosen deputies the power of representing and declaring the general 
 will. But this is wholly without proof ; for it has already been fully 
 shown, that, according to the principle out of which this consequence is 
 attempted to be drawn, it is not the actual man, but the abstract reason 
 alone, that is the soveriegn and rightful lawgiver. The confusion of two 
 things so different is so gross an error, that the Constituent Assembly 
 could scarce proceed a step in their declaration of rights, without some 
 glaring inconsistency. Children are excluded from all political power ; 
 are they not human beings in whom the faculty of reason resides ? Yes ! 
 but in them the faculty is not yet adequately developed. But are not 
 gross ignorance, inveterate superstition, and the habitual tyranny of 
 passion and sensuality, equally preventives of the development, equally 
 impediments to the rightful exercise, of the reason, as childhood and early 
 youth ? Who would not rely on the judgement of a well-educated English 
 lad, bred in a virtuous and enlightened family, in preference to that of a 
 brutal Russian, who believes that he can scourge his wooden idol into 
 good humour, or attributes to himself the merit of perpetual prayer, when 
 he has fastened the petitions, which his priest has written for him, on the 
 wings of a windmill 1 Again : women are likewise excluded ; a full half, 
 and that assuredly the most innocent, the most amiable half, of the whole 
 human race is excluded, and this too by a Constitution which boasts to 
 have no other foundations but those of universal reason ! Is reason, then, 
 an affair of sex ? No ! but women are commonly in a state of dependence, 
 and are not likely to exercise their reason with freedom. Well ! and does 
 not this ground of exclusion apply with equal or greater force to the poor, 
 to the infirm, to men in embarrassed circumstances, to all, in short, whose 
 
136 TABLE TALK 
 
 March 20, 1831. 
 
 GOVERNMENT. — EARL GREY. 
 
 Government is not founded on property, taken merely 
 as such, in the abstract ; it is founded on unequal property ; 
 the inequality is an essential term in the position. The 
 phrases — higher, middle, and lower classes, with reference 
 to this point of representation— are delusive ; no such 
 divisions as classes actually exist in society. There is an 
 indissoluble blending and interfusion of persons from top 
 to bottom ; and no man can trace a line of separation 
 through them, except such a confessedly unmeaning and 
 unjustifiable line of political empiricism as £10 house- 
 holders. I cannot discover a ray of principle in the Govern- 
 ment plan — not a hint of the effect of the change upon the 
 balance of the estates of the realm — not a remark on the 
 nature of the constitution of England and the character 
 of the property of so many millions of its inhabitants. 
 Half the wealth of this country is purely artificial,— existing 
 only in and on the credit given to it by the integrity and 
 honesty of the nation. This property appears, in many 
 instances, a heavy burthen to the numerical majority of 
 the people, and they believe that it causes all their distress : 
 and they are now to have the maintenance of this property 
 committed to their good faith — the lamb to the wolves ! 
 
 Necker, you remember, asked the people to come and 
 help him against the aristocracy. The people came fast 
 enough at his bidding ; but, somehow or other, they would 
 not go away again when they had done their work. I hope 
 Lord Grey will not see himself or his friends in the woful 
 
 maintenance, be it scanty, or be it ample, depends on the will of others ? 
 How far are we to go ? Where must we stop ? What classes should we 
 admit ? Whom must we disfranchise ? The objects concerning whom we 
 are to determine these questions, are all human beings, and differenced 
 from each other by degrees only, these degrees, too, oftentimes changing. 
 Yet the principle on which the whole system rests is, that reason is not 
 susceptible of degree. Nothing, therefore, which subsists wholly in 
 degrees, the changes of which do not obey any necessary law, can be the 
 object of pure science, or determinable by mere reason.' — The Friend 
 vol. i, p. 341.— H. N. C. 
 
EARL GREY— GOVERNMENT 137 
 
 case of the conjurer who, with infinite zeal and pains, 
 called up the devils to do something for him. They came 
 at the word, thronging about him, grinning, and howling, 
 and dancing, and whisking their long tails in diabolic glee ; 
 but when they asked him what he wanted of them, the 
 poor wretch, frightened out of his wits, could only stammer 
 forth, ' I pray you, my friends, be gone down again ! ' 
 At which the devils, with one voice, replied — 
 
 ' Yes ! yes ! we'll go down ! we'll go' down ! — 
 But we'll take you with us to swim or to drown ! ' 1 
 
 June 25, 1831. 
 
 GOVERNMENT.- — POPULAR REPRESENTATION. 
 
 The three great ends which a statesman ought to propose 
 to himself in the government of a nation are : (1) Security to 
 possessors ; (2) Facility to acquirers ; and (3) Hope to all. 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge must have been thinking of that ' very pithy and profit- 
 able ' ballad by the Laureate, wherein is shown how a young man ' would 
 read unlawful books, and how he was punished ' ; 
 
 The young man, he began to read 
 He knew not what, but he would proceed, 
 When there was heard a sound at the door, 
 Which as he read on grew more and more. 
 
 And more and more the knocking grew, 
 
 The young man knew not what to do : 
 
 But trembling in fear he sat within, 
 
 Till the door was broke, and the Devil came in. . . . 
 
 ' What wouldst thou with me ? ' the Wicked One cried ; 
 But not a word the young man replied ; 
 Every hair on his head was standing upright, 
 And his limbs like » palsy shook with affright. 
 
 ' What wouldst thou with me ? ' cried the Author of ill ; 
 But the wretched young man was silent still, &e. 
 
 The catastrophe is very terrible, and the moral, though addressed by the 
 poet to young men only, is quite as applicable to old men, as the times 
 show. 
 
 Henceforth let all young men take heed 
 
 How in a Conjurer's books they read ! 
 
 Southey's Minor Poems [Oxford Edn., p. 625].— H. N. C. 
 
138 TABLE TALK 
 
 A nation is the unity of a people. King and parliament 
 are the unity made visible. The king and the peers 
 are as integral portions of this manifested unity as 
 the commons. 1 
 
 In that imperfect state of society in which our system 
 of representation began, the interests of the country were 
 pretty exactly commensurate with its municipal divisions. 
 The counties, the towns, and the seaports, accurately 
 enough represented the only interests then existing ; that 
 is, say, the landed, the shop-keeping or manufacturing, 
 and the mercantile. But for a century past, at least, this 
 division has become notoriously imperfect, some of the 
 most vital interests of the empire being now totally uncon- 
 nected with any English localities. Yet now, when the 
 evil and the want are known, we are to abandon the 
 accommodations which the necessity of the case had 
 worked out for itself, and begin again with a rigidly terri- 
 torial plan of representation ! The miserable tendency of 
 all is to destroy our nationality, which consists, in a prin- 
 cipal degree, in our representative government, and to 
 convert it into a degrading delegation of the populace. 
 There is no unity for a people but in a representation of 
 national interests ; a delegation from the passions or 
 wishes of the individuals themselves is a rope of sand. 
 
 Undoubtedly it is a great evil that there should be such 
 an evident discrepancy between the law and the practice 
 of the constitution in the matter of the representation. 
 Such a direct, yet clandestine, contravention of solemn 
 resolutions and established laws is immoral, and greatly 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge was very fond of quoting George Withers's fine lines : 
 Let not your king and parliament in one, 
 Much less apart, mistake themselves for that 
 Which is most worthy to be thought upon : 
 Nor think they are, essentially, The State. 
 Let them not fancy that th' authority 
 And privileges upon them bestown, 
 Conferr'd are to set up a majesty, 
 A power, or a glory, of their own ! 
 But let them know, 'twas for a deeper life, 
 Which they but represent — 
 That there 's on earth a, yet auguster thing, 
 Veil'd though it be, than parliament and king ! — H. N. C. 
 
REPRESENTATION— BUONAPARTE 139 
 
 injurious to the cause of legal loyalty and general subor- 
 dination in the minds of the people. But then a statesman 
 should consider that these very contraventions of law in 
 practice point out to him the places in the body politic 
 which need a remodelling of the law. You acknowledge 
 a certain necessity for indirect representation in the present 
 day, and that such representation has been instinctively 
 obtained by means contrary to law ; why then do you not 
 approximate the useless law to the useful practice, instead 
 of abandoning both law and practice for a completely new 
 system of your own ? 
 
 The malignant duplicity and unprincipled tergiversa- 
 tions of the specific Whig newspapers are to me detestable. 
 I prefer the open endeavours of those publications which 
 seek to destroy the church and introduce a republic in 
 effect : there is a sort of honesty in that which I approve, 
 though I would with joy lay down my life to save my 
 country from the consummation which is so evidently 
 desired by that section of the periodical press. 
 
 June 26, 1831. 
 
 NAPIER. BUONAPARTE. — SOUTHEY. 
 
 I have been exceedingly impressed with the evil pre- 
 cedent of Colonel Napier's History of the Peninsular War. 
 It is a specimen of the true French military school ; not 
 a thought for the justice of the war — not a consideration 
 of the damnable and damning iniquity of the French 
 invasion. All is looked at as a mere game of exquisite skill, 
 and the praise is regularly awarded to the most successful 
 player. How perfectly ridiculous is the prostration of 
 Napier's mind, apparently a powerful one, before the name 
 of Buonaparte ! I declare I know no book more likely to 
 undermine the national sense of right and wrong in matters 
 of foreign interference than this work of Napier's. 
 
 If A. has a hundred means of doing a certain thing, and 
 B. has only one or two, is it very wonderful, or does it 
 argue very transcendant superiority, if A. surpasses B. ? 
 
140 TABLE TALK 
 
 Buonaparte was the child of circumstances, which he 
 neither originated nor controlled. He had no chance of 
 preserving his power but by continual warfare. No thought 
 of a wise tranquillization of the shaken elements of France 
 seems ever to have passed through his mind ; and I believe 
 that at no part of his reign could he have survived one 
 year's continued peace. He never had but one obstacle 
 to contend with — physical force ; commonly the least 
 difficult enemy a general, subject to courts-martial and 
 courts of conscience, has to overcome. 
 
 Southey's History L is on the right side, and starts from 
 the right point ; but he is personally fond of the Spaniards, 
 and in bringing forward their nationality in the prominent 
 manner it deserves, he does not, in my judgement, state 
 with sufficient clearness the truth, that the nationality of 
 the Spaniards was not founded on any just ground of good 
 government or wise laws, but was, in fact, very little more 
 than a rooted antipathy to all strangers as such. In this 
 sense everything is national in Spain. Even their so-called 
 Catholic religion is exclusively national in a genuine 
 Spaniard's mind ; he does not regard the religious pro- 
 fessions of the Frenchman or Italian at all in the same 
 light with his own. 
 
 July 7, 1831. 
 
 PATRONAGE OF THE FINE ARTS. — OLD WOMEN. 
 
 The darkest despotisms on the continent have done 
 more for the growth and elevation of the fine arts than 
 the English Government. A great musical composer in 
 Germany and Italy is a great man in society, and a real 
 dignity and rank are universally conceded to him. So it 
 is with a sculptor, or painter, or architect. Without this 
 sort of encouragement and patronage such arts as music 
 and painting will never come into great eminence. In this 
 country there is no general reverence for the fine arts ; 
 and the sordid spirit of a money-amassing philosophy 
 
 ' Mr. Coleridge said that the conclusion of this great work was the finest 
 specimen of historic eulogy he had ever read in English — that it was 
 more than a campaign to the Duke's fame. — H. N. 0. 
 
PATRONAGE OF THE FINE ARTS— PICTURES 141 
 
 would meet any proposition for the fostering of art, in 
 a genial and extended sense, with the commercial maxim 
 — Laissez faire. Paganini, indeed, will make a fortune, 
 because he can actually sell the tones of his fiddle at so 
 much a scrape ; but Mozart himself might have languished 
 in a garret for anything that would have been done for 
 him here. 
 
 There are three classes into which all the women past 
 seventy that ever I knew were to be divided : (1) That 
 dear old soul ; (2) That old woman ; (3) That old witch. 
 
 July 24, 1831. 
 
 PICTURES. 1 
 
 Observe the remarkable difference between Claude and 
 Teniers in their power of painting vacant space. Claude 
 
 1 All the following remarks in this section were made at the exhibition 
 of ancient masters at the British Gallery in Pall Mall. The recollection of 
 those two hours has made the rooms of that institution a melancholy 
 place for me. Mr. Coleridge was in high spirits, and seemed to kindle in 
 his mind at the contemplation of the splendid pictures before him. He 
 did not examine them all by the catalogue, but anchored himself before 
 some three or four great works, telling me that he saw the rest of the 
 Gallery 'potentially. I can yet distinctly recall him, half leaning on his 
 old simple stick, and his hat off in one hand, whilst with the fingers of 
 the other he went on, as was his constant wont, figuring in the air 
 a commentary of small diagrams, wherewith, as he fancied, he could 
 translate to the eye those relations of form and space which his words 
 might fail to convey with clearness to the ear. His admiration for Rubens 
 showed itself in a sort of joy and brotherly fondness ; he looked as if 
 he would shake hands with his pictures. What the company, which by 
 degrees formed itself round this silver-haired, bright-eyed, music- 
 breathing old man, took him for, I cannot guess ; there was probably 
 not one there who knew him to be that Ancient Mariner, who held people 
 with his glittering eye, and constrained them, like three years' children, 
 to hear his tale. In the midst of his speech, he turned to the right hand, 
 where stood a very lovely young woman, whose attention he had 
 involuntarily arrested ; to her, without apparently any consciousness 
 of her being a stranger to him, he addressed many remarks, although 
 I must acknowledge they were couched in a somewhat softer tone, as if 
 he were soliciting her sympathy. He was, verily, a gentle-hearted man 
 at all times ; butl never was in company with him in my life, when the 
 entry of a woman, it mattered not who, did not provoke a dim gush of 
 emotion, which passed like an infant's breath over the mirror of his 
 intellect.— H. N. C. 
 
142 TABLE TALK 
 
 makes his whole landscape a plenum : the air is quite as 
 substantial as any other part of the scene. Hence there 
 are no true distances, and everything presses at onee and 
 equally upon the eye. There is something close and almost 
 suffocating in the atmosphere of some of Claude's sunsets. 
 Never did any one paint air, the thin air, the absolutely 
 apparent vacancy between object and object, so admirably 
 as Teniers. That picture of the Archers * exemplifies this 
 excellence. See the distances between those ugly louts ! 
 how perfectly true to the fact ! 
 
 But oh ! what a wonderful picture is that Triumph 
 of Silenus ! 2 It is the very revelry of hell. Every evil 
 passion is there that could in any way be forced into juxta- 
 position with joyance. Mark the lust, and, hard by, the 
 hate. Every part is pregnant with libidinous nature 
 without one spark of the grace of Heaven. The animal is 
 triumphing — not over, but — in the absence, in the non- 
 existence, of the spiritual part of man. I could fancy that 
 Rubens had seen in a vision — 
 
 All the souls that damned be 
 Leap up at once in anarchy, 
 Clap their hands, and dance for glee ! 
 
 That landscape 3 on the other side is only less magnificent 
 than dear Sir George Beaumont's, now in the National 
 Gallery. It has the same charm. Rubens does not take 
 for his subjects grand or novel conformations of objects ; 
 he has, you see, no precipices, no forests, no frowning 
 castles — nothing that a poeJt would take at all times, and 
 a painter take in these times. No ; he gets some little 
 ponds, old tumble-down cottages, that ruinous chateau, 
 two or three peasants, a hay-rick, and other such humble 
 images, which looked at in and by themselves convey no 
 pleasure and excite no surprise ; but he — and he Peter 
 Paul Rubens alone — handles these everyday ingredients 
 of all common landscapes as they are handled in nature ; 
 he throws them into a vast and magnificent whole, con- 
 
 1 ' Figures shooting at a Target,' belonging, I believe, to Lord Bandon. 
 — H. BT. C. 
 
 2 This belongs to Sir Robert Peel.— H. N. C. 
 
 3 ' Landscape with setting Sun ' : Lord Farnborough's picture. — 
 H. N. C. 
 
PICTURES 143 
 
 sisting of heaven and earth and all things therein. He 
 extracts the latent poetry out of these common objects — 
 that poetry and harmony which every man of genius per- 
 ceives in the face of nature, and which many men of no 
 genius are taught to perceive and feel after examining such 
 a picture as this. In other landscape, painters the scene 
 is confined and as it were imprisoned ; in Rubens the land- 
 scape dies a natural death ; it fades away into the apparent 
 infinity of space. 
 
 So long as Rubens confines himself to space and outward 
 figure — to the mere animal man with animal passions — 
 he is, I may say, a god amongst painters. His satyrs, 
 Silenuses, lions, tigers, and dogs, are almost godlike ; but 
 the moment he attempts anything involving or presuming 
 the spiritual, his gods and goddesses, his nymphs and 
 heroes, become beasts — absolute, unmitigated beasts. 
 
 The Italian masters differ from the Dutch in this — that 
 in their pictures ages are perfectly ideal. The infant that 
 Raffael's Madonna holds in her arms cannot be guessed of 
 any particular age ; it is Humanity in infancy. The babe 
 in the manger in a Dutch painting is a facsimile of some 
 real new-born bantling ; it is just like the little rabbits we 
 fathers have all seen with some dismay at first burst. 
 
 Carlo Dolce's representations of our Saviour are pretty, 
 to be sure ; but they are too smooth to please me. His 
 Christs are always in sugar-candy. 
 
 That is a very odd and funny picture of the Connoisseurs 
 at Rome 1 by Reynolds. 
 
 The more I see of modern pictures, the more I am con- 
 vinced that the ancient art of painting is gone, and some- 
 thing substituted for it — very pleasing, but different, and 
 different in kind and not in degree only. Portraits by the 
 old masters— take for example the pock-fritten lady by 
 
 1 ' Portraits of distinguished Connoisseurs painted at Rome,' belonging 
 to Lord Burlington.— H. N. C. 
 
144 TABLE TALK 
 
 Cuyp * — are pictures of. men and women : they fill, not 
 merely occupy, a space ; they represent individuals, but 
 individuals as types of a species. Modern portraits — a few 
 by Jackson and Owen, perhaps, excepted — give you not 
 the man, not the inward humanity, but merely the external 
 mark, that in which Tom is different from Bill. There is 
 something affected and meretricious in the Snake in the 
 Grass, 2 and such pictures, by Reynolds. 
 
 July 25, 1831. 
 
 CHILLINGWORTH. — SUPERSTITION OF MALTESE, SICILIANS, 
 AND ITALIANS. 
 
 It is now twenty years since I read Chillingworth's 
 book ; s but certainly it seemed to me that his main 
 position, that the mere text of the Bible is the sole and 
 exclusive ground of Christian faith and practice, is quite 
 untenable against the Romanists. It entirely destroys 
 the conditions of a church, of an authority residing in 
 a religious community, and all that holy sense of brother- 
 hood which is so sublime and consolatory to a meditative 
 Christian. Had I been a Papist, I should not have wished 
 for a more vanquishable opponent in controversy. I cer- 
 tainly believe Chillingworth to have been in some sense 
 a Socinian. Lord Falkland, his friend, said so in substance. 
 I do not deny his skill in dialectics ; he was more than a 
 match for Knott 4 to be sure. 
 
 1 I almost forget, but have some recollection that the allusion is to 
 Mr. Heneage Pinch's picture of a Lady with a Fan. — H. N. 0. 
 
 a Sir Robert Peel's.— H. N. C. 
 
 3 ' The Religion of Protestants a safe Way to Salvation ; or, an Answer 
 to a Booke entitled " Mercy and Truth ; or, Charity maintained by 
 Catholics ", which pretends to prove the contrary.' 
 
 * Socinianism, or some inclination that way, is an old and clinging 
 charge against Chillingworth. On the one hand, it is well known that 
 he subscribed the articles of the Church of England, in the usual form, 
 on July 20, 1638 ; and on the other, it is equally certain that within 
 two years immediately previous, he wrote the letter to some unnamed 
 correspondent, beginning ' Dear Harry ', and printed in all the Lives 
 of Chillingworth, in which letter he sums up his arguments upon the 
 Arian doctrine in this passage : ' In a word, whosoever shall freely and 
 impartially consider of this thing, and how on the other side the ancient 
 
SUPERSTITION OF MALTESE 145 
 
 I must be bold enough to say,. that I do not think that 
 even Hooker puts the idea of a church on the true foun- 
 dation. 
 
 The superstition of the peasantry and lower orders 
 generally in Malta, Sicily, and Italy exceeds common 
 belief. It is unlike the superstition of Spain, which is 
 a jealous fanaticism, having reference to their Catholicism, 
 and always glancing on heresy. The popular superstition of 
 Italy is the offspring of the climate, the old associations, 
 the manners, and the very names of the places. It is pure 
 paganism, undisturbed by any anxiety about orthodoxy, 
 or animosity against heretics. Hence, it is much more 
 good-natured and pleasing to a traveller's feelings, and 
 certainly not a whit less like the true religion of our dear 
 Lord than the gloomy idolatry of the Spaniards. 
 
 I well remember, when in Valetta in 1805, asking a boy 
 who waited on me, what a certain procession, then passing, 
 was, and his answering with great quickness, that it was 
 Jesus Christ, who lives here (sta di casa qui), and when he 
 comes out, it is in the shape of a wafer. But, ' Eccelenza,' 
 said he, smiling and correcting himself, ' non e Cristiano.' x 
 
 fathers' weapons against the Arrians are in a manner only places of 
 Scripture (and these now for the most part discarded as importunate 
 and unconoluding), and how in the argument drawne from the authority 
 of the ancient fathers, they are almost always defendants, and scarse 
 ever opponents, he shall not choose but confesse, or at least be very inclinable 
 to beleeve, that the doctrine of Arrius is eyther a trvih, or at least no damnable 
 heresy.' The truth is, however, that the Socinianism of Chillingworth, 
 such as it may have been, had more reference to the doctrine of the 
 redemption of man than of the being of God. 
 
 Edward Knott's real name was Matthias Wilson. — H. N. C. 
 
 1 The following anecdote related by Mr. Coleridge, in April 1811, was 
 preserved and communicated to me by Mr. Justice Coleridge : 
 
 ' As I was descending from Mount iEtna with a very lively talkative 
 guide, we passed through a village (I think called) Nicolozzi, when the 
 Host happened to be passing through the street. Every one was prostrate ; 
 my guide became so ; and, not to be singular, I went down also. After 
 resuming our journey, I observed in my guide an unusual seriousness and 
 long silence, which, after many hums and hahs, was interrupted by a low 
 bow, and leave requested to ask a question. This was of course granted, 
 and the ensuing dialogue took place. Guide. " Signor, are you then a 
 Christian ? " Coleridge. " I hope so." G. " What I are all Englishmen 
 
 TABLE TALK L 
 
146 TABLE TALK 
 
 July 30, 1831. 
 
 ASGILL. — THE FRENCH. 
 
 Asgill was an extraordinary man, and his pamphlet * is 
 invaluable. He undertook to prove that man is literally 
 immortal ; or, rather, that any given living man might 
 probably never die. He complains of the cowardly practice 
 of dying. He was expelled from two Houses of Commons 
 for blasphemy and atheism, as was pretended ; really, I 
 suspect, because he was a staunch Hanoverian. I expected 
 to find the ravings of an enthusiast, or the sullen snarlings 
 of an infidel ; whereas I found the very soul of Swift — an 
 intense half self-deceived humorism. I scarcely remember 
 elsewhere such uncommon skill in logic, such lawyer-like 
 acuteness, and yet such a grasp of common sense. Each 
 of his paragraphs is in itself a whole, and yet a link between 
 the preceding and following ; so that the entire series 
 forms one argument, and yet each is a diamond in itself. 
 
 Christians ? " C. " I hope and trust they are.'' G. " What ! are you 
 not Turks ? Are you not damned eternally ? " 0. " I trust not, through 
 Christ." G. " What ! you believe in Christ then ? " C. " Certainly.' 
 This answer produced another long silence. At length my guide again 
 spoke, still doubting the grand point of my Christianity. G. " I'm think- 
 ing, Signor, what is the difference between you and us, that you are to be 
 oertainly damned ? " C. " Nothing very material ; nothing that can 
 prevent our both going to heaven, I hope. We believe in the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost." G. (interrupting me) " Oh those damned 
 priests ! what liars they are I But (pausing) we can't do without them ; 
 we can't go to heaven without them. But tell me, Signor, what are the 
 differences ? " C. " Why, for instance, we do not worship the Virgin." 
 G. " And why not, Signor ? " C. " Because, though holy and pure, we 
 think her still a woman, and, therefore, do not pay her the honour due 
 to God." G. " But do you not worship JeBus, who sits on the right hand 
 of God 1 " C. " We do." G. " Then why not worship the Virgin, who sits 
 on the left ? " C. " I did npt know she did. If you can show it me in the 
 Scriptures, I shall readily agree to worship her." " Oh," said my man, 
 with uncommon triumph, and cracking his fingers, " siouro, Signor I 
 sicuro, Signor ! " ' — H. N. C. 
 
 1 ' An argument proving, that, according to the covenant of eternal 
 life, revealed in the Scriptures, man may be translated from hence, 
 without passing through death, although the human nature of Christ 
 himself could not be thus translated, till he had passed through death.' 
 Asgill died in the year 1738, in the King's Bench prison, where he had 
 been a prisoner for debt thirty years. — H. N. C. 
 
THE FRENCH— THE GOOD AND THE TRUE 147 
 
 Was there ever such a miserable scene as that of the 
 exhibition of the Austrian standards in the French house 
 of peers the other day ? * Every other nation but the 
 French would see that it was an exhibition of their own 
 falsehood and cowardice. A man swears that the property 
 entrusted to him is burnt, and then, when he is no longer 
 afraid, produces it, and boasts of the atmosphere of ' honour', 
 through which the lie did not transpire. 
 
 Frenchmen are like grains of gunpowder — each by itself 
 smutty and contemptible, but mass them together and they 
 are terrible indeed. 
 
 August 1, 1831. 
 
 As there is much beast and some devil in man, so is 
 there some angel and some God in him. The beast and 
 the devil may be conquered, but in this life never destroyed. 
 
 I will defy any one to answer the arguments of a 
 St. Simonist, except on the ground of Christianity — its 
 precepts and its assurances. 
 
 August 6, 1831. 
 
 THE GOOD AND THE TRUE. — ROMISH RELIGION. 
 
 There is the love of the good for the good's sake, and 
 the love of the truth for the truth's sake. I have known 
 many, especially womeni love the good for the good's 
 sake ; but very few indeed, and scarcely one woman, love 
 
 ' When the allies were in Paris in 1815, all the Austrian standards 
 were reclaimed. The answer was that they had been burnt by the 
 soldiers at the Hdtel des Invalides. This was untrue. The Marquis de 
 Semonville confessed with pride that he, knowing of the fraud, had 
 concealed these standards, taken from Mack at Ulm in 1805, in a vault 
 under the Luxemburg palace. ' An inviolable asylum,' said the Marquis 
 in his speech to the peers, ' formed in the vault of this hall has protected 
 this treasure from every search. Vainly, during this long space of time, 
 have the most authoritative researches endeavoured to penetrate the 
 secret. It would have been culpable to reveal it, as long as we were 
 liable to the demands of haughty foreigners. No one in this atmosphere 
 of honour is capable of so great a weakness,' &c. — H. N. C. 
 
 L2 
 
148 TABLE TALK 
 
 the truth for the truth's sake. Yet without the latter the 
 former may become, as it has a thousand times been, 
 the source of persecution of the truth — the pretext and 
 motive of inquisitorial cruelty and party zealotry. To see 
 clearly that the love of the good and the true is ultimately 
 identical — is given only to those who love both sincerely 
 and without any foreign ends. 
 
 Look through the whole history of countries professing 
 the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven 
 of this besetting and accursed principle of action — that 
 the end will sanction any means. 
 
 August 8, 1831. 
 
 ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 
 
 The conduct of this country to King William of Holland 
 has been, in my judgement, base and unprincipled beyond 
 anything in our history since the times of Charles the 
 Second. Certainly, Holland is one of the most important 
 allies that England has ; and we are doing our utmost to 
 subject it, and Portugal, to French influence, or even 
 dominion ! Upon my word, the English people, at this 
 moment, are like a man palsied in every part of his body 
 but one, in which one part he is so morbidly sensitive that 
 he cannot bear to have it so much as breathed upon, whilst 
 you may pinch him with a hot forceps elsewhere without 
 his taking any notice of it. 
 
 Augusts, 1831. 
 
 IRON. — GALVANISM. — HEAT. 
 
 Iron is the most ductile of all hard metals, and the 
 hardest of all ductile metals. With the exception of nickel, 
 in which it is dimly seen, iron is the only metal in which 
 the magnetic power is visible. Indeed, it is almost impos- 
 sible to purify nickel of iron. 
 
NATIONAL COLONIAL CHARACTER 149 
 
 Galvanism is the union of electricity and magnetism, 
 and, by being continuous, it exhibits an image of life ; I say, 
 an image only : it is life in death. 
 
 Heat is the mesothesis or indifference of light and matter. 
 
 August 14, 1831. 
 
 NATIONAL COLONIAL CHARACTER, AND NAVAL 
 DISCIPLINE. 
 
 The character of most nations in their colonial depen- 
 dencies is in an inverse ratio of excellence to their character 
 at home. The best people in the mother-country will 
 generally be the worst in the colonies ; the worst at home 
 will be the best abroad. Or, perhaps, I may state it less 
 offensively thus : The colonists of £. well-governed country 
 will degenerate ; those of an ill-governed country will 
 improve. I am now considering the natural tendency of 
 such colonists if left to themselves ; of course, a direct 
 act of the legislature of the mother-country will break in 
 upon this. Where this tendency is exemplified, the cause 
 is obvious. In countries well governed and happily con- 
 ditioned, none, or very few, but those who are desperate 
 through vice or folly, or who are mere trading adventurers, 
 will be willing to leave their homes and settle in another 
 hemisphere ; and of those who do go, the best and worthiest 
 are always striving to acquire the means of leaving the 
 colony, and of returning to their native land. In ill- 
 governed and ill-conditioned countries, on the contrary, 
 the most respectable of the people are willing and anxious 
 to emigrate for the chance of greater security and enlarged 
 freedom ; and if they succeed in obtaining these blessings 
 in almost any degree, they have little inducement, on the 
 average, to wish to abandon their second and better country. 
 Hence, in the former case, the colonists consider themselves 
 as mere strangers, sojourners, birds of passage, and shift 
 to live from hand to mouth, with little regard to lasting 
 improvement of the place of their temporary commerce ; 
 whilst, in the latter case, men feel attached to a community 
 
150 TABLE TALK 
 
 to which they are individually indebted for otherwise 
 unattainable benefits, and for the most part learn to regard 
 it as their abode, and to make themselves as happy and 
 comfortable in it as possible. I believe that the internal 
 condition and character of the English and French West 
 India Islands of the last century amply verified this dis- 
 tinction ; the Dutch colonists most certainly did, and have 
 always done. 
 
 Analogous to this, though not founded on precisely the 
 same principle, is the fact that the severest naval discipline 
 is always found in the ships of the freest nations, and the 
 most lax discipline in the ships of the most oppressed. 
 Hence, the naval discipline of the Americans is the sharpest ; 
 then that of the English ; * then that of the French (I speak 
 
 1 This expression needs explanation. It looks as if Mr. Coleridge rated 
 the degree of liberty enjoyed by the English, after that of the citizens of 
 the United States ; but he meant no such thing. His meaning was, that 
 the form of government of the latter was more democratic, and formally 
 assigned more power to each individual. The Americans, as a nation, 
 had no better friend in England than Coleridge ; he contemplated their 
 growth with interest ; and prophesied highly of their destiny, whether 
 under their present or other governments. But he well knew their 
 besetting faults and their peculiar difficulties, and was most deliberately 
 of opinion that the English had, for 130 years last past, possessed 
 a measure of individual freedom and social dignity which had never been 
 equalled, much less surpassed, in any other country ancient or modern. 
 There is a passage in Mr. Coleridge's latest publication (Church and State) 
 which clearly expresses his opinion upon this subject : ' It has been 
 frequently and truly observed that in England, where the ground-plan, 
 the skeleton, as it were, of the government is a monarchy, at once 
 buttressed and limited by the aristocracy (the assertions of its popular 
 character finding a better support in the harangues and theories of 
 popular men, than in state documents, and the records of clear history), 
 a far greater degree of liberty is, and long has been, enjoyed, than ever 
 existed in the ostensibly freest, that is, most democratic, commonwealths 
 of ancient or of modern times ; greater, indeed, and with a more decisive 
 predominance of the spirit of freedom, than the wisest and most philan- 
 thropic statesmen of antiquity, or than the great commonwealth's- 
 men, — the stars of that narrow interspace of blue sky between the black 
 clouds of the first and second Charles's reigns — believed compatible, the 
 one with the safety of the state, the other with the interests of morality. 
 Yes ! for little less than a century and a half, Englishmen have, collec- 
 tively and individually, lived and acted with fewer restraints on their 
 free-agency, than the citizens of any known republic, past or present' 
 (p. 120). Upon which he subjoins the following note : ' It will be thought, 
 perhaps, that the United States of North America should have been 
 excepted. But the identity of stock, language, customs, manners, and 
 
ENGLAND.— HOLLAND AND BELGIUM 151 
 
 as it used to be) ; and on board a Spanish ship there is no 
 discipline at all. 
 
 At Genoa, the word ' Liberty ' is, or used to be, engraved 
 on the chains of the galley-slaves, and the doors of the 
 dungeons. 
 
 August 15, 1831. 
 
 ENGLAND. — HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. 
 
 I cannot contain my indignation at the conduct of our 
 government towards Holland. They have undoubtedly 
 forgotten the true and well-recognized policy of this country 
 in regard to Portugal in permitting the war faction in 
 France to take possession of the Tagus, and to bully the 
 Portuguese upon so flimsy — indeed, false — a pretext ; x yet, 
 in this instance, something may be said for them. Miguel 
 is such a wretch, that I acknowledge a sort of morality in 
 leaving him to be cuffed and insulted ; though, of course, 
 this is a poor answer to a statesman who alleges the interest 
 and policy of the country. But, as to the Dutch and King 
 William : the first, as a nation, the most ancient ally, the 
 _ alter idem of England, the best deserving of the cause of 
 freedom and religion and morality of any people in Europe ; 
 and the second, the very best sovereign now in Christendom, 
 with, perhaps, the single exception of the excellent King 
 of Sweden 2 — was ever anything so mean and oowardly 
 as the behaviour of England ! The Five Powers have, 
 throughout this conference, been actuated exclusively by 
 
 laws scarcely allows us to consider this an exception, even though it 
 were quite certain both that it is and that it will continue such. It was 
 at all events a remark worth remembering, which I once heard from 
 a traveller (a prejudiced one, I must admit), that where every man 
 may take liberties, there is little liberty for any man ; or, that where 
 every man takes liberties, no man can enjoy any ' (p. 121). See also a 
 passage to the like effect in The Friend, vol. i. p. 129. — H. N. C. 
 
 1 Meaning, principally, the whipping, so richly deserved, inflicted on 
 » Frenchman called Bonhomme, for committing a disgusting breach of 
 common decency in the cathedral of Coimbra, during divine service in 
 Passion Week.— H. N. C. 
 
 2 ' Everything that I have heard or read of this sovereign has con- 
 tributed to the impression on my mind, that he is a good and a wise man, 
 and worthy to be the king of a virtuous people, the purest specimen of 
 the Gothic race.' — Church and State, p. 125, n. — H. N. C. 
 
152 TABLE TALK 
 
 a selfish desire to preserve peace — I should rather say, to 
 smother war — at the expense of a most valuable but 
 inferior power. They have over and over again acknow- 
 ledged the justice of the Dutch claims, and the absurdity 
 of the Belgian pretences ; but as the Belgians were also 
 as impudent as they were iniquitous — as they would not 
 yield their point, why then — that peace may be preserved — 
 the Dutch must yield theirs ! A foreign prince comes into 
 Belgium, pending these negotiations, and takes an unquali- 
 fied oath to maintain the Belgian demands : what could 
 King William or the Dutch do, if they ever thereafter 
 meant to call themselves independent, but resist and resent 
 this outrage to the uttermost ? It was a crisis in which 
 every consideration of state became inferior to the strong 
 sense and duty of national honour. When, indeed, the 
 French appear in the field, King William retires. ' I now 
 see', he may say, ' that the powers of Europe are deter- 
 mined to abet the Belgians. The justice of such a pro- 
 ceeding I leave to their conscience and the decision of 
 history. It is now no longer a question whether I am 
 tamely to submit to rebels and a usurper ; it is rio longer 
 a quarrel between Holland and Belgium : it is an alliance 
 of all Europe against Holland, — in which case I yield. I 
 have no desire to sacrifice my people.' 
 
 When Leopold said that he was called to ' reign over 
 four millions of noble Belgians', I thought the phrase 
 would have been more germane to the matter, if he had 
 said that he was called to ' rein in four million restive 
 
 August 20, 1831. 
 
 GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE. — HOBBISM. 
 
 0. P. Q. in the Morning Chronicle is a clever fellow. He 
 is for the greatest possible happiness for the greatest pos- 
 sible number, and for the longest possible time ! So am I ; 
 so are you, and every one of us, I will venture to say, 
 round the tea-table. First, however, what does 0. P. Q. 
 mean by the word happiness ? and, secondly, how does 
 
GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE 153 
 
 he propose to make other persons agree in Ms definition, 
 of the term ? Don't you see the ridiculous absurdity of 
 setting up that as a principle or motive of action, which is, 
 in fact, a necessary and essential instinct of our very 
 nature — an inborn and inextinguishable desire ? How 
 can creatures susceptible of pleasure and pain do other- 
 wise than desire happiness ? But, what happiness ? That 
 is the question. The American savage, in scalping his 
 fallen enemy, pursues his happiness naturally and ade- 
 quately. A Chickasaw, or Pawnee Bentham, or 0. P. Q., 
 would necessarily hope for the most frequent opportunities 
 possible of scalping the greatest possible number of savages, 
 for the longest possible time. There is no escaping this 
 absurdity, unless you come back to a standard of reason 
 and duty, imperative upon our merely pleasurable sen- 
 sations. Oh ! but, says 0. P. Q., I am for the happiness 
 of others ! Of others ! Are you, indeed ? Well, I happen 
 to be one of those others, and, so far as I can judge from 
 what you show me of your habits and views, I would rather 
 be excused from your banquet of happiness. Your mode 
 of happiness would make me miserable. To go about 
 doing as much good as possible to as many men as possible, 
 is, indeed, an excellent object for a man to propose to 
 himself ; but then, in order that you may not sacrifice the 
 real good and happiness of others to your particular views, 
 which may be quite different from your neighbour's, you 
 must do that good to others which the reason, common to 
 all, pronounces to be good for all. In this sense your fine 
 maxim is so very true as to be a mere truism. 
 
 So you object, with old Hobbes, that I do good actions 
 for the pleasure of a good conscience ; and so, after all, 
 I am only a refined sensualist ! Heaven bless you, and 
 mend your logic ! Don't you see that if conscience, which 
 is in its nature a consequence, were thus anticipated and 
 made an antecedent — a party instead of a judge — it would 
 dishonour your draft upon it — it would not pay on demand ? 
 Don't you see that, in truth, the very fact of acting with 
 this motive properly and logically destroys all claim upon 
 conscience to give you any pleasure at all ? 
 
154 TABLE TALK 
 
 August 22, 1831. 
 
 THE TWO MODES OF POLITICAL ACTION. 
 
 There are many able and patriotic members in the 
 House of Commons — Sir Eobert Inglis, Sir Robert Peel, 
 and some others. But I grieve that they never have the 
 courage or the wisdom — I know not in which the failure 
 is — to take their stand upon duty, and to appeal to all men 
 as men — to the Good and the True, which exist for all, and 
 of which all have an apprehension. They always set to 
 work — especially, his great eminence considered, Sir Robert 
 Peel — by addressing themselves to individual interests ; 
 the measure will be injurious to the linen-drapers, or to the 
 bricklayers ; or this clause will bear hard on bobbin-net 
 or poplins, and so forth. Whereas their adversaries — the 
 demagogues — always work on the opposite principle : they 
 always appeal to men as men ; and, as you know, the 
 most terrible convulsions in society have been wrought by 
 such phrases as Bights of Man, Sovereignty of the People, 
 &c, which no one understands, which apply to no one in 
 particular, but to all in general. 1 The devil works precisely 
 in the same way. He is a very clever fellow ; I have no 
 
 1 ' It is with nations as with individuals. In tranquil moods and 
 peaceable times we are quite practical ; facts only, and cool common 
 sense, are then in fashion. But let the winds of passion swell, and straight- 
 way men begin to generalize, to connect by remotest analogies, to 
 express the most universal positions of reason in the most glowing 
 figures of fancy ; in short, to feel particular truths and mere facts as 
 poor, cold, narrow, and ineommensurate with their feelings. ' — Statesman's 
 Manual, p. 18. 
 
 ' It seems a paradox only to the unthinking, and it is a fact that 
 none but the unread in history will deny, that, in periods of popular 
 tumult and innovation, the more abstract a notion is, the more readily 
 has it been found to combine, the closer has appeared its affinity, with 
 the feelings of a people, and with all their immediate impulses to action. 
 At the commencement of the French Revolution, in the remotest 
 villages every tongue was employed in echoing and enforcing the almost 
 geometrical abstractions of the physiocratic politicians and economists. 
 The public roads were crowded with armed enthusiasts, disputing on the 
 inalienable sovereignty of the people, the imprescriptible laws of the pure 
 reason, and the universal constitution, which, as rising out of the nature 
 and rights of man as man, all nations alike were under the obligation of 
 adopting.' — Statesman's Manual, p. 18. 
 
THE TWO MODES OF POLITICAL ACTION 155 
 
 acquaintance with him, but I respect his evident talents. 
 Consistent truth and goodness will assuredly in the end 
 overcome everything ; but inconsistent good can never 
 be a match for consistent evil. Alas ! I look in vain for 
 some wise and vigorous man, to sound the word Duty in 
 the ears of this generation. 
 
 August 24, 1831. 
 
 TRUTHS AND MAXIMS. 
 
 The English public is not yet ripe to comprehend the 
 essential difference between the reason and the under- 
 standing — between a principle and a maxim — an eternal 
 truth and a mere conclusion generalized from a great 
 number of facts. A man, having seen a million moss roses 
 all red, concludes from his own experience and that of 
 others that all moss roses are red. That is a maxim with 
 him — the greatest amount of his knowledge upon the 
 subject. But it is only true until some gardener has pro- 
 duced a white moss rose — after which the maxim is good 
 for nothing. Again, suppose Adam watching the sun 
 sinking under the western horizon for the first time ; he 
 is seized with gloom and terror, relieved by scarce a ray 
 of hope that he shall ever see the glorious light again. 
 The next evening, when it declines, his hopes are stronger, 
 but still mixed with fear ; and even at the end of a thousand 
 years, all that a man can feel is a hope and an expectation 
 so strong as to preclude anxiety. Now compare this iii its 
 highest degree with the assurance which you have that 
 the two sides of any triangle are together greater than the 
 third. This, demonstrated of one triangle, is seen to be 
 eternally true of all imaginable triangles. This is a truth 
 perceived at once by the intuitive reason, independently 
 of experience. It is and must ever be so, multiply and 
 vary the shapes and sizes of triangles as you may. 
 
 It used to be said that four and five make nine. Locke 
 says that four and five are nine. Now I say, that four and 
 five are not nine, but that they will make nine. When I 
 
156 TABLE TALK 
 
 see four objects which will form a square, and five which 
 will form a pentagon, I see that they are two different 
 things ; when combined, they will form a third different 
 figure, which we call nine. When separate they are not it 
 but will make it. 
 
 September 11, 1831. 
 
 DRAYTON AND DANIEL. 
 
 Drayton is a sweet poet, and Selden's notes to the early 
 part of the Polyolbion are well worth your perusal. Daniel 
 is a superior man ; his diction is pre-eminently pure — of 
 that quality which I believe has always existed somewhere 
 in society. It is just such English, without any alteration, 
 as Wordsworth or Sir George Beaumont might have spoken 
 or written in the present day. 
 
 Yet there are instances of sublimity in Drayton. When 
 deploring the cutting down of some of our old forests, he 
 says, in language which reminds the reader of Lear, written 
 subsequently, and also of several passages in Mr. Words- 
 worth's poems : 
 
 . . . our trees so haek'd above the ground, 
 That where their lofty tops the neighbouring countries orown'd, 
 Their trunks (like aged folks) now bare and naked stand, 
 As for revenge to Heaven each held a wither'd hand. 1 
 
 That is very fine. 
 
 > Polyol. VII. 
 
 ' He ( Drayton) was a poet by nature, and carefully improved his talent; 
 one who sedulously laboured to deserve the approbation of such as were 
 capable of appreciating and cared nothing for the censures which others 
 might pass upon him.' ' Like me that list,' he says, 
 
 . . . my honest rhymes 
 Nor care for critics, nor regard the times. 
 
 And though he is not a poet virum volitate 'per ora, nor one of those 
 whose better fortune it is to live in the hearts of their devoted admirers, 
 yet what he deemed his greatest work will be preserved by its subject ; 
 some of his minor poems have merit enough in their execution to ensure 
 their preservation ; and no one who studies poetry as an art will think 
 his time misspent in perusing the whole, if he have any real love for the 
 art he is pursuing. The youth who enters upon that pursuit without 
 a feeling of respect and gratitude for those elder poets, who by their 
 
COLERIDGE'S SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY 157 
 
 September 12, 1831. 
 mr. coleridqe's system of philosophy. 
 
 My system, if I may venture to give it so fine a name, 
 is the only attempt, I know, ever made to reduce all 
 knowledges into harmony. It opposes no other system, 
 but shows what was true in each ; and how that which 
 was true in the particular, in each of them became error, 
 because it was only half the truth. I have endeavoured 
 to unite the insulated fragments of truth, and therewith 
 to frame a perfect mirror. I show to each system that I 
 fully understand and rightfully appreciate what that 
 system means ; but then I lift up that system to a higher 
 point of view, from which I enable it to see its former 
 position, where it was, indeed, but under another light 
 and with different relations ; so that the fragment of truth 
 is not only acknowledged, but explained. Thus the old 
 astronomers discovered and maintained much that was 
 true ; but, because they were placed on a false ground, 
 and looked from a wrong point of view, they never did, 
 they never could, discover the truth — that is, the whole 
 truth. As soon as they left the earth, their false centre, 
 and took their stand in the sun, immediately they saw the 
 whole system in its true light, and their former station 
 remaining, but remaining as a part of the prospect. I wish, 
 in short, to connect by a moral copula natural history with 
 political history ; or, in other words, to make history 
 scientific, and science historical — to take from history its 
 accidentality, and from science its fatalism. 
 
 I never from a boy could, under any circumstances, 
 feel the slightest dread of death as such. In all my illnesses 
 I have ever had the most intense desire to be released 
 
 labours have prepared the way for him, is not likely to produce any thing 
 himself that will be held in remembrance by posterity.' — The Doctor, &c, 
 u. 36, P. I. 
 
 I heartily trust that the author or authors, as the case may be, of this 
 singularly thoughtful and diverting book will in due time continue it. 
 Let some people say what they please, there has not been the fellow of 
 it published for many a long day. — H. N. C. 
 
158 TABLE TALK 
 
 from this life, unchecked by any but one wish, namely, 
 to be able to finish my work on Philosophy. Not that I 
 have any author's vanity on the subject : God knows 
 that I should be absolutely glad, if I could hear that the 
 thing had already been done before me. 
 
 Illness never in the smallest degree affects my intellectual 
 powers. I can think with all my ordinary vigour in the 
 midst of pain ; but I am beset with the most wretched 
 and unmanning reluctance and shrinking from action. I 
 could not upon such occasions take the pen in hand to 
 write down my thoughts for all the wide world. 
 
 October 26, 1831. 
 
 KEENNESS AND SUBTLETY. 
 
 Few men of genius are keen ; but almost every man of 
 genius is subtle. If you ask me the difference between 
 keenness and subtlety, I answer that it is the difference 
 between a point and an edge. To split a hair is no proof 
 of subtlety ; for subtlety acts in distinguishing differences- — 
 in showing that two things apparently one are in fact two ; 
 whereas, to split a hair is to cause division, and not to 
 ascertain difference. 
 
 October 27, 1831. 
 
 DUTIES AND NEEDS OF AN ADVOCATE. 
 
 There is undoubtedly a limit to the exertions of an 
 advocate for his client. He has a right, it is his bounden 
 duty, to do everything which his client might honestly do, 
 and to do it with all the effect which any exercise of skill, 
 talent, or knowledge of his own may be able to produce. 
 But the advocate has no right, nor is it his duty, to do 
 that for his client which his client in foro conscientiae has 
 no right to do for himself ; as, for a gross example, to put 
 in evidence a forged deed or will, knowing it to be so 
 forged. As to mere confounding of witnesses by skilful 
 
DUTIES AND NEEDS OF AN ADVOCATE 159 
 
 cross-examination, I own I am not disposed to be very- 
 strict. The whole thing is perfectly well understood on 
 all hands, and it is little more in general than a sort of 
 cudgel-playing between the counsel and the witness, in 
 which, I speak with submission to you, I think I have 
 seen the witness have the best of it as often as his assailant. 
 It is of the utmost importance in the administration of 
 justice that knowledge and intellectual power should be 
 as far as possible equalized between the crown and the 
 prisoner, or plaintiff and defendant. Hence especially 
 arises the necessity for an order of advocates — men whose 
 duty it ought to be to know what the law allows and dis- 
 allows ; but whose interests should be wholly indifferent 
 as to the persons or characters of their clients. If a certain 
 latitude in examining witnesses is, as experience seems to 
 have shown, a necessary mean towards the evisceration 
 of the truth of matters of faet, I have no doubt, as a moralist , 
 in saying, that such latitude within the bounds now existing 
 is justifiable. We must be content with a certain quantum 
 in this life, especially in matters of public cognizance ; the 
 necessities of society demand it ; we must not be righteous 
 overmuch, or wise overmuch ; and, as an old father says, 
 in what vein may there not be a plethora, when the Scrip- 
 ture tells us that there may under circumstances be too 
 much of virtue and of wisdom ? 
 
 Still I think that, upon the whole, the advocate is placed 
 in a position unfavourable to his moral being, and, indeed, 
 to his intellect also, in its higher powers. Therefore I 
 would recommend an advocate to devote a part of his 
 leisure time to some study of the metaphysics of the mind, 
 or metaphysics of theology ; something, I mean, which 
 shall call forth all his powers, and centre his wishes in the 
 investigation of truth alone, without reference to a side 
 .to be supported. No studies give such a power of dis- 
 tinguishing as metaphysical, and in their natural and 
 unperverted tendency they are ennobling and exalting. 
 Some such studies are wanted to counteract the operation 
 of legal studies and practice,, which sharpen, indeed, but, 
 like a grinding-stone, narrow whilst they sharpen. 
 
160 TABLE TALK 
 
 November 19, 1831. 
 
 ABOLITION OF THE FRENCH HEREDITARY PEERAGE. 
 
 I cannot say what the French peers -will do ; but I can 
 tell you what they ought to do. ' So far', they might say, 
 ' as our feelings and interests, as individuals, are concerned 
 in this matter — if it really he the prevailing wish of our 
 fellow-countrymen to destroy the hereditary peerage — 
 we shall, without regret, retire into the ranks of private 
 citizens : hut we are hound by the provisions of the exist- 
 ing constitution to consider ourselves collectively as essen- 
 tial to the well-being of France ; we have been placed here 
 to defend what France, a short time ago at least, thought 
 a vital part of its government ; and, if we -did not defend 
 it, what answer could we make hereafter to France itself, 
 if she should come to see, what we think to be an error 
 in the light in which we view it ? We should be justly 
 branded as traitors and cowards, who had deserted the 
 post which we were specially appointed to maintain. As 
 a House of Peers, therefore — as one substantive branch of 
 the legislature, we can never, in honour or in conscience, 
 consent to a measure of the impolicy and dangerous conse- 
 quences of which we are convinced. 
 
 ' If, therefore, this measure is demanded by the country, 
 let the king and the deputies form themselves into a con- 
 stituent assembly ; and then, assuming to act in the 
 name of the total nation, let them decree the abolition. In 
 that case we yield to a just, perhaps, but revolutionary, 
 act, in which we do not participate, and against which we 
 are, upon the supposition, quite powerless. If the deputies, 
 however, consider themselves so completely in the character 
 of delegates as to be at present absolutely pledged to vote 
 without freedom of deliberation, let a conqise, but per- 
 spicuous, summary of the ablest arguments that can be 
 adduced on either side be drawn up, and printed, and cir- 
 culated throughout the country ; and then, after two 
 months, let the deputies demand fresh instructions upon 
 this point. One thing, as men of honour, we declare 
 beforehand — that, come what will, none of us who are 
 now peers will ever accept a peerage creat ed de novo for life.' 
 
MINISTERS ON THE REFORM BILL 161 
 
 November 20, 1831. 
 
 CONDUCT OF MINISTERS ON THE REFORM BILL. — THE 
 MULTITUDE. 
 
 The present ministers have, in my judgement, been 
 guilty of two things pre-eminently wicked, sensu politico, 
 in their conduct upon this Reform Bill. First, they have 
 endeavoured to carry a fundamental change in the material 
 and mode of action of the Government of the country by 
 so exciting the passions, and playing upon the necessary 
 ignorance of the numerical majority of the nation, that all 
 freedom and utility of discussion, by competent heads, in 
 the proper place, should be precluded. In doing this they 
 have used, or sanctioned the use of, arguments which may 
 be applied with equal or even greater force to the carry- 
 ing of any measure whatever, no matter how atrocious in 
 its character or destructive in its consequences. They 
 have appealed directly to the argument of the greater 
 number of voices, no matter whether the utterers were 
 drunk or sober, competent or not competent ; and they 
 have done the utmost in their power to rase out the sacred 
 principle in politics of a representation of interests, and to 
 introduce the mad and barbarizing scheme of a delegation 
 of individuals. And they have done all this without one 
 word of thankfulness to God for the manifold blessings 
 of which the Constitution as settled at the Revolution, 
 imperfect as it may be, has been the source or vehicle or 
 condition to this great nation t without one honest state- 
 ment of the manner in which the anomalies in the practice 
 grew up, or any manly declaration of the inevitable neces- 
 sities of government which those anomalies have met . With 
 no humility, nor fear, nor reverence, like Ham the accursed, 
 they have beckoned, with grinning faces, to a vulgar mob, 
 to come and insult over the nakedness of a parent ; when 
 it had become them, if one spark of filial patriotism had 
 burnt within their breasts, to have marched with silent 
 steps and averted faces to lay their robes upon his 
 destitution ! 
 
 Secondly, they have made the king the prime mover in 
 all this political wickedness : they have made the Icing 
 
 TABLE TALK M 
 
162 TABLE TALK 
 
 tell his people that they were deprived of their rights, and, 
 by direct and necessary implication, that they and their 
 ancestors for a century past had been slaves : they have 
 made the Icing vilify the memory of his own brother and 
 father. Rights ! There are no rights whatever without 
 corresponding duties. Look at the history of the growth 
 of our Constitution, and you will see that our ancestors 
 never upon any occasion stated, as a ground for claiming 
 any of their privileges, an abstract right inherent in them- 
 selves ; you will nowhere in our parliamentary records 
 find the miserable sophism of the Rights of Man. No ! 
 they were too wise for that. They took good care to refer 
 their claims to custom and prescription, and boldly — 
 sometimes very impudently — asserted them upon tradi- 
 tionary and constitutional grounds. The Bill is bad 
 enough, God knows ; but the arguments of its advocates, 
 and the manner of their advocacy, are a thousand times 
 worse than the Bill itself ; and you will live to think so. 
 
 I am far, very far, from wishing to indulge in any vulgar 
 abuse of the vulgar. I believe that the feeling of the 
 multitude will, in most cases, be in favour of something 
 good ; but this it is which I perceive, that they are always 
 under the domination of some one feeling or view ; 
 whereas truth, and, above all, practical v.isdom, must 
 be the result of a wide comprehension of the more and the 
 less, the balance and the counterbalance. 
 
 December 3, 1831. 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 A religion, that is, a true religion, must consist of ideas 
 and facts both ; not of ideas alone without facts, for 
 then it would be mere Philosophy; nor of facts alone 
 without ideas, of which those facts are the symbols, or 
 out of which they arise, or upon which they are grounded, 
 for then it would be mere History. 
 
UNION WITH IRELAND 163 
 
 December 17, 1831. 
 
 UNION WITH IRELAND. — IRISH CHURCH. 
 
 I am quite sure that no dangers are to be feared by 
 England from the disannexing and independence of Ireland 
 at all comparable with the evils which have been, and will 
 yet be, caused to England by the Union. We have never 
 received one particle of advantage from our association 
 with Ireland, whilst we have in many most vital par- 
 ticulars violated the principles of the British Constitution 
 solely for the purpose of conciliating the Irish agitators, 
 and of endeavouring — a vain endeavour — to find room 
 for them under the same Government. Mr. Pitt has 
 received great credit for effecting the Union ; but I believe 
 it will sooner or later be discovered that the manner in 
 which, and the terms upon which, he effected it, made it 
 the most fatal blow that ever was levelled against the 
 peace and prosperity of England. From it came the 
 Catholic Bill. From the Catholic Bill has come this Reform 
 Bill ! And what next ? 
 
 The case of the Irish Church is certainly anomalous, and 
 full of practical difficulties. On the one hand, it is the 
 only Church which the Constitution can admit ; on the 
 other, such are the circumstances, it is a Church that cannot 
 act as a Church towards five-sixths of the persons nominally 
 and legally within its care 
 
 December 18, 1831. 
 
 A STATE. — PERSONS AND THINGS. — HISTORY. 
 
 The difference between an inorganic and an organic 
 body lies in this : In the first — a sheaf of corn— the 
 whole is nothing more than a collection of the individual 
 parts or phenomena. In the second — a man — the whole 
 is the effect of, or results from, the parts ; it — the whole 
 — is everything, and the parts are nothing. 
 
 A State is an idea intermediate between the two — the 
 
 112 
 
164 TABLE TALK 
 
 whole being a result from, and not a mere total of, the 
 parts, and yet not so merging the constituent parts in the 
 result, but that the individual exists integrally within it. 
 Extremes, especially in politics, meet. In Athens each 
 individual Athenian was of no value ; but taken altogether, 
 as Demus, they were everything in such a sense that no 
 individual citizen was anything. In Turkey there is the 
 sign of unity put for unity. The Sultan seems himself 
 the State ; but it is an illusion : there is in fact in Turkey 
 no State at all : the whole consists of nothing but a vast 
 collection of neighbourhoods. 
 
 When the Government and the aristocracy of this 
 country had subordinated persons to things, and treated 
 the one like the other, the poor, with some reason, and 
 almost in self-defence, learned to set up rights above 
 duties. The code of a Christian society is, Debeo, et tu 
 debes; of heathens or barbarians, Teneo, teneto et tu, si 
 potes. 1 
 
 If men could learn from history, what lessons it might 
 teach us ! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the 
 light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, 
 which shines only on the waves behind us ! 
 
 1 ' And this, again, is evolved out of the yet higher idea of person in 
 contradistinction from thing — all social law and justice being grounded 
 on the principle that a person can never, but by his own fault, become 
 a thing, or, without grievous wrong, be treated as such ; and the distinc- 
 tion consisting in this, that a thing may be used altogether, and merely 
 as the means to an end ; but the person must always be included in the 
 end ; his interest must form a part of the object, a mean to which 
 he, by consent, that is, by his own act, makes himself. We plant a tree, 
 and we fell it ; we breed the sheep, and we shear, or we kill it, — in both 
 cases wholly as means to our ends : for trees and animals are things. 
 The woodcutter and the hind are likewise employed as means ; but on 
 agreement, and that too an agreement of reciprocal advantage, which 
 includes them as well as their employer in the end ; for they are persons. 
 And the Government under which the contrary takes place is not worthy 
 to be called a State, if, as in the kingdom of Dahomey, it be unpro- 
 gressive ; or only by anticipation, where, as in Russia, it is in advance 
 to a betterand more man-worthy order of things.' — Church and State, p. 10. 
 
BEAUTY— DISSENTERS 165 
 
 December 27, 1831. 
 
 BEAUTY. GENIUS . 
 
 The old definition of beauty in the Roman school of 
 painting was, il piu nelV uno — multitude in unity ; and 
 there is no doubt that such is the principle of beauty. 
 And as one of the most characteristic and infallible criteria 
 of the different ranks of men's intellects, observe the 
 instinctive habit which all superior minds have of 
 endeavouring to bring, and of never resting till they 
 have brought, into unity the scattered facts which occur 
 in conversation or in the statements of men of business. 
 To attempt to argue any great question upon facts only, 
 is absurd ; you cannot state any fact before a mixed 
 audience, which an opponent as clever as yourself cannot 
 with ease twist, towards another bearing, or at least meet 
 by a contrary fact, as it is called. I wonder why facts 
 were ever called stubborn things : I am sure they have 
 been found pliable enough lately in the House of Commons 
 and elsewhere. Facts, you know, are not truths ; they 
 are not conclusions ; they are not even premisses, but in 
 the nature and parts of premisses. The truth depends 
 on, and is only arrived at, by a legitimate deduction from 
 all the facts which are truly material. 
 
 December 28, 1831. 
 
 CHURCH. STATE. DISSENTERS. 
 
 Even to a Church — the only pure democracy, because 
 in it persons are alone considered, and one person a priori 
 is equal to another person — even to a Church, discipline 
 is an essential condition. But a State regards classes, 
 and classes as they represent classified property ; and to 
 introduce a system of representation which must inevit- 
 ably render all discipline impossible, what is it but madness 
 — the madness of ignorant vanity, and reckless obstinacy ? 
 
 I have known, and still know, many Dissenters, who- 
 profess to have a zeal for Christianity ; and I dare say 
 
166 TABLE TALK 
 
 they have. But I have known very few Dissenters indeed, 
 whose hatred to the Church of England was not a much 
 more active principle of action with them than their love 
 for Christianity. The Wesleyans, in uncorrupted parts 
 of the country, are nearly the only exceptions. There 
 never was an age since the days of the apostles, in which 
 the catholic spirit of religion was so dead, and put aside 
 for love of sects and parties, as at present. 
 
 January 1, 1832. 
 
 GRACEFULNESS OF CHILDREN. — DOGS. 
 
 How inimitably graceful children are in general before 
 they learn to dance ! 
 
 There seems a sort of sympathy between the more 
 generous dogs and little children. I believe an instance 
 of a little child being attacked by a large dog is very 
 rare indeed. 
 
 January 28, 1832. 
 
 IDEAL TORY AND WHIG. 
 
 The ideal Tory and the ideal Whig (and some such 
 there have really been) agreed in the necessity and benefit 
 of an exact balance of the three estates : but the Tory 
 was more jealous of the balance being deranged by the 
 people ; the Whig, of its being deranged by the Crown. 
 But this was a habit, a jealousy only ; they both agreed 
 in the ultimate preservation of the balance ; and accord- 
 ingly they might each, under certain circumstances, 
 without the slightest inconsistency, pass from one side 
 to the other, as the ultimate object required it. This the 
 Tories did at the Revolution, but remained Tories as 
 before. 
 
 I have half a mind to write a critical and philosophical 
 essay on Whiggism, from Dryden's Achitophel (Shaftes- 
 bury), the first Whig (for, with Dr. Johnson's leave, the 
 Devil is no such cattle), down to , who, I trust, in 
 
IDEAL TORY AND WHIG— REFORM BILL 167 
 
 God's mercy to the interests of peace, union, and liberty 
 in this nation, will be the last. In it I would take the last 
 years of Queen Anne's reign as the zenith, or palmy state, 
 of Whiggism in its divinest avatar of common sense, or of 
 the understanding, vigorously exerted in the right direc- 
 tion on the right and proper objects of the understanding ; 
 and would then trace the rise, the occasion, the progress, 
 and the necessary degeneration of the Whig spirit of 
 compromise, even down to the profound ineptitudes of 
 their party in these days. A clever fellow might make 
 something of this hint. How Asgill would have done it ! 
 
 February 22, 1832. 
 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Church is the last relic of our nationality. Would 
 to God that the bishops and the clergy in general could 
 once fully understand that the Christian Church and the 
 national Church are as little to be confounded as divided ! 
 I think the fate of the Reform Bill, in itself, of com- 
 paratively minor importance ; the fate of the national 
 Church occupies my mind with greater intensity, 
 
 February 24, 1832. 
 
 MINISTERS AND THE REFORM BILL. 
 
 I could not help smiling, in reading the report of Lord 
 Grey's speech in the House of Lords, the other night, 
 when he asked Lord Wicklow whether he seriously believed 
 that he, Lord Grey, or any of the ministers, intended to 
 subvert the institutions of the country. Had I been in 
 Lord Wicklow's place, I should have been tempted to 
 answer this question something in the following way : 
 ' Waiving the charge in an offensive sense of personal 
 consciousness against the noble earl, and all but one or 
 two of his colleagues, upon my honour, and in the pre- 
 sence of Almighty God, I answer, Yes ! You have destroyed 
 the freedom of Parliament ; you have done your best to 
 shut the door of the House of Commons to the property, 
 
168 TABLE TALK 
 
 the birth, the rank, the wisdom of the people, and have 
 flung it open to their passions and their follies. You have 
 disfranchised the gentry, and the real patriotism of the 
 nation : you have agitated and exasperated the mob, and 
 thrown the balance of political power into the hands of 
 that class (the shopkeepers) which, in all countries and in 
 all ages, has been, is now, and ever will be, the least patriotic 
 and the least conservative of any. You are now preparing 
 to destroy for ever the constitutional independence of the 
 House of Lords ; you are for ever displacing it from its 
 supremacy as a co-ordinate estate of the realm ; and 
 whether you succeed in passing your Bill by actually 
 swamping our votes by a batch of new peers, or by frighten- 
 ing a sufficient number of us out of our opinions by the 
 threat of one, equally you will have superseded the triple 
 assent which the Constitution requires to the enactment 
 of a valid law, and have left the king alone with the dele- 
 gates of the populace ! ' 
 
 March 3, 1832. 
 
 DISFRANCHISEMENT . 
 
 I am afraid the Conservative party see but one half of 
 the truth. The mere extension of the franchise is not the 
 evil ; I should be glad to see it greatly extended — there 
 is no harm in that per se ; the mischief is that the franchise 
 is nominally extended, but to such classes, and in such 
 a manner, that a practical disfranchisement of all above, 
 and a discontenting of all below, a favoured class are the 
 unavoidable results. 
 
 March 17, 1832. 
 
 GENIUS FEMININE. — PIRATES. 
 
 — 's face is almost the only exception I know to the 
 observation that something feminine — not effeminate, 
 mind — is discoverable in the countenances of all men 
 of genius. Look at that face of old Dampier, a rough 
 sailor, but a man of exquisite mind. How soft is the air 
 of his countenance, how delicate the shape of his temples ! 
 
PIRATES— REFORM BILL 169 
 
 I think it very absurd and misplaced to call Raleigh 
 and Drake, and others of our naval heroes of Elizabeth's 
 age, pirates. No man is a pirate, unless his contem- 
 poraries agree to call him so. Drake said, ' The subjects 
 of the King of Spain have done their best to ruin my 
 country : ergo, I will try to ruin the King of Spain's 
 country.' Would it not be silly to call the Argonauts 
 pirates in our sense of the word ? 
 
 March 18, 1832. 
 
 ASTROLOGY. ALCHEMY. 
 
 It is curious to mark how instinctively the reason has 
 always pointed out to men the ultimate end of the various 
 sciences, and how immediately afterwards they have set 
 to work, like children, to realize that end by inadequate 
 means. Now they applied to their appetites, now to their 
 passions, now to their fancy, now to the understanding, 
 and lastly, to the intuitive reason again. There is no 
 doubt but that astrology of some sort or other would be 
 the last achievement of astronomy : there must be chemical 
 relations between the planets ; the difference of their 
 magnitudes compared with that of their distances is not 
 explicable otherwise ; but this, though, as it were, blindly 
 and unconsciously seen, led immediately to fortune-telling 
 and other nonsense. So alchemy is the theoretic end of 
 chemistry : there must be a common law, upon which all 
 can become each and each all ; but then the idea was 
 turned to the coining of gold and silver. 
 
 March 20, 1832. 
 
 REFORM BILL. CRISIS. 
 
 I have heard but two arguments of any weight adduced 
 in favour of passing this Reform Bill, and they are in 
 substance these : (1) We will blow your brains out if 
 you don't pass it ; (2) We will drag you through a horse- 
 pond if you don't pass it ; and there is a good deal of 
 force in both. 
 
170 TABLE TALK 
 
 Talk to me of your pretended crisis ! Stuff ! A vigorous 
 Government would in one month change all the data for 
 your reasoning. Would you have me believe that the 
 events of this world are fastened to a revolving cycle with 
 God at one end and the Devil at the other, and that the 
 Devil is now uppermost ! Are you a Christian, and talk 
 about a crisis in that fatalistic sense ! 
 
 March 31, 1832. 
 
 JOHN n. 4. — DICTATION AND INSPIRATION. 
 
 GNOSIS. — NEW TESTAMENT CANON. 
 
 I certainly understand the rC 1/j.oI kou a-ot, yivai ; in the 
 second chapter 1 of St. John's Gospel, as having aliquid 
 increpationis in it — a mild reproof from Jesus to Mary 
 for interfering in his ministerial acts by requests on her 
 own account. I do not think that ywai was ever used by 
 child to parent as a common mode of address : between 
 husband and wife it was ; but I cannot think that nfjTtp 
 and yuvai were equivalent terms in the mouth of a son 
 speaking to his mother. No part of the Christopaedia is 
 found in John or Paul ; and after the baptism there is no 
 recognition of any maternal authority in Mary. See the 
 two passages where she endeavours to get access to him 
 when he is preaching : ' Whosoever shall do the will of 
 God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and my 
 mother ' 2 ; and also the recommendation of her to the 
 care of John at the Crucifixion. 
 
 There may be dictation without inspiration, and inspira- 
 tion without dictation ; they have been and continue to 
 be grievously confounded. Balaam and his ass were the 
 passive organs of dictation ; but no one, I suppose, will 
 venture to call either of those worthies inspired. It is 
 my profound conviction that St. John and St. Paul were 
 divinely inspired ; but I totally, disbelieve the dictation 
 of any one word, sentence, or argument throughout their 
 writings. Observe, there was revelation. All religion is 
 
 Verse 4. 2 Mark iii. 35. 
 
DICTATION AND INSPIRATION 171 
 
 revealed; revealed religion is, in my judgement, a mere 
 pleonasm. Revelations of facts were undoubtedly made 
 to the prophets ; revelations of doctrines were as un- 
 doubtedly made to John and Paul ; but is it not a mere 
 matter of our very senses that John and Paul each dealt 
 with those revelations, expounded them, insisted on them, 
 just exactly according to his own natural strength of 
 intellect, habit of reasoning, moral, and even physical 
 temperament ? We receive the books ascribed to John 
 and Paul as their books on the judgement of men, for 
 whom no miraculous discernment is pretended ; nay, 
 whom, in their admission and rejection of other books, we 
 believe to have erred. Shall we give less credence to John 
 and Paul themselves ? Surely the heart and soul of every 
 Christian give him sufficient assurance that, in all things 
 that concern him as a man, the words that he reads are 
 spirit and truth, and could only proceed from Him who 
 made both heart and soul. Understand the matter so, 
 and all difficulty vanishes : you read without fear, lest 
 your faith meet with some shock from a passage here 
 and there which you cannot reconcile with immediate 
 dictation, by the Holy Spirit of God, without an absurd 
 violence offered to the text. You read the Bible as the 
 best of all books, but still as a book ; and make use of all 
 the means and appliances which learning and skill, under the 
 blessing of God, can afford towards rightly apprehending 
 the general sense of it — not solicitous to find out doctrine 
 in mere epistolary familiarity, or facts in clear ad hominem 
 et pro tempore allusions to national traditions. 
 
 Tertullian, I think, says he had seen the autograph 
 copies of some of the apostles' writings. The truth is, the 
 ancient Church was not guided by the mere fact of the 
 genuineness of a writing in pronouncing it canonical; its 
 catholicity was the test applied to it. I have not the 
 smallest doubt that the Epistle of Barnabas is genuine ; 
 but it is not catholic ; it is full of the yyfio-is, though of 
 the most simple and pleasing sort. I think the same of 
 Hermas. The Church would never admit either into the 
 canon, although the Alexandrians always read the Epistle 
 
172 TABLE TALK 
 
 of Barnabas in their churches for three hundred years 
 together. It was upwards of three centuries before the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews was admitted, and this on account 
 of its yi/wo-19 ; at length, by help of the venerable prefix of 
 St. Paul's name, its admirers, happily for us, succeeded. 
 
 So little did the early bishops and preachers think their 
 Christian faith wrapped up in, and solely to be learned 
 from, the New Testament — indeed, can it be said that 
 there was any such collection for three hundred years ? 
 
 — that I remember a letter from 1 to a friend of his, 
 
 a bishop in the East, in which he most evidently speaks 
 of the Christian Scriptures as of works of which the bishop 
 knew little or nothing. 
 
 April 4, 1832. 
 
 UNITARIANISM. — MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 I make the greatest difference between ans and isms. 
 I should deal insincerely with you, if I said that I thought 
 Unitarianism was Christianity. No ; as I believe and 
 have faith in the doctrine, it is not the truth in Jesus 
 Christ ; but God forbid that I should doubt that you, and 
 many other Unitarians, as you call yourselves, are, in 
 a practical sense, very good Christians. We do not win 
 Heaven by logic. 
 
 By the by, what do you mean by exclusively assuming 
 the title of Unitarians ? As if Tri-Unitarians were not 
 necessarily Unitarians, as much (pardon the illustration) 
 as an apple-pie must of course be a pie ! The schoolmen 
 would, perhaps, have called you Unicists ; but your proper 
 name is Psilanthropists — believers in the mere human 
 nature of Christ. 
 
 Upon my word, if I may say so without offence, I really 
 think many forms of Pantheistic Atheism more agreeable 
 to an imaginative mind than Unitarianism as it is pro- 
 fessed in terms : in particular, I prefer the Spinozistic 
 scheme infinitely. The early Socinians were, to be sure, 
 
 1 I have lost the name which Mr. Coleridge mentioned. H. N. C. 
 
UNITARIANISM— MORAL LAW OF POLARITY 173 
 
 most unaccountable logicians ; but, when you had swallowed 
 their bad reasoning, you came to a doctrine on which the 
 heart, at least, might rest for some support. They adored 
 Jesus Christ. Both Laelius and Faustus Socinus laid down 
 the adorability of Jesus in strong terms. I have nothing, 
 you know, to do with their logic. But Unitarianism is, in 
 effect, the worst of one kind of Atheism, joined to the 
 worst of one kind of Calvinism, like two asses tied tail to 
 tail. It has no covenant with God ; and looks upon 
 prayer as a sort of self -magnetizing — a getting of the body 
 and temper into a certain status, desirable per se, but 
 having no covenanted reference to the Being to whom the 
 prayer is addressed. 
 
 The sum total of moral philosophy is found in this one 
 question, Is Good a superfluous word, or mere lazy synonym 
 for the pleasurable and its causes ; at most, a mere 
 modification to express degree and comparative duration 
 of pleasure ? Or the question may be more unanswerably 
 stated thus, Is good superfluous as a word exponent of 
 a kind ? If it be, then moral philosophy is but a sub- 
 division of physics. If not, then the writings of Paley 
 and all his predecessors and disciples are false and most 
 pernicious ; and there is an emphatic propriety in the 
 superlative, and in a sense which of itself would supply 
 and exemplify the difference between most and very. 
 
 April 5, 1832. 
 
 MORA! LAW OF POLARITY. 
 
 It is curious to trace the operation of the moral law of 
 polarity in the history of politics, religion, &c. When 
 the maximum of one tendency has been attained, there 
 is no gradual decrease, but a direct transition to its mini- 
 mum, till the opposite tendency has attained its maximum ; 
 and then you see another corresponding revulsion. With 
 the Restoration came in all at once the mechanico- 
 corpuscular philosophy, which, with the increase of manu- 
 factures, trade, and arts, made everything in philosophy, 
 religion, and poetry objective ; till, at length, attachment 
 
174 TABLE TALK 
 
 to mere external worldliness and forms got to its maximum, 
 when out burst the French Revolution ; and with it 
 everything became immediately subjective, without any 
 object at all. The Rights of Man, the Sovereignty of the 
 People, were subject and object both. We are now, I think, 
 on the turning-point again. This Reform seems the 
 we plus ultra of that tendency of the public mind which 
 substitutes its own undefined notions or passions for real 
 objects and historical actualities. There is not one of the 
 ministers — except the one or two revolutionists among 
 them — who has ever given us a hint, throughout this long 
 struggle, as to what he really does believe will be the 
 product of the Bill ; what sort of House of Commons it 
 will make for the purpose of governing this Empire soberly 
 and safely. No ; they have actualized for a moment 
 a wish, a fear, a passion, but not an idea. 
 
 April 7, 1832. 
 
 EPIDEMIC DISEASE. QUARANTINE. 
 
 There are two grand divisions under which all contagious 
 diseases may be classed : (1) Those which spring from 
 organized living beings, and from the life in them, and 
 which enter, as it were, into the life of those in whom they 
 reproduce themselves — such as small-pox and measles. 
 These become so domesticated with the habit and system, 
 that they are rarely received twice. (2) Those which spring 
 from dead organized, or unorganized matter, and which 
 may be comprehended under the wide term malaria. 
 
 You may have passed a stagnant pond a hundred times 
 without injury : you happen to pass it again, in low spirits 
 and chilled, precisely at the moment of the explosion of 
 the gas : the malaria strikes on the cutaneous or veno- 
 glandular system, and drives the blood from the surface ; 
 the shivering fit comes on, till the musculo-arterial irrita- 
 bility reacts, and then the hot fit succeeds ; and, unless 
 bark or arsenic — particularly bark, because it is a bitter 
 as well as a tonic — be applied to strengthen the veno- 
 glandular, and to moderate the musculo-arterial, system, 
 a man may have the ague for thirty years together. 
 
EPIDEMIC DISEASE— HARMONY 175 
 
 But if, instead of being exposed to the solitary malaria 
 of a pond, a man, travelling through the Pontine Marshes, 
 permits his animal energies to flag, and surrenders himself 
 to the drowsiness which generally attacks him, then blast 
 upon blast strikes upon the cutaneous system, and passes 
 through it to the musculo -arterial, and so completely 
 overpowers the latter that it cannot react, and the man 
 dies at once, instead of only catching an ague. 
 
 There are three factors of the operation of an epidemic 
 or atmospheric disease. The first and principal one is 
 the predisposed state of the body ; secondly, the specific 
 virus in the atmosphere ; and, thirdly, the accidental 
 circumstances of weather, locality, food, occupation, &c. 
 Against the second of these we are powerless : its nature, 
 causes, and sympathies are too subtle for our senses to 
 find data to go upon. Against the first, medicine may act 
 profitably. Against the third, a wise and sagacious medical 
 police ought to be adopted ; but, above all, let every 
 man act like a Christian, in all charity, and love, and 
 brotherly kindness, and sincere reliance on God's merciful 
 providence. 
 
 Quarantine cannot keep out an atmospheric disease ; 
 but it can, and does always, increase the predisposing 
 causes of its reception. 
 
 April 10, 1832. 
 
 HARMONY. 
 
 All harmony is founded on a relation to rest — on relative 
 rest. Take a metallic plate, and strew sand on it ; sound 
 an harmonic chord over the sand, and the grains will 
 whirl about in circles, and other geometrical figures, all, 
 as it were, depending on some point of sand relatively at 
 rest. Sound a discord, and every grain will whisk about 
 without any order at all, in no figures, and with no points 
 of rest. 
 
 The clerisy of a nation, that is, its learned men, whether 
 poets, or philosophers, or scholars, are these points of 
 relative rest. There could be no order, no harmony of the 
 whole, without them. 
 
176 TABLE TALK 
 
 April 21, 1832. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTIONS. — MODERN STYLE. 
 
 There have been three silent revolutions in England : 
 first, when the professions fell off from the Church ; secondly, 
 when literature fell off from the professions ; and, thirdly, 
 when the press fell off from literature. 
 
 Common phrases are, as it were, so stereotyped now by 
 conventional use, that it is really much easier to write 
 on the ordinary politics of the day in the common news- 
 paper style, than it is to make a good pair of shoes. An 
 apprentice has as much to learn now to be a shoemaker 
 as ever he had ; but an ignorant coxcomb, with a com 
 petent want of honesty, may very effectively wield a pen 
 in a newspaper office, with infinitely less pains and pre- 
 paration than were necessary formerly. 
 
 April 23, 1832. 
 
 GENIUS OF THE SPANISH AND ITALIANS. — VICO. — 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtle, 
 without being at all acute ; hence there is so much humour 
 and so little wit in their literature. The genius of the 
 Italians, on the contrary, is acute, profound, and sensual, 
 but not subtle ; hence what they think to be humorous is 
 merely witty. 
 
 To estimate a man like Vico, or any great man who has 
 made discoveries and committed errors, you ought to say 
 to yourself : ' He did so and so in the year 1720, a Papist, 
 at Naples. Now, what would he not have done if he had 
 lived now, and could have availed himself of all our vast* 
 acquisitions in physical science ? ' 
 
 After the Scienza Nuova, 1 read Spinoza, De Monarchic/, 
 
 1 See Michelet's Principes de la Phihsophie de I'Histoire, dbc. Paris 
 1827. An admirable analysis of Vico. — H. N. C. 
 
SPINOZA— DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM 177 
 
 ex rationis praescripto. 1 They differed — Vico in thinking 
 that society tended to monarchy ; Spinoza in thinking it 
 tended to democracy. Now, Spinoza's ideal democracy 
 was realized by a contemporary — not in a nation, for that 
 is impossible, but in a sect — I mean by George Fox and 
 his Quakers. 2 
 
 April 24, 1832. 
 
 COLOURS. 
 
 Colours may best be expressed by a heptad, the largest 
 possible formula for things infinite, as the pentad is the 
 smallest possible form. Indeed, the heptad of things finite 
 is in all cases reducible to the pentad. The adorable 
 tetractys, or tetrad, is the foftaula of God ; which, again, 
 is reducible into, and is, in reality, the same with, the 
 Trinity. Take colours thus : 
 
 Prothesis. 
 
 Bed, or Colour «ot' l£oxqv. 
 
 Mesothesis, or Indifference of 
 Red and Yellow = Orange. 4 
 
 Thesis = Yellow. 2. 
 
 To which you must add 
 
 5. Indigo, Violet = Indifference 
 of Red and Blue. 
 
 3. Blue = Antithesis. 
 
 which is a spurious or artificial 
 synthesis of Yellow and Blue. 
 
 April 28, 1832. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.- 
 
 -EPIC POEM. 
 
 The destruction of Jerusalem is the only subject now 
 remaining for an epic poem ; a subject which, like Milton's 
 
 1 Tractatus Politici, c. vi. 
 
 2 Spinoza died in 1677 ; Fox in 1681.— H. N. C. 
 
 TABLE TALK N 
 
178 TABLE TALK 
 
 Fall of Man, should interest all Christendom, as the Homeric 
 War of Troy interested all Greece. There would be diffi- 
 culties, as there are in all subjects ; and they must be 
 mitigated and thrown into the shade, as Milton has done 
 with the numerous difficulties in the Paradise Lost. But 
 there would be a greater assemblage of grandeur and 
 splendour than can now be found in any other theme. As 
 for the old mythology, incredulus odi ; and yet there must 
 be a mythology, or a gMasi-mythology, for an epic poem. 
 Here there would be the completion of the prophecies — 
 the termination of the first revealed national religion under 
 the violent assault of Paganism, itself the immediate fore- 
 runner and condition of the spread of a revealed mundane 
 religion ; and then you woijjd have the character of the 
 Roman and the Jew, and the awfulness, the completeness, 
 the justice. I schemed it at twenty-five ; but, alas ! 
 venturum expectat. 
 
 April 29, 1832. 
 
 VOX POPULI, VOX DEI. — BLACK. 
 
 I never said that the vox populi was of course the vox 
 Dei. It may be ; but it may be, and with equal probability, 
 a priori, vox Diaboli. That the voice of ten millions of men 
 calling for the same thing is a spirit, I believe ; but whether 
 that be a spirit of Heaven or Hell, I can only know by 
 trying the thing called for by the prescript of reason and 
 God's will. 
 
 Black is the negation of colour in its greatest energy. 
 Without lustre, it indicates or represents vacuity, as, for 
 instance, in the dark mouth of a cavern ; add lustre, and 
 it will represent the highest degree of solidity, as' in a 
 polished ebony box. 
 
 In finite forms there is no real and absolute identity. 
 God alone is identity. In the former, the prothesis is 
 a bastard prothesis, a quasi identity only. 
 
ASGILL AND DEFOE— HORNER 179 
 
 April 30, 1832. 
 
 ASGILL AND DEFOE. 
 
 I know no genuine Saxon English superior to Asgill's. 
 I think his and Defoe's irony often finer than Swift's. 
 
 May 1, 1832. 
 
 HORNE TOOKE. FOX AND PITT. 
 
 Home Tooke's advice to the Friends of the People was 
 profound : ' If you wish to be powerful, pretend to be 
 powerful.' 
 
 Fox and Pitt constantly played into each other's hands. 
 Mr. Stuart, of the Courier, who was very knowing in the 
 politics of the day, soon found out the gross lies and impos- 
 tures of that club as to its numbers, and told Fox so. Yet, 
 instead of disclaiming them and exposing the pretence, as 
 he ought to have done, Fox absolutely exaggerated their 
 numbers and sinister intentions ; and Pitt, who also knew 
 the lie, took him at his word, and argued against him 
 triumphantly on his own premisses. 
 
 Fox's Gallicism, too, was a treasury of weapons to Pitt. 
 He could never conceive the French right without making 
 the English wrong. Ah ! I remember — 
 
 ... it vex'd my soul to see 
 So grand a cause, so proud a realm 
 With Goose and Goody at the helm ; 
 Who long ago had fall'n asunder 
 But for their rivals' baser blunder, 
 The coward whine and Frenchified 
 Slaver and slang of the other side 1 
 
 May 2, 1832. 
 
 HORNER. 
 
 I cannot say that I thought Mr. Horner a man of genius. 
 He seemed to me to be one of those men who have not 
 very extended minds, but who know what they know very 
 
 N 2 
 
180 TABLE TALK 
 
 well — shallow streams, and clear because they are shallow 
 There was great goodness about him. 
 
 May 3, 1832. 
 
 ADIAPHORI. — CITIZENS AND CHRISTIANS. 
 
 is one of those men who go far to shake my faith 
 
 in a future state of existence ; I mean, on account of the 
 difficulty of knowing where to place him. I could not 
 bear to roast him ; he is not so bad as all that comes to : 
 but then, on the other hand, to have to sit down with such 
 a fellow in the very lowest pot-house of heaven is utterly 
 inconsistent with the belief of that place being a place of 
 happiness for me. 
 
 In two points of view I reverence man ; first, as a citizen, 
 a part of, or in order to, a nation ; and, secondly, as a Chris- 
 tian. If men are neither the one nor the other, but a mere 
 aggregation of individual bipeds, who acknowledge no 
 national unity, nor believe with me in Christ, I have no 
 more personal sympathy with them than with the dust 
 beneath my feet. 
 
 May 21, 1832. 
 
 PROFESSOR PARK. — ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. — DEMOCRACY. 
 — MILTON AND SIDNEY. 
 
 Professor Park talks 1 about its being very doubtful 
 whether the constitution described by Blackstone ever in 
 fact existed. In the same manner, I suppose, it is doubtful 
 whether the moon is made of green cheese, or whether the 
 
 * In his Dogmas of the Constitution, four Lectures on the Theory and 
 Practice of the Constitution, delivered at the King's College, London, 1832. 
 Lecture 1. There was a stiffness, and an occasional uncouthness in 
 Professor Park's style ; but his two works, the one just mentioned, 
 and his Contre-Projet to the Humphreysian Code, are full of original 
 views and vigorous reasonings. To those who wished to see the profes- 
 sion of the law assume a more scientific character than for the most part 
 it has hitherto done in England, the early death of John James Park was 
 a very great loss. — H. N. C. 
 
PROFESSOR PARK— LUTHER 181 
 
 souls of Welshmen do, in point of fact, go to heaven on 
 the backs of mites. Blackstone's was the age of shallow 
 law. Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, as such, 
 exclude each the other : but if the elements are to inter- 
 penetrate, how absurd to call a lump of sugar hydrogen, 
 oxygen, and carbon ! nay, to take three lumps, and call 
 the first hydrogen ; the second, oxygen ; and the third, 
 carbon ! Don't you see that each is in all, and all in each ? 
 
 The democracy of England, before the Reform Bill, was, 
 where it ought to be, in the corporations, the vestries, the 
 joint-stock companies, &c. The power, in a democracy, 
 is in focal points, without a centre ; and in proportion as 
 such democratical power is strong, the strength of the 
 central government ought to be intense — otherwise the 
 nation will fall to pieces. 
 
 We have just now incalculably increased the demo- 
 cratical action of the people, and, at the same time, 
 weakened the executive power of the government. 
 
 It was the error of Milton, Sidney, and others of that 
 age, to think it possible to construct a purely aristocra- 
 tical government, defecated of all passion, and ignorance, 
 and sordid motive. The truth is, such a government 
 would be weak from its utter want of sympathy with the 
 people to be governed by it. 
 
 May 25, 1832. 
 
 DE VI MINIMORTJM. — HAHNEMANN. — LUTHER. 
 
 Mercury strongly illustrates the theory de vi minimorum. 
 Divide five grains into fifty doses, and they may poison 
 you irretrievably. I don't believe in all that Hahnemann 
 says ; but he is a fine fellow, and, like most Germans, is 
 not altogether wrong, and like them also, is never altogether 
 right. 
 
 Six volumes of translated selections from Luther's 
 works, two being from his Letters, would be a delightful 
 work. The translator should be a man deeply imbued with 
 his Bible, with the English writers from Henry VII to 
 
182 TABLE TALK 
 
 Edward VI, the Scotch divines of the sixteenth century, 
 and with the old racy German. 1 
 
 Hugo de Saint Victor, 2 Luther's favourite divine, was 
 a wonderful man, who, in the twelfth century, the jubilant 
 age of papal dominion, nursed the lamp of Platonic mysti- 
 cism in the spirit of the most refined Christianity. 
 
 June 9, 1832. 
 
 SYMPATHY OF OLD GREEK AND LATIN WITH ENGLISH. — 
 ROMAN MIND. — WAR. 
 
 If you take Sophocles, Catullus, Lucretius, the better 
 parts "of Cicero, and so on, you may, just with two or three 
 exceptions arising out of the different idioms as to cases, 
 translate page after page into good mother English, word 
 by word, without altering the order ; but you cannot do 
 so with Virgil or Tibullus : if you attempt it, you will make 
 nonsense. 
 
 There is a remarkable power of the picturesque in the 
 fragments we have of Ennius, Actius, and other very old 
 Roman writers. This vivid manner was lost in the 
 Augustan age. 
 
 Much as the Romans owed to Greece in the beginning, 
 whilst their mind was, as it were, tuning itself to an after- 
 effort of its own music, it suffered more in proportion by 
 the influence of Greek literature subsequently, when it 
 
 * Mr. Coleridge was fond of pressing this proposed publication : ' I 
 can scarcely conceive ', he says in the Friend, ' a more delightful volume 
 than might be made from Luther's letters, especially those that were 
 written from the Warteburg, if they were translated in the simple, 
 sinewy, idiomatic, hearty mother-tongue of the original. A difficult 
 task, I admit, and scarcely possible for any man, however great his 
 talents in other respects, whose favourite reading has not lain among 
 the English writers from Edward the Sixth to Charles the First.' Vol. i, 
 p. 235, n.— H. N. C. 
 
 2 This celebrated man was a Fleming, and a member of the Augusti- 
 nian society of St. Victor. He died at Paris in 1142, aged forty-four. 
 His age considered, it is sufficient praise for him that Protestants and 
 Romanists both claim him for their own on the subject of transubstantia- 
 tion.— H. N. C. 
 
ROMAN MIND— CHARM FOR CRAMP 183 
 
 was already mature and ought to have worked for itself. 
 It then became a superf etation upon, and not an ingredient 
 in, the national character. With the exception of the 
 stern pragmatic historian and the moral satirist, it left 
 nothing original to the Latin Muse. 1 
 
 A nation, to be great, ought to be compressed in its 
 increment by nations more civilized than itself — as Greece 
 by Persia ; ' and Rome by Etruria, the Italian states, and 
 Carthage. I remember Commodore Decatur saying to me 
 at Malta, that he deplored the occupation of Louisiana by 
 the United States, and wished that province had been 
 possessed by England. He thought that if the United 
 States got hold of Canada by conquest or cession, the last 
 chance of his country becoming a great compact nation 
 would be lost. 
 
 War in republican Rome was the offspring of its intense 
 aristocracy of spirit, and stood to the state in lieu of trade. 
 As long as there was anything ab extra to conquer, the 
 state advanced : when nothing remained but what was 
 Roman, then, as a matter of course, civil war began. 
 
 June 10, 1832. 
 
 CHABM FOB. CKAMP. 
 
 When I was a little boy at the Blue-coat School, there 
 was a charm for one's foot when asleep ; and I believe it 
 had been in the school since its foundation, in the time 
 of Edward VI. The march of intellect has probably now 
 exploded it. It ran thus : 
 
 Foot ! foot ! foot ! is fast asleep ! 
 
 Thumb ! thumb ! thumb ! in spittle we steep : 
 
 Crosses three we make to ease us, 
 
 Two for the thieves, and one for Christ Jesus ! 
 
 1 Perhaps it left letter-writing also. Even if the Platonic epistles are 
 taken as genuine, which Mr. Coleridge, to my surprise, was inclined to 
 believe, they can hardly interfere, I think, with the uniqueness of the 
 truly incomparable collections from the correspondence of Cicero and 
 Pliny.— H. N. C. 
 
184 TABLE TALK 
 
 And the same charm served for a cramp in the leg, with 
 the following substitution : 
 
 The devil is tying a knot in my leg ! 
 Mark, Luke, and John, unloose it I beg ! — 
 Crosses three, &c. 
 
 And really upon getting out of bed, where the cramp most 
 frequently occurred, pressing the sole of the foot on the 
 cold floor, and then repeating this charm with the acts 
 configurative thereupon prescribed, I can safely affirm 
 that I do not remember an instance in which the cramp 
 did not go away in a few seconds. 
 
 I should not wonder if it were equally good for a stitch 
 in the side ; but I cannot say I ever tried it for that. 
 
 July 7, 1832. 
 
 GREEK. — DUAL, NEUTER PLURAL, AND VERB SINGULAR. — 
 
 THETA. 
 
 It is hardly possible to conceive a language more perfect 
 than the Greek. If you compare it with the modern 
 European tongues, in the points of the position and relative 
 bearing of the vowels and consonants on each other, and 
 of the variety of terminations, it is incalculably before all 
 in the former particulars, and only equalled in the last by 
 German. But it is in variety of termination alone that 
 the German surpasses the other modern languages as to 
 sound ; for, as to position, Nature seems to have dropped 
 an acid into the language, when a-forming, which curdled 
 the vowels, and made all the consonants flow together. 
 The Spanish is excellent for variety of termination ; the 
 Italian, in this particular, the most deficient. Italian prose 
 is excessively monotonous. 
 
 It is very natural to have a dual, duality being a con- 
 ception quite distinct from plurality. Most very primitive 
 languages have a dual, as the Greek, Welsh, and the native 
 Chilese, as you will see in the Abbe Raynal. 
 
 The neutral plural governing, as they call it, a verb 
 singular is one of the many instances in Greek of the 
 inward and metaphysic grammar resisting successfully 
 
DUAL, NEUTER PLURAL, VERB SINGULAR 185 
 
 the tyranny of formal grammar. In truth, there may be 
 Multeity in things ; but there can only be Plurality in 
 persons. 
 
 Observe also that, in fact, a neuter noun in Greek has 
 no real nominative case, though it has a formal one, that 
 is to say, the same word with the accusative. The reason 
 is— a thing has no subjectivity, or nominative case : it 
 exists only as an object in the accusative or oblique case. 
 
 It is extraordinary that the Germans should not have 
 retained or assumed the two beautifully discriminated 
 sounds of the soft and hard theta ; as in thy thoughts — the 
 thin ether that, &c. How particularly fine, the hard theta 
 is in an English termination, as in that grand word — 
 Death — for which the Germans gutturize a sound that 
 puts you in mind of nothing but a loathsome toad. 
 
 July 8, 1832. 
 
 TALENTED. 
 
 I regret to see that vile and barbarous vocable talented, 
 stealing out of the newspapers into the leading reviews 
 and most respectable publications of the day. Why not 
 shillinged, farthinged, tenpenced, &c. ? The formation of 
 a participle passive from a noun is a licence that nothing 
 but a very peculiar felicity can excuse. If mere convenience 
 is to justify such attempts upon the idiom, you cannot stop 
 till the language becomes, in the proper sense of the word, 
 corrupt. Most of these pieces of slang come from America. 1 
 
 Never take an iambus as a Christian name. A trochee, 
 or tribrach, will do very well. Edith and Rotha are my 
 favourite names for women. 
 
 July 9, 1832. 
 
 HOMER. — VALCKENAER. 
 
 I have the firmest conviction that Homer is a mere tra- 
 ditional synonyme with, or figure for, the Iliad. You 
 
 1 See eventuate, in Mr. Washington Irving's Tour on the Prairies, 
 passim. — H. N. C. 
 
186 TABLE TALK 
 
 cannot conceive for a moment anything about the poet, 
 as you call him, apart from that poem. Difference in men 
 there was in a degree, but not in kind ; one man was, 
 perhaps, a better poet than another ; but he was a poet 
 upon the same ground and with the same feelings as 
 the rest. 
 
 The want of adverbs in the Iliad is very characteristic. 
 With more adverbs there would have been some sub- 
 jectivity, or subjectivity would have made them. 
 
 The Greeks were then just on the verge of the bursting 
 forth of individuality. 
 
 Valckenaer's treatise 1 on the interpolation of the Classics 
 by the later Jews and early Christians is well worth your 
 perusal as a scholar and critic. 
 
 July 13, 1832. 
 
 PRINCIPLES AND FACTS. — SCHMIDT. 
 
 I have read all the famous histories, and, I believe, 
 some history of every country and nation that is, or ever 
 existed ; but I never did so for the story itself as a story. 
 The only thing interesting to me was the principles to be 
 evolved from, and illustrated by, the facts. 2 After I had 
 
 1 Diatribe de Aristobulo Iudaeo. — H. N. 0. 
 
 2 ' The true origin of human events is so little susceptible of that kind 
 of evidence which can compel our belief ; so many are the disturbing 
 forces which, in every cycle or ellipse of changes, modify the motion given 
 by the first projection ; and every age has, or imagines it has, its own 
 circumstances which render past experience no longer applicable to the 
 present case ; that there will never be wanting answers, and explanations, 
 and specious flatteries of hope, to persuade a people and its government 
 that the history of the past is inapplicable to their case. And no wonder, 
 if we read history for the facts, instead of reading it for the sake of the 
 general principles, which are to the facts as the root and sap of a tree 
 to its leaves : and no wonder if hiBtory so read should find a dangerous 
 rival in novels ; nay, if the latter should be preferred to the former, 
 on the score even of probability. I well remember that, when the 
 examples of former Jacobins, as Julius Caesar, Cromwell, and the like, 
 were adduced in France and England, at the commencement of the 
 French Consulate, it was ridiculed as pedantry and pedant's ignorance, 
 to fear a repetition of usurpation and military despotism at the close 
 of the enlightened, eighteenth century ! Even so, in the very dawn of the 
 late tempestuous day, when the revolutions of Corcyra, the proscriptions 
 
PRINCIPLES AND FACTS— PURITANS 187 
 
 gotten my principles, I pretty generally left the facts to 
 take care of themselves. I never could remember any 
 passages in books, or the particulars of events, except in 
 the gross. I can refer to them. To be sure, I must be 
 a different sort of man from Herder, who once was seriously 
 annoyed with himself, because, in recounting the pedigree 
 of some German royal or electoral family, he missed some 
 one of those worthies and could not recall the name. 
 
 Schmidt * was a Romanist ; but I have generally found 
 him candid, as indeed almost all the Austrians are. They 
 are what is called good Catholics ; but, like our Charles II, 
 they never let their religious bigotry interfere with their 
 political well-doing. Kaiser is a most pious son of the 
 Church, yet he always keeps his papa in good order. 
 
 July 20, 1832. 
 
 PURITANS AND JACOBINS. 
 
 It was God's mercy to our age that our Jacobins were 
 infidels and a scandal to all sober Christians. Had they 
 been like the old Puritans, they would have trodden 
 Church and king to the dust — at least for a time. 
 
 For one mercy I owe thanks beyond all utterance — 
 that, with all my gastric and bowel distempers, my head 
 hath ever been like the head of a mountain in blue air 
 and sunshine. 
 
 of the Eeformers, Marius, Caesar, &c, and the direful effects of the level- 
 ling tenets in the Peasants' War in Germany (differenced from the tenets 
 of the first French constitution only by the mode of wording them, the 
 figures of speech being borrowed in the one instance from theology, 
 and in the other from modern metaphysics), were urged on the Conven- 
 tion and its vindicators ; the magi of the day, the true citizens of the 
 world, the plusqimm-perfecti of patriotism, gave us set proofs that similar 
 results were impossible, and that it was an insult to so philosophical an 
 age, to so enlightened a nation, to dare direct the public eye towards 
 them as to lights of warning !' — Statesman's Manual, p. 14. 
 
 1 Michael Ignatius Schmidt, the author of the History of the Qermans. 
 He died in the latter end of the last century. — H. N. C. 
 
188 TABLE TALK 
 
 July 21, 1832. 
 
 WOBDSWOE.TH. 
 
 I have often wished that the first two books of The 
 Excursion had been published separately, under the name 
 of ' The Deserted Cottage '. They would have formed, 
 what indeed they are, one of the most beautiful poems in 
 the language. 
 
 Can dialogues in verse be defended ? I cannot but 
 think that a great philosophical poet ought always to 
 teach the reader himself as from himself. A poem does 
 not admit argumentation, though it does admit develop- 
 ment of thought. In prose there may be a difference ; 
 though I must confess that, even in Plato and Cicero, 
 I am always vexed that the authors do not say what they 
 have to say at once in their own persons. The introduc- 
 tions and little urbanities are, to be sure, very delightful 
 in their way ; I would not lose them ; but I have no 
 admiration for the practice of ventriloquizing through 
 another man's mouth. 
 
 I cannot help regretting that Wordsworth did not first 
 publish his thirteen books on the growth of an individual 
 mind — superior, as I used to think, upon the whole, to 
 The Excursion. You may judge how I felt about them 
 by my own poem upon the occasion. 1 Then the plan laid 
 out, and, I believe, partly suggested by me, was, that 
 Wordsworth should assume the station of a man in mental 
 repose, one whose principles were made up, and so pre- 
 pared to deliver upon authority a system of philosophy. 
 He was to treat man as man — a subject of eye, ear, touch, 
 and taste, in contact with external nature, and informing 
 the senses from the mind, and not compounding a mind 
 
 1 Poetical Works, Oxford Ed., p. 403. It is not too much to say of 
 this beautiful poem, and yet it is difficult to say more, that it is at 
 once worthy of the poet, his subject, and his object : 
 An Orphic song indeed, 
 A song divine of high and passionate thoughts, 
 To their own music chanted. — H. N. C. 
 
WORDSWORTH— FRENCH REVOLUTION 189 
 
 out of the senses ; then he was to describe the pastoral 
 and other states of society, assuming something of the 
 Juvenalian spirit as he approached the high civilization 
 of cities and towns, and opening a melancholy picture of 
 the present state of degeneracy and vice ; thence he was 
 to infer and reveal the proof of, and necessity for, the 
 whole state of man and society being subject to, and illus- 
 trative of, a redemptive process in operation, showing how 
 this idea reconciled all the anomalies, and promised future 
 glory and restoration. Something of this sort was, I think, 
 agreed on. It is, in substance, what I have been all my 
 life doing in my system of philosophy. 
 
 I think Wordsworth possessed more of the genius of 
 a great philosophic poet than any man I ever knew, or, 
 as I believe, has existed in England since Milton ; but it 
 seems to me that he ought never to have abandoned the 
 contemplative position, which is peculiarly — perhaps I 
 might say exclusively — fitted for him. His proper title 
 is Spectator ah extra. 
 
 July 23, 1832. 
 
 FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 No man was more enthusiastic than I was for France 
 and the Revolution ; it had all my wishes, none of my 
 expectations. Before 1793, I clearly saw and often enough 
 stated in public, the horrid delusion, the vile mockery, of 
 the whole affair. 1 When some one said in my brother 
 
 1 Forgive me, Freedom ! O forgive those dreams ! 
 I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament, 
 From bleak Helvetia's icy cavern sent — 
 I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams! 
 Heroes, that for your peaceful country perished, 
 And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain-snows 
 With bleeding wounds ; forgive me, that I cherish'd 
 One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes ! 
 To scatter rage and traitorous guilt, 
 Where Peace her jealous home had built ; 
 A patriot race to disinherit 
 Of all that made her stormy wilds so dear ; 
 And with inexpiable spirit 
 To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer — 
 
190 TABLE TALK 
 
 James's presence 1 that I was a Jacobin, he very well 
 observed : ' No ! Samuel is no Jacobin ; he is a hot- 
 headed Moravian ! ' Indeed, I was in the extreme opposite 
 pole. 
 
 July 24, 1832. 
 
 INFANT SCHOOLS. 
 
 I have no faith in Act of Parliament reform. All the 
 great— the permanently great — things that have been 
 achieved in the world have been so achieved by individuals, 
 working from the instinct of genius or of goodness. The 
 rage nowadays is all the other way : the individual is 
 supposed capable of nothing ; there must be organiza- 
 tion, classification, machinery, &c, as if the capital of 
 national morality could be increased by making a joint 
 stock of it. Hence you see these infant schools so patronized 
 by the bishops and others, who think them a grand inven- 
 
 France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind, 
 And patriot only in pernicious toils, 
 Are these thy boasts, Champion of human kind ? 
 To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway, 
 Yell in the hunt and share the murderous prey ; 
 To insult the Bhrine of Liberty with spoils 
 From freemen torn ; to tempt and to betray ? 
 
 The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, 
 
 Slaves by their own compulsion ! In mad game 
 
 They burst their manacles, and wear the name 
 
 Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain ! 
 
 O Liberty I with profitless endeavour 
 
 Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour ; 
 
 But thou nor swell'st the victor's train, nor ever 
 
 Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. 
 
 Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee, 
 
 (Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee,) 
 
 Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions, 
 
 And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves, 
 
 Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions, 
 
 The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves I 
 
 France, an Ode. Poetical Works, Oxford Ed., p. 246. 
 1 A soldier of the old cavalier stamp, to whom the Bang was the 
 symbol of the majesty, as the Church was of the life, of the nation, and 
 who would most assuredly have taken arms for one or the other against 
 all the Houses of Commons or committees of public safety in the world 
 — H. N. C. 
 
INFANT SCHOOLS— C. LAMB 191 
 
 tion. Is it found that an infant-school child, who has been 
 bawling all day a column of the multiplication-table, or 
 a verse from the Bible, grows up a more dutiful son or 
 daughter to its parents ? Are domestic charities on the 
 increase amongst families under this system ? In a great 
 town, in our present state of society, perhaps such schools 
 may be a justifiable expedient — a choice of the lesser evil ; 
 but as for driving these establishments into the country 
 villages, and breaking up the cottage home education, 
 I think it one of the most miserable mistakes which the 
 well-intentioned people of the day have yet made ; and 
 they have made, and are making, a good many, God 
 knows. 
 
 July 25, 1832. 
 
 MB. COLEPvIDGE'S PHILOSOPHY. SUBLIMITY. — SOLOMON. 
 
 MADNESS. — C. LAMB. — SFORZA'S DECISION. 
 
 The pith of my system is to make the senses out of the 
 mind — not the mind out of the senses, as Locke did. 
 
 Could you ever discover anything sublime, in our sense 
 of the term, in the classic Greek literature ? I never could. 
 Sublimity is Hebrew by birth. 
 
 I should conjecture that the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes 
 were written, or, perhaps, rather collected, about the time 
 of Nehemiah. The language is Hebrew with Chaldaic 
 endings. It is totally unlike the language of Moses on the 
 one hand, and of Isaiah on the other. 
 
 Solomon introduced the commercial spirit into his king- 
 dom. I cannot think his idolatry could have been much 
 more, in regard to himself, than a state protection or 
 toleration of the foreign worship. 
 
 When a man mistakes his thoughts for persons and 
 things, he is mad. A madman is properly so defined. 
 
 Charles Lamb translated my motto Sermoni propriora 
 by — properer for a sermon ! . 
 
192 TABLE TALK 
 
 I was much amused some time ago by reading the pithy 
 decision of one of the Sforzas of Milan, upon occasion of 
 a dispute for precedence between the lawyers and physi- 
 cians of his capital : Praecedant fures, sequantur camifices. 
 I hardly remember a neater thing. 
 
 July 28, 1832. 
 
 FAITH AND BELIEF. 
 
 The sublime and abstruse doctrines of Christian belief 
 belong to the Church ; but the faith of the individual, 
 centred in his heart, is or may be collateral to them. 1 
 Faith is subjective. I throw myself in adoration before 
 God ; acknowledge myself his creature — simple, weak, 
 lost ; and pray for help and pardon through Jesus Christ : 
 but when I rise from my knees, I discuss the doctrine of 
 the Trinity as I would a problem in geometry ; in the 
 same temper of mind, I mean, not by the same process 
 of reasoning, of course. 
 
 August 4, 1832. 
 
 DOBBIZHOITEB. 2 
 
 I hardly know anything more amusing than the honest 
 German Jesuitry of Dobrizhoffer. His chapter on the 
 
 ' Mr. Coleridge used very frequently to insist upon the distinction 
 between belief and faith. He once told me, with very great earnestness, 
 that if he were that moment convinced — a conviction, the possibility of 
 which, indeed, he could not realize to himself — that the New Testament 
 was a forgery from beg in ning to end — wide aa the desolation in his moral 
 feelings would be, he should not abate one jot of his faith in God's power 
 and merey through some manifestation of His being towards man, either 
 in time past or future, or in the hidden depths where time and space are 
 not. This was, I believe, no more than a vivid expression of what he 
 always maintained, that no man had attained to a full faith who did not 
 recognize in the Scriptures a correspondency to his own nature, or see that 
 his own powers of reason, will, and understanding were preconfigured to 
 the reception of the Christian doctrines and promises. — H. N. C. 
 2 He was a man of rarest qualities, 
 
 Who to this barbarous region had confined 
 A spirit with the learned and the wise 
 Worthy to take its place, and from mankind 
 
DOBRIZHOFFER 193 
 
 dialects is most valuable. He is surprised that there is 
 no form for the infinitive, but that they say — I wish (go, 
 or eat, or drink, &c.) interposing a letter by way of copula 
 — forgetting his own German and the English, which are, 
 
 Receive their homage, to the immortal mind 
 Paid in its just inheritance of fame. 
 But he to humbler thoughts his heart inclined : 
 From Gratz amid the Styrian hills he came, 
 And Dobrizhoffer was the good man's honour'd name. 
 
 It was his evil fortune to behold 
 The labours of his painful life destroyed ; 
 His flock which he had brought within the fold 
 Dispersed ; the work of ages render'd void, 
 And all of good that Paraguay enjoy'd 
 By blind and suicidal Power o'erthrown. 
 So he the years of his old age employ'd, 
 A faithful chronicler, in handing down 
 Names which he loved, and things well worthy to be known. 
 
 And thus, when exiled from the dear-loved scene, 
 In proud Vienna he beguiled the pain 
 Of sad remembrance : and the Empress Queen, 
 That great Teresa, she did not disdain 
 In gracious mood sometimes to entertain 
 Discourse witb him both pleasurable and sage ; 
 And sure a willing ear she well might deign 
 To one whose tales may equally engage 
 The wondering mind of youth, the thoughtful heart of age. 
 
 But of his native speech because well-nigh 
 Disuse in him forgetfulness had wrought, 
 In Latin he composed his history ; 
 A garrulous, but a lively tale, and fraught 
 With matter of delight, and food for thought. 
 And, if he could in Merlin's glass have seen 
 By whom his tomes to speak our tongue were taught. 
 The old man would have felt as pleaBed, I ween, 
 As when he won the ear of that great Empress Queen. 
 
 Little he deem'd, when with his Indian band 
 He through the wilds set forth upon his way, 
 A Poet then unborn, and in a land 
 Which had proscribed his order, should one day 
 Take up from thence his moralizing lay, 
 And shape a song that, with no fiction drest, 
 Should to his worth its grateful tribute pay, 
 And, sinking deep in many an English breast, 
 Foster that faith divine that keeps the heart at rest. 
 
 Southey's Tale of Paraguay, canto iii. st. 16. 
 
 TABLE TALK O 
 
194 TABLE TALK 
 
 in truth, the same. The confident belief entertained by 
 the Abipones of immortality, in connexion with the utter 
 absence in their minds of the idea of a God, is very remark- 
 able. If Warburton were right, which he is not, the Mosaic 
 scheme would be the exact converse. My dear daughter's 
 translation of this book x is, in my judgement, unsurpassed 
 for pure mother English by anything I have read for a long 
 time. 
 
 August 6, 1832. 
 
 SCOTCH AND ENGLISH. — CRITERION OF GENIUS. — 
 DRYDEN AND POPE. 
 
 I have generally found a Scotchman with a little literature 
 very disagreeable. He is a superficial German or a dull 
 Frenchman. The Scotch will attribute merit to people of 
 any nation rather than the English ; the English have 
 a morbid habit of petting and praising foreigners of any 
 sort, to the unjust disparagement of their own worthies. 
 
 You will find this a good gauge or criterion of genius — 
 whether it progresses and evolves, or only spins upon 
 itself. Take Dryden's Achitophel and Zimri — Shaftesbury 
 and Buckingham ; every line adds to or modifies the 
 character, which is, as it were, a-building up to the very 
 last verse ; whereas, in Pope's Timon, &c., the first two 
 or three couplets contain all the pith of the character, and 
 the twenty or thirty lines that follow are so much evidence 
 or proof of overt acts of jealousy, or pride, or whatever it 
 may be that is satirized. In like manner compare Charles 
 Lamb's exquisite criticisms on Shakespeare with Hazlitt's 
 round and round imitations of them. 
 
 August 7, 1832. 
 milton's disregard of painting. 
 
 It is very remarkable that in no part of his writings 
 does Milton take any notice of the great painters of Italy, 
 
 1 An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay. 
 Prom the Latin of Martin Dobrizhofier, eighteen Years a Missionary in 
 that Country. — Vol. ii, p. 176. 
 
MILTON'S DISREGARD OF PAINTING 195 
 
 nor, indeed, of painting as an art ; whilst every other page 
 breathes his love and taste for music. Yet it is curious 
 that, in one passage in the Paradise Lost, Milton has cer- 
 tainly copied the fresco of the Creation in the Sistine Chapel 
 at Rome. I mean those lines : 
 
 . . . now half appear' d 
 The tawny lion, pawing to get free 
 His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds, 
 And rampant shakes his blinded mane ; 1 . . . 
 
 an image which the necessities of the painter justified, but 
 which was wholly unworthy, in my judgement, of the 
 enlarged powers of the poet. Adam bending over the 
 sleeping Eve in the Paradise Lost 2 , and Dalilah approaching 
 Samson, in the Agonistes 3 , are the only two proper pictures 
 I remember in Milton. 
 
 1 Par. Lost, book vii, ver. 463. 
 
 2 ... so much the more 
 His wonder was to find unwaken'd Eve 
 With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek, 
 As through unquiet rest : he on his side 
 Leaning, half raised, with looks of cordial love 
 Hung over her enamour'd, and beheld 
 Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep, 
 Shot forth peculiar graces ; then, with voice 
 Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, 
 
 Her hand soft touching, whisper'd thus : Awake, 
 My fairest, . . . 
 
 Book v, ver. 8. 
 
 3 But who is this, what thing of sea or land ? 
 Female of sex it seems, 
 
 That so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay, 
 
 Comes this way sailing 
 
 Like a stately ship 
 
 Of Tarsus, bound for the isles 
 
 Of Javan or Gadire, 
 
 With all her bravery on, and tackle trim, 
 
 Sails fill'd, and streamers waving, 
 
 Courted by all the winds that hoid them play ; 
 
 An amber-scent of odorous perfume 
 
 Her harbinger, a damsel train behind I 
 
 02 
 
196 TABLE TALK 
 
 August 9, 1832. 
 
 BAPTISMAL SERVICE. — JEWS' DIVISION OF THE 
 SCRIPTURE. — SANSKRIT. 
 
 I think the baptismal service almost perfect. What 
 seems erroneous assumption in it to me, is harmless. None 
 of the services of the church affect me so much as this. 
 I never could attend a christening without tears bursting 
 forth at the sight of the helpless innocent in a pious 
 clergyman's arms. 
 
 The Jews recognized three degrees of sanctity in their 
 Scriptures : first, the writings of Moses, who had the 
 airoi/rta ; secondly, the Prophets ; and, thirdly, the Good 
 Books. Philo, amusingly enough, places his works some- 
 where between the second and third degrees. 
 
 The claims of the Sanskrit for priority to the Hebrew 
 as a language are ridiculous. 
 
 August 11, 1832. 
 
 HESIOD. — VIRGIL. — GENIUS METAPHYSICAL. DON QUIXOTE. 
 
 I like reading Hesiod, meaning the Works and Days. 
 If every verse is not poetry, it is, at least, good sense, which 
 is a great deal to say. 
 
 There is nothing real in the Oeorgics, except, to be sure, 
 the verse. 1 Mere didactics of practice, unless seasoned 
 with the personal interests of the time or author, are 
 inexpressibly dull to me. Such didactic poetry as that 
 of the Works and Days followed naturally upon legislation 
 and the first ordering of municipalities. 
 
 1 I used to fancy Mr. Coleridge paulo iniquior Virgilio, and told him 
 bo ; to which he replied, that, like all Eton men, I swore per Maronem. 
 This was far enough from being the case ; hut I acknowledge that 
 Mr. C.'s apparent indifference to the tenderness and dignity of Virgil 
 excited my surpiise. — H. N. C. 
 
GENIUS METAPHYSICAL— STEINMETZ 197 
 
 All genius is metaphysical ; because the ultimate end 
 of genius is ideal, however it may be actualized by incidental 
 and accidental circumstances. 
 
 Don Quixote is not a man out of his senses, but a man 
 in whom the imagination and the pure reason are so 
 powerful as to make him disregard the evidence of sense 
 when it opposed their conclusions. Sancho is the common 
 sense of the social man -animal, unenlightened and unsane- 
 tified by the reason. You see how he reverences his master 
 at the very time he is cheating him. 
 
 [August 12, 1832. 1 
 
 MALTHUSIANISM. 
 
 Is it not lamentable — is it not even marvellous — that 
 the monstrous practical sophism of Malthus should now 
 have gotten complete possession of the leading men of 
 the kingdom ! Such an essential lie in morals — such 
 a practical he in fact as it is too ! I solemnly declare that 
 I do not believe that all the heresies and sects and factions 
 which the ignorance and the weakness and the wickedness 
 of man have ever given birth to, were altogether so dis- 
 graceful to man as a Christian, a philosopher, a statesman, 
 or citizen, as this abominable tenet. It should be exposed 
 by reasoning in the form of ridicule. Asgill or Swift would 
 have done much ; but, like the Popish doctrines, it is so 
 vicious a tenet, so flattering to the cruelty, the avarice, 
 and sordid selfishness of most men, that I hardly know 
 what to think of the result.] 
 
 August 14, 1832. 
 
 STEINMETZ . KEATS . 
 
 Poor dear Steinmetz is gone — his state of sure blessed- 
 ness accelerated ; or, it may be, he is buried in Christ, and 
 there in that mysterious depth grows on to the spirit of 
 a just man made perfect ! Could I for a moment doubt 
 
 1 Omitted in the second edition, 1836. 
 
198 TABLE TALK 
 
 this, the grass would become black beneath my feet, and 
 this earthly frame a charnel-house. I never knew any 
 man so illustrate the difference between the feminine and 
 the effeminate. 
 
 A loose, slack, not well-dressed youth met Mr. and 
 
 myself in a lane near Highgate. knew him, and spoke. It 
 
 was Keats. He was introduced to me, and stayed a minute 
 or so. After he had left us a little way, he came back and 
 said : ' Let me carry away the memory, Coleridge, of 
 having pressed your hand ! ' ' There is death in that 
 
 hand,' I said to , when Keats was gone ; yet this was, 
 
 I believe, before the consumption showed itself distinctly. 
 
 August 16, 1832. 
 
 CHEIST'S HOSPITAL. BOWYEE. 
 
 The discipline at Christ's Hospital in my time was 
 ultra-Spartan — all domestic ties were to be put aside. 
 ' Boy ! ' I remember Bowyer saying to me once when I 
 was crying the first day of my return after the holidays, 
 ' Boy ! the school is your father ! Boy ! the school is 
 your mother ! Boy ! the school is your brother ! the 
 school is your sister ! the school is your first cousin, and 
 your second cousin, and all the rest of your relations ! 
 Let's have no more crying ! ' 
 
 No tongue can express good Mrs. Bowyer. Val. Le Grice 
 and I were once going to be flogged for some domestic 
 misdeed, and Bowyer was thundering away at us by way 
 of prologue, when Mrs. B. looked in, and said, ' Flog them 
 soundly, sir, I beg ! ' This saved us. Bowyer was so 
 nettled at the interruption that he growled out, ' Away, 
 woman ! away ! ' and we were let off. 
 
 August 18, 1832. 
 st. paul's melita. 
 
 The belief that Malta is the island on which St. Paul 
 was wrecked is so rooted in the common Maltese, and is 
 
ST. PAUL'S MELITA. 199 
 
 cherished with such a superstitious nationality, that the 
 Government would run the chance of exciting a tumult 
 if it, or its representatives, unwarily ridiculed it. The 
 supposition itself is quite absurd. Not to argue the matter 
 at length, consider these few conclusive facts : The narrative 
 speaks of the ' barbarous people ' and ' barbarians ' x of 
 the island. Now, our Malta was at that time fully peopled 
 and highly civilized, as we may surely infer from Cicero 
 and other writers. 2 A viper comes out from the sticks 
 
 1 Acta xxviii. 2 and 4. Mr. C. seemed to think that the Greek words 
 had reference to something more than the fact of the islanders not 
 speaking Latin or Greek ; the classical meaning of BdpPapoi. — H. N. C. 
 
 2 Upwards of a century before the reign of Nero, Cicero speaks at 
 considerable length of our Malta in one of the Verrine orations. See 
 Act ii. lib. iv. c. 46. ' Insula est Melita, iudices,' &c. There was a town, 
 and Verres had established in it a manufactory of the fine cloth or cotton 
 stuffs, the Melitensis vestis, for which the island is uniformly celebrated : 
 
 Fertilis est Melite sterili vioina Cocyrae 
 Insula, quam Libyci verberat unda freti. 
 
 Oyid, Fast. iii. 567. 
 And Silius Italicus has : 
 
 . . . telaque superba 
 Lanigera MeEte. 
 
 Punic, xiv. 251. 
 
 Yet it may have been cotton after all — the present product of Malta. 
 Cicero describes an ancient temple of Juno situated on a promontory near 
 the town, so famous and revered that, even in the time of Masinissa, at 
 least 150 years B. c, that prince had religiously restored some relics 
 which his admiral had taken from it. The plunder of this very temple 
 is an article of accusation against Verres ; and a deputation of Maltese 
 (legati Melitenses) came to Rome to establish the charge. These are all 
 the facts, I think, which can be gathered from Cicero ; because I con- 
 sider his expression of nudatae urbes, in the working up of this article, 
 a piece of rhetoric. Strabo merely marks the position of Melita, and 
 says that the lap-dogs called nwiSia Me\iTata were sent from this 
 island, though some writers attribute them to the other Melite in the 
 Adriatic (lib. vi). Diodorus, however, a Sicilian himself by birth, 
 gives the following remarkable testimony as to the state of the island 
 in his time, which, it will be remembered, was considerably before the 
 date of St. Paul's shipwreck : ' There are three islands to the south of 
 Sicily, each of which has a city or town (tt6\iv), and harbours fitted for 
 the safe reception of ships. The first of these is Melite, distant about 
 800 stadia from Syracuse, and possessing several harbours of surpassing 
 excellence. Its inhabitants are rich and luxurious (rolls KaroiKovvras 
 rafs oiffiais dSaiiiovas). There are artizans of every kind (vavToSanoi/s 
 rah kpyaalais) ; the best are those who weave cloth of a singular 
 fineness and softness. The houses are worthy of admiration for their 
 
200 TABLE TALK 
 
 upon the fire being lighted : the men are not surprised at 
 the appearance of the snake, but imagine first a murderer, 
 and then a god from the harmless attack. Now in our 
 Malta there are, I may say, no snakes at all ; which, to be 
 sure, the Maltese attribute to St. Paul's having cursed 
 them away. Melita in the Adriatic was a perfectly bar- 
 barous island as to its native population, and was, and is 
 now, infested with serpents. Besides, the context shows 
 that the scene is in the Adriatic. 
 
 The Maltese seem to have preserved a fondness and taste 
 for architecture from the time of the knights 1 — naturally 
 enough occasioned by the incomparable materials at hand. 
 
 August 19, 1832. 
 
 ENGLISH AND GERMAN. — BEST STATE OF SOCIETY. 
 
 It may be doubted whether a composite language like 
 the English is not a happier instrument of expression than 
 a homogeneous one like the German. We possess a wonder- 
 ful richness and variety of modified meanings in our Saxon 
 and Latin quasi-synonymes, which the Germans have not. 
 For ' the pomp and prodigality of Heaven ', the Germans 
 must have said ' the spendthriftness ' 2 . Shakespeare is 
 particularly happy in his use of the Latin synonyms, and 
 in distinguishing between them and the Saxon. 
 
 That is the most excellent state of society in which the 
 patriotism of the citizen ennobles, but does not merge, 
 the individual energy of the man. 
 
 superb adornment with eaves and brilliant white-washing (oi/cfas dfio- 
 kdyovs teal /carea/twao >*er'a? (piXorifAws ytiaaois Kal Kovid/jLaat TT€pLTr6Ttpov)J 
 — Lib. v, o. 12. Mela (ii. 7) and Pliny (iii. 14) simply mark the 
 position.— H. N. C. 
 
 1 The passage which I have cited from Diodorus shows that the origin 
 was much earlier. — H. N. C. 
 
 2 Verschwendung, I suppose. — H. N. C. 
 
GREAT MINDS ANDROGYNOUS 201 
 
 September 1, 1832. 
 
 GREAT MINDS ANDROGYNOUS. — PHILOSOPHER'S ORDINARY 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 In chemistry and nosology, by extending the degree to 
 a certain point, the constituent proportion may be destroyed, 
 and a new kind produced. 
 
 I have known strong minds with imposing, undoubting, 
 Cobbett-like manners, but I have never met a great mind 
 of this sort. And of the former, they are at least as often 
 wrong as right. The truth is, a great mind must be andro- 
 gynous. Great minds — Swedenborg's, for instance — are 
 never wrong but in consequence of being in the right, but 
 imperfectly. 
 
 A philosopher's ordinary language and admissions, in 
 general conversation or writings ad populum, are as his 
 watch, compared with his astronomical timepiece. He 
 sets the former by the town-clock, not because he believes 
 it right, but because his neighbours and his cook go by it. 
 
 January 2, 1833. 
 
 JURIES. BARRISTERS' AND PHYSICIANS' FEES. — QUACKS. — 
 
 CAESAREAN OPERATION. — INHERITED DISEASE. 
 
 I certainly think that juries would be more conscientious, 
 if they were allowed a larger discretion. But, after all, 
 juries cannot be better than the mass out of which they 
 are taken. And if juries are not honest and single-minded, 
 they are the worst, because the least responsible, instru- 
 ments of judicial or popular tyranny. 
 
 I should be sorry to see the honorary character of the 
 fees of barristers and physicians done away with. Though 
 it seems a shadowy distinction, I believe it to be beneficial 
 in effect . It contributes to preserve the idea of a profession, 
 of a class which belongs to the public — in the employment 
 and remuneration of which no law interferes, but the 
 citizen acts as he likes in foro conscientiae. 
 
202 TABLE TALK 
 
 There undoubtedly ought to be a declaratory act with- 
 drawing expressly from the St. John Longs and other 
 quacks the protection which the law is inclined to throw 
 around the mistakes or miscarriages of the regularly 
 educated practitioner. 
 
 I think there are only two things wanting to justify 
 a surgeon in performing the Caesarean operation : first, 
 that he should possess infallible knowledge of his art : 
 and, secondly, that he should be infallibly certain that 
 he is infallible. 
 
 Can anything be more dreadful than the thought that 
 an innocent child has inherited from you a disease or 
 a weakness, the penalty in yourself of sin or want of 
 caution ? 
 
 In the treatment of nervous cases, he is the best physician, 
 who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope. 
 
 January 3, 1833. 
 mason's poetby. 
 
 I cannot bring myself to think much of Mason's poetry. 
 I may be wrong ; but all those passages in the Caractacus, 
 which we learn to admire at school, now seem to me one 
 continued falsetto. 
 
 January 4, 1833. 
 
 NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN STATES OF THE AMERICAN 
 UNION. — ALL AND THE WHOLE. 
 
 Naturally one would have thought that there would have 
 been greater sympathy between the northern and north- 
 western states of the American Union and England, than 
 between England and the Southern States. There is ten 
 times as much English blood and spirit in New England 
 as in Virginia, the Carolinas, &c. Nevertheless, such has 
 been the force of the interests of commerce, that now, and 
 
AMERICAN UNION— SIN AND SINS 203 
 
 for some years past, the people of the North hate England 
 with increasing bitterness, whilst, amongst those of the 
 south, who are Jacobins, the British connexion has become 
 popular. Can there ever be any thorough national fusion : 
 of the Northern and Southern States ? I think not. In 
 fact, the Union will be shaken almost to dislocation when- 
 ever a very serious question between the States arises. 
 The American Union has no centre, and it is impossible 
 now to make one. The more they extend their borders 
 into the Indians' land, the weaker will the national cohe- 
 sion be. But I look upon the States as splendid masses to 
 be used, by and by, in the composition of two or three 
 great governments. 
 
 There is a great and important difference, both in 
 politics and metaphysics, between all and the whole. The 
 first can never be ascertained as a standing quantity ; the 
 second, if comprehended by insight into its parts, remains 
 for ever known. Mr. Huskisson, I thought, satisfactorily 
 refuted the ship owners ; and yet the shipping interest, 
 who must know where the shoe pinches, complain to this 
 day. 
 
 January 7, 1833. 
 
 NINTH ARTICLE. SIN AND SINS. — OLD DIVINES. — 
 
 PEE ACHING EXTEMPORE. 
 
 ' Very far gone,' is quam longissime in the Latin of the 
 ninth article — as far gone as possible, that is, as was pos- 
 sible for man to go ; as far as was compatible with his 
 having any redeemable qualities left in him. To talk of 
 man's being utterly lost to good, is absurd ; for then he 
 would be a devil at once. 
 
 One mistake perpetually made by one of our unhappy 
 parties in religion — and with a pernicious tendency to 
 Antinomianism — is to confound sin with sins. To tell 
 a modest girl, the watchful nurse of an aged parent, that 
 she is full of sins against God, is monstrous, and as shocking 
 to reason as it is unwarrantable by .Scripture. But to tell 
 
204 TABLE TALK 
 
 her that she, and all men and women, are of a sinful nature, 
 and that, without Christ's redeeming love and God's grace, 
 she cannot be emancipated from its dominion, is true and 
 proper. 1 
 
 No article of faith can be truly and duly preached 
 without necessarily and simultaneously infusing a deep 
 sense of the indispensableness of a holy life. 
 
 How pregnant with instruction, and with" knowledge of 
 all sorts are the sermons of our old divines ! in this respect 
 as in so many others, how different from the major part 
 of modern discourses ! 
 
 Every attempt in a sermon to cause emotion, except 
 as the consequence of an impression made on the reason, 
 or the understanding, or the will, I hold to be fanatical 
 and sectarian. 
 
 No doubt preaching, in the proper sense of the word, 
 is more effective than reading ; and, therefore, I would 
 not prohibit it, but leave a liberty to the clergyman who 
 feels himself able to accomplish it. But, as things now 
 are, I am quite sure I prefer going to church to a pastor 
 who ceads his discourse ; for I never yet heard more than 
 one preacher without book, who did not forget his argu- 
 ment in three minutes' time ; and fall into vague and 
 unprofitable declamation, and, generally, very coarse 
 declamation too. These preachers never progress ; they 
 eddy round and round. Sterility of mind follows their 
 ministry. 
 
 1 In a marginal scrap Mr. C. wrote : ' What are the essential doctrines 
 of our religion, if not sin and original sin, as the necessitating occasion, 
 and the redemption of sinners by the Incarnate Word as the substance 
 of the Christian dispensation ? And can these be intelligently believed 
 without knowledge and steadfast meditation ? By the unlearned they 
 may be worthily received, but not by the unthinking and self-ienorant 
 Christian.'— H. N. C. 
 
CHURCH OP ENGLAND 205 
 
 January 20, 1833. 
 
 CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 When the Church at the Reformation ceased to be extra- 
 national, it unhappily became royal instead ; its proper 
 bearing is intermediate between the crown and the people, 
 with an inclination to the latter. 
 
 The present prospects of the Church weigh heavily on 
 my soul. Oh ! that the words of a statesman -like philosophy 
 could win their way through the ignorant zealotry and 
 sordid vulgarity of the leaders of the day ! 
 
 February 5, 1833. 
 
 UNION WITH IBBLAND. 
 
 If any modification of the Union takes place, I trust it 
 will be a total divorce a vinculo matrimonii. I am sure we 
 have lived a cat and dog life of it. Let us have no silly 
 saving of one crown and two legislatures ; that would 
 be preserving all the mischiefs without any of the goods, 
 if there are any, of the union. 
 
 I am deliberately of opinion, that England, in all its 
 institutions, has received injury from its union with Ireland. 
 My only difficulty is as to the Protestants, to whom we 
 owe protection. But I cannot forget that the Protestants 
 themselves have greatly aided in accelerating the present 
 horrible state of things, by using that as a remedy and 
 a reward which should have been to them an opportunity. 1 
 
 1 ' Whatever may be thought of the settlement that followed the 
 battle of the Boyne and the extinction of the war in Ireland, yet when 
 this had been made and submitted to, it would have been the far wiser 
 policy, I doubt not, to have provided for the safety of the Constitution 
 by improving the quality of the eleotive franchise, leaving the eligibility 
 open, or like the former, limited only by considerations of property. 
 Still, however, the scheme of exclusion and disqualification had its 
 plausible side. The ink was scarcely dry on the parchment-rolls and 
 proscription-lists of the Popish parliament. The crimes of the man were 
 generalized into attributes of his faith ; and the Irish Catholics collec- 
 tively were held accomplices in the perfidy and baseness of the king. 
 
206 TABLE TALK 
 
 If the Protestant Church in Ireland is removed, of course 
 the Romish Church must be established in its place. There 
 can be no resisting it in common reason. 
 
 How miserably imbecile and objectless has the English 
 government of Ireland been for forty years past ! Oh ! 
 for a great man — but one really great man — who could 
 feel the weight and the power of a principle, and unflinch- 
 ingly put it into act ! But truly there is no vision in the 
 land, and the people accordingly perisheth. See how 
 triumphant in debate and in action O'Connell is ! Why ? 
 Because he asserts a broad principle, and acts up to it, 
 rests all his body on it, and has faith in it. Our ministers 
 — true Whigs in that — have faith in nothing but expedients 
 de die in diem. Indeed, what principles of government can 
 they have, who in the space of a month recanted a life of 
 political opinions, and now dare to threaten this and that 
 innovation at the huzza of a mob, or in pique at a parlia- 
 mentary defeat ? 
 
 I sometimes think it just possible that the Dissenters 
 may once more be animated by a wiser and nobler spirit, 
 and see their dearest interest in the church of England as 
 the bulwark and glory of Protestantism, as they did at 
 
 Alas ! his immediate adherents had afforded too great colour to the 
 charge. The Irish massacre was in the mouth of every Protestant, not 
 as an event to be remembered, but as a thing of recent expectation, fear 
 still blending with the sense of deliverance. At no time, therefore, could 
 the disqualifying system have been enforced with so little reclama- 
 tion of the conquered party, or with so little outrage on the general 
 feeling of the country There was no time, when it was so capable of 
 being indirectly useful as a sedative in order to the application of the 
 remedies directly indicated, or as a counter-power reducing to inactivity 
 whatever disturbing forces might have interfered with their operation. 
 And had this use been made of these exclusive laws, and had they been 
 enforced as the precursors and negative conditions — but, above all, 
 as hcma fide accompaniments, of a process of emancipation, properly 
 and worthily so named, the code would at this day have been remembered 
 in Ireland only as when, recalling a dangerous fever of our boyhood, we 
 think of the nauseous drugs and drenching-horn, and congratulate our- 
 selves that our doctors now-a-days know how to manage these things 
 leas coarsely. But this angry code was neglected as an opportunity, 
 and mistaken for a, substitute : et Una Mae lacrymae ! ' — Church and 
 State, p. 195. 
 
FAUST 207 
 
 the Bevolution. But I doubt their being able to resist the 
 low factious malignity to the church which has charac- 
 terized them as a body for so many years. 
 
 February 16, 1833. 
 
 FATTST. MICHAEL SCOTT, GOETHE, SCHILLER, AND 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Before I had ever seen any part of Goethe's Faust 1 , 
 though, of course, when I was familiar enough with 
 Marlowe's, I conceived and drew up the plan of a work, 
 a drama, which was to be, to my mind, what the Faust 
 was to Goethe's. My Faust was old Michael Scott ; a much 
 better and more likely original than Faust. _ He appeared 
 in the midst of his college of devoted disciples, enthu- 
 siastic, ebullient, shedding around him bright surmises of 
 discoveries fully perfected in after-times, and inculcating 
 the study of nature and its secrets as the pathway to the 
 acquisition of power. He did not love knowledge for itself 
 — for its own exceeding great reward — but in order to be 
 
 1 ' The poem was first published in 1790, and forms the commence- 
 ment of the seventh volume of Goethe's Schriften, Wien und Leipzig, bey 
 J. Stahel und 0. J. Goschen, 1790. This edition is now before me. The 
 poem is entitled, Faust, ein Fragment (not Doktor Faust, ein Trauerspiel, 
 as Doring says), and contains no prologue or dedication of any sort. It 
 commences with the scene in Faust's Btudy, ante, p. 17, and is continued, 
 as now, down to the passage ending, ante, p. 26, line 5. In the original, 
 the line : 
 
 Und froh ist, wenn er Regenwiirmer findet ! 
 ends the scene. 
 
 The next scene is one between Faust and Mephistopheles, and begins 
 thus : 
 
 Und was der ganzen Mensohheit zugetheilt ist, 
 i. e. with the passage (ante p. 70) beginning, " I will enjoy, in my own 
 heart's core, all that is parcelled out among mankind," &o. All that 
 intervenes, in later editions, is wanting. It is thenceforth continued, as 
 now, to the end of the cathedral scene (ante, p. 170), except that the 
 whole scene, in which Valentine is killed, is wanting. Thus Margaret's 
 prayer to the Virgin and the cathedral scene come together, and form 
 the conclusion of the work. According to Doring's Verzeichniss, there 
 was no new edition of Faust until 1807. According to Dr. Sieglitz, the 
 first part of Faust first appeared, in its present shape, in the collected 
 edition of Goethe's works, which was published in 1808.' — Hayward's 
 Translation of Faust, second edition, note, p. 215. 
 
208 TABLE TALK 
 
 powerful. This poison-speck infected his mind from the 
 beginning. The priests suspect him, circumvent him, 
 accuse him ; he is condemned, and thrown into solitary 
 confinement : this constituted the prologus of the drama. 
 A pause of four or five years takes place, at the end of 
 which Michael escapes from prison, a soured, gloomy, 
 miserable man. He will not, cannot study ; of what avail 
 had all his study been to him ? His knowledge, great as 
 it was, had failed to preserve him from the cruel fangs 
 of the persecutors ; he could not command the lightning 
 or the storm to wreak their furies upon the heads of those 
 whom he hated and contemned, and yet feared. Away 
 with learning ! away with study ! to the winds with all 
 pretences to knowledge ! We know nothing ; we are fools, 
 wretches, mere beasts. Anon I began to tempt him. I 
 made him dream, gave him wine, and passed the most 
 exquisite of women before him, but out of his reach. Is 
 there, then, no knowledge by which these pleasures can 
 be commanded ? That way lay witchcraft, and accordingly 
 to witchcraft Michael turns with all his soul. He has many 
 failures and some successes ; he learns the chemistry of 
 exciting drugs and exploding powders, and some of the 
 properties of transmitted and reflected light : his appetites 
 and his curiosity are both stimulated, and his old craving 
 for power and mental domination over others revives. 
 At last Michael tries to raise the Devil, and the Devil 
 comes at his call. My Devil was to be, like Goethe's, the 
 universal humorist, who should make all things vain and 
 nothing worth, by a perpetual collation of the great with 
 the little in the presence of the infinite. I had many a trick 
 for him to play, some better, I think, than any in the 
 Faust. In the meantime, Michael is miserable ; he has 
 power, but no peace, and he every day more keenly feels 
 the tyranny of hell surrounding him. In vain he seems 
 to himself to assert the most absolute empire over the 
 Devil, by imposing the most extravagant tasks ; one 
 thing is as easy as another to the Devil. ' What next, 
 Michael ? ' is repeated every day with more imperious 
 servility. Michael groans in spirit ; his power is a curse ; 
 he commands women and wine ! but the women seem 
 fictitious and devilish, and the wine does not make him 
 
FAUST 209 
 
 drunk. He now begins to hate the Devil, and tries to cheat 
 him. He studies again, and explores the darkest depths 
 of sorcery for a receipt to cozen hell ; but all in vain. 
 Sometimes the Devil's finger turns over the page for him, 
 and points out an experiment, and Michael hears a whisper 
 — ' Try that, Michael ! ' The horror increases ; and Michael 
 feels that he is a slave and a condemned criminal. Lost 
 to hope, he throws himself into every sensual excess — in 
 the mid career of which he sees Agatha, my Margaret, 
 and immediately endeavours to seduce her. Agatha loves 
 him ; and the Devil facilitates their meetings ; but she 
 resists Michael's attempts to ruin her, and implores him 
 not to act so as to forfeit her esteem. Long struggles of 
 passion ensue, in the result of which his affections are 
 called forth against his appetites, and, love-born, the idea 
 of a redemption of the lost will dawns upon his mind. 
 This is instantaneously perceived by the Devil ; and for 
 the first time the humorist becomes severe and menacing. 
 A fearful succession of conflicts between Michael and the 
 Devil takes place, in which Agatha helps and suffers. In 
 the end, after subjecting him to every imaginable horror 
 and agony, I made him triumphant, and poured peace into 
 his soul in the conviction of a salvation for sinners through 
 God's grace. 
 
 The intended theme of the Faust is the consequences of 
 a misology, or hatred and depreciation of knowledge caused 
 by an originally intense thirst for knowledge baffled. But 
 a love of knowledge for itself, and for pure ends, would 
 never produce such a misology, but only a love of it for 
 base and unworthy purposes. There is neither causation 
 nor progression in the Faust ; he is a ready-made conjurer 
 from the very beginning ; the incredulus odi is felt from 
 the first line. The sensuality and the thirst after know- 
 ledge are unconnected with each other. Mephistopheles 
 and Margaret are excellent ; but Faust himself is dull 
 and meaningless. The scene in Auerbach's cellars is one 
 of the best, perhaps the very best ; that on the Brocken 
 is also fine ; and all the songs are beautiful. But there is 
 no whole in the poem.; the scenes are mere magic-lantern 
 pictures, and a large part of the work is to me very flat. 
 The German is very pure and fine. 
 
 TABLE TALK P 
 
210 TABLE TALK 
 
 The young ,men in Germany and England who admire 
 Lord Byron, prefer Goethe to Schiller ; but you may 
 depend upon it, Goethe does not, nor ever will, command 
 the common mind of the people of Germany as Schiller 
 does. Schiller had two legitimate phases in his intellectual 
 character : the first as author of The Robbers — a piece 
 which must not be considered with reference to Shake- 
 speare, but as a work of the mere material sublime, and 
 in that line it is undoubtedly very powerful indeed. It 
 is quite genuine, and deeply imbued with Schiller's own 
 soul. After this he outgrew the composition of such plays 
 as The Robbers, and at once took his true and only rightful 
 stand in the grand historical drama — the' Wallenstein ; 
 not the intense drama of passion — he was not master of 
 that — but the diffused drama of history, in which alone he 
 had ample scope for his varied powers. The Wallenstein 
 is the greatest of his works ; it is not unlike Shakespeare's 
 historical plays — a species by itself. You may take up 
 any scene, and it will please you by itself ; just as you 
 may in Don Quixote, which you read through once or twice 
 only, but which you read in repeatedly. After this point 
 it was, that Goethe and other writers injured by their 
 theories the steadiness and originality of Schiller's mind ; 
 and in every one of his works after the Wallenstein you 
 may perceive the fluctuations of his taste and principles 
 of composition. He got a notion of reintroducing the 
 characterlessness of the Greek tragedy with a chorus, as 
 in The Bride of Messina, and he was for infusing more 
 lyric verse into it. Schiller sometimes affected to despise 
 The Robbers and the other works of his first youth ; whereas 
 he ought to have spoken of them as of works not in a right 
 line, but full of excellence in their way. In his ballads 
 and lighter lyrics Goethe is most excellent. It is impossible 
 to praise him too highly in this respect. I like the Wilhelm 
 Meister the best of his prose works. But neither Schiller's 
 nor Goethe's prose style approaches to Lessing's, whose 
 writings, for manner, are absolutely perfect. 
 
 Although Wordsworth and Goethe are not much alike, 
 to be sure, upon the whole ; yet they both have this 
 peculiarity of utter non-sympathy with the subjects of 
 their poetry. They are always, both of them, spectators 
 
FAUST— BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER 211 
 
 ab extra— -feeling for, but never with, their characters. 
 Schiller is a thousand times more hearty than Goethe. 
 
 I was once pressed — many years ago — to translate the 
 Faust ; and I so far entertained the proposal as to read 
 the work through with great attention, and to revive in 
 my mind my own former plan of Michael Scott. But then 
 I considered with myself whether the time taken up in 
 executing the translation might not more worthily be 
 devoted to the composition of a work which, even if 
 parallel in some points to the Faust, should be truly original 
 in motive and execution, and therefore more interesting 
 and valuable than any version which I could make ; and, 
 secondly, I debated with myself whether it became my 
 moral character to render into English — and so far, cer- 
 tainly, lend my countenance to language — much of which 
 I thought vulgar, licentious, and blasphemous. I need 
 not tell you that I never put pen to paper as a translator 
 of Faust. 
 
 I have read a good deal of Mr. Hayward's version, and 
 I think it done in a very manly style ; but I do not admit 
 the argument for prose translations. I would in general 
 rather see verse attempted in so capable a language as 
 ours. The French cannot help themselves, of course, with 
 such a language as theirs. 
 
 February 17, 1833. 
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. — BEN JONSON. — MASSINGER. 
 
 In the romantic drama Beaumont and Fletcher are 
 almost supreme. Their plays are in general most truly 
 delightful. I could read the Beggar's Bush from morning 
 to night. How sylvan and sunshiny it is ! The Little 
 French Lawyer is excellent. Lawrit is conceived and 
 executed from first to last in genuine comic humour. 
 Monsieur Thomas is also capital. I have no doubt what- 
 ever that the first Act and the first scene of the second Act 
 of the Two Noble Kinsmen are Shakespeare's. Beaumont 
 and Fletcher's plots are, to be sure, wholly inartificial ; 
 they only care to pitch a character into a position to make 
 him or her talk ; you must swallow all their gross improb- 
 
 p 2 
 
212 TABLE TALK 
 
 abilities, and, taking it all for granted, attend only to the 
 dialogue. How lamentable it is that no gentleman and 
 scholar can be found to edit these beautiful plays ! 1 Did 
 the name of criticism ever descend so low as in the hands 
 of those two fools and knaves, Seward and Simpson ? 
 There are whole scenes in their edition which I could with 
 certainty put back into their original verse, and more 
 that could be replaced in their native prose. Was there 
 ever such an absolute disregard of literary fame as that 
 displayed by Shakespeare, and Beaumont and Fletcher ? 2 
 
 In Ben Jonson you have an intense and burning art. 
 Some of his plots, that of The Alchemist, for example, are 
 perfect. Ben Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher would, 
 if united, have made a great dramatist indeed, and yet 
 not have come near Shakespeare ; but no doubt Ben 
 Jonson was the greatest man after Shakespeare in that 
 age of dramatic genius. 
 
 The styles of Massinger's plays and the Samson Agonistes 
 are the two extremes of the arc within which the diction 
 of dramatic poetry may oscillate. Shakespeare in his 
 great plays is the midpoint. In the Samson Agonistes, 
 colloquial language is left at the greatest distance, yet 
 something of it is preserved, to render the dialogue prob- 
 able : in Massinger the style is differenced, but differenced 
 
 1 I believe Mr. Dyee could edit Beaumont and Fletcher as well as any 
 man of the present or last generation ; but the truth is, the limited sale of 
 the late editions of Ben Jonson, Shirley, &c, has damped the spirit of 
 enterprise amongst the respectable publishers. Still I marvel that some 
 cheap reprint of B. and F. is not undertaken. — H. N. C. 
 
 2 ' The men of the greatest genius, as far as we can judge from their 
 own works, or from the accounts of their contemporaries, appear to have 
 been of calm and tranquil temper, in all that related to themselves. In 
 the inward assurance of permanent fame, they seem to have been either 
 indifferent or resigned, with regard to immediate reputation.' 
 
 ' Shakespeare's evenness and sweetness of temper were almost pro- 
 verbial in his own age. That this did not arise from ignorance of his own 
 comparative greatness, we have abundant proof in his sonnets, which 
 could scarcely have been known to Mr. Pope, when he asserted, that our 
 great bard " grew immortal in his own despite ".' — Biog. Lit. vol. i, p. 32. 
 
MASSINGER— THE ARMY AND NAVY 213 
 
 in the smallest degree possible, froin animated conver- 
 sation by the vein of poetry. 
 
 There's such a divinity doth hedge our Shakespeare 
 round, that we cannot even imitate his style. I tried to 
 imitate his manner in the Remorse, and, when I had done, 
 I found I had been tracking Beaumont and Fletcher and 
 Massinger instead. It is really very curious. At first 
 sight, Shakespeare and his contemporary dramatists seem 
 to write in styles much alike ; nothing so easy as to fall 
 into that of Massinger and the others ; whilst no one has 
 ever yet produced one scene conceived and expressed in 
 the Shakespearian idiom. I suppose it is because Shake- 
 speare is universal, and, in fact, has no manner ; just as 
 you can so much more readily copy a picture than Nature 
 herself. 
 
 February 20, 1833. 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS APPOINTING THE OFFICERS OF THE 
 ARMY AND NAVY. 
 
 I was just now reading Sir John Cam Hobhouse's 
 answer to Mr. Hume, I believe, upon the point of trans- 
 ferring the patronage of the army and navy from the 
 Crown to the House of Commons. I think, if 1 had 
 been in the House of Commons, I would have said, 
 ' that, ten or fifteen years ago, I should have considered 
 Sir J. C. H.'s speech quite unanswerable, — it being clear 
 constitutional law that the House of Commons has not, nor 
 ought to have, any share, directly or indirectly, in the 
 appointment of the officers of the army or navy. But 
 now that the King had been reduced, by the means and 
 procurement of the Honourable Baronet and his friends, 
 to a puppet, which, so far from having any independent 
 will of its own, could not resist a measure which it hated 
 and condemned, it became a matter of grave considera- 
 tion whether it was not necessary to vest the appoint- 
 ment of such officers in a body like the House of Commons, 
 rather than in a junta of ministers, who were obliged to 
 make common cause with the mob and democratic press 
 for the sake of keeping their places.' 
 
214 TABLE TALK 
 
 March 9, 1833. 
 
 PENAL CODE IN IRELAND. — CHURCHMEN. 
 
 The penal code in Ireland, in the beginning of the last 
 century, was justifiable, as a temporary mean of enabling 
 Government to take breath and look about them ; and 
 if right measures had been systematically pursued in 
 a right spirit, there can be no doubt that all, or the 
 greater part, of Ireland would have become Protestant. 
 Protestantism under the Charter Schools was greatly on 
 the increase in the early part of that century, and the 
 complaints of the Romish priests to that effect are on 
 record. But, unfortunately, the drenching-horn was itself 
 substituted for the medicine. 
 
 There seems to me, at present, to be a curse upon the 
 English Church, and upon the governors of all institu- 
 tions connected with the orderly advancement of national 
 piety and knowledge ; it is the curse of prudence, as they 
 miscall it — in fact, of fear. 
 
 Clergymen are now almost afraid to explain in their 
 pulpits the grounds of their being Protestants. They are 
 completely cowed by the vulgar harassings of the press 
 and" of our Hectoring sciolists in Parliament. There should 
 be no party politics in the pulpit to be sure ; but every 
 church in England ought to resound with national politics, 
 — I mean the sacred character of the national Church, and 
 an exposure of the base robbery from the nation itself — 
 for so indeed it is 3 — about to be committed by these 
 
 1 ' That the maxims of a pure morality, and those sublime truths of 
 the divine unity and attributes, which a Plato found hard to learn, 
 and more difficult to reveal ; that these should have become the almost 
 hereditary property of childhood and poverty, of the hovel and the 
 workshop ; that even to the unlettered they sound as common-place ; 
 this is a phenomenon which must withhold all but minds of the most 
 vulgar cast from undervaluing the services even of the pulpit and the 
 reading-desk. Yet he who should confine the efficiency of an Established 
 Church to these, can hardly be placed in a much higher rank of intellect. 
 That to every parish throughout the kingdom there is transplanted 
 a germ of civilization ; that in the remotest villages there is a nucleus, 
 round which the capabilities of the place may crystallize and brighten ; 
 
CHURCHMEN— CORONATION OATHS 215 
 
 ministers, in order to have a sop to throw to the Irish 
 agitators, who will, of course, only exit the deeper, and come 
 the oftener. You cannot buy off a barbarous invader. 
 
 March 12, 1833. 
 
 CORONATION OATHS. 
 
 Lord Grey has, in Parliament, said two things : first, 
 that the Coronation Oaths only bind the King in his 
 executive capacity ; and, secondly, that members of the 
 House of Commons are bound to represent by their votes 
 the wishes and opinions of their constituents, and not their 
 own. Put these two together, and tell me what useful 
 part of the constitutional monarchy of England remains. 
 It is clear that the Coronation Oaths would be no better 
 than Highgate oaths. For in his executive capacity the 
 
 a model sufficiently superior to excite, yet sufficiently near to encourage 
 and facilitate, imitation ; this unobtrusive, continuous agency of a Pro- 
 testant Church establishment, this it is, which the patriot and the philan- 
 thropist, who would fain unite the love of peace with the faith in the 
 progressive amelioration of mankind, cannot estimate at too high a price. 
 ' It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, 
 or the sapphire. No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls ; for 
 the price of wisdom is above rubies." — The clergyman is with his 
 parishioners and among them ; he is neither in the cloistered cell, nor 
 in the wilderness, but a neighbour and family man, whose education 
 and rank admit him to the mansion of the rich landholder, while his 
 duties make him the frequent visitor of the farm-house and the cottage. 
 He is, or he may become, connected with the families of his parish or 
 its vicinity by marriage. And among the instances of the blindness, 
 or at best of the short-sightedness, which it is the nature of cupidity to 
 inflict, I know few more striking than the clamours of the farmers against 
 Church property. Whatever was not paid to the clergyman would 
 inevitably at the next lease be paid to the landholder ; while, as the 
 case at present stands, the revenues of the Church are in some sort the 
 reversionary property of every family that may have a member educated 
 for the Church, or a daughter that may marry a clergyman. Instead 
 of being foreclosed and immoveable, it is, in fact, the only species of 
 landed property that is essentially moving and circulative. That there 
 exist no inconveniences who will pretend to assert ? — But I have yet 
 to expect the proof, that the inconveniences are greater in this than in 
 any other species ; or that either the farmers or the clergy would be 
 benefited by forcing the latter to become either Trullibers or salaried 
 placemen.'— -Church and State, p. 90. 
 
216 TABLE TALK 
 
 King cannot do anything, against the doing of which the 
 oaths bind him ; it is only in his legislative character that 
 he possesses a free agency capable of being bound. The 
 nation meant to bind that. 
 
 March 14, 1833. 
 
 DIVINITY. — PROFESSIONS AND TEADES. 
 
 Divinity is essentiaUy the first of the professions, 
 because it is necessary for all at all times ; law and physic 
 are only necessary for some at some times. I speak of 
 them, of course, not in their abstract existence, but in 
 their applicability to man. 
 
 Every true science bears necessarily within itself the germ 
 of a cognate profession, and the more you can elevate 
 trades into professions the better. 
 
 March 17, 1833. 
 
 MODERN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 What solemn humbug this modern political economy 
 is ! What is there true of the little that is true in their 
 dogmatic books, which is not a simple deduction from the 
 moral and religious credenda and agenda of any good man, 
 and with which we were not all previously acquainted, and 
 upon which every man of common sense instinctively 
 acted ? I know none. But what they truly state, they 
 do not truly understand in its ultimate grounds and causes ; 
 and hence they have sometimes done more mischief by 
 their half-ignorant and half-sophistical reasonings about, 
 and deductions from, well-founded positions, than they 
 could have done by the promulgation of positive error. 
 This particularly applies to their famous ratios of increase 
 between man and the means of his subsistence. Political 
 economy, at the highest, can never be a pure science. You 
 may demonstrate that certain properties inhere in the arch, 
 which yet no bridge-builder can ever reduce into brick and 
 
POLITICAL ECONOMY— NATIONAL DEBT 217 
 
 mortar ; but an abstract conclusion in a matter of poli- 
 tical economy, the premisses of which neither exist now, 
 nor ever will exist within the range of the wildest imagina- 
 tion, is not a truth, but a chimera — a practical falsehood. 
 For there are no theorems in political economy — but prob- 
 lems only. Certain things being actually so and so ; the 
 question is how to do so and so with them. Political philo- 
 sophy, indeed, points to ulterior ends, but even those ends 
 are all practical ; and if you desert the conditions of reality, 
 or of common probability, you may show forth your 
 eloquence or your fancy, but the utmost you can produce 
 will be a Utopia or Oceana. 
 
 You talk about making this article cheaper by reducing 
 its price in the market from 8d. to Qd. But suppose, in 
 so doing, you have rendered your country weaker against 
 a foreign foe ; suppose you have demoralized thousands 
 of your fellow countrymen, and have sown discontent 
 between one class of society and another, your article is 
 tolerably dear, I take it, after all. Is not its real price 
 enchanced to every Christian and patriot a hundred-fold ? 
 
 All is an endless fleeting abstraction ; the whole is a 
 reality. 
 
 March 31, 1833. 
 
 NATIONAL DEBT.— PBOPEETY TAX. — DUTY OF LAND- 
 HOLD EES. 
 
 What evil results now to this country, taken at large, 
 from the actual existence of the National Debt ? I never 
 could get a plain and practical answer to that question. 
 I do not advert to the past loss of capital, although it is 
 hard to see how that capital can be said to have been 
 unproductive, which produces, in the defence of the nation 
 itself , the conditions of the permanence and productivity of 
 all other capital. As to taxation to pay the interest, how 
 can the country suffer by a process, under which the money 
 is never one minute out of the pockets of the people ? You 
 may just as well say that a man is weakened by the cir- 
 culation of his blood. There may, certainly, be particular 
 
218 TABLE TALK 
 
 local evils and grievances resulting from the mode of taxa- 
 tion or collection ; but how can that debt be in any proper 
 sense a burden to the nation, which the nation owes to 
 itself, and to no one but itself ? It is a juggle to talk of 
 the nation owing the capital or the interest to the stock- 
 holders ; it owes to itself only. Suppose the interest 
 to be owing to the Emperor of Russia, and then you 
 would feel the difference of a debt in the proper sense. 
 It is really and truly nothing more in effect than so 
 much money, or money's worth, raised annually by the 
 state for the purpose of quickening industry. 1 
 
 I should like to see a well-graduated property tax, 
 accompanied by a large loan. 
 
 One common objection to a property tax is, that it 
 
 1 See the splendid essay in The Friend (vol. ii, p. 49) on the vulgar 
 errors respecting taxes and taxation. 
 
 ' A great statesman, lately deceased, in one of his anti-ministerial 
 harangues against some proposed impost, said, " The nation has been 
 already bled in every vein, and is faint with loss of blood." This blood, 
 however, was circulating in the meantime through the whole body of 
 the state, and what was received into one chamber of the heart was 
 instantly sent out again at the other portal. Had he wanted a metaphor 
 to convey the possible injuries of taxation, he might have found one 
 less opposite to the fact, in the known disease of aneurism, or relaxation 
 of the coats of particular vessels, by a disproportionate accumulation 
 of blood in them, which sometimes occurs when the circulation has been 
 suddenly and violently changed, and causes helplessness, or even mortal 
 stagnation, though the total quantity of blood remains the same in the 
 system at large. 
 
 But a fuller and fairer symbol of taxation, both in its possible good 
 and evil effects, is to be found in the evaporation of waters from the 
 surface of the earth. The sun may draw up the moisture from the river, 
 the morass, and the ocean, to be given back in genial showers to the 
 garden, to the pasture, and the corn-field ; but it may, likewise, force 
 away the moisture from the fields of tillage, to drop it on the stagnant 
 pool, the saturated swamp, or the unprofitable sand- waste. The gardens 
 in the south of Europe supply, perhaps, «. not less apt illustration of 
 a system of finance judiciously conducted, where the tanks or reservoirs 
 would represent the capital of a nation, and the hundred rills, hourly 
 varying their channels and directions under the gardener's spade, give 
 a pleasing image of the dispersion of that capital through the whole 
 population by the joint effect of taxation and trade. For taxation itself 
 is a part of commerce, and the Government may be fairly considered 
 as a great manufacturing house, carrying on, in different places, by 
 means of its partners and overseers, the trades of the shipbuilder the 
 clothier, the iron-founder, . . .' — H. N. C. 
 
DUTY OF LANDHOLDERS— MASSINGER 219 
 
 tends to diminish the accumulation of capital. In my 
 judgement, one of the chief sources of the bad economy 
 of the country now is the enormous aggregation of 
 capitals. 
 
 When shall we return to a sound conception of the 
 right to property — namely, as being official, implying and 
 demanding the performance of commensurate duties ! 
 Nothing but the most horrible perversion of humanity and 
 moral justice, under the specious name of political economy, 
 could have blinded men to this truth as to the possession 
 of land — the law of God having connected indissolubly 
 the cultivation of every rood of earth with the main- 
 tenance and watchful labour of man. But money, stock, 
 riches by credit, transferable and convertible at will, are 
 under no such obligations ; and, unhappily, it is from the 
 selfish autocratic possession of such property, that our land- 
 holders have learnt their present theory of trading with 
 that which was never meant to be an object of commerce. 
 
 April 5, 1833. 
 
 MASSINGER. — SHAKESPEARE. — HIERONIMO. 
 
 To please me, a poem must be either music or sense ; 
 if it is neither, I confess I cannot interest myself in it. 
 
 The first Act of The Virgin Martyr is as fine an Act as 
 I remember in any play. The Very Woman is, I think, 
 one of the most perfect plays we have. There is some good 
 fun in the first scene between Don John, or Antonio, and 
 Cuculo, his master ; 1 and can anything exceed the skill 
 and sweetness of the scene between him and his mistress, 
 in which he relates his story ? 2 The Bondman is also 
 
 1 Act iii, sc. 2. 
 
 2 Act iv, sc. 3 : 
 
 'Ant. Not far from where my father lives, a lady, 
 A neighbour by, bless'd with as great a beauty 
 As nature durst bestow without undoing, 
 Dwelt, and most happily, as I thought then, 
 And bless'd the house a thousand times she dwelt in. 
 This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, 
 
220 TABLE TALK 
 
 a delightful play. Massinger is always entertaining ; his 
 plays have the interest of novels. 
 
 When my first fire knew no adulterate incense, 
 Nor I no way to flatter, but my fondness ; 
 In all the bravery my friends could show me, 
 In all the faith my innocence could give me, 
 In the best language my true tongue could tell me, 
 And all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me, 
 I sued and served : long did I love this lady, 
 Long was my travail, long my trade to win her ; 
 With all the duty of my soul, I served her. 
 
 Alm. How feelingly he speaks ! {Aside.) And she loved you too ? 
 It must be so. 
 
 Ant. I would it had, dear lady ; 
 
 This story had been needless, and this place, 
 I think, unknown to me. 
 
 Alm. Were your bloods equal ? 
 
 Ant. Yes ; and I thought our hearts too. 
 
 Aim. Then she must love. 
 
 Ant. She did — but never me ; she could not love me, 
 She would not love, she hated ; more, she scorn'd me, 
 And in so poor and base a way abused me, 
 For all my services, for all my bounties, 
 So bold neglects flung on me 
 
 Alm. An ill woman 
 
 Belike you found some rival in your love, then ? 
 
 Ant. How perfectly she points me to my story ! {Aside.) 
 Madam, I did ; and one whose pride and anger, 
 111 manners, and worse mien, she doted on, 
 Doted to my undoing, and my ruin. 
 And, but for honour to your sacred beauty, 
 And reverence to the noble sex, though she fall, 
 As she must fall that durst be so unnoble, 
 I should say something unbeseeming me. 
 What out of love, and worthy love, I gave her, 
 Shame to her most unworthy mind ! to fools, 
 To girls, and fiddlers, to her boys she flung, 
 And in disdain of me. 
 
 Alm. Pray ye take me with ye. 
 
 Of what complexion was she 1 
 
 Ant. But that I dare not 
 
 Commit bo great a sacrilege 'gainst virtue, 
 She look'd not much unlike — though far, far short, 
 Something, I see, appears — your pardon, madam — 
 Her eyes would smile so, but her eyes would cozen ; 
 And so she would look sad ; but yours is pity, 
 A noble chorus to my wretched story ; 
 Hers was disdain and cruelty. 
 
 Alm. Pray heaven, 
 
 Mine be no worse ! he has told me a strange story. {Aside.) ' &c. 
 
 H. N. C. 
 
MASS1NGER— HIERONIMO 221 
 
 But, like most of his contemporaries, except Shakespeare, 
 Massinger often deals in exaggerated passion. Malefort 
 senior, in The Unnatural Combat, however he may have 
 had the moral will to be so wicked, could never have 
 actually done all that he is represented as guilty of, 
 without losing his senses. He would have been, in fact, 
 mad. Regan and Goneril are the only pictures of the 
 unnatural in Shakespeare ; the pure unnatural — and 
 you will observe that Shakespeare has left their hideous- 
 ness unsoftened or diversified by a single line of good- 
 ness or common human frailty. Whereas in Edmund, 
 for whom passion, the sense of shame as a bastard, and 
 ambition, offer some plausible excuses, Shakespeare has 
 placed many redeeming traits. Edmund is what, under 
 certain circumstances, any man of powerful intellect 
 might be, if some other qualities and feelings were cut off. 
 Hamlet is, inclusively, an Edmund, but different from 
 him as a whole, on account of the controlling agency of 
 other principles which Edmund had not. 
 
 It is worth while to remark the use which Shakespeare 
 always makes of his bold villains as vehicles for express- 
 ing opinions and conjectures of a nature too hazardous 
 for a wise man to put forth directly as his own, or from 
 any sustained character. 
 
 The parts pointed out in Hieronimo as Ben Jonson's 
 bear no traces of his style ; but they are very like Shake- 
 speare's ; and it is very remarkable that every one of 
 them reappears in full form and development, and 
 tempered with mature judgement, in some one or other 
 of Shakespeare's great pieces. 1 
 
 1 By Hieronimo Mr. Coleridge meant The Spanish Tragedy, and not 
 the previous play, which is usually called The First Part of Jeronimo. 
 The Spanish Tragedy is, upon the authority of Heywood, attributed to 
 Kyd. It is supposed that Ben Jonson originally performed the part of 
 Hieronimo, and hence it has been surmised that certain passages and 
 whple scenes connected with that character, and not found in some of 
 the editions of the play, are, in fact, Ben Jonson's own writing. Some 
 of these supposed interpolations are amongst the best things in The 
 Spanish Tragedy ; the style is singularly unlike Jonson's, whilst there 
 are turns and particular images which do certainly seem to have been 
 
222 TABLE TALK 
 
 April 7, 1833. 
 
 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. — GIEEORD'S MASSINGER. — SHAKE- 
 SPEARE. — THE OLD DRAMATISTS. 
 
 I think I could point out to a half-line what is really 
 Shakespeare's in Love's Labour's Lost, and some other of 
 
 imitated by or from Shakespeare. Mr. Lamb at one time gave them 
 to Webster. Take this passage, in the fourth Act : 
 
 ' Hieron. What make you with your torches in the dark ? 
 
 Pedro. You bid us light them, and attend you here. 
 
 Hieron. No ! no ! you are deceived ; not I ; you are deceived. 
 Was I so mad to bid you light your torches now ? 
 Light me your torches at the mid of noon, 
 When as the sun-god rides in all his glory ; 
 Light me your torches then. 
 
 Pedro. Then we burn day-light. 
 
 Hieron. Let it be burnt ; Night is a murd'rous slut, 
 That would not have her treasons to be seen ; 
 And yonder pale-faced He-cat there, the moon, 
 Doth give consent to that is done in darkness ; 
 And all those stars that gaze upon her face 
 Are aglots on her sleeve, pins on her train ; 
 And those that should be powerful and divine, 
 Do sleep in darkness when they most should shine. 
 
 Pedro. Provoke them not, fair sir, with tempting words. 
 The heavens are gracious, and your miseries 
 And sorrow makes you speak you know not what. 
 
 Hieron. Villain ! thou liest, and thou doest naught 
 But tell me I am mad : thou liest, I am not mad ; 
 I know thee to be Pedro, and he J agues ; 
 I'll prove it to thee ; and were I mad, how could I ? 
 Where was she that same night, when my Horatio 
 Was murdered ? She should have shone : search thou the book : 
 Had the moon shone, in my boy's face there was a kind of grace, 
 That I know — nay, I do know — had the murderer seen him, 
 His weapon would have fall'n, and cut the earth, 
 Had he been framed of naught but blood and death,' — &c. 
 Again, in the fifth Act : 
 
 ' Hieron. But are you sure they are dead ? 
 
 Castile. Aye, slave, too sure. 
 
 Hieron. What, and yours too ? 
 
 Viceroy. Aye, all are dead ; not one of them survive. 
 
 Hieron. Nay, then I care not — come, and we shall be friends ; 
 Let us lay our heads together. 
 See, here 's a goodly noose will hold them all. 
 
 Viceroy. damned devil ! how secure he is ! 
 
 Hieron. Secure ! why dost thou wonder at it ? 
 
LOVE'S LABOUR 'S LOST— GIFFORD 223 
 
 the not entirely genuine plays. What he wrote in that 
 play is of his earliest manner, having the all-pervading 
 sweetness which he never lost, and that extreme condensa- 
 tion which makes the couplets fall into epigrams, as 
 in the Venus and Adonis, and Rape of Lucrece. 1 In the 
 drama alone, as Shakespeare soon found out, could the 
 sublime poet and profound philosopher find the con- 
 ditions of a compromise. In the Love's Labour 's Lost 
 there are many -faint sketches of some of his vigorous 
 portraits in after-life — as for example, in particular, 
 of Benedict and Beatrice. 2 
 
 Gifford has done a great deal for the text of Massinger, 
 but not so much as might easily be done. His comparison 
 
 / tell thee, Viceroy, this day I have seen Revenge, 
 And in that sight am grown a prouder monarch 
 Than ever sat under the crown of Spain. 
 Had I as many lives as there be stars, 
 As many heavens to go to as those lives, 
 I'd give them all, aye, and my soul to boot, 
 But I would see thee ride in this red pool. . . . 
 Methinhs, since I grew inward with Revenge, 
 I cannot look with scorn enough on death. 
 
 Kino. What ! dost thou mock us, slave ? Bring tortures forth. 
 
 Hieron. Do,- do, do ; and meantime I'll torture you. 
 You had a son as I take it, and your son 
 Should ha' been married to your daughter : ha ! was't not so ? 
 Tou had a son too, he was my liege's nephew. 
 He was proud and politic. Had he lived, 
 He might a come to wear the crown of Spain : 
 I think 't was so — '* was I that killed him ; 
 Look you — this same hand 't was it that stabb'd 
 His heart — do ye see ? this hand — 
 For one Horatio, if you ever knew him — 
 A youth, one that they hang'd up in his father's garden — 
 One that did force your valiant son to yield,' &c. — H. N. C. [corrected.] 
 
 1 ' In Shakespeare's Poems the creative power and the intellectual 
 energy wrestle as in a war embrace. Each in its excess of strength seems 
 to threaten the extinction of the other. At length, in the drama, they 
 were reconciled, and fought each with its shield before the breast of 
 the other. Or like two rapid streams, that, at their first meeting within 
 narrow and rocky banks, mutually strive to repel each other, and 
 intermix reluctantly, and in tumult ; but soon finding a wider channel 
 and more yielding shores, blend, and dilate, and flow on in one current, 
 and with one voice.' — Biog. Lit., vol. ii, p. 21. 
 
 2 Mr. Coleridge, of course, alluded to Biron and Rosaline ; and there 
 are other obvious prolusions, as the scene of the masque with the cour- 
 tiers, compared with the play in A Midsummer Night's Dream.— H. N. C. 
 
224 TABLE TALK 
 
 of Shakespeare with his contemporary dramatists is 
 obtuse indeed. 1 
 
 In Shakespeare one sentence begets the next naturally ; 
 the meaning is all inwoven. He goes on kindling like 
 a meteor through the dark atmosphere ; yet, when the 
 creation in its outline is once perfect, then he seems to 
 rest from his labour, and to smile upon his work, and 
 tell himself that it is very good. You see many scenes 
 and parts of scenes which are simply Shakespeare's, dis- 
 porting himself in joyous triumph and vigorous fun after 
 a great achievement of his highest genius. 
 
 The old dramatists took great liberties in respect of 
 bringing parties in scene together, and representing one 
 as not recognizing the other under some faint disguise. 
 Some of their finest scenes are constructed on this ground. 
 Shakespeare avails himself of this artifice only twice, I 
 think — in Twelfth Night, where the two are with great skill 
 kept apart till the end of the play ; and in the Comedy of 
 Errors, which is a pure farce, and should be so considered. 
 The definition of a farcei is, an improbability or even im- 
 possibility granted in the outset, see what o<M and laugh- 
 able events will fairly follow from it ! 
 
 April 8, 1833. 
 
 STATESMEN. — BURKE. 
 
 I never was much subject to violent political humours 
 or accesses of feelings. When I was very young, I wrote 
 and spoke very enthusiastically, but it was always on 
 subjects connected with some grand general principle, 
 the violation of which I thought I could point out. As 
 to mere details of administration, I honestly thought 
 that, ministers, and men in office, must, of course, know 
 much better than any private person could possibly do ; 
 
 1 See his Introduction to Massinger, vol. i, p. 79, in which, amongst 
 other most extraordinary assertions, Mr. Gifford pronounces that 
 rhythmical modulation is not one of Shakespeare's merits ! — H. N. C. 
 
STATESMEN— MONARCHY OR DEMOCRACY 225 
 
 and it was not till I went to Malta, and had to correspond 
 with official characters myself, that I fully understood 
 the extreme shallowness and ignorance with which men 
 of some note too were able, after a certain fashion, to carry 
 on the government of important departments of the 
 empire. I then quite assented to Oxenstiern's saying, 
 Nescis, mi fill, quarn parva sapientia regitur mundus. 
 
 Burke was, indeed, a great man. No one ever read 
 history so philosophically as he seems to have done. 
 Yet, until he could associate his general principles with 
 some sordid interest, panic of property, jacobinism, &c, 
 he was a mere dinner bell. Hence you will find so many 
 half-truths in his speeches and writings. Nevertheless, let 
 us heartily acknowledge his transcendant greatness. He 
 would have been more influential if he had less surpassed 
 his contemporaries, as Fox and Pitt, men of much inferior 
 minds in all respects. 
 
 As a telegraph supposes a correspondent telescope, so 
 a scientific lecture requires a scientific audience. 
 
 April 9, 1833. 
 
 PROSPECT OF MONARCHY OR DEMOCRACY. — THE RE- 
 FORMED HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 I have a deep, though paradoxical, conviction that 
 most of the European nations are more or less on their 
 way, unconsciously indeed, to pure monarchy ; that is, 
 to a government in which, under circumstances of com- 
 plicated and subtle control, the reason of the people 
 shall become efficient in the apparent will of the king. 1 
 As it seems to me, the wise and good in every country 
 will, in all likelihood, become every day more and more 
 disgusted with the representative form of government, 
 brutalized as it is, and will be, by the predominance of 
 
 1 This is backing Vioo against Spinoza. It must, however, be acknow- 
 ledged that at present the prophet of democracy has a good right to be 
 considered the favourite. — H. N. C. 
 
 TABLE TALK Q 
 
226 TABLE TALK 
 
 democracy in England, France, and Belgium. The 
 statesmen of antiquity, we know, doubted the possibility 
 of the effective and permanent combination of the three 
 elementary forms of government ; and, perhaps, they had 
 more reason than we have been accustomed to think. 
 
 You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify 
 all the ill prophecies that were made of it — low, vulgar, 
 meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, 
 flattering every base passion, and sneering at everything 
 noble, refined, and truly national ! The direct and personal 
 despotism will come on by and by, after the multitude shall 
 have been gratified with the ruin and the spoil of the old 
 institutions of the land. As for the House of Lords, what is 
 the use of ever so much fiery spirit, if there be no principle 
 to guide and to sanctify it ? 
 
 April 10, 1833. 
 
 UNITED STATES OE AMERICA. — CAPTAIN B.HALL. — NORTHERN 
 AND SOUTHERN STATES. — DEMOCRACY WITH SLAVERY. 
 QUAKERS. 
 
 The possible destiny of the United States of America 
 — as a nation of a hundred millions of freemen — stretching 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, living under the laws of 
 Alfred, and speaking the language of Shakespeare and 
 Milton, is an august conception. Why should we not wish 
 to see it realized ? America would then be England viewed 
 through a solar microscope ; Great Britain in a state of 
 glorious magnification! How deeply to be lamented is 
 the spirit of hostility and sneering which some of the 
 popular books of travels have shown in treating of the 
 Americans ! They hate us, no doubt, just as brothers hate ; 
 but they respect the opinion of an Englishman concerning 
 themselves ten times as much as that of a native of any 
 other country on earth. A very little humouring of their 
 prejudices, and some courtesy of language and demeanour 
 on the part of Englishmen, would work wonders, even as 
 it is, with the public mind of the Americans. 
 
CAPTAIN B. HALL— DEMOCRACY 227 
 
 Captain Basil Hall's book is certainly very entertain- 
 ing and instructive ; but, in my judgement, his senti- 
 ments upon many points, and more especially his mode 
 of expression, are unwise and uncharitable. After all, 
 are not most of the things shown up with so much bit- 
 terness by him mere national foibles, parallels to which 
 every people has and must of necessity have ? 
 
 What you say about the quarrel in the United States 
 is sophistical. No doubt, taxation may, and perhaps in 
 some cases must, press unequally, or apparently so, on 
 different classes of people in a state. In such cases there 
 is a hardship ; but, in the long run, the matter is fully 
 compensated to the over-taxed class. For example, take 
 the householders of London, who complain so bitterly of 
 the house and window taxes. Is it not pretty clear that, 
 whether such householder be a tradesman, who indemnifies 
 himself in the price of his goods ; or a letter of lodgings, 
 who does so in his rent ; or a stockholder, who receives 
 it back again in his dividends ; or a country gentleman, 
 who has saved so much fresh levy on his land or his other 
 property, — one way or other, it comes at last pretty nearly 
 to the same thing, though the pressure for the time may 
 be unjust and vexatious, and fit to be removed ? But when 
 New England, which may be considered a state in itself, 
 taxes the admission of foreign manufactures in order to 
 cherish manufactures of its own, and thereby forces the 
 Carolinians, another state of itself, with which there is little 
 intercommunion, which has no such desire or interest to 
 serve, to buy worse articles at a higher price, it is alto- 
 gether a different question, and is, in fact, downright 
 tyranny of the worst, because of the most sordid, kind. 
 What would you think of a law which should tax every 
 person in Devonshire for the pecuniary benefit of every 
 person in Yorkshire ? And yet that is a feeble image of the 
 actual usurpation of the New England deputies over the 
 property of the Southern States. 
 
 There are two possible modes of unity in a State : 
 one by absolute co-ordination of each to all, and of all 
 to each ; the other by subordination of classes and offices. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 TABLE TALK 
 
 Now, I maintain that there never was an instance of the 
 first, nor can there be, without slavery as its condition and 
 accompaniment, as in Athens. The poor Swiss cantons are 
 no exception. 
 
 The mistake lies in confounding a state which must 
 be based on classes and interests and unequal property, 
 with a church, which is founded on the person, and has 
 no qualification but personal merit. Such a community 
 may exist, as in the case of the Quakers ; but, in order 
 to exist, it must be compressed and hedged in by another 
 society — mundus mundulus in mundo immundo. 
 
 The free class in a slave state is always, in one sense, 
 the most patriotic class of people in an empire ; for their 
 patriotism is not simply the patriotism of other people, 
 but an aggregate of lust of power and distinction and 
 supremacy. 
 
 April 11, 1833. 
 
 LAND AND MONEY. 
 
 Land was the only species of property which, in the 
 old time, carried any respectability with it. Money alone, 
 apart from some tenure of land, not only did not make the 
 possessor great and respectable, but actually made him at 
 once the object of plunder and hatred. Witness the history 
 of the Jews in this country in the early reigns after the 
 Conquest. 
 
 I have no objection to your aspiring to the political 
 principles of our old Cavaliers ; but embrace them all 
 fully, and not merely this and that feeling, whilst in other 
 points you speak the canting foppery of the Benthamite 
 or Malthusian schools. 
 
 April 14, 1833. 
 
 METHODS OF INVESTIGATION. 
 
 There are three ways of treating a subject : — 
 In the first mode, you begin with a definition, and 
 that definition is necessarily assumed as the truth. As 
 the argument proceeds, the conclusion from the first 
 
METHODS OF INVESTIGATION 229 
 
 proposition becomes the base of the second, and so on. 
 Now, it is quite impossible that you can be sure that you 
 have included all the necessary, and none but the neces- 
 sary, terms in your definition ; as, therefore, you pro- 
 ceed, the original speck of error is multiplied at every 
 remove ; the same infirmity of knowledge besetting 
 each successive definition. Hence you may set out, 
 like Spinosa, with all but the truth, and end with a 
 conclusion which is altogether monstrous ; and yet the 
 mere deduction shall be irrefragable. Warburton's Divine 
 Legation is also a splendid instance of this mode of dis- 
 cussion, and of its inability to lead to the truth : in fact, 
 it is an attempt to adopt the mathematical series of 
 proof, in forgetfulness that the mathematician is sure of 
 the truth of his definition at each remove, because he creates 
 it, as he can do, in pure figure and number. But you 
 cannot make anything true which results from, or is con- 
 nected with, real externals ; you can only find it out. The 
 chief use of this first mode of discussion is to sharpen the 
 wit, for which purpose it is the best exercitation. 
 
 2. The historical mode is a very common one : in it 
 the author professes to find out the truth by collecting 
 the facts of the case, and tracing them downwards ; but 
 this mode is worse than the other. Suppose the question 
 is as to the true essence and character of the English 
 constitution. First, where will you begin your collec- 
 tion of facts ? where will you end it ? What facts will 
 you select, and how do you know that the class of facts 
 which you select are necessary terms in the premisses, 
 and that other classes of facts, which you neglect, 
 are not necessary ? And how do you distinguish phe- 
 nomena which proceed from disease or accident from 
 those which are the genuine fruits of the essence of the 
 constitution ? What can be more striking, in illustra- 
 tion of the utter inadequacy of this line of investigation 
 for arriving at the real truth, than the political treatises 
 and constitutional histories which we have in every 
 library ? A Whig proves his case convincingly to the 
 reader who knows nothing beyond his author ; then 
 comes an old Tory (Carte, for instance), and ferrets up 
 a hamperful of conflicting documents and notices, which 
 
230 TABLE TALK 
 
 proves his case per contra. A takes this class of facts ; 
 B takes that class : each proves something true, neither 
 proves the truth, or anything like the truth ; that is, the 
 whole truth. 
 
 3. You must, therefore, commence with the philo- 
 sophic idea of the thing, the true nature of which you wish 
 to find out and manifest. You must carry your rule 
 ready made, if you wish to measure aright. If you ask 
 me how I can know that this idea — my own invention 
 — is the truth, by which the phenomena of history are 
 to be explained, I answer, in the same way exactly that 
 you know that your eyes were made to see with ; and that 
 is, because you do see with them. If I propose to 
 you an idea or self-realizing theory of the constitu- 
 tion, which shall manifest itself as in existence from the 
 earliest times to the present, — which shall comprehend 
 within it all the facts which history has preserved, and 
 shall give them a meaning as interchangeably causals 
 or effects ; — if I show you that such an event or reign 
 was an obliquity to the right hand, and how produced, 
 and such other event or reign a deviation to the left, 
 and whence originating, — that the growth was stopped 
 here, accelerated there, — that such a tendency is, and 
 always has been, corroborative, and such other tendency 
 destructive, of the main progress of the idea towards reali- 
 zation ; — if this idea, not only like a kaleidoscope, shall 
 reduce all the miscellaneous fragments into order, but shall 
 also minister strength, and knowledge, and light to the true 
 patriot and statesman for working out the bright thought, 
 and bringing the glorious embryo to a perfect birth ; — 
 then, I think, I have a right to say that the idea which led 
 to this is not only true, but the truth, the only truth. To 
 set up for a statesman upon historical knowledge only, is 
 as about as wise as to set up for a musician by the piir- 
 chase of some score flutes, fiddles, and horns* In order 
 to make music, you must know how to play ; in order 
 to make your facts speak truth, you must know what 
 the truth is which ought to be proved,- — the ideal truth, 
 the truth which was consciously or unconsciously, strongly 
 or weakly, wisely or blindly, intended at all times. 1 
 1 I have preserved this passage, conscious, the while,- how liable it is 
 
CHURCH OP ROME 231 
 
 April 18, 1833. 
 
 CHURCH OF ROME.— CELIBACY OP THE CLERGY. 
 
 < In my judgement, Protestants lose a great deal of time 
 in a false attack when they labour to convict the Roman- 
 ists of false doctrines. Destroy the Papacy, and help 
 the priests to wives, and I am much mistaken if the 
 doctrinal errors, such as there really are, would not 
 very soon pass away. They might remain in terminis, 
 but they would lose their sting and body, and lapse back 
 into figures of rhetoric -and warm devotion, from which 
 they, most of them,— such as transubstantiation, and 
 prayers for the dead and to saints — originally sprang. 
 But, so long as the Bishop of Rome remains Pope, and 
 has an army of Mamelukes all over the world, we shall 
 do very little by fulminating against mere doctrinal 
 errors. In the Milanese, and elsewhere in the north of 
 Italy, I am told there is a powerful feeling abroad against 
 the Papacy. That district seems to be something in the 
 state of England in the reign of our Henry the Eighth. 
 
 How deep a wound to morals and social purity has 
 that accursed article of the celibacy of the clergy been ! 
 Even the best and most enlightened men in Romanist 
 countries attach a notion of impurity to the marriage of 
 a clergyman. And can such a feeling be without its 
 effect on the estimation of the wedded life in general ? 
 Impossible ! and the morals of both sexes in Spain, Italy, 
 France, &c. prove it abundantly. 
 
 The Papal Church has had three phases — anti-Caesarean, 
 extra-national, anti-Christian. 
 
 to be misunderstood, or at least not understood. The readers of Mr. Cole- 
 ridge's works generally, or of his Church and State in particular, will 
 have no difficulty in entering into his meaning ; namely, that no inves- 
 tigation in the non-mathematical sciences can be carried on in » way 
 deserving to be called philosophical, unless the investigator have in 
 himself a mental initiative, or, what comes to the same thing, unless he 
 set out with an intuition of the ultimate aim or idea of the science or 
 aggregation of facts to be explained or interpreted. The analysis of the 
 Platonic and Baconian methods in The Friend, to which I have before 
 referred, and the Church and State, exhibit respectively a splendid vin- 
 dication and example of Mr. Coleridge's mode of reasoning on this 
 subject.— H. N. C. 
 
232 TABLE TALK 
 
 April 20, 1833. 
 
 ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY. 
 
 The Romans would never have subdued the Italian 
 tribes if they had not boldly left Italy and conquered 
 foreign nations, and so, at last, crushed their next-door 
 neighbours by external pressure. 
 
 April 24, 1833. 
 
 WEDDED LOVE IN SHAKESPEARE AND HIS CONTEMPORARY 
 DRAMATISTS. — TENNYSON'S POEMS. 
 
 Except in Shakespeare, you can find no such thing as 
 a pure conception of wedded love in our old dramatists. 
 In Massinger, and Beaumont and Fletcher, it really is on 
 both sides little better than sheer animal desire. There is 
 scarcely a suitor in all their plays, whose abilities are not 
 discussed by the lady or her waiting-woman. In this, as 
 in all things, how transcendent over his age and his rivals 
 was our sweet Shakespeare ! 
 
 I have not read through all Mr. Tennyson's poems, 
 which have been sent to me ; but I think there are 
 some things of a good deal of beauty in what I have 
 seen. The misfortune is, that he has begun to write 
 verses without very well understanding what metre is. 
 Even if you write in a known and approved metre, the 
 odds are, if you are not a metrist yourself, that you will 
 not write harmonious verses ; but to deal in new metres 
 without considering what metre means and requires, is 
 preposterous. What I would, with many wishes for 
 success, prescribe to Tennyson — indeed, without it he 
 can never be a poet in act — is to write for the next 
 two or three years in none but one or two well-known 
 and strictly defined metres, such as the heroic couplet, 
 the octave stanza, or the octo-syllabic measure of the 
 Allegro and Penseroso. He would, probably, thus get 
 imbued with a sensation, if not a sensed of metre 
 without knowing it, just as Eton boys get to write such 
 
TENNYSON'S POEMS— COLONIZATION 233 
 
 good Latin verses by conning Ovid and Tibullus. As it 
 is, I can scarcely scan some of x his verses. 
 
 May 1, 1833. 
 
 RABELAIS AND LUTHER. — WIT AND MADNESS. 
 
 I think with some interest upon the fact that Rabelais 
 and Luther were born in the same year. 2 Glorious 
 spirits ! glorious spirits ! 
 
 . . . Hos utinam inter 
 Heroas natum me ! 
 
 Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 
 
 says Dryden, and true so far as this, that genius of the 
 highest kind implies an unusual intensity of the modi- 
 fying power, which detached from the discriminative and 
 reproductive power, might conjure a platted straw into a 
 royal diadem : but it would be at least as true, that great 
 genius is most alien from madness, — yea, divided from 
 it by an impassable mountain, — namely, the activity 
 of thought and vivacity of the accumulative memory, 
 which are no less essential constituents of 'great wit'. 
 
 May 4, 1833. 
 
 COLONIZATION. — MACHINERY. — CAPITAL. 
 
 Colonization is not only a manifest expedient for, but 
 an imperative duty on, Great Britain. God seems to 
 hold out His finger to us over the sea. But it must be 
 a national colonization, such as was that of the Scotch 
 to America ; a colonization of hope, and not such as we 
 have alone encouraged and effected for the last fifty years, 
 a colonization of despair. 
 
 1 The qualifying ' some of ' was inserted in the second edition. 
 
 2 They were both "born within twelve months of each other, I believe ; 
 but Luther's birth was in November, 1484, and that of Rabelais is 
 generally placed at the end of the year preceding. — H. N. C. 
 
234 TABLE TALK 
 
 The wonderful powers of machinery can, by multiplied 
 production, render the mere arte facta of life actually 
 cheaper : thus money and all other things being supposed 
 the same in value, a silk gown is five times cheaper now 
 than in Queen Elizabeth's time ; but machinery cannot 
 cheapen, in anything like an equal degree, the immediate 
 growths of nature or the immediate necessaries of man. 
 Now the arte facta are sought by the higher classes of society 
 in a proportion incalculably beyond that in which they are 
 sought by the lower classes ; and therefore it is that the 
 vast increase of mechanical powers has not cheapened life 
 and pleasure to the poor as it has done to the rich. In 
 some respects, no doubt, it has done so, as in giving cotton 
 dresses to maid-servants, and penny gin to all. A pretty 
 benefit truly ! 
 
 I think this country is now suffering grievously under 
 an excessive accumulation of capital, which, having no field 
 for profitable operation, is in a state of fierce civil war 
 with itself. 
 
 May 6, 1833. 
 
 ROMAN CONQUEST CONSTANT1NE — PAPACY AND THE 
 
 SCHOOLMEN. 
 
 The Romans had no national clerisy ; their priesthood 
 was entirely a matter of state, and, as far back as we 
 can trace it, an evident stronghold of the Patricians 
 against the increasing powers of the Plebeians. All we 
 know of the early Romans is, that, after an indefinite lapse 
 of years, they had conquered some fifty or sixty miles 
 round their city. Then it is that they go to war with 
 Carthage, the great maritime power, and the result of that 
 war was the occupation of Sicily. Thence they, in succes- 
 sion, conquered Spain, Macedonia, Asia Minor, &c, and so 
 at last contrived to subjugate Italy, partly by a tremendous 
 back blow, and partly by bribing the Italian States with 
 a communication of their privileges, which the now enor- 
 mously enriched conquerors possessed over so large a portion 
 of the civilized world. They were ordained by Providence 
 
ROMAN CONQUEST— CIVIL WAR' 235 
 
 to conquer and amalgamate the materials of Christendom. 
 They were not a national people ; they were truly 
 
 Romanos rerum dominos 
 — and that 's all. 
 
 Under Constantine the spiritual power became a com- 
 plete reflex of the temporal. There were four patriarchs, 
 and four prefects, and so on. The clergy and the lawyers, 
 the Church and the State, were opposed. 
 
 The beneficial influence of the Papacy upon the whole 
 has been much over-rated by some writers ; and certainly 
 no country in Europe received less benefit and more harm 
 from it than England. In fact, the lawful kings and par- 
 liaments of England were always essentially Protestant in 
 feeling for a national Church, though they adhered to the 
 received doctrines of the Christianity of the day ; and it was 
 only the usurpers, John, Henry IV, &c, that went against 
 this policy. All the great English schoolmen, Scotus 
 Erigena 1 , Duns Scotus, Ockham, and others, those morn- 
 ing stars of the Reformation, were heart and soul opposed 
 to Rome, and maintained the Papacy to be Antichrist. 
 The Popes always persecuted, with rancorous hatred, the 
 national clerisies, the married clergy, and disliked the uni- 
 versities which grew out of the old monasteries. The 
 Papacy was, and is, essentially extra-national, and was 
 always so considered in this country, although not be- 
 lieved to be anti-Christian. 
 
 May 8, 1833. 
 
 CIVIL WAK OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. — HAMPDEN'S 
 
 SPEECH. 
 
 I know no portion of history which a man might write 
 with so much pleasure as that of the great struggle in the 
 
 1 John Scotus, or Erigena, was born, according to different authors, 
 in Wales, Scotland, or Ireland ; but I do not find any account making 
 him an Englishman of Saxon blood. His death is uncertainly placed in 
 the beginning of the ninth century. He lived in well-known intimacy 
 with Charles the Bald, of France, who died about a. D. 874. He resolutely 
 resisted the doctrine of transubstantiation, and was publicly accused of 
 heresy on that account. But the king of Prance protected him.— H. N. C 
 
236 TABLE TALK 
 
 time of Charles I, because he may feel the profoundest 
 respect for both parties. The side taken by any particular 
 person was determined by the point of view which such 
 person happened to command at the commencement of the 
 inevitable collision, one line seeming straight to this man, 
 another line to another. No man of that age saw the truth, 
 the whole truth ; there was not light enough for that. 
 The consequence, of course, was a violent exaggeration of 
 each party for the time. The King became a martyr, and 
 the Parliamentarians traitors, and vice versa. The great 
 reform brought into act by and under William the Third 
 combined the principles truly contended for by Charles 
 and his Parliament respectively : the great revolution of 
 1831 has certainly, to an almost ruinous degree, dislocated 
 those principles of government again. As to Hampden's 
 speech 1 , no doubt it means a declaration of passive obedi- 
 ence to the sovereign, as the creed of an English Protestant 
 individual : every man, Cromwell and all, would have said 
 as much ; it was the antipapistical tenet, and almost vaunt- 
 ingly asserted on all occasions by Protestants up to that 
 time. But it implies nothing of Hampden's creed as to 
 the duty of Parliament. 
 
 May 10, 1833. 
 
 REFORMED HOUSE OE COMMONS. 
 
 Well, I think no honest man will deny that the 
 
 prophetic denunciations of those who seriously and 
 
 solemnly opposed the Reform Bill are in a fair way of exact 
 
 1 On his impeachment with the other four members, 1642. See the 
 ' Letter to John Murray, Esq., touching Lord Nugent,' 1833. It is 
 extraordinary that Lord N. should not see the plain distinction taken 
 by Hampden, between not obeying an unlawful command, and rebelling 
 against the King because of it. He approves the one, and condemns 
 the other. His words are, ' to yield obedience, to the commands of a King, 
 if against the true religion, against the ancient and fundamental laws of 
 the land, is another sign of an ill subject : ... To resist the lawful power 
 of the King ; to raise insurrection against the King ; admit him adverse 
 in his religion ; to conspire against his sacred person, or any ways to rebel, 
 though commanding things against our consciences in exercising religion, 
 or against the rights and privileges of the subject, is an absolute sign of the 
 disaffected and traitorous subject.' — H. N. C. 
 
REFORMED HOUSE OF COMMONS 237 
 
 fulfilment ! For myself, I own I did not expect such 
 rapidity of movement. I supposed that the first Parlia- 
 ment would contain a large number of low factious men, 
 who would vulgarize and degrade the debates of the House 
 of Commons, and considerably impede public business, and 
 that the majority would be gentlemen more fond of their 
 property than their politics. But really the truth is some- 
 thing more than this. Think of upwards of 160 members 
 voting away two millions and a half of tax on Friday % , at 
 the bidding of whom, shall I say ? and then no less than 
 70 of those very members rescinding their votes on the 
 Tuesday next following, nothing whatever having inter- 
 vened to justify the change, except that they had found 
 out that at least seven or eight millions more must go also 
 upon the same principle, and that the revenue was cut in 
 two ! Of course I approve the vote of rescission, however 
 dangerous a precedent ; but what a picture of the com- 
 position of this House of Commons ! 
 
 May 13, 1833. 
 
 FOOD. — MEDICINE. — POISON. — OBSTRUCTION. 
 
 1. That which is digested wholly, and part of which is 
 assimilated, and part rejected, is — Food. 
 
 2. That which is digested wholly, and the whole of 
 which is partly assimilated, and partly not, is — Medicine. 
 
 3. That which is digested, but not assimilated, is — 
 Poison. 
 
 4. That which is neither digested nor assimilated is — 
 Mere Obstruction. 
 
 As to the stories of slow poisons, I cannot say whether 
 there was any, or what, truth in them ; but I certainly 
 believe a man may be poisoned by arsenic a year after he 
 has taken it. In fact, I think that is known to have 
 happened. 
 
 1 On Friday, the 26th of April, 1833, Sir William Ingilby moved and 
 carried a resolution for reducing the duty on malt from 28a. Sd. to 10s. 
 per quarter. One hundred and sixty-two members voted with him. On 
 Tuesday following, the 30th of April, seventy-six members only voted 
 against the rescission of the same resolution. — H. N. C. 
 
238 TABLE TALK 
 
 May 14, 1833. 
 
 wilson. — shakespeae.e's sonnets. — love. 
 
 Professor Wilson's character of Charles Lamb in the 
 last Blackwood, ' Twaddle on Tweed-side,' x is very sweet 
 indeed, and gratified me much. It does honour to Wilson, 
 to his head and his heart. 
 
 How can I wish that Wilson should cease to write what 
 so often soothes and suspends my bodily miseries, and my 
 mental conflicts ! Yet what a waste, what a reckless 
 spending, of talent, aye, and of genius, too, in his I know 
 not how many years' management of Blackwood ! If 
 Wilson cares for fame, for an enduring place and promi- 
 nence in literature, he should now, I think, hold his hand, 
 and say, as he well may, — 
 
 Militavi non sine gloria : 
 Nunc arma defunctumque hello 
 Barbiton Tiic paries habebit. 
 
 Two or three volumes collected out of the magazine by 
 himself would be very delightful. But he must not leave 
 it for others to do ; for some recasting and much conden- 
 sation would be required ; and literary executors make sad 
 work in general with their testators' brains. 
 
 I believe it possible that a man may, under certain 
 states of the moral feeling, entertain something deserving 
 
 1 ' Charles Lamb ought really not to abuse Scotland in the pleasant 
 way he so often does in the sylvan shades of Enfield ; for Scotland loves 
 Charles Lamb ; but he is wayward and wilful in his wisdom, and con- 
 ceits that many a Cockney is a better man even than Christopher North. 
 But what will not Christopher forgive to genius and goodness ? Even 
 Lamb, bleating libels on his native land. Nay, he learns lessons of 
 humanity even from the mild malice of Elia, and breathes a blessing 
 on him and his household in their bower of rest.' 
 
 Some of Mr. Coleridge's poems were first published with some of 
 C. Lamb's at Bristol in 1797. The remarkable words on the title-page 
 have been aptly cited in the New Monthly Magazine for February, 1835, 
 p. 198 : ' Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitiae et similium iunctarumque 
 Camoenarum ; quod utinam neque mors solvat, neque temporis longin- 
 quitas.' And even so it came to pass after thirty-seven years more had 
 passed over their heads. — H. N. C. 
 
LOVE 239 
 
 the name of love towards a male object — an affection 
 beyond friendship, and wholly aloof from appetite. In 
 Elizabeth's and James's time it seems to have been 
 almost fashionable to cherish such a feeling ; and per- 
 haps we may account in some measure for it by con- 
 sidering how very inferior the women of that age, taken 
 generally, were in education and accomplishment of 
 mind to the men. Of course there were brilliant excep- 
 tions enough ; but the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher 
 — the most popular dramatists that ever wrote for the 
 English stage — will show us what sort of women it was 
 generally pleasing to represent. Certainly the language of 
 the two friends, Musidorus and Pyrocles, in the Arcadia, 
 is such as we could not now use except to women ; and in 
 Cervantes the same tone is sometimes adopted, as in the 
 novel of the Curious Impertinent. And I think there is 
 a passage in the New Atlantis 1 of Lord Bacon, in which 
 he speaks of the possibility of such a feeling, but hints the 
 extreme danger of entertaining it, or allowing it any place 
 in a moral theory. I mention this with reference to Shake- 
 speare's sonnets, which have been supposed, by some, to be 
 addressed to William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, whom 
 Clarendon calls 2 the most beloved man of his age, though 
 
 1 I cannot fix upon any passage in this work, to which it can be 
 supposed that Mr. Coleridge alluded, unless it be the speech of Joabin 
 the Jew ; but it contains nothing coming up to the meaning in the text. 
 The only approach to it seems to be : 'As for masculine love, they 
 have no touch of it ; and yet there are not so faithful and inviolate 
 friendships in the world again as are there ; and to speak generally, 
 as I said before, I have not read of any such chastity in any people as 
 theirs.'— H. N. C. 
 
 2 ' William Earl of Pembroke was next, a man of another mould and 
 making, and of another fame and reputation with all men, being the 
 most universally beloved and esteemed of any man of that age. . . . He 
 indulged to himself the pleasures of all kinds, almost in all excesses.' — 
 Hist, of the Rebellion, book i. He died in 1630, aged fifty years. The 
 dedication by T. T. (Thomas Thorpe) is to ' the only begetter of these 
 ensuing sonnets, Mr. W. H.', and Malone is inclined to think that 
 William Hughes is meant. As to Mr. W. H. being the only begetter 
 of these sonnets, it must be observed, that at least the last twenty-eight 
 are beyond dispute addressed to a woman. I suppose the twentieth 
 sonnet was the particular one conceived by Mr. C. to be a blind ; but 
 it seems to me that many others may be so construed, if we set out with 
 a conviction that the real objeot of the poet was a woman. — H. N. C. 
 
240 TABLE TALK 
 
 his licentiousness was equal to his virtues. I doubt this. 
 I do not think that Shakespeare, merely because he was 
 an actor, would have thought it necessary to veil his 
 emotions towards Pembroke under a disguise, though he 
 might probably have done so, if the real object had per- 
 chance been a Laura or a Leonora. It seems to me that 
 the sonnets could only have come from a man deeply in 
 love, and in love with a woman ; and there is one sonnet 
 which, from its incongruity, I take to be a purposed blind. 
 These extraordinary sonnets form, in fact, a poem of so 
 many stanzas of fourteen lines each ; and, like the passion 
 which inspired them, the sonnets are always the same, 
 with a variety of expression, — continuous, if you regard 
 the lover's soul, — distinct, if you listen to him, as he heaves 
 them sigh after sigh. 
 
 These sonnets, like the Venus and Adonis, and the Bape 
 of Lucrece, are characterized by boundless fertility and 
 laboured condensation of thought, with perfection of sweet- 
 ness in rhythm and metre. These are the essentials in the 
 budding of a great poet. Afterwards habit and conscious- 
 ness of power teach more ease — praecipitandum liberwm 
 spiritum. 
 
 Every one who has been in love, knows that the pas- 
 sion is strongest, and the appetite weakest, in the absence 
 of the beloved object, and that the reverse is the case in 
 her presence. 
 
 May 15, 1833. 
 
 WICLTFFE. — LUTHER. — REVERENCE FOR IDEAL TRUTHS. — 
 JOHNSON THE WHIG. — ASGILL. — JAMES I. 
 
 Wicliffe's genius was, perhaps, not equal to Luther's ; 
 but really the more I know of him from Vaughan and 
 Le Bas, both of whose books I like, I think him as extra- 
 ordinary a man as Luther upon the whole. He was much 
 sounder and more truly catholic in his view of the Eucharist 
 than Luther. And I find, not without some pleasure, that 
 my own view of it, which I was afraid was original, was 
 maintained in the tenth century, that is to say, that the 
 
WICLIFFE— JOHNSON THE WHIG 241 
 
 body broken had no reference to the human body of Christ, 
 but to the Caro Noumenon, or symbolical Body, the Rock 
 that followed the Israelites. 
 
 Whitaker beautifully says of Luther : Felix Me, quern 
 Dominus eo honore dignatus est, ut homines nequissimos 
 suos haberet inimicos. 
 
 There is now no reverence for anything ; and the 
 reason is, that men possess conceptions only, and all their 
 knowledge is conceptional only. Now, as to conceive is 
 a work of the mere understanding, and as all that can be 
 conceived may be comprehended, it is impossible that 
 a man should reverence that, to which he must always feel 
 something in himself superior. If it were possible to con- 
 ceive God in a strict sense, that is, as we conceive a horse 
 or a tree, even God himself could not excite any reverence, 
 though he might excite fear or terror, or perhaps love, as 
 a tiger or a beautiful woman. But reverence, which is the 
 synthesis of love and fear, is only due from man, and, 
 indeed, only excitable in man, towards ideal truths, which 
 are always mysteries to the understanding, for the same 
 reason that the motion of my finger behind my back 
 is a mystery to you now — your eyes not being made for 
 seeing through my body. It is the reason only which 
 has a sense by which ideas can be recognized, and from 
 the fontal light of ideas only can a man draw intellectual 
 power. 
 
 Samuel Johnson, 1 whom, to distinguish him from the 
 Doctor, we may call the Whig, was a very remarkable 
 writer. He may be compared to his contemporary De Foe, 
 whom he resembled in many points. He is another in- 
 stance of King William's discrimination, which was so 
 much superior to that of any of his ministers. Johnson 
 
 1 Dryden's Ben Jochanan, in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel. 
 He was born in 1649, and died in 1703. He was a clergyman. In 1686, 
 when the army was encamped on Hounslow Heath, he published 
 A humble and hearty Address to all English Protestants in the present 
 Army. For this he was tried and sentenced to be pilloried in three 
 places, pay a fine, and be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. An attempt 
 was also made to degrade him from his orders, but this failed through 
 an informality. After the Revolution he was preferred.— H. N. C. 
 
 TABLE TALK B 
 
242 TABLE TALK 
 
 was one of the most formidable advocates for the Exclu- 
 sion Bill, and he suffered by whipping and imprisonment 
 under James accordingly. Like Asgill, he argues with 
 great apparent candour and clearness till he has his 
 opponent within reach, and then comes a blow as from 
 a sledge-hammer. I do not know where I could put my 
 hand upon a book containing so much sense and sound 
 constitutional doctrine as this thin folio of Johnson's 
 Works ; and what party in this country would read so 
 severe a lecture in it as our modern Whigs ! 
 
 A close reasoner and a good writer in general may be 
 known by his pertinent use of connectives. Read that 
 page of Johnson ; you cannot alter one conjunction with- 
 out spoiling the sense. It is a linked strain throughout. 
 In your modern books, for the most part, the sentences 
 in a page have the same connexion with each other that 
 marbles have in a bag ; they touch without adhering. 
 
 Asgill evidently formed his style upon Johnson's, but 
 he only imitates one part of it. Asgill never rises to 
 Johnson's eloquence. The latter was a sort of Cobbett- 
 Burke. 
 
 James I thought that, because all power in the state 
 seemed to proceed from the crown, all power there- 
 fore remained in the crown ; as if, because the tree 
 sprang from the seed, the stem, branches, leaves, and 
 fruit were all contained in the seed. The constitutional 
 doctrine as to the relation which the king bears to the other 
 components of the state is in two words this : He is 
 a representative of the whole of that, of which he is 
 himself a part. 
 
 May 17, 1833. 
 
 SIR P. SIDNEY. — THINGS ARE FINDING THEIR LEVEL. 
 
 When Sir Philip Sidney saw the enthusiasm which 
 agitated every man, woman, and child in the Netherlands 
 against Philip and D'Alva, he told Queen Elizabeth that 
 it was the spirit of God, and that it was invincible. What 
 is the spirit which seems to move and unsettle every other 
 man in England and on the Continent at this time ? Upon 
 
SIR P. SIDNEY— DOM MIGUEL 243 
 
 my conscience, and judging by St. John's rule, I think it 
 is a special spirit of the devil— and a very vulgar devil too ! 
 
 Your modern political economists say that it is a prin- 
 ciple in their science — that all things find their level ; — 
 which I deny ; and say, on the contrary, that the true 
 principle is, that all things are finding their level like water 
 in a storm. 
 
 May 18, 1833. 
 
 GERMAN. — GOETHE. — GOD'S PROVIDENCE. — MAN'S 
 FREEDOM. 
 
 German is inferior to English in modifications of ex- 
 pression of the affections, but superior to it in modifica- 
 tions of expression of all objects of the senses. 
 
 Goethe's small lyrics are delightful. He showed good 
 taste in not attempting to imitate Shakespeare's Witches, 
 which are threefold — Fates, Furies, and earthly Hags 
 o' the caldron. 
 
 Man does not move in cycles, though nature does. Man's 
 course is like that of an arrow ; for the portion of the 
 great cometary ellipse which he occupies is no more 
 than a needle's length to a mile. 
 
 In natural history, God's freedom is shown in the law 
 of necessity. In moral history, God's necessity or provi- 
 dence is shown in man's freedom. 
 
 June 8, 1833. 
 
 DOM MIGUEL AND DOM PEDRO. — WORKING TO BETTER 
 
 ONE'S CONDITION. NEGRO EMANCIPATION. — FOX AND 
 
 PITT. — REVOLUTION. 
 
 There can be no doubt of the gross violations of strict 
 neutrality by this Government in the Portuguese affair ; 
 but I wish the Tories had left the matter alone, and not 
 
 r2 
 
244 TABLE TALK 
 
 given room to the people to associate them with that 
 scoundrel Dom Miguel. You can never interest the com- 
 mon herd in the abstract question ; with them it is a mere 
 quarrel between the men ; and though Pedro is a very 
 doubtful character, he is not so bad as his brother ; and, 
 besides, we are naturally interested for the girl. 
 
 It is very strange that men who make light of the 
 direct doctrines of the Scriptures, and turn up their noses 
 at the recommendation of a line of conduct suggested by 
 religious truth, will nevertheless stake the tranquillity of 
 an empire, the lives and properties of millions of men 
 and women, on the faith of a maxim of modern political 
 economy ! And this, too, of a maxim true only, if at all, 
 of England or a part of England, or some other country ; — 
 namely, that the desire of bettering their condition will 
 induce men to labour even more abundantly and profit- 
 ably than servile compulsion, — to which maxim the past 
 history and present state of all Asia and Africa give the lie. 
 Nay, even in England at this day, every man in Man- 
 chester, Birmingham, and in other great manufacturing 
 towns, knows that the most skilful artisans, who may 
 earn high wages at pleasure, are constantly in the habit of 
 working but a few days in the week, and of idling the rest. 
 I believe St. Monday is very well kept by the workmen in 
 London. The love of indolence is universal, or next to it. 
 
 Must not the ministerial plan for the West Indies lead 
 necessarily to a change of property, either by force or 
 dereliction ? I can't see any way of escaping it. 
 
 You are always talking of the rights of the negroes. 
 As a rhetorical mode of stimulating the people of England 
 here, I do not object ; but I utterly condemn your frantic 
 practice of declaiming about their rights to the blacks 
 themselves. They ought to be forcibly reminded of the 
 state in which their brethren in Africa still are, and taught 
 to be thankful for the providence which has placed them 
 within reach of the means of grace. I know no right except 
 such as flows from righteousness ; and as every Christian 
 
NEGRO EMANCIPATION 245 
 
 believes his righteousness to be imputed, so must his right 
 be an imputed right too. It must flow out of a duty, and 
 it is under that name that the process of humanization 
 ought to begin and to be conducted throughout. 
 
 Thirty years ago, and more, Pitt availed himself, with 
 great political dexterity, of the apprehension, which 
 Burke and the conduct of some of the clubs in London 
 had excited, and endeavoured to inspire into the nation 
 a panic of property. Fox, instead of exposing the absurdity 
 of this by showing the real numbers and contemptible 
 weakness of the disaffected, fell into Pitt's trap, and was 
 mad enough to exaggerate even Pitt's surmises. The 
 consequence was, a very general apprehension throughout 
 the country of an impending revolution, at a time when, 
 I will venture to say, the people were more heart-whole 
 than they had been for a hundred years previously. After 
 I had travelled in Sicily and Italy, countries where there 
 were real grounds for fear, I became deeply impressed with 
 the difference. Now, after a long continuance of high 
 national glory and influence, when a revolution of a most 
 searching and general character is actually at work, and 
 the old institutions of the country are all awaiting their 
 certain destruction or violent modification — the people at 
 large are perfectly secure, sleeping or gambolling on the 
 very brink of a volcano. 
 
 June 15, 1833. 
 
 VIRTUE AND LIBERTY. EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. — 
 
 ERASMUS . — LUTHER. 
 
 The necessity for external government to man is in 
 an inverse ratio to the vigour of his self-government. 
 Where the last is most complete, the first is least wanted. 
 Hence, the more virtue the more liberty. 
 
 I think St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans the most 
 profound work in existence ; and I hardly believe that 
 the writings of the old Stoics, now lost, could have been 
 deeper. Undoubtedly it is, and must be, very obscure 
 
246 TABLE TALK 
 
 to ordinary readers ; but some of the difficulty is acci- 
 dental, arising from the form in which the Epistle appears. 
 If we could now arrange this work in the way in which we 
 may be sure St. Paul would himself do, were he now alive, 
 and preparing it for the press, his reasoning would stand out 
 clearer. His accumulated parentheses would be thrown 
 into notes, or extruded to the margin. You will smile, 
 after this, if I say that I think I understand St. Paul ; 
 and I think so, because, really and truly, I recognize 
 a cogent consecutiveness in the argument — the only 
 evidence I know that you understand any book. How 
 different is the style of this intensely passionate argument 
 from that of the catholic circular charge called the Epistle 
 to the Ephesians ! — and how different that of both from 
 the style of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, which 
 I venture to call iina-ToXal HavXouSth. 
 
 Erasmus's paraphrase of the New Testament is clear 
 and explanatory ; but you cannot expect anything very 
 deep from Erasmus. The only fit commentator on Paul 
 was Luther — not by any means such a gentleman as the 
 Apostle, but almost as great a genius. 
 
 June 17, 1833. 
 
 NEGRO EMANCIPATION. 
 
 Have you been able to discover any principle in this 
 Emancipation Bill for the Slaves, except a principle of 
 fear of the abolition party struggling with a dread of 
 causing some monstrous calamity to the empire at large ? 
 Well ! I will not prophesy ; and God grant that this 
 tremendous and unprecedented act of positive enactment 
 may not do the harm to the cause of humanity and 
 freedom which I cannot but fear ! But yet, what can 
 be hoped, when all human wisdom and counsel are set 
 at naught, and religious faith — the only miraculous agent 
 amongst men — is not invoked or regarded ! and the most 
 unblest phrase — the Dissenting interest — enters into the 
 question ! 
 
ARCHBISHOP WILLIAMS— HYPOTHESIS 247 
 
 June 22, 1833. 
 
 HACKET's LIFE OP ARCHBISHOP WILLIAMS. — CHARLES I. 
 
 MANNERS UNDER EDWARD III, RICHARD II, AND 
 
 HENRY VIII. 
 
 What a delightful and instructive book Bishop Hacket's 
 Life of Archbishop Williams is ! You learn more from 
 it of that which is valuable towards an insight into the 
 times preceding the Civil War than from all the pon- 
 derous histories and memoirs now composed about that 
 period. 
 
 Charles seems to have been a very disagreeable per- 
 sonage during James's life. There is nothing dutiful 
 in his demeanour. 
 
 I think the spirit of the court and nobility of Edward III 
 and Richard II was less gross than that in the time of 
 Henry VIII ; for in this latter period the chivalry had 
 evaporated, and the whole coarseness was left by itself. 
 Chaucer represents a very high and romantic style of 
 society amongst the gentry. 
 
 June 29, 1833. 
 
 HYPOTHESIS. SUFFICTION. — THEORY. — LYELL'S GEOLOGY. 
 
 — GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. — GERARD DOUW's ' SCHOOL- 
 MASTER ' and titian's ' venus.' — sir j. scarlett. 
 
 It seems to me a great delusion to call or suppose the 
 imagination of a subtle fluid, or molecules penetrable with 
 the same, a legitimate hypothesis. It is a mere suffiction. 
 Newton took the fact of bodies falling to the centre, and 
 upon that built up a legitimate hypothesis. It was a sub- 
 position of something certain. But Descartes' vortices 
 were not an hypothesis ; they rested on no fact at all ; 
 and yet they did, in a clumsy way, explain the motions 
 of the heavenly bodies. But your subtle fluid is pure 
 
248 TABLE TALK 
 
 gratuitous assumption ; and for what use ? It explains 
 nothing. 
 
 Besides, you are endeavouring to deduce power from 
 mass, in which you expressly say there is no power but 
 the vis inertiae : whereas, the whole analogy of chemistry 
 proves that power produces mass. 
 
 The use of a theory in the real sciences is to help the 
 investigator to a complete view of all the hitherto dis- 
 covered facts relating to the science in question ; it is 
 a collected view, 6ewp£a, of all he yet knows in one. Of 
 course, whilst any pertinent facts remain unknown, no 
 theory can be exactly true, because every new fact must 
 necessarily, to a greater or less degree, displace the re- 
 lation of all the others. A theory, therefore, only helps 
 investigation ; it cannot invent or discover. The only 
 true theories are those of geometry, because in geometry 
 all the premisses are true and unalterable. But, to sup- 
 pose that, in our present exceedingly imperfect acquaint- 
 ance with the facts, any theory in chemistry or geology 
 is altogether accurate, is absurd : — it cannot be true. 
 
 Mr. Lyell's system of geology is just half the truth, 
 and no more. He affirms a great deal that is true, and 
 he denies a great deal which is equally true ; which is 
 the general characteristic of all systems not embracing 
 the whole truth. So it is with the rectilinearity or 
 undulatory motion of light ; — I believe both ; though 
 philosophy has as yet but imperfectly ascertained the 
 conditions of their alternate existence, or the laws by 
 which they are regulated. 
 
 Those who deny light to be matter do not, therefore, 
 deny its corporeity. 
 
 The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity 
 made imaginable. It is no doubt a sublimer effort of 
 genius than the Greek style ; but then it depends much 
 more on execution for its effect. I was more than ever 
 impressed with the marvellous sublimity and transcen- 
 
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE 249 
 
 dant beauty of King's College Chapel. 1 It is quite 
 unparalleled. 
 
 I think Gerard Douw's 'Schoolmaster', in the Fitz- 
 william Museum, the finest thing of the sort I ever 
 saw ; — whether you look at it at the common distance, 
 or examine it with a glass, the wonder is equal. And 
 that glorious picture of the Venus — so perfectly beau- 
 tiful and perfectly innocent — as if beauty and innocence 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge visited Cambridge upon the occasion of the scientific 
 meeting there in June 1833. ' My emotions ', he said, ' at revisiting 
 the university were at first overwhelming. I could not speak for an hour ; 
 yet my feelings were upon the whole very pleasurable, and I have not 
 passed, of late years at least, three days of such great enjoyment and 
 healthful excitement of mind and body. The bed on which I slept — 
 and slept soundly too — was, as near as I can describe it, a couple of 
 sacks full of potatoes tied together. I understand the young men think 
 it hardens them. Truly I lay down at night a man, and arose in the 
 morning a bruise.' He told me ' that the men were much amused at 
 his saving that the fine old Quaker philosopher Dalton's face was like 
 All Souls' College '. The two persons of whom he spoke with the greatest 
 interest were Mr. Faraday and Mr. Thirlwall, saying of the former, 
 ' that he seemed to have the true temperament of genius, that carrying- 
 on of the spring and freshness of youthful, nay, boyish feelings, into the 
 matured strength of manhood ! ' For, as Mr. Coleridge had long before 
 expressed the same thought, ' To find no contradiction in the union 
 of old and new ; to contemplate the Ancient of Days and all his works 
 with feelings as fresh as if all had then sprung forth at the first creative 
 fiat, this characterizes the mind that feels the riddle of the world, and 
 may help to unravel it. To carry on the feelings of childhood into the 
 powers of manhood ; to combine the child's sense of wonder and novelty 
 with the appearances which every day for perhaps forty years had 
 rendered familiar ; 
 
 With sun and moon and stars throughout the year, 
 
 And man and woman ; 
 this is the character and privilege of genius, and one of the marks which 
 distinguish genius from talents. And therefore is it the prime merit of 
 genius, and its most unequivocal mode of manifestation, so to represent 
 familiar objects aB to awaken in the minds of others a kindred feeling 
 concerning them, and that freshness of sensation which is the constant 
 accompaniment of mental, no less than of bodily, convalescence. Who 
 has not a thousand times seen snow fall on water ? Who has not watched 
 it with a new feeling, from the time that he has read Burns's comparison 
 of sensual pleasure 
 
 To snow that falls upon a river, 
 
 A moment white — then gone for ever I ' 
 
 g. Lit., vol. i, p. 85.— H. N. C. 
 
250 TABLE TALK 
 
 could not be dissociated ! The French thing below is 
 a curious instance of the inherent grossness of the French 
 taste. Titian's picture is made quite bestial. 
 
 I think Sir James Scarlett's speech for the defendant, 
 in the late action of Gobbett v. The Times, for a libel, 
 worthy of the best ages of Greece or Rome ; though, 
 to be sure, some of his remarks could not have been very 
 palatable to his clients. 
 
 I am glad you came in to punctuate my discourse, 
 which I fear has gone on for an hour without any stop 
 at all. 
 
 July 1, 1833. 
 
 MANDEVILLE'S FABLE OF THE BEES. — BESTIAL THEORY. 
 — OHABACTER OF BERTRAM. — BEAUMONT AND FLET- 
 CHER'S DRAMAS. — AESCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES, EURIPIDES. 
 — MILTON. 
 
 If I could ever believe that Mandeville really meant 
 anything more by his Fable of the Bees than a bonne 
 bouche of solemn raillery, I should like to ask those man- 
 shaped apes who have taken up his suggestions in earnest, 
 and seriously maintained them as bases for a rational 
 account of man and the world — how they explain the very 
 existence of those dexterous cheats, those superior charla- 
 tans, the legislators and philosophers, who have known 
 how to play so well upon the peacock-like vanity and 
 follies of their fellow mortals. 
 
 By the by, I wonder some of you lawyers (sub rosa, 
 of course) have not quoted the pithy lines in Mande- 
 ville upon this registration question : 
 
 The lawyers, of whose art the basis 
 Was raising feuds and splitting cases, 
 Oppos'd all Registers, that cheats 
 Might make more work with dipt estates ; 
 As 'twere unlawful that one's own 
 Without a lawsuit should be known ! 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES— DRAMAS 251 
 
 They put off hearings wilfully, 
 To finger the refreshing fee ; 
 And to defend a wicked cause 
 Examined and survey'd the laws, 
 As burglars shops and houses do, 
 To see where best they may break through. 
 There is great Hudibrastic vigour in these lines ; and 
 those on the doctors are also very terse. 
 
 Look at that head of Cline, by Chantrey ! Is that 
 forehead, that nose, those temples and that chin, akin to 
 the monkey tribe ? No, no. To a man of sensibility 
 no argument could disprove the bestial theory so con- 
 vincingly as a quiet contemplation of that fine bust. 
 
 I cannot agree with the solemn abuse which the critics 
 have poured out upon Bertram in All 's well that ends 
 well. He was a young nobleman in feudal times, just 
 bursting into manhood, with all the feelings of pride of 
 birth and appetite for pleasure and liberty natural to 
 such a character so circumstanced. Of course he had 
 never regarded Helena otherwise than as a dependant in 
 the family ; and of all that which she possessed of good- 
 ness and fidelity and courage, which might atone for her 
 inferiority in other respects, Bertram was necessarily in 
 a great measure ignorant. And after all, her prima 
 facie merit was the having inherited a prescription from 
 her old father the doctor, by which she cures the king 
 — a merit which supposes an extravagance of personal 
 loyalty in Bertram to make conclusive to him in such 
 a matter as that of taking a wife. Bertram had surely 
 good reason to look upon the king's forcing him to marry 
 Helena as a very tyrannical act. Indeed, it must be 
 confessed that her character is not very delicate, and it 
 required all Shakespeare's consummate skill to interest us 
 for her ; and he does this chiefly by the operation of the 
 other characters — the Countess, Lafeu, &c. We get to like 
 Helena from their praising and commending her so much. 
 
 In Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedies the comic scenes 
 are rarely so interfused amidst the tragic as to produce 
 a unity of the tragic on the whole, without which the inter- 
 
252 TABLE TALK 
 
 mixture is a fault. In Shakespeare, this is always managed 
 with transcendant skill. The Fool in Lear contributes in 
 a very sensible manner to the tragic wildness of the whole 
 drama. Beaumont and Fletcher's serious plays or tragedies 
 are complete hybrids — neither fish nor flesh — upon any 
 rules, Greek, Roman, or Gothic ; and yet they are very 
 delightful notwithstanding. No doubt, they imitate the 
 ease of gentlemanly conversation better than Shakespeare, 
 who was unable not to be too much associated to succeed 
 perfectly in this. 
 
 When I was a boy, I was fondest of Aeschylus ; in youth 
 and middle age I preferred Euripides ; now in my declining 
 years I admire Sophocles. I can now at length see that 
 Sophocles is the most perfect. Yet he never rises to the 
 sublime simplicity of Aeschylus — simplicity of design, I 
 mean — nor diffuses himself in the passionate outpourings 
 of Euripides. I understand why the ancients called Euri- 
 pides the most tragic of their dramatists : he evidently 
 embraces within the scope of the tragic poet many passions 
 — love, conjugal affection, jealousy, and so on, which 
 Sophocles seems to have considered as incongruous with 
 the ideal statu esqueness of the tragic drama. Certainly 
 Euripides was a greater poet in the abstract than Sophocles. 
 His choruses may be faulty as choruses, but how beautiful 
 and affecting they are as odes and songs ! I think the 
 famous E£"7r3roii £eVe, in the Oedipus Coloneus, 1 cold in com- 
 parison with many of the odes of Euripides, as that song 
 of the chorus in the Hippolytus — *Epo>s, "Epws, 2 and so on ; 
 and I remember a choric ode in the Hecuba, which always 
 struck me as exquisitely rich and finished ; I mean, where 
 the chorus speaks of Troy and the night of the capture. 3 
 
 1 Eviijirov, f eve, raaSe x&P as 
 'ikov t<£ tcpaTi&Ta yds IVauAa, 
 
 rdv apyrjra Kokaviv. — k.t.A. v. 668. 
 
 2 "Epw? "Epcus, h /tar opLpudraiv 
 ffrdfets n6$0Vj eladyojv y\vrie?av 
 \pv\a x&P iV °^s €7riffi7>aTeu<777, 
 
 fJTj fiOt TTOTC OVV ICOIC'2' fpavtirjs 
 
 /«;5' dppvB/ios e\$ots. — k.t.A. v. 527. 
 
 3 I take it for granted that Mr. Coleridge alluded to the chorus 
 
 2u fief, Si narpts 'IAias, 
 7W dirop0T]TQJV tt6\is 
 
MILTON 253 
 
 There is nothing very surprising in Milton's preference 
 of Euripides, though so unlike himself. It is very common 
 
 ov/ceTL \i£r}' roiov 'E\- 
 
 XaVQlV V€(pOS &{JL<f>l (Xf KpVTTTil 
 
 5opl 87) Sopl -nkpaav. — /c.t.\. v. 905. 
 
 Thou, then, oh, natal Troy ! no more 
 The city of the unsaok'd shalt be, 
 So thick from dark Aohaia's shore 
 The cloud of war hath covered thee. 
 
 Ah ! not again 
 
 I tread thy plain — 
 The spear — the spear hath rent thy pride ; 
 The flame hath scarr'd thee deep and wide 
 Thy coronal of towers is shorn, 
 And thou most piteous art — most naked and forlorn ! 
 
 I perish'd at the noon of night ! 
 When sleep had seal'd each weary eye 
 When the dance was o'er, 
 And harps no more 
 Rang out in choral minstrelsy. 
 In the dear bower of delight 
 My husband slept in joy ; 
 His shield and spear 
 Suspended near, 
 Secure he slept : that sailor band 
 Pull sure he deem'd no more should stand 
 Beneath the walls of Troy. 
 And I too, by the taper's light, 
 Which in the golden mirror's haze 
 Flash'd its interminable rays, 
 Bound up the tresses of my hair 
 That I Love's peaceful sleep might share. 
 
 I slept ; but, hark I that war-shout dread, 
 Which rolling through the city spread ; 
 And this the cry, — ' When, Sons of Greece, 
 When shall the lingering leaguer cease ; 
 When will ye spoil Troy's watch-tower high, 
 And home return 1 '—I heard the cry, 
 And, starting from the genial bed, 
 Veiled, as a Doric maid, I fled, 
 And knelt, Diana, at thy holy fane, 
 A trembling suppliant — all in vain. 
 
 They led me to the sounding shore- 
 Heavens ! as I passed the crowded way, 
 My bleeding lord before me lay — 
 
 I gaw — I saw — and wept no more, 
 
 Till, as the homeward breezes bore 
 
254 TABLE TALK 
 
 — very natural — for men to like and even admire an ex- 
 hibition of power very different in kind from anything of 
 their own. No jealousy arises. Milton preferred Ovid 
 too, and I dare say he admired both as a man of sensibility 
 admires a lovely woman, with a f eeling into which jealousy 
 or envy cannot enter. With Aeschylus or Sophocles he 
 might perchance have matched himself. 
 
 In Euripides you have oftentimes a very near approach 
 to comedy, and I hardly know any writer in whom you can 
 find such fine models of serious and dignified conversation. 
 
 July 3, 1833. 
 
 STYLE. CAVALIER SLANG. JUNIUS. — PBOSE AND 
 
 VEESE. — IMITATION AND COPY. 
 
 The collocation of words is so artificial in Shakespeare 
 and Milton, that you may as well think of pushing a 
 brick out of a wall with your forefinger, as attempt to 
 remove a word out of any of their finished passages. 1 
 
 A good lecture upon style might be composed, by taking 
 on the one hand the slang of L'Estrange, and perhaps, even 
 of Roger North, 2 which became so fashionable after the 
 
 The bark returning o'er the sea, 
 My gaze, oh Ilion, turn'd on thee ! 
 Then, frantic, to the midnight air, 
 I cursed aloud the adulterous pair : 
 ' They plunge me deep in exile's woe ; 
 They lay my country low : 
 
 Their love — no love ! but some dark spell, 
 
 In vengeance breath'd, by spirit fell. 
 Rise, hoary sea, in awful tide, 
 And whelm that vessel's guilty pride ; 
 Nor e'er, in high Mycene's hall, 
 Let Helen boast in peace of mighty Dion's fall.' 
 The translation was given to me by Mr. Justice Coleridge. — H. N. C. 
 
 1 ' The amotion or transposition will alter the thought, or the feeling, 
 or at least the tone. They are as pieces of mosaic work, from which you 
 cannot strike the smallest block without making a hole in the picture.' 
 — Quarterly fieview, No. CHE, p. 7. 
 
 2 But Mr. Coleridge took a great distinction between North and the 
 other writers commonly associated with him. In speaking of the Examen 
 and the Life of Lord North in The Friend, Mr. C. calls them ' two of the 
 most interesting biographical works in our language, both for the weight 
 
STYLE— PROSE AND VERSE 255 
 
 Restoration as a mark of loyalty ; and on the other, the 
 Johnsonian magniloquence or the balanced metre of Junius ; 
 and then showing how each extreme is faulty, upon differ 
 ent grounds. 
 
 It is quite curious to remark the prevalence of the 
 Cavalier slang style in the divines of Charles IPs 
 time. Barrow could not of course adopt such a 
 mode of writing throughout, because he could not in it 
 have communicated his elaborate thinkings and lofty 
 rhetoric ; but even Barrow not unfrequently lets slip 
 a phrase here and there in the regular Roger North way 
 — much to the delight, no doubt, of the largest part of 
 his audience and contemporary readers. See particularly, 
 for instances of this, his work on the Pope's supremacy 
 South is full of it. 
 
 The style of Junius is a sort of metre, the law of which 
 is a balance of thesis and antithesis. When he gets out 
 of this aphorismic metre into a sentence of five or six lines 
 long, nothing can exceed the slovenliness of the English. 
 Home Tooke and a long sentence seem the only two an- 
 tagonists that were too much for him. Still the antithesis 
 of Junius is a real antithesis of images or thought ; but 
 the antithesis of Johnson is rarely more than verbal. 
 
 The definition of good prose is — proper words in then- 
 proper places ; of good verse — the most proper words in 
 their proper places. The propriety is in either case relative. 
 The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, 
 and no more ; if they attract attention to themselves, it 
 is, in general, a fault. In the very best styles, as Southey's, 
 you read page after page, understanding the author per- 
 fectly, without once taking notice of the medium of com- 
 
 of the matter and the incuriosa f elioitas of the style. . . The pages are all 
 alive with the genuine idioms of our mother-tongue. A fastidious taste, 
 it is true, will find offence in the occasional vulgarisms, or what we now 
 call slang, whioh not a few of our writers, shortly after the Eestoration 
 of Charles II, seem to have affected as a mark of loyalty. These instances, 
 however, are but a trifling drawback. They are not sought for, as is too 
 often and too plainly done by L'Estrange, Collyer, Tom Brown, and 
 their imitations. North never goes out of his way, either to seek them, 
 or to avoid them ; and, in the main, his language gives us the very 
 nerve, pulse, and sinew of a hearty, healthy, conversational English.' — 
 Vol. ii, p. 307.— H. N. C. 
 
256 TABLE TALK. 
 
 munication ; — it is as if he had been speaking to you all the 
 while. But in verse you must do more ; — there the words, 
 the media, must be beautiful, and ought to attract your 
 notice — yet not so much and so perpetually as to destroy 
 the unity which ought to result from the whole poem. This 
 is the general rule, but, of course, subject to some modi- 
 fications, according to the different kinds of prose or verse. 
 Some prose may approach towards verse, as oratory, and 
 therefore a more studied exhibition of the media may be 
 proper ; and some verse may border more on mere narra- 
 ative, and there the style should be simpler. But the great 
 thing in poetry is, quocunque, modo, to effect a unity of 
 impression upon the whole ; and a too great fullness and 
 profusion of points in the parts will prevent this. Who 
 can read with pleasure more than a hundred lines or so of 
 Hudibras at one time ? Each couplet or quatrain is so 
 whole in itself, that you can't connect them. There is no 
 fusion — just as it is in Seneca. 
 
 Imitation is the mesothesis of likeness and difference. 
 The difference is as essential to it as the likeness ; for 
 without the difference, it would be copy or fac-simile. 
 But to borrow a term from astronomy, it is a lihrating 
 mesothesis : for it may verge more to likeness as in 
 painting, or more to difference, as in sculpture. 
 
 July 4, 1833. 
 
 DE. JOHNSON. — BOSWELL. — BT7EKE. — NEWTON 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 Dr. Johnson's fame now rests principally upon Boswell. 
 It is impossible not to be amused with such a book. But 
 his bow-wow manner must have had a good deal to do with 
 the effect produced ; — for no one, I suppose, will set Johnson 
 before Burke — and Burke was a great and universal talker ; 
 —yet now we hear nothing of this except by some chance 
 remarks in Boswell. The fact is, Burke, like all men of 
 genius who love to talk at all, was very discursive and 
 continuous ; hence he is not reported ; he seldom said the 
 
 \ 
 
DR. JOHNSON— PAINTING 257 
 
 sharp short things that Johnson almost always did, which 
 produce a more decided effect at the moment, and which 
 are so much more easy to carry off. 1 Besides, as to Burke's 
 testimony to Johnson's powers, you must remember that 
 Burke was a great courtier ; and after all, Burke said and 
 wrote more than once that he thought Johnson greater 
 in talking than writing, and greater in Boswell than in real 
 life. 2 
 
 Newton was a great man, but you must excuse me if 
 I think that it would take many Newtons to make one 
 Milton. 
 
 July 6, 1833. 
 
 PAINTING. — MUSIC. — POETRY. 
 
 It is a poor compliment to pay to a painter to tell him 
 that his figure stands out of the canvas, or that you 
 start at the likeness of the portrait. Take almost any 
 daub, cut it out of the canvas, and place the figure 
 looking into or out of a window, and any one may. take 
 it for life. Or take one of Mrs. Salmon's wax queens 
 
 1 Burke, I am persuaded, was not so continuous a talker as Coleridge. 
 Madame de Stael told a nephew of the latter, at Coppet, that Mr. C. was 
 a master of monologue, mais qu'il ne savait pas le dialogue. There was 
 a spice of vindictiveness in this, the exact history of which is not worth 
 explaining. And if dialogue must be cut down in its meaning to small 
 talk, I, for one, will admit that Coleridge, amongst his numberless 
 qualifications, possessed it not. But I am sure that he could, when it 
 suited him, converse as well as any one else, and with women he fre- 
 quently did converse in a very winning and popular style, confining 
 them, however, as well as he could, to the detail of facts or of their 
 spontaneous emotions. In general, it was certainly otherwise. ' You 
 must not be surprised ', he said to me, ' at my talking so long to you — 
 I pass so much of my time in pain and solitude, yet everlastingly think- 
 ing, that, when you or any other persons call on me, I can hardly help 
 easing my mind by pouring forth some of the accumulated mass of 
 reflection and feeling, upon an apparently interested recipient.' But 
 the principal reason, no doubt, was the habit of his intellect, which 
 was under a law of discoursing upon all subjects with reference to ideas 
 or ultimate ends. You might interrupt him when you pleased, and he 
 was patient of every sort of conversation except mere personality, 
 which he absolutely hated. — H. N. C. 
 
 ' This was said, I believe, to the late Sir James Mackintosh. — H. N. 
 
 TABLE TALK S 
 
258 TABLE TALK 
 
 or generals, and you will very sensibly feel the difference 
 between a copy, as they are, and an imitation, of the 
 human form, as a good portrait ought to be. Look at 
 that flower vase of Van Huysun, and at these wax or 
 stone peaches and apricots ! The last are likest to their 
 original, but what pleasure do they give ? None, ex- 
 cept to children. 1 
 
 Some music is above me ; most music is beneath me. 
 I like Beethoven and Mozart — or else some of the aerial 
 compositions of the elder Italians, as Palestrina 2 and Caris- 
 simi. And I love Purcell. 
 
 The best sort of music is what it should be — sacred ; 
 the next best, the military, has fallen to the lot of the 
 Devil. 
 
 Good music never tires me, nor sends me to sleep. I feel 
 physically refreshed and strengthened by it, as Milton says 
 he did. 
 
 I could write as good verses now as ever I did, if I 
 
 1 This passage, and those following, will evidence, what the readers 
 even of this little work must have seen, that Mr. Coleridge had an eye, 
 almost exclusively, for the ideal or universal in painting and music. He 
 knew nothing of the details of handling in the one, or of ruleB of compo- 
 sition in the other. Yet he was, to the best of my knowledge, an unerring 
 judge of the merits of any serious effort in the fine arts, and detected the 
 leading thought or feeling of the artist, with a decision which used some- 
 times to astonish me. Every picture which I have looked at in company 
 with him, seems now, to my mind, translated into English. He would 
 sometimes say, after looking for a minute at a picture, generally » 
 modern one, ' There 's no use in stopping at this ; for I see the painter 
 had no idea. It is mere mechanical drawing. Come on ; here the artist 
 meant something for the mind.' It was just the same with his knowledge 
 of music. His appetite for what he thought good was literally inex- 
 haustible. He told me he could listen to fine music for twelve hours 
 together, and go away refreshed. But he required in music either thought 
 or feeling ; mere addresses to the sensual ear he could not away with ; 
 hence his utter distaste for Rossini, and his reverence for Beethoven 
 and Mozart. — H. N. C. 
 
 2 Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was born about 1529, and died in 
 1594. I believe he may be considered the founder or reformer of the 
 Italian church music. His masses, motets, and hymns are tolerably well 
 known amongst lovers of the old composers ; but Mr. Coleridge used to 
 speak with delight of some of Palestrina's madrigals which he heard at 
 Rome. 
 
 Giacomo Carissimi oomposed about the years 1640-50. His style has 
 been charged with effeminacy ; but Mr. C. thought it very graceful and 
 chaste. Henry Purcell needs no addition in England. — H. N. C. 
 
POETRY— PUBLIC SCHOOLS 259 
 
 were perfectly free from vexations, and were in the ad 
 libitum hearing of fine music, which has a sensible effect 
 in harmonizing my thoughts, and in animating and, as 
 it were, lubricating my inventive faculty. The reason 
 of my not finishing Christabel is not, that I don't know 
 how to do it — for I have, as I always had, the whole 
 plan entire from beginning to end in my mind ; but I 
 fear I could not carry on with equal success the execu- 
 tion of the idea, an extremely subtle and difficult one. 1 
 Besides, after this continuation of Faust, which they 
 tell me is very poor, who can have courage to attempt 
 a reversal of the judgement of all criticism against con- 
 tinuations ? Let us except Don Quixote, however, although 
 the second part of that transcendant work is not exactly 
 uno flatu with the original conception. 
 
 July 8, 1833. 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 I am clear for public schools as the general rule ; but 
 for particular children private education may be proper, 
 For the purpose of moving at ease in the best English 
 society — mind, I don't call the London exclusive clique 
 the best English society — the defect of a public edu- 
 cation upon the plan of our great schools and Oxford 
 and Cambridge is hardly to be supplied. But the defect is 
 visible positively in some men, and only negatively in 
 others. The first offend you by habits and modes of thinking 
 and acting directly attributable to their private education ; 
 in the others you only regret that the freedom and facility 
 of the established and national mode of bringing up is not 
 added to their good qualities. 
 
 I more than doubt the expediency of making even 
 elementary mathematics a part of the routine in the 
 system of the great schools. It is enough, I think, that 
 
 1 ' The thing attempted in Christabel is the most difficult of execution 
 in the whole field of romance — witohery by daylight ; and the success 
 is complete.' — Quarterly Review, No. CIII [Aug. 1834], p. 29. 
 
 S 2 
 
260 TABLE TALK. 
 
 encouragement and facilities should be given ; and I think 
 more will be thus effected than by compelling all. Much 
 less would I incorporate the German or French, or any 
 modern language, into the school labours. I think that 
 a great mistake. 1 
 
 August 4, 1833. 
 
 SCOTT AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 Dear Sir Walter Scott and myself were exact, but 
 harmonious, opposites in this : that every old ruin, hill, 
 river, or tree called up in his mind a host of histori- 
 cal or biographical associations — just as a bright pan 
 of brass, when beaten, is said to attract the swarming 
 bees ; whereas, for myself, notwithstanding Dr. John- 
 son, I believe I should walk over the plain of Marathon 
 without taking more interest in' it than in any other 
 plain of similar features. Yet I receive as much plea- 
 sure in reading the account of the battle, in Herodotus, 
 as any one can. Charles Lamb wrote an essay 2 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. 
 
 1 ' One constant blunder ' — I find it so pencilled by Mr. C. on a margin 
 — ' of these New-Broomers — these Penny Magazine sages and philan- 
 thropists, in reference to our publio schools, is to confine their view to 
 what schoolmasters teach the boys, with entire oversight of all that the 
 boys are excited to learn from each other and of themselves — with more 
 geniality even because it is not a part of their compelled school knowledge. 
 An Eton boy's knowledge of the St. Lawrence, Mississippi, Missouri, 
 Orellana, &c, will be, generally, found in exact proportion to his know- 
 ledge of the Ilissus, Hebrus, Orontes, &c. ; inasmuch as modern travels 
 and voyages are more entertaining and fascinating than Cellarius ; or 
 Robinson Crusoe, Dampier, and Captain Cook than the Periegesis. 
 Compare the lads themselves from Eton and Harrow, &c, with the 
 alumni of the New-Broom Institution, and not the listB of school- 
 lessons ; and be that comparison the criterion. — H. N. C. 
 
 s 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. — H. N. C. 
 
NERVOUS WEAKNESS-PHILANTHROPISTS 261 
 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 pro- 
 found 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 fullness. 
 
 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 composi- 
 tion, 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 dis- 
 tinguished 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 
 
262 TABLE TALK. 
 
 does not spring dut 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 ! 
 
 August 15, 1833. 
 
 SALLUST. — THUOYDIDES. — 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 conti- 
 nuity of action. In Thucydides, you are aware from the 
 beginning that you are reading the reflections of a man of 
 greatjgenius and experience upon the character and opera- 
 tion 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 
 
 1 I remember Mr. Coleridge used to call Isaiah his ideal of the Hebrew 
 prophet. He studied that part of the Scripture with unremitting atten- 
 tion 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, heavens, and give ear, | earth : for the Lord hath spoken 
 I have nourished and brought up ohildren, | 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.— H. N. C. 
 
THUCYDIDES— GIBBON 263 
 
 throughout under the names of Pericles, Nicias, &c. But 
 in Herodotus it is just the reverse. He has as little sub- 
 jectivity 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 through- 
 out 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 philo- 
 sophy, has led him to mis-state and mistake the character 
 and influence of Christianity in a way which even an 
 
264 TABLE TALK 
 
 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. ETY- 
 MOLOGY 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 philo- 
 sophical 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 con- 
 queror 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 forgo 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 of tax being only 
 
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS— ETYMOLOGY 265 
 
 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 diffi- 
 culty — 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 repre- 
 sentatives 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 in- 
 terest ? 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 repre- 
 sentation 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, there- 
 fore, 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. 
 
 Home 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, Home 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, oTkos ; 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 : oikos, vicus, denoted an aggregation of 
 ingles. The alteration of the c and k of the root into the 
 
266 TABLE TALK. 
 
 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 sportive ; that is, has 
 a nature or habit of sporting : the lamb is sportiw<7 : that 
 is, the animal is now performing a sport. Home 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 ENGIJSH 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 — ' O *ON — The Being, or God — should be omitted, 
 and, instead of it, the Kvpios, or Lord, of the Septuagint 
 be adopted. The Alexandrian Jews had a superstitious 
 dread of writing the name of God, and put Kvpio? 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 
 
 I cannot understand the conduct of the Scotch Kirk 
 
 1 I find the same remark in the late most excellent Bishop Sandford's 
 diary, under date 17th December, 1827 : ' Xai'perc iv t£ Kvpitp. Kvpios 
 idem significat quod nirr apud Hebraeos. Hebraei enim nomine run 1 
 sanctissimo nempe Dei nomine, nunquam in colloquio utebantur, sed 
 vice eius ^ih pronuntiabant, quod LXX per Kvpios 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. 1 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 connexion with the text, I may add here, that Mr. 0. said, that 
 
SCOTCH KIRK— MILTON'S EGOTISM 267 
 
 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 bad taste, and in terms false : never- 
 theless 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 pas- 
 sionate 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.- — clattdian. — stebne. 
 
 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 ah John Milton ; and it 
 is a sense of this intense egotism that gives me the greatest 
 
 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 exJ*ession, Ttparrinotcos ttAotis kt'ktiojs in the Epistle to the 
 Colossians, i. 16 : ts iariv elviiv tov ®eoi> toC aopirov, TtparisToicos Traar/s 
 KTiaeas. He rendered the verse in these words : ' Who is the manifesta- 
 tion of God the invisible, the begotten antecedently to all creation ; ' 
 observing, that in ttpoit6tokos 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 on in the 
 next verse. The same criticism may be found in the Statesman's Manual, 
 p 55 n. ; and see Bishop Sandford's judgement to the same effect. 
 vol. i, p. 165.— H. N. C. 
 
268 TABLE TALK 
 
 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 
 
 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 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge referred to Claudian's first Idyll : 
 Ooeani summo ciroumfluua aequore lucus 
 Trans Indos Eurumque viret, &c. 
 See the lines — 
 
 Hie neque coneepto fetu, neo semine surgit ; 
 Sed pater est prolesque sibi, nulloque creante 
 Emeritos artus foeounda morte reformat, 
 Et petit alternam totidem per funera vitam. 
 
 Et cumulum texena pretiosa fronde Sabaeum 
 Componit bustumque sibi partumque futurum. 
 
 senium positure rogo, falsisque sepulcris 
 Natales habiture vices, qui saepe renasci 
 Exitio, proprioque soles pubescere leto, 
 Aceipe prinoipium rursus. 
 
 Parturiente rogo . . . 
 
 Victuri oineres . . . 
 
 Qui fuerat genitor, natus nunc prosilit idem, 
 Succeditque novus . . . 
 
 felix, haereeque tui ! quo solvimur omnes, 
 
 Hoc tibi suppeditat vires ; praebetur origo 
 
 Per oinerem ; moritur te non pereunte senectus. — H. N. C. 
 
STERNE— GREAT POETS GOOD MEN 269 
 
 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. 
 
 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 Shakespeare. 
 
 Genius must have talent as its complement and im- 
 plement, 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 com- 
 pany of vulgar people, because they have a power of 
 looking at such persons as objects of amusement of 
 another race altogether. 
 
 1 quite agree with Strabo, as translated by Ben Jonson 
 in his splendid dedication of the Fox 2 — that there can 
 
 * 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.'— H. N. C. 
 
 2 'H Si (aptTr)) iroirjTov ovvt&viirai Trj tov dvdpdmov' /cat ov\ olov re ayaQuv 
 ytvtffBat ttoitjttiv, pi} vpSrepov yevvr}6evTa avbpa 6.ya96v. — 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.' 
 
270 TABLE TALK 
 
 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 anything of, or be able to move, the heart 
 of any one else ? 
 
 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 mean- 
 ings 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 con- 
 sonants 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 Bth. I wish I understood 
 Arabic ; and yet I doubt whether to the European philo- 
 sopher or scholar it is worth while to undergo the immense 
 labour of acquiring that or any other Oriental tongue, 
 except Hebrew. 
 
GREEK ACCENT AND QUANTITY 271 
 
 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 re- 
 citation 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 confound- 
 ing 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 pro- 
 
 1 This opinion, I need not say, ia in direct opposition to the conclusion 
 of Poster 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. 0. would, in prose, attend to the accents 
 only as indicators of the quantity, being unable to conceive any prac- 
 tical 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 080s /5 65os, rp 6ttos and 
 OTf> 6<pos, and this expressly Iv \6yois \j/i.Koh, or plain prose, as well as 
 in verse ; and on the other hand deolares, 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 : t<3 Iloaw SiaWdrrovaa rfjs iv u5ats ical bpyavois, Kal ou^t tw 
 TloiZ. (Tiepl 'Svv. 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, Athenians, does Aeschines appear to you to be the mer- 
 cenary (m'<t9oit(5s) of Alexander, or his guest or friend ((evos) ? ' It is 
 said that he pronounced puoOaros with a false accent on the ante- 
 penultima, as pxatairos, and that upon the audience immediately crying 
 out, by way of correction, puaBairds, with an emphasis, the orator con- 
 tinued coolly : anovas & keyovat — ' You yourself near what they say ! ' 
 Demosthenes is also said, whether affectedly^ or in ignorance, to have 
 sworn in some speech by ' Aa/c\^-nios, 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 r/mos, mild. The expressions in Plutarch are verv striking : 
 ' 06pv0ov hutvrjsai, &p.vve Si tail rov , Aa«Krim6v, irpoTTapo£vv<av AoKArimov, 
 Kal irapeSdicvvfv atirbv &pSws Kiyovja- (hat yelp t&v Btbv rjmoV Kal iirl roira 
 iroMaKis ieopv^erj.' Dec. Orat. — H. N. C. 
 
272 TABLE TALK. 
 
 nunciation to the Asiatic or African Hellenist, if the know- 
 ledge of the acuted syllable did not also carry the stress 
 of time with it ? If avdpw-jros 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 \ek6yxao-i, Tifyao-a, 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 1 in the twelfth century and the Anacreontics pre- 
 fixed to Proclus will show ; but these very examples prove 
 a fortiori what the common pronunciation in prose then was. 
 
 1 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 — 
 
 (w? ^Si) Kai \vo?s irpay/tacriv J nal dt£to?s | 6pn\etv — ) 
 
 oiroaov dv\vairo \afieiv \ c/ceAet/e | xpvaiov. 
 Kpolaov KivfT irp6s y^Xtara fiaSiffet zeal tt) Ota. 
 'O ApraKa^ias ftaffiXeiis $pvyias tijs fieyd\t]S. 
 c Hp68oTO$ rdy Tvyijv 8e noifiiva [i\v ov Xtyti. 
 'H 'UpexBeais Tlpoxpis re Kai Tlpa^tOeas K6prj. 
 'Avvifias ws Atudajpos ypatpei teal Aioiv afja. — 
 
 Chill. 
 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 | to- 
 gether. 
 
 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 eprifios and ettaXa, 
 Cui jejuna eremi saxa loquacibus 
 Exundant scatebris, &c. 
 
 Gathemer. v. 89. 
 . . . cognatumque malum, pigmenta, Camoenas, 
 Idola, conflavit fallendi trina potestas. 
 
 Cont. Symm. 47. — H. N. C. 
 
CONSOLATION IN DISTRESS— LAUGHTER 273 
 
 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. 
 
 ROSSETTI ON DANTE. LAUGHTER : FARCE AND 
 
 TRAGEDY. 
 
 Rossetti'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 
 Rossetti ? . 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 be- 
 coming painful. Aristotle's definition is as good as can 
 be : surprise at perceiving anything out of its usual place, 
 when the unusualness is not accompanied by a sense of 
 serious danger. Such surprise is always pleasurable ; and 
 
 TABLE TALK T 
 
274 TABLE TALK 
 
 it is observable that surprise accompanied with circum- 
 stances 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. 
 
 BABON VON HUMBOLDT. — MODEBN 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 in- 
 genuity of your nation, makes a point, as a ruse de guerre, 
 of sending Out none but fools of gentlemanly birth and 
 connexions 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. Erere's once in company 
 with Canning and a few other interesting men. Just 
 
 before dinner Lord called on Erere, and asked himself 
 
 to dinner. Erom the moment of his entry he began to talk 
 to the whole party, and in Erench — 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 pre- 
 
DIPLOMATISTS 275 
 
 servation of life in Genesis and the Paradise Lost \ 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 ! stayed 
 behind to pack up their trunks ! ' This floored the am- 
 bassador 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. 
 
 The sure way to make a foolish ambassador is to bring 
 him up to it. What can an English minister abroad 
 
 1 Genesis, c. vi, vii. Par. Lost, book xi. v. 728, &e. 
 
 2 Yet Diego de Mendoza, the author of Lazarillo de Tormes, himself a 
 veteran diplomatist, desoribes his brethren of the craft, and their duties 
 in the reigns of Charles the Emperor and Philip II, in the following 
 terms : 
 
 embajadores, puros majaderos, 
 Que si los reyes quieren engafiar, 
 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 husiness is just to do no mischief. — H. N. C. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 TABLE TALK 
 
 really want but an honest and bold heart, a love for his 
 country and the ten commandments ? Your art diplo- 
 matic is stuff : no truly great man now would negotiate 
 upon any such shallow principles. 
 
 August 30, 1833. 
 
 MAN CANNOT BE STATIONAEY. — FATALISM AND PROVI- 
 DENCE. — 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 govern- 
 ment 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. — TIBUL- 
 
 LUS.— LTJCAN.— STATIUS. — VALERIUS ELACCUS. 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 
 
GREEK PARTICLES— LUCAN 277 
 
 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 con- 
 temporaries, 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 flourishing under a tyranny. 
 
 The old Latin poets attempted to compound as largely 
 as the Greek ; hence in Ennius such words as bellige- 
 r entes, &c. In nothing did Virgil show his judgement 
 more than in rejecting these, except just where common 
 usage had sanctioned them, as omnvpotens 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 judgement a very 
 wonderful work for such a youth as Lucan 1 was. 
 
 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. — H. N. C. 
 
278 TABLE TALK 
 
 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 1 , 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 2 is curious for this — that you see how 
 Christianity forced allegory into the place of mythology. 
 Mr. Frere [6 ^tAdxaXos, 6 KaXoKayados] 3 used to esteem 
 the Latin Christian poets of Italy very highly, and no 
 man in our times was a more competent judge than he. 
 
 How very pretty are those lines of Hermesianax in 
 Athenaeus about the poets and poetesses of Greece ! * 
 
 September 4, 1833. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. — EPIC POEM. — GERMAN AND 
 ENGLISH. — MODERN TRAVELS. — PARADISE LOST. 
 
 I have already told you that in my opinion the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem is the only subject now left for an 
 epic poem of the highest kind. Yet, with all its great 
 ' capabilities, it has this one grand defect — that, whereas a 
 poem, to be epic, must have a personal interest — in the 
 destruction of Jerusalem no genius or skill could possibly 
 preserve the interest for the hero from being merged in 
 
 1 Aulus Persius Flaccus died in the thirtieth year of his age, A. D. 62. 
 — H. N. C. J 6 
 
 2 Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was born A. D. 348, in Spain.— H. N. C. 
 
 3 Vide infra, p. 372. 
 
 1 See the fragment from the Leontium : 
 
 O'ir/v niv <pi\os vlbs av-qyayw Oi&ypoio 
 
 'Aypi6wt]v, Qpijooav <TTei\a/«i/os mBapqv 
 AiS6$ev k.t.X. Athen. xiii, s. 71.— H. N. C. 
 
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM— EPIC POEM 279 
 
 the interest for the event. The fact is, the event itself is 
 too sublime and overwhelming. 
 
 In my judgement, an epic poem must either be national 
 or mundane. As to Arthur, you could not by any 
 means make a poem on him national to Englishmen. 
 What have we to do with him ? Milton saw this, and 
 with a judgement at least equal to his genius, took 
 a mundane theme — one common to all mankind. His 
 Adam and Eve are all men and women inclusively. Pope 
 satirizes Milton for making God the Father talk like a 
 school divine. 1 Pope was hardly the man to criticize 
 Milton. The truth is, the judgement of Milton in the 
 conduct of the celestial part of his story is very exquisite. 
 Wherever God is represented as directly acting as Creator, 
 without any exhibition of his own essence, Milton adopts 
 the simplest and sternest language of the Scriptures. He 
 ventures upon no poetic diction, no amplification, no 
 pathos, no affection. It is truly the Voice or the Word 
 of the Lord coming to, and acting on, the subject Chaos. 
 But, as some personal interest was demanded for the pur- 
 poses of poetry, Milton takes advantage of the dramatic 
 representation of God's address to the Son, the Filial 
 Alterity, and in those addresses slips in, as it were by stealth, 
 language of affection, or thought, or sentiment. Indeed, 
 although Milton was undoubtedly a high Arian in his mature 
 life, he does in the necessity of poetry give a greater 
 objectivity to the Father and the Son, than he would have 
 justified in argument. He was very wise in adopting the 
 strong anthropomorphism of the Hebrew Scriptures at 
 once. Compare the Paradise Lost with Klopstock's Messiah, 
 and you will learn to appreciate Milton's judgement and 
 skill quite as much as his genius. 
 
 The conquest of India by Bacchus might afford scope for 
 a very brilliant poem of the fancy and the understanding. 
 
 1 Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound, 
 Now, serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground ; 
 In quibbles angel and archangel join, 
 And God the Father turns a school divine. 
 
 Hoe. bk. n, Ep. i, v. 99. 
 
280 TABLE TALK 
 
 It is not that the German can express external imagery 
 more fully than English ; but that it can flash more 
 images at once on the mind than the English can. As 
 to mere power of expression, I doubt whether even the 
 Greek surpasses the English. Pray, read a very pleasant 
 and acute dialogue in Schlegel's Athenaeum between a 
 German, a Greek, a Roman, Italian, and a Frenchman, 
 on the merits of their respective languages. 
 
 I wish the naval and military officers who write accounts 
 of their travels would just spare us their sentiment. The 
 Magazines introduced this cant. Let these gentlemen read 
 and imitate the old captains and admirals, as Dampier, &c. 
 
 October 15, 1&33. 
 
 THE TRINITY. — INCARNATION. — REDEMPTION. 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 The Trinity is the idea : the Incarnation, which implies 
 the Fall, is the fact : the Redemption is the mesothesis of 
 the two — that is — the religion. 
 
 If you bring up your children in a way which puts 
 them out of sympathy with the religious feelings of the 
 nation in which they live, the chances are, that they 
 will ultimately turn out ruffians or fanatics — and one as 
 likely as the other. 
 
 October 23, 1833. 
 
 ELEGY. — LAVACRUM PALLADOS. — GREEK AND LATIN PENTA- 
 METER. — MILTON'S LATIN POEMS. — POETICAL FILTER.— 
 GRAY AND COTTON. 
 
 Elegy is the form of poetry natural to the reflective 
 mind. It may treat of any subject, but it must treat of 
 no subject for itself; but always and exclusively with 
 reference to the poet himself. As he will feel regret for 
 
ELEGY— POETICAL FILTER 281 
 
 the past or desire for the future, so sorrow and love become 
 the principal themes of elegy. Elegy presents everything 
 as lost and gone, or absent and future. The elegy is the 
 exact opposite of the Homeric epic, in which all is purely 
 external and objective, and the poet is a mere voice: 
 
 The true lyric ode is subjective too ; but then it de- 
 lights to present things as actually existing and visible, 
 although associated with the past, or coloured highly by 
 the subject of the ode itself. 
 
 I think the Lavacrum Pallados of Callimachus very 
 beautiful indeed, especially that part about the mother 
 of Tiresias and Minerva. 1 I have a mind to try how it 
 would bear translation ; but what metre have we to answer 
 in feeling to the elegiac couplet of the Greeks ? 
 
 I greatly prefer the Greek rhythm of the short verse to 
 Ovid's, though, observe, I don't dispute his taste with refer- 
 ence to the genius of his own language. Augustus Schlegel 
 gave me a copy of Latin elegiacs on the King of Prussia's 
 going down the Rhine, in which he had almost exclusively 
 adopted the manner of Propertius. I thought them very 
 elegant. 
 
 You may find a few minute faults in Milton's Latin verses ; 
 but you will not persuade me that, if these poems had come 
 down to us as written in the age of Tiberius, we should not 
 have considered them to be very beautiful. 
 
 I once thought of making- a collection — to be called 
 ' The Poetical Filter ' — upon the principle of simply 
 omitting from the old pieces of lyrical poetry which we 
 have, those parts in which the whim or the bad taste of 
 the author or the fashion of his age prevailed over his 
 genius. You would be surprised at the number of ex- 
 quisite wholes which might be made by this simple opera- 
 tion, and, perhaps, by the insertion of a single line or 
 half a line, out of poems which are now utterly disre- 
 
 1 TlaiSes, '\6avaia vipjpav piav iv iroica &i)Bms 
 rrov\v ti Hal irept St) (pikaro rav (repay, 
 paripa tupaxiao, leal ovnona X a P^ s i"f*wo' «.t.A. 
 
 v. 57, &o. 
 
282 TABLE TALK 
 
 garded on account of some odd or incongruous passages 
 in them — just as whole volumes of Wordsworth's poems 
 were formerly neglected or laughed at, solely because of 
 some few wilfulnesses, if I may so call them, of that great 
 man — whilst at the same time five-sixths of his poems would 
 have been admired, and indeed popular, if they had appeared 
 without those drawbacks, under the name of Byron or Moore 
 or Campbell, or any other of the fashionable favourites of 
 the day. But he has won the battle now, ay ! and will wear 
 the crown, whilst English is English. 
 
 I think there is something very majestic in Gray's 
 Installation Ode ; but as to The Bard and the rest of his 
 lyrics, I must say I think them frigid and artificial. There 
 is more real lyric feeling in Cotton's Ode on Winter. 1 
 
 1 Let me borrow Mr. Wordsworth's account of, and quotation from, 
 this poem : 
 
 ' Finally, I will refer to Cotton's Ode upon Winter, an admirable com- 
 position, though stained with some peculiarities of the age in which he 
 lived, for a general illustration of the characteristics of Fancy. The 
 middle part of this ode contains a most lively description of the entrance 
 of Winter, with his retinue, as ' a. palsied king' , and yet a military 
 monarch, advancing for conquest with his army ; the several bodies of 
 which, and their arms and equipments, are described with a rapidity 
 of detail, and a profusion of fanciful comparisons, which indicate, on the 
 part of the poet, extreme activity of intellect, and a correspondent hurry 
 of delightful feeling. He retires from the foe into his fortress, where : 
 
 a magazine 
 Of sovereign juice is cellared in ; 
 Liquor that will the siege maintain 
 Should Phoebus ne'er return again. 
 
 Though myself a water-drinker, I cannot resist the pleasure of tran- 
 scribing what follows, as an instance still more happy of Fancy employed 
 in the treatment of feeling than, in its preceding passages, the poem 
 supplies of her management of forms. 
 
 'Tis that, that gives the Poet rage, 
 And thaws the gelly'd blood of Age ; 
 Matures the Young, restores the Old, 
 And makes the fainting coward bold. 
 
 It lays the careful head to rest, 
 Calms palpitations in the breast, 
 Renders our lives' misfortune sweet ; 
 
HOMERIC HEROES IN SHAKESPEARE 283 
 
 November 1, 1833. 
 
 HOMERIC HEROES IN SHAKESPEARE. — DRYDEN. — DR. JOHN- 
 SON.- — SCOTT'S NOVELS. — SCOPE OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Compare Nestor, Ajax, Achilles, &c, in the Troilus 
 and Cressida of Shakespeare with their namesakes in the 
 Iliad. The old heroes seem all to have been at school 
 
 Then let the chill Scirocco blow, 
 And gird us round with hills of snow 
 Or else go whistle to the shore, 
 And make the hollow mountains roar : 
 
 Whilst we together jovial sit 
 Careless, and crowned with mirth and wit ; 
 Where, though bleak winds confine us home, 
 Our fancies round the world shall roam. 
 
 We'll think of all the friends we know, 
 And drink to all worth drinking to ; 
 When, having drunk all thine and mine, 
 We rather shall want healths than wine. 
 
 But where friends fail us, we'll supply 
 Our friendships with our charity ; 
 Men that remote in sorrows live 
 Shall by our lusty brimmers thrive. 
 
 We'll drink the wanting into wealth, 
 And those that languish into health, 
 Th' afflicted into joy, th' opprest 
 Into security and rest. 
 
 The worthy in disgrace shall find 
 Favour return again more kind, 
 And in restraint who stifled lie 
 Shall taste the air of liberty. 
 
 The brave shall triumph in success, 
 The lovers shall have mistresses, 
 Poor unregarded virtue, praise, 
 And the neglected poet, bays. 
 
 Thus shall our healths do others good, 
 Whilst we ourselves do all we would : 
 For, freed from envy and from care, 
 What would we be but what we are ? 
 
 Preface to the editions of Mr. W.'s Poems, in 
 1815 and 1820.— H. N. C. 
 
284 TABLE TALK 
 
 ever since. I scarcely know a more striking instance of 
 the strength and pregnancy of the Gothic mind. 
 
 Dryden's genius was of that sort which catches fire 
 by its own motion ; his chariot wheels get hot by driving 
 fast. 
 
 Dr. Johnson seems to have been really more powerful 
 in discoursing viva voce in conversation than with his 
 pen in hand. It seems as if the excitement of company 
 called something like reality and consecutiveness into 
 his reasonings, which in his writings I cannot see. His 
 antitheses are almost always verbal only ; and sentence 
 after sentence in the Rambler may be pointed out to 
 which you cannot attach any definite meaning whatever. 
 In his political pamphlets there is more truth of expression 
 than in his other works, for the same reason that his 
 conversation is better than his writings in general. He was 
 more excited and in earnest. 
 
 When I am very ill indeed, I can read Scott's novels, 
 and they are almost the only books I can then read. I can- 
 not at such times read the Bible ; my mind reflects on it, 
 but I can't bear the open page. 
 
 Unless Christianity be viewed and felt in a high and 
 comprehensive way, how large a portion of our intel- 
 lectual and moral nature does it leave without object 
 and action ! 
 
 Let a young man separate I from Me as far as he 
 possibly can, and remove Me till it is almost lost in the 
 remote distance. ' I am me,' is as bad a fault in intel- 
 lectuals and morals as it is in grammar, whilst none but 
 one — God— can say, ' I am I,' or ' That I am.' 
 
TIME OF CHARLES I— PROPHECY 285 
 
 November 9, 1833. 
 
 TIMES OF CHARLES I. 
 
 How many books are still written and published about 
 Charles the First and his times ! Such is the fresh and 
 enduring interest of that grand crisis of morals, religion, 
 and government ! But these books are none of them 
 works of any genius or imagination ; not one of these 
 authors seems to be able to throw himself back into that 
 age ; if they did, there would be less praise and less 
 blame bestowed on both sides. 
 
 December 21, 1833. 
 
 MESSENGER OF THE COVENANT. — PROPHECY. — LOGIC OF 
 IDEAS AND OF SYLLOGISMS. 
 
 When I reflect upon the subject of the messenger of the 
 covenant, and observe the distinction taken in the prophets 
 between the teaching and suffering Christ — the Priest, 
 who was to precede, and the triumphant Messiah, the 
 Judge, who was to follow— and how Jesus always seems 
 to speak of the Son of Man in a future sense, and yet 
 always at the same time as identical with himself ; I some- 
 times think that our Lord himself in his earthly career was 
 the Messenger ; and that the way is now still preparing for 
 the great and visible advent of the Messiah of Glory. I 
 mention this doubtingly. 
 
 What a beautiful sermon or essay might be written 
 on the growth of prophecy ! — from the germ, no bigger 
 than a man's hand, in Genesis, till the column of cloud 
 gathers size and height and substance, and assumes the 
 shape of a perfect man ; just like the smoke in the 
 Arabian Nights' tale, which comes up and at last takes 
 a genie's shape. 1 
 
 1 The passage in Mr. Coleridge's mind was, I suppose, the following : 
 'He (the fisherman) set it before him, and while he looked upon it 
 attentively, there eame out a very thick smoke, which obliged him to 
 retire two or three paces from it. The smoke ascended to the clouds, 
 
286 TABLE TALK 
 
 The logic of ideas is to that of syllogisms as the in- 
 finitesimal calculus to common arithmetic ; it proves, but 
 at the same time supersedes. 
 
 January 1, 1834. 
 
 LANDOE's POETEY. — BEAUTY. — CHEONOLOGICAL 
 ABEANGEMENT OF WOEKS. 
 
 What is it that Mr. Landor wants, to make him a poet ? 
 His powers are certainly very considerable, but he seems 
 to be totally deficient in that modifying faculty, which 
 compresses several units into one whole. The truth is, he 
 does not possess imagination in its highest form — that of 
 stamping il pitl nelV uno. Hence his poems, taken as wholes, 
 are unintelhgible ; you have eminences excessively bright, 
 and all the ground around and between them in darkness. 
 Besides which, he has never learned, with all his energy, 
 how to write simple and lucid English. 
 
 The useful, the agreeable, the beautiful, and the good, 
 are distinguishable. You are wrong in resolving beauty 
 into expression or interest ; it is quite distinct ; indeed 
 it is opposite, although not contrary. Beauty is an imme- 
 diate presence, between (inter) which and the beholder nihil 
 est. It is always one and tranquil ; whereas the interest- 
 ing always disturbs and is disturbed. I exceedingly regret 
 the loss of those essays on beauty which I wrote in a 
 Bristol newspaper. I would give much to recover them. 
 
 After all you can say, I still think the chronological order 
 the best for arranging a poet's works. All your divisions 
 are in particular instances inadequate, and they destroy 
 the interest which arises from watching the progress, 
 maturity, and even the decay of genius. 
 
 and extending itself along the sea, and upon the shore, formed a great 
 mist, which, we may well imagine, did mightily astonish the fisherman. 
 When the smoke was all out of the vessel, it reunited itself, and beoame 
 a solid body, of which there was formed a genie twice as high as the 
 greatest of giants.' Story of the Fisherman, Ninth Night. — H. N. C. 
 
TOLERATION 287 
 
 January 3, 1834. 
 
 TOLERATION. — NORWEGIANS. 
 
 I have known books written on Tolerance, the proper 
 title of which would be — intolerent or intolerable books on 
 tolerance. Should not a man who writes a book expressly 
 to inculcate tolerance learn to treat with respect, or at least 
 with indulgence, articles of faith which tens of thousands 
 ten times told of his fellow-subjects or his fellow-creatures 
 believe with all their souls, and upon the truth of which 
 they rest their tranquillity in this world, and their hopes 
 of salvation in the next — those articles being at least main- 
 tainable against his arguments, and most certainly innocent 
 in themselves ? — Is it fitting to run Jesus Christ in a silly 
 parallel with Socrates — the Being whom thousand millions 
 of intellectual creatures, of whom I am a humble unit, take 
 to be their Redeemer, with an Athenian philosopher, of whom 
 we should know nothing except through his glorification in 
 Plato and Xenophon ? — And then to hitch Latimer and 
 Servetus together ! To be sure there was a stake and a fire 
 in each case, but where the rest of the resemblance is I can- 
 not see. What ground is there for throwing the odium 
 of Servetus's death upon Calvin alone ? — Why, the mild 
 Melanchthon wrote to Calvin, 1 expressly to testify his con- 
 currence in the act, and no doubt he spoke the sense of the 
 German reformers ; the Swiss churches advised the punish- 
 ment in formal letters, and I rather think there are letters 
 from the English divines, approving Calvin's conduct ! — 
 Before a man deals out the slang of the day about the great 
 leaders of the Reformation, he should learn to throw him- 
 self back to the age of the Reformation, when the two great 
 parties in the church were eagerly on the watch to fasten 
 a charge of heresy on the other. Besides, if ever a poor 
 fanatic thrust himself into the fire, it was Michael Servetus. 
 He was a rabid enthusiast, and did everything he could in 
 the way of insult and ribaldry to provoke the feeling of 
 
 1 Melanohthon's worda are : ' Tuo iudioio prorsus assentior. Affirmo 
 etiam veatroa magistratua iuste feoisse quod hominem blaaphemum, re 
 ordine iudieata, interfecerunt.' Oct. 14, 1554. — H. N. C. 
 
288 TABLE TALK 
 
 the Christian church. He called the Trinity triceps monstrum 
 et Cerberum quendam tripartitum, and so on. 
 
 Indeed, how should the principle of religious toleration 
 have been acknowledged at first ? — It would require stronger 
 arguments than any which I have heard as yet, to prove 
 that men in authority have not a right, involved in an 
 imperative duty, to deter those under their control from 
 teaching or countenancing doctrines which they believe to 
 be damnable, and even to punish with death those who 
 violate such prohibition. I am sure that Bellarmine would 
 have had small difficulty in turning Locke round his fingers' 
 ends upon this ground. A right to protection I can under- 
 stand ; but a right to toleration seems to me a contradic- 
 tion in terms. Some criterion must in any case be adopted 
 by the state ; otherwise it might be compelled to admit 
 whatever hideous doctrine and practice any man or number 
 of men may assert to be his or their religion, and an article 
 of his or their faith. It was the same Pope who commanded 
 the Romanists of England to separate from the national 
 church, which previously their own consciences had not 
 dictated, nor the decision of any council — and who also 
 commanded them to rebel against Queen Elizabeth, whom 
 they were bound to obey by the laws of the land ; and if 
 the Pope had authority for one, he must have had it for 
 the other. The only true argument, as it seems to me, 
 apart from Christianity, for a discriminating toleration is, 
 that it is of no use to attempt to stop heresy or schism by 
 persecution, unless, perhaps, it be conducted upon the plan 
 of direct warfare and massacre. You cannot preserve men 
 in the faith by such means, though you may stifle for a while 
 any open appearance of dissent. The experiment has now 
 been tried, and it has failed ; and that is by a great deal 
 the best argument for the magistrate against a repetition 
 of it. 
 
 I know this, — that if a parcel of fanatic missionaries were 
 to go to Norway, and were to attempt to disturb the fervent 
 and undoubting Lutheranism of the fine independent inhabi- 
 tants of the interior of that country, I should be right glad 
 to hear that the busy fools had been quietly shipped off— 
 anywhere. I don't include the people of the seaports in 
 my praise of the Norwegians ; I speak of the agricultural 
 
NORWEGIANS— ARTICLES OP FAITH 289 
 
 population. If that country could be brought to maintain 
 a million more of inhabitants, Norway might defy the world ; 
 it would be avTapK^ and impregnable ; but it is much under- 
 handed now. 
 
 January 12, 1834. 
 
 ARTICLES OF FAITH. — MODERN QUAKERISM. — DEVOTIONAL 
 SPIRIT. SECTARIANISM. ORIQEN. 
 
 I have drawn up four or perhaps five articles of faith, 
 by subscription, or rather by assent, to which I think a large 
 comprehension might take place. My articles would exclude 
 Unitarians, and I am sorry to say, members of the Church 
 of Rome, but, with this difference — that the exclusion of 
 Unitarians would be necessary and perpetual ; that of the 
 members of the Church of Rome depending on each indi- 
 vidual's own conscience and intellectual light. What I mean 
 is this : that the Romanists hold the faith* in Christ, but 
 unhappily they also hold certain opinions, partly ceremonial, 
 partly devotional, partly speculative, which have so fatal 
 a f acuity of being degraded into base, corrupting, and even 
 idolatrous practices, that if the Romanist will make them of 
 the essence of his religion, he must of course be excluded. 
 As to the Quakers, I hardly know what to say. An article 
 on the sacraments would exclude them. My doubt is, 
 whether baptism and the Eucharist are properly any parts 
 of Christianity, or not rather Christianity itself ; the one, 
 the initial conversion or light — the other, the sustaining 
 and invigorating life ; both together the <£fis xal tin-q, which 
 are Christianity. A line can only begin once ; hence, there 
 can be no repetition of baptism ; but a line may be end- 
 lessly prolonged by continued production ; hence the sacra- 
 ment of love and life lasts for ever. 
 
 But really there is no knowing what the modern Quakers 
 are, or believe, excepting this — that they are altogether 
 degenerated from their ancestors of the seventeenth century. 
 I should call modern Quakerism, so far as I know it as 
 a scheme of faith, a Socinian Calvinism. Perm himself was 
 a Sabellian, and seems to have disbelieved even the his- 
 torical fact of the life and death of Jesus ; — most certainly 
 
 TABLE TALK TJ 
 
290 TABLE TALK 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth was not Perm's Christ, if he had any. 
 It is amusing to see the modern Quakers appealing now to 
 history for a confirmation of their tenets and discipline — 
 and by so doing, in effect abandoning the stronghold of then- 
 founders. As an imperium in imperio, I think the original 
 Quakerism a conception worthy of Lycurgus. Modern 
 Quakerism is like one of those gigantic trees which are seen 
 in the forests of North America, — apparently nourishing, 
 and preserving all its greatest stretch and spread of branches ; 
 but when you cut through an enormously thick and gnarled 
 bark, you find the whole inside hollow and rotten. Modern 
 Quakerism, like such a tree, stands upright by help of its 
 inveterate bark alone. Bark a Quaker, and he is a poor 
 creature. 
 
 How much the devotional spirit of the Church has suffered 
 by that necessary evil, the Reformation, and the sects 
 which have sprung up subsequently to it ! All our modern 
 prayers seem tongue-tied. We appear to be thinking more 
 of avoiding an heretical expression or thought than of 
 opening ourselves to God. We do not pray with that 
 entire, unsuspecting, unfearing, childlike profusion of feel- 
 ing, which so beautifully shines forth in Jeremy Taylor 
 and Andrewes and the writings of some of the older and 
 better saints of the Romish Church, particularly of that 
 remarkable woman, St. Theresa. 1 And certainly Protes- 
 tants, in their anxiety to have the historical argument on 
 their side, have brought down the origin of the Romish 
 errors too late. Many of them began, no doubt, in the 
 Apostolic age itself ; I say errors — not heresies, as that 
 dullest of the fathers, Epiphanius, calls them. Epiphanius 
 is very long and fierce upon the Ebionites. There may 
 have been real heretics under that name ; but I believe 
 that, in the beginning, the name was, on account of its 
 Hebrew meaning, given to, or adopted by, some poor 
 mistaken men — perhaps of the Nazarene way — who sold 
 
 1 She was a native of Avila in Old Castile, and a Carmelite nun. 
 Theresa established an order which she called the ' Reformed ', and 
 which beoame very powerful. Her works are divided into ten books, 
 of which her autobiography forms a remarkable part. She died in 1582, 
 and was canonized by Gregory XV in 1622. — H. N. C. 
 
DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT— ATHEIST 291 
 
 all their goods and lands, and were then obliged to beg. 
 I think it not improbable that Barnabas was one of these 
 chief mendicants, and that the collection made by St. Paul 
 was for them. You should read Rhenferd's account of 
 the early heresies. I think he demonstrates about eight of 
 Epiphanius's heretics to be mere nicknames given by the 
 Jews to the Christians. Read ' Hermas, or the Shepherd,' of 
 the genuineness of which and of the epistle of Barnabas 
 I have no doubt. It is perfectly orthodox, but full of the 
 most ludicrous tricks of gnostic fancy — the wish to find the 
 New Testament in the Old. This gnosis is perceptible in 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews, but kept exquisitely within 
 the limit of propriety. In the others it is rampant, and 
 most truly ' puffeth up ', as St. Paul said of it. 
 
 What between the sectarians and the political econom- 
 ists, the English are denationalized. England I see as a 
 country, but the English nation seems obliterated. What 
 could redintegrate us again ? Must it be another threat 
 of foreign invasion ? 
 
 I never can digest the loss of most of Origen's works : 
 he seems to have been almost the only very great scholar 
 and genius combined amongst the early Fathers. Jerome 
 was very inferior to him. 
 
 January 20, 1834. 
 
 SOME MEN LIKE MUSICAL GLASSES. — SUBLIME AND 
 NONSENSE. — ATHEIST. 
 
 Some men are like musical glasses — to produce their 
 finest tones, you must keep them wet. 
 
 Well ! that passage is what I call the sublime dashed 
 to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand 
 round the corner of nonsense. 
 
 How did the Atheist get his idea of that God whom he 
 denies ? 
 
 u 2 
 
292 TABLE TALK 
 
 February 22, 1834. 
 
 PROOF OF EXISTENCE OF GOD. — KAMT'S ATTEMPT. — 
 PLURALITY OF WORLDS. 
 
 Assume the existence of God, and then the harmony and 
 fitness of the physical creation may be shown to correspond 
 with and support such an assumption ; but to set about 
 proving the existence of a God by such means is a mere 
 circle, a delusion. It can be no proof to a good reasoner, 
 unless he violates all syllogistic logic, and presumes his 
 conclusion. 
 
 Kant once set about proving the existence of God, and 
 a masterly effort it was. 1 But in his later great work, the 
 Critique of the Pure Reason, he saw its fallacy, and said 
 of it— that if the existence could be proved at all, it must 
 be on the grounds indicated by him. 
 
 I never could feel any force in the arguments for a 
 plurality of worlds, in the common acceptation of that term. 
 A lady once asked me : ' What then could be the intention 
 in creating so many great bodies, so apparently useless to 
 us ? ' I said, I did not know, except perhaps to make dirt 
 cheap. The vulgar inference is in alio genere. What in the 
 eye of an intellectual and omnipotent Being is the whole 
 sidereal system to the soul of one man for whom Christ 
 died? 
 
 March 1, 1834. 
 
 A REASONER. 
 
 I am by the law of my nature a reasoner. A person who 
 should suppose I meant by that word, an arguer, would 
 not only not understand me, but would understand the 
 contrary of my meaning. I can take no interest whatever 
 in hearing or saying anything merely as a fact — merely 
 
 1 In his essay, Der einzig mogliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration 
 des Daseyns Oottes — ' The only possible argument or ground of proof 
 for a demonstration of the existence of God.' It was published in 1763 ; 
 the Critique in 1781.— H. N. C. 
 
A REASONER— CRABBE AND SOUTHEY 293 
 
 as having happened. It must refer to something within 
 me before I can regard it with any curiosity or care. My 
 mind is always energic — I don't mean energetic ; I require 
 in everything what, for lack of another word, I may call 
 propriety, — that is, a reason why the thing is at all, and 
 why it is there or then rather than elsewhere or at another 
 time. 
 
 March 5, 1834. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S INTELLECTUAL ACTION. — CEABBE AND 
 SOTTTHEY. — PETER SIMPLE AND TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Shakespeare's intellectual action is wholly unlike that 
 of Ben Jonson or Beaumont and Fletcher. The latter see 
 the totality of a sentence or passage, and then project 
 it entire. Shakespeare goes on creating, and evolving 
 B out of A, and C out of B, and so on, just as a serpent 
 moves, which makes a fulcrum of its own body, and seems 
 for ever twisting and untwisting its own strength. 
 
 [Perhaps the true reading in Macbeth 1 is — blank height 
 of the dark — and not ' blanket '. ' Height ' was most 
 commonly written, and even printed, hit.] 
 
 I think Crabbe and Southey are something alike ; 
 but Crabbe's poems are founded on observation and real 
 life — Southey's on fancy and books. In facility they 
 are equal, though Crabbe's English is of course not upon 
 a level with Southey's, which is next door to faultless. 
 But in Crabbe there is an absolute defect of the high 
 imagination ; he gives me little or no pleasure : yet, no 
 doubt, he has much power of a certain kind, and it is good 
 to cultivate, even at some pains, a catholic taste in litera- 
 
 1 Come, thick night, 
 
 And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, 
 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
 Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark ! 
 
 Act i, sc. 5. 
 But, after all, may not the ultimate allusion be to so humble an image 
 as that of an actor peeping through the curtain on the stage ? — H. N. C. 
 [This entry and the note were omitted after the first edition.] 
 
294 TABLE TALK 
 
 ture. I read all sorts of books with some pleasure except 
 modern sermons and treatises on political economy. 
 
 I have received a great deal of pleasure from some of 
 the modern novels, especially Captain Marryat's Peter 
 Simple. 1 That book is nearer Smollett than any I remem- 
 ber. And Tom Cringle's Log in Blackwood is also most 
 excellent. 
 
 March 15, 1834. 
 
 CHAUCER. — SHAKESPEARE. — BEN JONSON.— BEAUMONT 
 AND FLETCHER. — DANIEL. — MASSINGER. 
 
 I take unceasing delight in Chaucer. His manly 
 cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my old age. 2 
 How exquisitely tender he is, and yet how perfectly free 
 from the least touch of sickly melancholy or morbid 
 drooping ! The sympathy of the poet with the subjects 
 of his poetry is particularly remarkable in Shakespeare 
 and Chaucer ; but what the first effects by a strong act 
 of imagination and mental metamorphosis, the last does 
 without any effort, merely by the inborn kindly joyous- 
 ness of his nature. How well we seem to know Chaucer ! 
 How absolutely nothing do we know of Shakespeare ! 
 
 1 cannot in the least allow any necessity for Chaucer's 
 poetry, especially the Canterbury Tales, being considered 
 obsolete. Let a few plain rules be given for sounding the 
 final e of syllables, and for expressing the termination of 
 such words as ocean, and nation, &c, as dissyllables, 
 qt let the syllables to be sounded in such cases be marked 
 by a competent metrist. This simple expedient would, 
 with a very few trifling exceptions, where the errors are 
 inveterate, enable any reader to feel the perfect smooth- 
 ness and harmony of Chaucer's verse. As to understanding 
 
 [" Mr. Coleridge said he thought this novel would have lost nothing 
 in energy if the author had been more frugal in his swearing. — H. N. C] 
 
 2 Eighteen years before, Mr. Coleridge entertained the same feelings 
 towards Chaucer : ' Through all the works of Chaucer there reigns 
 a cheerfulness, a manly hilarity, which makes it almost impossible to 
 doubt a correspondent habit of feeling in the author himself.' Biog. Lit., 
 vol. i, p. 32.— H. N. C. 
 
CHAUCER— SHAKESPEARE, BEN JONSON, ETC. 295 
 
 his language, if you read twenty pages with a good glossary, 
 you surely can find no further difficulty, even as it is ; 
 but I should have no objection to see this done : — Strike 
 out those words which are now obsolete, and I will venture 
 to say that I will replace every one of them by words still 
 in use out of Chaucer himself, or Gower his disciple. I don't 
 want this myself : I rather like to see the significant terms 
 which Chaucer unsuccessfully offered as candidates for admis- 
 sion into our language ; but surely so very slight a change 
 of the text may well be pardoned, even by black-letter ati, 
 for the purpose of restoring so great a poet to his ancient 
 and most deserved popularity. 
 
 Shakespeare is of no age. It is idle to endeavour to 
 support his phrases by quotations from Ben Jonson, 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, &c. His language is entirely 
 his own, and the younger dramatists imitated him. The 
 construction of Shakespeare's sentences, whether in verse 
 or prose, is the necessary and homogeneous vehicle of his 
 peculiar manner of thinking. His is not the style of the 
 age. More particularly, Shakespeare's blank verse is an 
 absolutely new creation. Read Daniel 1 — the admirable 
 Daniel — in his Civil Wars, and Triumphs of Hymen. The 
 style and language are just such as any very pure and 
 manly writer of the present day — Wordsworth, for example 
 — would use ; it seems quite modern in comparison with 
 the style of Shakespeare. Ben Jonson's blank verse is very 
 masterly and individual, and perhaps Massinger's is even 
 still nobler. In Beaumont and Fletcher it is constantly 
 slipping into lyricisms. 
 
 I believe Shakespeare was not a whit more intelligible 
 in his own day than he is now to an educated man, except 
 
 1 ' This poet's well-merited epithet is that of the ' well-languaged 
 Daniel ' ; but, likewise, and by the consent of his contemporaries, no 
 less than of all succeeding critics, the ' prosaic Daniel '. Yet those who 
 thus designate this wise and amiable writer, from the frequent incorre- 
 spondency of his diction with his metre, in the majority of his compo- 
 sitions, not only deem them valuable and interesting on other accounts, 
 but willingly admit that there are to be found throughout his poems, 
 and -especially irThis Epistles and in his Hymen's- Triumph, many and 
 exquisite specimens of that style, which, as the neutral ground of prose 
 and verse, is common to both.' — Biog. Lit., vol. ii, p. 82. 
 
296 TABLE TALK 
 
 for a few local allusions of no consequence. As I said, he 
 is of no age — nor, I may add, of any religion, or party, or 
 profession. The body and substance of his works came out 
 of the unfathomable depths of his own oceanic mind : his 
 observation and reading, which was considerable, supplied 
 him with the drapery of his figures. 1 
 
 As for editing Beaumont and Fletcher, the task would 
 be one immensi laboris. The confusion is now so great, the 
 errors so enormous, that the editor must use a boldness 
 quite unallowable in any other case. All I can say as to 
 Beaumont and Fletcher is, that I can point out well enough 
 where something has been lost, and that something so and 
 so was probably in the original; but the law of Shake- 
 speare's thought and verse is such, that I feel convinced 
 that not only could I detect the spurious, but supply the 
 genuine, word. 
 
 March 20, 1834. 
 
 LORD BYRON AND H. WALPOLE'S ' MYSTERIOUS 
 MOTHER.' — LEWIS'S ' JAMAICA JOURNAL.' 
 
 Lord Byron, as quoted by Lord Dover, 2 says, that the 
 Mysterious Mother raises Horace Walpole above every author 
 living in his, Lord Byron's, time. Upon which I venture 
 to remark, first, that I do not believe that Lord Byron 
 spoke sincerely ; for I suspect that he made a tacit excep- 
 
 1 Mr. Coleridge called Shakespeare ' the myriad-minded man,' dvrjp 
 livpiovovs — ' a phrase ', said he, ' which I have borrowed from a Greek 
 monk, who applies it to a patriarch of Constantinople. I might have 
 said that I have reclaimed, rather than borrowed, it, for it seems to belong 
 to Shakespeare de iure singulari, et ex privilegio naturae.' See Biog. Lit., 
 vol. ii, p. 13.— H. N. C. 
 
 2 In the memoir prefixed to the correspondence with Sir H. Mann. 
 Lord Byron's words are : ' He is the ultimus Romanorum, the author 
 of the Mysterious Mother, a tragedy of the highest order, and not a 
 puling love play. He is the father of the first romance, and of the last 
 tragedy, in our language ; and surely worthy of a higher place than any 
 living author, be he who he may.' — Preface to Marino Faliero. Is not 
 Romeo and Juliet a love play ? — But why reason about such insincere, 
 splenetic trash ? — H. N. C. 
 
' MYSTERIOUS MOTHER '—SICILY 297 
 
 tion in favour of himself at least ; secondly, that it is 
 a miserable mode of comparison which does not rest on 
 difference of kind. It proceeds of envy and malice and 
 detraction to say that A is higher than B, unless you show 
 that they are in pari materia ; thirdly, that the Mysterious 
 Mother is the most disgusting, vile, detestable composition 
 that ever came from the hand of man. No one with a spark 
 of true manliness, of which Horace Walpole had none, could 
 have written it. As to the blank verse, it is indeed better 
 than Rowe's and Thomson's, which was execrably bad : 
 any approach, therefore, to the manner of the old dramatists 
 was of course an improvement ; but the loosest lines in 
 Shirley are superior to Walpole's best. 
 
 Lewis's Jamaica Journal is delightful ; it is almost 
 the only unaffected book of travels or touring I have read 
 of late years. You have the man himself, and not an 
 inconsiderable man, — certainly a much finer mind than 
 I supposed before from the perusal of his romances, &c. 
 It is by far his best work, and will live and be popular. 
 Those verses on the Hours are very pretty ; but the Isle 
 of Devils is, like his romances, a fever dream — horrible, 
 without point or terror. 
 
 April 16, 1834. 
 
 SICILY. — MALTA. — SIK ALEXANDER BALL. 
 
 I found that everything in and about Sicily had been 
 exaggerated by travellers, except two things — the folly 
 of the government and the wretchedness of the people. 
 They did not admit of exaggeration. 
 
 Really you may learn the fundamental principles of 
 political economy in a very compendious way, by taking 
 a short tour through Sicily, and simply reversing in your 
 own mind every law, 'custom, and ordinance you meet 
 with. I never was in a country in which everything 
 proceeding from man was so exactly wrong. You have 
 peremptory ordinances against making roads, taxes on 
 
298 TABLE TALK 
 
 the passage of common vegetables from one miserable 
 village to another, and so on. 
 
 By the by, do you know any parallel in modern history 
 to the absurdity of our giving a legislative assembly to 
 the Sicilians ? It exceeds anything I know. This precious 
 legislature passed two bills before it was knocked on the 
 head : the first was, to render lands inalienable ; and the 
 second, to cancel all debts due before the date of the bill. 
 
 And then consider the gross ignorance and folly of our 
 laying a tax upon the Sicilians ! Taxation in its proper 
 sense can only exist where there is a free circulation of 
 capital, labour, and commodities throughout the com- 
 munity. But to tax the people in countries like Sicily 
 and Corsica, where there is no internal communication, 
 is mere robbery and confiscation. A crown taken from 
 a Corsican living in the sierras would not get back to him 
 again in ten years. 
 
 It is interesting to pass from Malta to Sicily — from 
 the highest speoimen of an inferior race, the Saracenic, 
 to the most degraded class of a superior race, the European. 
 
 [But what can Sir Francis Head, in the 1 Bubbles, mean 
 
 [L I have the following note by Mr. 0. on this work: 
 ' How can I account for the Anglo-gentlemanly, sensible, and kindly 
 mind breathing forth everywhere in the first half of this volume, as 
 contrasted with the strange, one-sided representation of our publio 
 schools and universities in the other, which representation, with a full 
 admission on my part of their defects, or rather deficiencies, or still 
 rather their paucities, amounts to a double lie — a lie by exaggeration, 
 and a lie by omission. And as to the universities — even relatively to 
 Oxford thirty years ago, such a representation would have been slander 
 — and relatively to Cambridge as it now is, is blasphemy. And then 
 how perfectly absurd is the writer's attribution of the national debt of 
 seven or eight hundred millions to the predominance of classical taste 
 and academic talent. And his still stranger ignorance, that without the 
 rapidly increasing national debt, Great Britain could never have become 
 that monstrous mammon-bloated Dives, or wooden idol of stuffed 
 pursemen, in which oharacter the writer thinks it so worthy of his 
 admiration. 
 
 ' In short, at one moment, I imagine that Mr. IVere, or , or any 
 
 other Etonian, or alumnus of Westminster or Winchester, might be 
 the. author; at another, I fall back to Joseph Hume, Dr. Birkbeok, 
 
MALTA— SIR ALEXANDER BALL 299 
 
 by talking of the musical turn of the Maltese ? Why, 
 when I was in Malta, all animated nature was discordant ! 
 The very cats caterwauled more horribly and pertinaciously 
 there than I ever heard elsewhere. The children will stand 
 and scream inarticulately at each other for an hour together, 
 out of pure love to dissonance. The dogs are deafening, and 
 so throughout. Musical indeed ! I have hardly gotten rid 
 of the noise yet.] 
 
 No tongue can describe the moral corruption of the 
 Maltese when the island was surrendered to us. There 
 was not a family in it in which a wife or a daughter was 
 not a kept mistress. A marquis of ancient family applied 
 to Sir Alexander Ball to be appointed his valet. ' My 
 valet ! ' said Ball, ' what can you mean, Sir ? ' The 
 marquis said, he hoped he should then have had the 
 honour of presenting petitions to his Excellency. ' Oh, 
 that is it, is it ! ' said Sir Alexander : ' my valet, Sir, 
 brushes my clothes, and brings them to me. If he dared 
 to meddle with matters of public business, I should kick 
 him downstairs.' 
 
 In short, Malta was an Augean stable, and Ball had 
 all the inclination to be a Hercules. 1 His task was most 
 difficult, although his qualifications were most remarkable. 
 I remember an English officer of very high rank soliciting 
 him for the renewal of a pension to an abandoned woman 
 who had been notoriously treacherous to us. That officer 
 had promised the woman as a matter of course — she 
 having sacrificed her daughter to him. Ball was deter- 
 mined, as far as he could, to prevent Malta from being 
 made a nest of home patronage. He considered, as was 
 
 Edinburgh, and Aberdeen.' Perhaps, if the author of the Bubbles had 
 not finished his classical studies at fourteen, he might have seen reason 
 to modify his heavy censure on Greek and Latin. As it is, it must be 
 borne with patience. — H. N. C] 
 
 1 I refer the reader to the five concluding essays of the third volume 
 of The friend as a specimen of what Mr. C. might have done as a bio- 
 grapher if an irresistible instinct had not devoted him to profounder 
 labours. As a sketch — and it pretends to nothing more — is there any- 
 thing more perfect in our literature than the monument raised in those 
 essays to the memory of Sir Alexander Ball 1 — and there are some 
 touches added to the character of Nelson, which the reader, even of 
 Southey's matchless Life of our hero, will find both new and interesting. 
 — H. N. C. 
 
300 TABLE TALK 
 
 the fact, that there was a contract between England and 
 the Maltese. Hence the Government at home, especially 
 Dundas, disliked him, and never allowed him any other 
 title than that of Civil Commissioner. We have, I believe, 
 nearly succeeded in alienating the hearts of the inhabi- 
 tants from us. Every officer in the island ought to be 
 a Maltese, except those belonging to the immediate exe- 
 cutive : £100 per annum to a Maltese, to enable him to 
 keep a gilt carriage, will satisfy him where an Englishman 
 must have £2,000. 
 
 May 1, 1834. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE PETITION TO ADMIT DISSENTERS. 
 
 There are, to my grief, the names of some men to the 
 Cambridge petition for admission of the Dissenters to the 
 University, whose cheeks I think must have burned with 
 shame at the degrading patronage and befouling eulogies 
 of the democratic press, and at seeing themselves used as 
 the tools of the open and rancorous enemies of the Church. 
 How miserable to be held up for the purpose of inflicting 
 insult upon men, whose worth and ability and sincerity 
 you well know, — and this by a faction banded together 
 like obscene dogs and cats and serpents, against a Church 
 which you profoundly revere ! The time — the time — the 
 occasion and themotive ought to have been argument enough, 
 that even if the measure were right or harmless in itself, 
 not now, nor with such as these, was it to be effected ! 
 
 May 3, 1834. 
 
 CORN LAWS. 
 
 Those who argue that England may safely depend 
 upon a supply of foreign corn, if it grow none or an in- 
 sufficient quantity of its own, forget that they are sub- 
 jugating the necessaries of life itself to the mere luxuries 
 or comforts of society. Is it not certain that the price of 
 corn abroad will be raised upon us as soon as it is once 
 known that we must buy ? and when that fact is known, 
 
CORN LAWS— CHRISTIAN SABBATH 301 
 
 in what sort of a situation shall we be ? Besides this, 
 the argument supposes that agriculture is not a positive 
 good to the nation, taken in and by itself, as a mode of 
 existence for the people, which supposition is false and 
 pernicious ; and if we are to become a great horde of 
 manufacturers, shall we not, even more than at present, 
 excite the ill-will of all the manufacturers of other nations ? 
 It has been already shown, in evidence which is before 
 all the world, that some of our manufacturers have acted 
 upon the accursed principle of deliberately injuring foreign 
 manufactures, if they can, even to the ultimate disgrace of 
 the country and loss to themselves. 
 
 May 19, 1834. 
 
 CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 
 
 How grossly misunderstood the genuine character of 
 the Christian sabbath, or Lord's day, seems to be even by 
 the Church ! To confound it with the Jewish sabbath, 
 or to rest its observance upon the fourth commandment, 
 is, in my judgement, heretical, and would so have been 
 considered in the primitive Church. That cessation from 
 labour on the Lord's day could not have been absolutely 
 incumbent on Christians for two centuries after Christ, 
 is apparent ; because during that period the greater part 
 of the Christians were either slaves or in official situations 
 under Pagan masters or superiors, and had duties to per- 
 form for those who did not recognize the day. And we 
 know that St. Paul sent back Onesimus to his master, 
 and told every Christian slave, that, being ia Christian, 
 he was free in his mind indeed, but still must serve his 
 earthly master, although he might laudably seek for his 
 personal freedom also. If the early Christians had refused 
 to work on the Lord's day, rebellion and civil war must 
 have been the immediate consequences. But there is no 
 notice of any such cessation. 
 
 The Jewish sabbath was commemorative of the ter- 
 mination of the great act of creation ; it was to record 
 that the world had not been from eternity, nor had arisen 
 as a dream by itself, but that God had created it by 
 
302 TABLE TALK 
 
 distinct acts of power, and that he had hallowed the day 
 or season in which he rested or desisted from his work. 
 When our Lord arose from the dead, the old creation 
 was, as it were, superseded, and the new creation then 
 began ; and therefore the first day and not the last day, 
 the commencement and not the end, of the work of God 
 was solemnized. 
 
 Luther, in speaking of the good by itself, and the good 
 for its expediency alone, instances the observance of the 
 Christian day of rest, — a day of repose from manual 
 labour, and of activity in spiritual labour, — a day of joy 
 and co-operation in the work of Christ's creation. ' Keep 
 it holy ' — says he — ' for its use' sake, — both to body and 
 soul ! But if anywhere the day is made holy for the 
 mere day's sake, if anywhere any one sets up its obser- 
 vance upon a Jewish foundation, then I order you to 
 work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it, to 
 do anything that shall reprove this encroachment on the 
 Christian spirit and liberty.' 
 
 The early Church distinguished the day of Christian rest 
 so strongly from a fast, that it was unlawful for a man to 
 bewail even his own sins, as such only, on that day. He 
 was to bewail the sins of all, and to pray as one of the 
 whole of Christ's body. 
 
 And the English Reformers evidently took the same 
 view of the day as Luther and the early Church. But, 
 unhappily, our Church, in the reigns of James and Charles 
 the First, was so identified with the undue advancement 
 of the royal prerogative, that the puritanical Judaizing of 
 the Presbyterians was but too well seconded by the patriots 
 of the nation, in resisting the wise efforts of the Church to 
 prevent the incipient alteration in the character of the day 
 of rest. After the Restoration, the bishops and clergy in 
 general adopted the view taken and enforced by their 
 enemies. 
 
 By the by, it is curious to observe, in this semi-infidel 
 and Malthusian Parliament, how the Sabbatarian spirit 
 unites itself with a rancorous hostility to that one insti- 
 tution, which alone, according to reason and experience, 
 can ensure the continuance of any general religion at all 
 in the nation at large. Some of these gentlemen, who are 
 
CHRISTIAN SABBATH 303 
 
 for aot letting a poor labouring man have a dish of baked 
 potatoes on a Sunday, religionis gratia — (God forgive that 
 audacious blasphemy !) — are foremost among those who 
 seem to live but in vilifying, weakening, and impoverishing 
 the national Church. I own my indignation boils over 
 against such contemptible fellows. 
 
 I sincerely wish to preserve a decent quiet on Sunday. 
 I would prohibit compulsory labour, and put down operas, 
 theatres, &c, for this plainreason — that if the rich be allowed 
 to play, the poor will be forced, or, what comes to the same 
 thing, will be induced, to work. I am not for a Paris Sunday. 
 But to stop coaches, and let the gentleman's carriage run, 
 is monstrous. 
 
 May 25, 1834. 
 
 HIGH PHIZES AND REVENUES OF THE OHUBCH. 
 
 Your argument against the high prizes in the Church 
 might be put strongly thus : Admit that in the beginning 
 it might have been fairly said, that some eminent rewards 
 ought to be set apart for the purpose of stimulating and 
 rewarding transcendent merit ; what have you to say now, 
 after centuries of experience to the contrary ? Have the 
 high prizes been given to the highest genius, virtue, or 
 learning ? Is it not rather the truth, as Jortin said, that 
 twelve votes in a contested election will do more to make 
 a man a bishop than an admired commentary on the 
 twelve minor prophets ? To all which and the like I say 
 again, that you ought not to reason from the abuse, which 
 may be rectified, against the inherent uses of the thing. 
 Appoint the most deserving — and the prize will answer its 
 purpose. As to the bishops' incomes, in the first place, 
 the net receipts — that which the bishops may spend — have 
 been confessedly exaggerated beyond measure ; but, waiv- 
 ing that, and allowing the highest estimate to be correct, 
 I should like to have the disposition of the episcopal 
 revenue in any one year by the late or the present Bishop 
 of Durham, or the present Bishops of London or Win- 
 chester, compared with that of the most benevolent 
 nobleman in England of any party in politics. I firmly 
 
304 TABLE TALK 
 
 believe that the former give away in charity of one kind 
 or another, public, official, or private, three times as much 
 in proportion as the latter. You may have a hunks or 
 two now and then ; but so you would much more certainly, 
 if you were to reduce the incomes to £2,000 per annum. 
 As a body, in my opinion the clergy of England do in 
 truth act as if their property were impressed with a trust 
 to the utmost extent that can be demanded by those who 
 affect to believe, ignorantly or not, that lying legend of 
 a tripartite or quadripartite division of the tithe by law. 
 
 May 31, 1834. 
 
 SIB C. WETHEBELL'S SPEECH. — NATIONAL CHUECH. — 
 DISSENTEES . — P APACY.— UNIVEBSITIES . 
 
 I think Sir Charles Wether ell's speech before the Privy 
 Council very effective. I doubt if any other lawyer in 
 Westminster Hall could have done the thing so well. 
 
 The national Church requires, and is required by the 
 Christian Church, for the perfection of each. For if there 
 were no national Church, the mere spiritual Church would 
 either become, like the Papacy, a dreadful tyranny over 
 mind and body; or else would fall abroad into a multi- 
 tude of enthusiastic sects, as in England in the seventeenth 
 century. It is my deep conviction that, in a country of 
 any religion at all, liberty of conscience can only be per- 
 manently preserved by means and under the shadow of 
 a national Church — a political establishment connected with, 
 but distinct from, the spiritual Church. 
 
 I sometimes hope that the undisguised despotism of 
 temper of the Dissenters may at last awaken a jealousy 
 in the laity of the Church of England. But the apathy and 
 inertness are, I fear, too profound — too providential. 
 
 Whatever the Papacy may have been on the Continent, 
 it was always an unqualified evil to this country. It 
 
PAPACY— ROMAN CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 305 
 
 destroyed what was rising of good, and introduced a thou- 
 sand evils of its own. The Papacy was and still is essentially 
 extra-national ; it affects, temporally, to do that which the 
 spiritual Church of Christ can alone do — to break down the 
 natural distinctions of nations. Now, as the Roman Papacy 
 is in itself local and peculiar, of course this attempt is 
 nothing but a direct attack on the political independence 
 of other nations. 
 
 The institution of Universities was the single check on 
 the Papacy. The Pope always hated and maligned the 
 Universities. The old coenobitic establishments of England 
 were converted — perverted, rather — into monasteries and 
 other monking receptacles. You see it was at Oxford that 
 Wicliffe alone found protection and encouragement. 
 
 June 2, 1834. 
 schiller's versification. — German blank verse. 
 
 Schiller's blank verse is bad. He moves in it as a fly 
 in a glue bottle. His thoughts have their connexion and 
 variety, it is true, but there is no sufficiently corresponding 
 movement in the verse. How different from Shakespeare's 
 endless rhythms ! • 
 
 There is a nimiety — a too-muchness — in all Germans. 
 It is the national fault. Lessing had the best notion of 
 blank verse. The trochaic termination of German words 
 renders blank verse in that language almost impracticable. 
 We have it in our dramatic hendecasyllable ; but then we 
 have a power of interweaving the iambic close ad libitum. 
 
 June 14, 1834. 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. — DUKE OF 
 WELLINGTON. CORONATION OATH. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Emancipation Act — carried in the 
 violent, and, in fact, unprincipled manner it was — was in 
 effect a Surinam toad ; and the Reform Bill, the Dissenters' 
 admission to the Universities, and the attack on the 
 
 TABLE TALK X 
 
306 TABLE TALK 
 
 Church, are so many toadlets, one after another detaching 
 themselves from their parent brute. 
 
 If you say there is nothing in the Romish religion, 
 sincerely felt, inconsistent with the duties of citizenship 
 and allegiance to a territorial Protestant sovereign, cadit 
 quaestio. For if that is once admitted, there can be no 
 answer to the argument from numbers. Certainly, if 
 the religion of the majority of the people be innocuous 
 to the interests of the nation, the majority have a natural 
 right to be trustees of the nationalty — that property 
 which is set apart for the nation's use and rescued from 
 the gripe of private hands. But when I say, for the 
 nation's use, I mean the very reverse of what the Radicals 
 mean. They would convert it to relieve taxation, which 
 I call a private, personal, and perishable use. A nation's 
 uses are immortal. 
 
 How lamentable it is to hear the Duke of Wellington 
 expressing himself doubtingly on the abominable sophism 
 that the Coronation Oath only binds the king as the 
 executive power, thereby making a Highgate oath of it. 
 But the duke is conscious of the ready retort which his 
 language and conduct on the Emancipation Bill afford 
 to his opponents. He is hampered by that affair. 
 
 June 20, 1834. 
 
 COKN LAWS. — MODERN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 In the argument on the Corn Laws there is a /«Tci/3a<ns 
 €t5, aAAo yeVos. It may be admitted that the great prin- 
 ciples of commerce require the interchange of commodities 
 to be free ; but commerce, which is barter, has no proper 
 range beyond luxuries or conveniences ; it is properly the 
 complement to the full existence and development of a 
 State. But how can it be shown that the principles appli- 
 cable to an interchange of conveniences or luxuries apply 
 also to an interchange of necessaries ? No State can be 
 such properly, which is not self-subsistent at least ; for no 
 
CORN LAWS— SOCTNIANISM 307 
 
 State that is not so, is essentially independent. The nation 
 that cannot even exist without the commodity of another 
 nation, is in effect the slave of that other nation. In 
 common times, indeed, pecuniary interest will prevail, and 
 prevent a ruinous exercise of the power which the nation 
 supplying the necessary must have over the nation which 
 has only the convenience or luxury to return ; but such 
 interest, both in individuals and nations, will yield to many 
 stronger passions. Is Holland any authority to the con- 
 trary ? If so, Tyre and Sidon and Carthage were so ! 
 Would you put England on a footing with a country 
 which can be overrun in a campaign and starved in 
 a year ? 
 
 The entire tendency of the modern or Malthusian 
 political economy is to denationalize. It would dig up 
 the charcoal foundations of the temple of Ephesus to 
 burn as fuel for a steam-engine ! 
 
 June 21, 1834. 
 
 Mr. , in his poem, makes trees coeval with Chaos ; 
 
 which is next door to Hans Sachs, 1 who, in describing 
 Chaos, said it was so pitchy dark, that even the very cats 
 ran against each other ! 
 
 June 23, 1834. 
 
 SOCINIANISM. — TJNITAKIANISM. — FANCY AND IMAGINATION. 
 
 Eaustus Socinus worshipped Jesus Christ, and said that 
 God had given him the power of being omnipresent. Davidi, 
 with a little more acuteness, urged that mere audition or 
 creaturely presence could not possibly justify worship from 
 men ; that a man, how glorified soever, was no nearer God 
 in essence than the vulgarest of the race. Prayer, therefore, 
 was inapplicable. And how could a man be a mediator 
 between God and man ? How could a man with sins him- 
 self offer any compensation for, or expiation of, sin, unless 
 
 1 Hans Sachs was born 1494, and died 1576.— H. N. C. 
 X2 
 
308 TABLE TALK 
 
 the most arbitrary caprice were admitted into the counsels 
 of God ? And so, at last, you see, it was discovered by the 
 better logicians amongst the Socinians that there was no 
 such thing as sin at all. 
 
 It is wonderful how any Socinian can read the works of 
 Philo Judaeus without some pause of doubt in the truth 
 of his views as to the person of Christ. Whether Philo 
 wrote on his own ground as a Jew, or borrowed from the 
 Christians, the testimony as to the then Jewish expectation 
 and belief is equally strong. You know Philo calls the 
 
 Logos vtos ®€ov, the Son of God, and ayaTrqrbv tckvov, 
 
 beloved Son. He calls him dp^itpeu's, high priest, Scvrtpos 
 ©£os, second divinity, eUmv ®eov, image of God, and describes 
 him as iyyvrdrw /xiySevos ovtos fitBopLov SiacrT^/xaros, the nearest 
 possible to God without any intervening separation. And 
 there are numerous other remarkable expressions of the 
 same sort. 
 
 My faith is this : God is the Absolute Will ; it is his 
 Name and the meaning of it. It is the Hypostasis. As 
 begetting his own Alterity, the Jehovah, the Manifested — 
 He is the Father ; but the Love and the Life — the Spirit 
 — proceeds from both. 
 
 I think Priestley must be considered the author of the 
 modern Unitarianism. I owe, under God, my return to the 
 faith, to my having gone much further than the Unitarians, 
 and so having come round to the other side. I can truly 
 say, I never falsified the Scripture. I always told them 
 that their interpretations of the Scripture were intolerable 
 upon any principles of sound criticism ; and that, if they 
 were to offer to construe the will of a neighbour as they 
 did that of their Maker, they would be scouted out of society. 
 I said then plainly and openly, that it was clear enough 
 that John and Paul were not Unitarians. But at that time 
 I had a strong sense of the repugnancy of the doctrine of 
 vicarious atonement to the moral being, and I thought 
 nothing could counterbalance that. ' What care I,' I said, 
 ' for the Platonisms of John, or the Eabbinisms of Paul ? 
 My conscience revolts ! ' That was the ground of my 
 Unitarianism. 
 
 Always believing in the government of God, I was a 
 fervent Optimist. But as I could not but see that the 
 
UNITARIANISM 309 
 
 present state of things was not the best, I was neces- 
 sarily led to look forward to some future state. 
 
 You may conceive the difference in kind between the 
 Fancy and the Imagination in this way, that if the check 
 of the senses and the reason were withdrawn, the first would 
 become delirium, and the last mania. The Fancy brings 
 together images which have no connexion natural or moral, 
 but are yoked together by the poet by means of some 
 accidental coincidence ; as in the well-known passage in 
 Hudibras : 
 
 The sun had long since in the lap 
 Of Thetis taken out his nap, 
 And like a lobster boyl'd, the morn 
 From black to red began to turn. 1 
 
 The Imagination modifies images, and gives unity to variety ; 
 it sees all things in one, il piu nell' uno. There is the epic 
 imagination, the perfection of which is in Milton ; and the 
 dramatic, of which Shakespeare is the absolute master. The 
 first gives unity by throwing back into the distance ; as after 
 the magnificent approach of the Messiah to battle, 2 the poet, 
 by one touch from himself — 
 
 . . - far off their coming shone — 
 
 makes the whole one image. And so at the conclusion of 
 
 ' Part II, c. 2, v. 29. 
 
 2 ... Forth rush'd with whirlwind sound 
 
 The chariot of Paternal Deity, 
 
 Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel undrawn, 
 
 Itself instinct with spirit, but convoy' d 
 
 By four cherubic shapes ; four faces each 
 
 Had wonderous ; as with stars their bodies all 
 
 And wings were set with eyes ; with eyes the wheels 
 
 Of beryl, and careering fires between ; 
 
 Over their heads a crystal firmament, 
 
 Whereon a sapphire throne, inlaid with pure 
 
 Amber, and colours of the showery arch. 
 
 He, in celestial panoply all arm'd 
 
 Of radiant Urim, work divinely wrought, 
 
 Ascended ; at his right hand Victory 
 
 Sat eagle-wing'd ; beside him hung his bow 
 
 And quiver, with three-bolted thunder stored ; 
 
 An d from about him fierce effusion roll'd 
 
 Of smoke, and bickering flame, and sparkles dire; 
 
310 TABLE TALK 
 
 the description of the appearance of the entranced angels, 
 in which every sort of image from all the regions of earth 
 and air is introduced to diversify and illustrate, the reader 
 is brought back to the single image by : 
 
 He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep 
 
 Of Hell resounded. 1 
 The dramatic imagination does not throw back, but brings 
 close ; it stamps all nature with one, and that its own, 
 meaning, as in Lear throughout. 
 
 At the very outset, what are we to think of the sound- 
 ness of this modern system of political economy, the direct 
 tendency of every rule of which is to denationalize, and to 
 make the love of our country a foolish superstition \ 
 
 June 28, 1834. 
 
 me. coleridge's system. — biographia literaria. — 
 dissenters. 
 
 You may not understand my system, or any given part 
 of it ; or by a determined act of wilfulness, you may, even 
 
 Attended with ten thousand thousand saints, 
 He onward came ; far off their coming shone ; 
 And twenty thousand (I their nnmber heard) 
 Chariots of God, half on each hand, were seen : 
 He on the wings of cherub rode sublime 
 On the crystalline sky, in sapphire throned, 
 Illustrious far and wide ; but by his own 
 First seen. — P. L. bk. vi, v. 749, &c._ 
 1 ... and call'd 
 
 His legions, angel forms, who lay intranced 
 
 Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks 
 
 In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades, 
 
 High over-aroh'd, embower ; or seatter'd sedge 
 
 Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd 
 
 Hath vex'd the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew 
 
 Busiris, and his Memphian chivalry, 
 
 While with perfidious hatred they pursued 
 
 The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld 
 
 From the safe shore their floating carcasses 
 
 And broken chariot wheels ; so thick bestrown, 
 
 Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood, 
 
 Under amazement of their hideous change. 
 
 He caWd so hud, that all the hollow deep 
 
 Of Hell resounded. — P. L. bk. i, v. 300, &e. 
 
MR. COLERIDGE'S SYSTEM 311 
 
 though perceiving a ray of light, reject it in anger and 
 disgust ; but this I will say, that if you once master- 
 it, or any part of it, you cannot hesitate to acknowledge 
 it as the truth. You cannot be sceptical about it. 
 
 The metaphysical disquisition at the end of the first 
 volume of the Biographia Literaria is unformed and 
 immature ; it contains the fragments of the truth, but it 
 is not fully thought out. It is wonderful to myself to 
 think how infinitely more profound my views now are, and 
 yet how much clearer they are withal. The circle is com- 
 pleting ; the idea is coming round to, and to be, the 
 common sense. 
 
 The generation of the modern worldly Dissenter was thus : 
 Presbyterian, Arian, Socinian, and last, Unitarian. 
 
 Is it not most extraordinary to see the Dissenters calling 
 themselves the descendants of the old Nonconformists, and 
 yet clamouring for a divorce of Church and State ? Why, 
 Baxter and the other great leaders would have thought 
 a man an atheist who had proposed such a thing. They 
 were rather for merging the State in the Church. But 
 these our modern gentlemen, who are blinded by political 
 passion, give the kiss of alliance to the harlot of Rome, and 
 walk arm in arm with those who deny the God that redeemed 
 them, if so they may but wreak their insane antipathies on 
 the National Church 1 Well ! I suppose they have counted 
 the cost, and know what it is they would have, and can 
 keep. 
 
 July 5, 1834. 
 
 LORD BROOKE. BABEOW AND DBYDEN. — PETEE WILKINS 
 
 AND STOTHABD. FIELDING AND BIOHAEDSON. — BISHOP 
 
 SANDEORD. — ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. 
 
 I do not remember a more beautiful piece of prose in 
 English than the consolation addressed by Lord Brooke 
 (Fulke Greville) to a lady of quality on certain conjugal 
 infelicities. The diction is such that it might have been 
 written now, if we could find any one combining so thought- 
 ful a head with so tender a heart and so exquisite a taste. 
 
312 TABLE TALK 
 
 Barrow often debased his language merely to evidence 
 ius loyalty. It was, indeed, no easy task for a man of so 
 much genius, and such a precise mathematical mode of 
 thinking, to adopt even for a moment the slang of L'Estrange 
 and Tom Brown ; but he succeeded in doing so sometimes. 
 With the exception of such parts, Barrow must be con- 
 sidered as closing the first great period of the English 
 language. Dryden began the second. Of course there are 
 numerous subdivisions. 
 
 Peter Wilkins is to my mind a work of uncommon beauty ; 
 and yet Stothard's illustrations have added beauties to it. 
 If it were not for a certain tendency to affectation, scarcely 
 any praise could be too high for Stothard's designs. They 
 give me great pleasure. I believe that Robinson Crusoe 
 and Peter Wilkins could only have been written by islanders. 
 No continentalist could have conceived either tale. Davis's 
 story is an imitation of Peter Wilkin? ; but there are many 
 beautiful things in it ; especially his finding his wife crouch- 
 ing by the fireside — she having, in his absence, plucked out 
 all her feathers — to be like him ! 
 
 It would require a very peculiar genius to add another 
 tale, eiusdem generis, to Robinson Crusoe and Peter Wilkins. 
 I once projected such a thing ; but the difficulty of a pre- 
 occupied ground stopped me. Perhaps La Motte Fouque 
 might effect something ; but I should fear that neither he, 
 nor any other German, could entirely understand what 
 may be called the desert island feeling. I would try the 
 marvellous line of Peter Wilkins, if I attempted it, rather 
 than the real fiction of Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 What a master of composition Fielding was ! Upon my 
 word, I think the Oedipus Tyrannus, the Alchemist, and 
 Tom Jones the three most perfect plots ever planned. And 
 how charming, how wholesome, Fielding always is ! To 
 take him up after Richardson, is like emerging from a sick 
 room heated by stoves, into an open lawn, on a breezy day 
 in May. 
 
BISHOP SANDFORD 313 
 
 I have been very deeply interested in the account of 
 Bishop Sandford's life, published by his son. He seems to 
 have been a thorough gentleman upon the model of St. Paul, 
 whose manners were the finest of any man's upon record. 
 
 I think I could have conformed to the then dominant 
 Church before the Reformation. The errors existed, but 
 they had not been riveted into peremptory articles of faith 
 before the Council of Trent. If a Romanist were to ask me 
 the question put to Sir Henry Wotton, 1 I should content 
 myself by answering that I could not exactly say when 
 my religion, as he was pleased to call it, began, but that 
 it was certainly some sixty or seventy years before his, at 
 all events, which began at the Council of Trent. 
 
 July 10, 1834. 
 
 EUTHANASIA. 
 
 I am dying, but without expectation of a speedy release. 
 Is it not strange that very recently bygone images and 
 scenes of early life have stolen into my mind, like breezes 
 blownfrom the spice-islands of Youth and Hope — those twin 
 realities of this phantom world ! I do not add Love ; for 
 what is Love but Youth and Hope embracing, and so seen 
 as one ? I say realities ; for reality is a thing of degrees, 
 from the Iliad to a dream ; koX yap t ovap ix Ai'os «m. Yet, in 
 a strict sense, reality is not practicable at all of aught below 
 Heaven. ' Es enim in coelis, Pater noster, qui tu vere es ! ' 
 Hooker wished to live to finish his Ecclesiastical Polity ; - 
 so I own I wish life and strength had been spared to me 
 to complete my Philosophy. For, as God hears me, the 
 originating, continuing, and sustaining wish and design in 
 my heart were to exalt the glory of His name ; and, which is 
 
 1 ' Having, at his being in Rome, made acquaintance with a pleasant 
 priest, who invited him, one evening, to hear their vesper music at 
 church ; the priest, seeing Sir Henry stand obscurely in a corner, Bends 
 to him by a boy of the choir this question, writ in a small piece of paper : 
 " Where was your religion to be found before Luther ? " To which 
 question Sir Henry presently underwrit : " My religion was to be found 
 Men, where yours is not to be found^now — in the written word of God." ' 
 — Izaak Walton's Life of Sir Henry Wotton. 
 
314 TABLE TALK 
 
 the same thing in other words, to promote the improvement 
 of mankind. But visum aliter Deo, and His will be done. 
 
 *** This note may well finish the present specimens. 
 What followed was for the memory of private friends only. 
 Mr. Coleridge was then extremely ill ; but certainly did not 
 believe his end to be quite so near at hand as it was. — H.N.C. 
 
 The following Recollections of Mr. Coleridge, written in May 
 1811, have been also communicated to me by my brother, 
 Mr. Justice Coleridge : 
 
 April 20, 1811, at Richmond. 
 
 We got on politics, and he related some curious facts of 
 the Prince" and Perceval . Then, adverting to the present 
 state of affairs in Portugal, he said that he rejoiced not so 
 much in the mere favourable turn, as in the end that must 
 now be put to the base reign of opinion respecting the 
 superiority and invincible skill of the French generals. 
 Brave as Sir John Moore was, he thought him deficient in 
 that greater and more essential manliness of soul which 
 should have made him not hold bis enemy in such fearful 
 respect, and which should have taught him to care less 
 for the opinion of the world at home. 
 
 We then got, I know not how, to German topics. He 
 said that the language of their literature was entirely facti- 
 tious, and had been formed by Luther from the two dialects. 
 High and Low German ; that he had made it, grammatically, 
 most correct, more so, perhaps, than any other language ; 
 it was equal to the Greek, except in harmony and sweet- 
 ness. And yet the Germans themselves thought it sweet ; 
 Klopstock had repeated to him an ode of his own to prove 
 it, and really had deceived himself, by the force of associa- 
 tion, into a belief that the harsh sounds, conveying, indeed, 
 or being significant of, sweet images or thoughts, were them- 
 selves sweet. Mr. C. was asked what he thought of Klop- 
 stock. He answered, that his fame was rapidly declining 
 in Germany ; that an Englishman might form a correct 
 notion of him by uniting the moral epigram of Young, the 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF MR. COLERIDGE 315 
 
 bombast of Hervey, and the minute description of Richard- 
 son. As to sublimity, he had, with all Germans, one rule for 
 producing it ; it was, to take something very great, and 
 make it very small in comparison with that which you wish 
 to elevate. Thus, for example, Klopstock says, ' As the 
 gardener goes forth, and scatters from his basket seed into 
 the garden ; so does the Creator scatter worlds with His 
 right hand.' Here worlds, a large object, are made small in 
 the hands of the Creator ; consequently, the Creator is very 
 great. In short, the Germans were not a poetical nation 
 in the very highest sense. Wieland was their best poet : his 
 subject was bad, and his thoughts often impure ; but his 
 language was rich and harmonious, and his fancy luxuriant, 
 Sotheby's translation had not at all caught the manner of 
 the original. But the Germans were good metaphysicians 
 and critics : they criticized on principles previously laid 
 down ; thus, though they might be wrong, they were in no 
 danger of being self -contradictory, which was too often the 
 case with English critics. 
 
 Young, he said, was not a poet to be read through at 
 once. His love of point and wit had often put an end to his 
 pathos and sublimity ; but there were parts in him which 
 must be immortal. He (Mr. C.) loved to read a page of 
 Young, and walk out to think of him. 
 
 Returning to the Germans, he said that the state of 
 their religion, when he was in Germany, was really shock- 
 ing. He had never met one clergyman a Christian ; and 
 he found professors in the universities lecturing against 
 the most material points in the Gospel. He instanced, 
 I think, Paulus, wnose lectures he had attended. The 
 object was to resolve the miracles into natural operations ; 
 and such a disposition evinced was the best road to prefer- 
 ment. He severely censured Mr. Taylor's book, in which 
 the principles of Paulus were explained and insisted on 
 with much gratuitous indelicacy. He then entered into the 
 question of Socinianism, and noticed, as I recollect, the 
 passage in the Old Testament : ' The people bowed their 
 faces, and worshipped God and the king.' He said that 
 ah worship implied the presence of the object worshipped : 
 the people worshipped, bowing to the sensuous presence of 
 the one, and the conceived omnipresence of the other. He 
 
316 TABLE TALK 
 
 talked of his having constantly to defend the Church against 
 the Socinian Bishop of Llandaff, Watson. The subject then 
 varied to Roman Catholicism, and he gave us an account 
 of a controversy he had had with a very sensible priest 
 in Sicily on the worship of saints. He had driven the 
 priest from one post to another, till the latter took up 
 the ground that though the saints were not omnipresent, 
 yet God, who was so, imparted to them the prayers offered 
 up, and then they used their interference with Him to 
 grant them. ' That is, father (said C. in reply) — excuse 
 my seeming levity, for I mean no impiety — that is, I have 
 a deaf and dumb wife, who yet understands me, and I her, 
 by signs. You have a favour to ask of me, and want my 
 wife's interference ; so you communicate your request to 
 me, who impart it to her, and she, by signs back again, 
 begs me to grant it.' The good priest laughed, and said, 
 ' Populus vult decipi, et decipiatur ! ' 
 
 We then got upon the Oxford controversy, and he was 
 decidedly of opinion that there could be no doubt of Copies- 
 ton's complete victory. He thought the [Edinburgh] Review 
 had chosen its points of attack ill, as there must doubtless be 
 in every institution so old much to reprehend and carp at. 
 On the other hand, he thought that Copleston had not been 
 so severe or hard upon them as he might have been ; but he 
 admired the critical part of his work, which he thought 
 very highly valuable, independently of the controversy. 
 He wished some portion of mathematics was more essential 
 to a degree at Oxford, as he thought a gentleman's educa- 
 tion incomplete without it, and had himself found the 
 necessity of getting up a little, when he could ill spare the 
 time. He every day more and more lamented his neglect 
 of them when at Cambridge. 
 
 Then glancing off to Aristotle, he gave a very high char- 
 acter of him. He said that Bacon objected to Aristotle the 
 grossness of his examples, and Davy now did precisely the 
 same to Bacon : both were wrong ; for each of those philo- 
 sophers wished to confine the attention of the mind in 
 their works to the form of reasoning only, by which other 
 truths might be established or elicited, and therefore the 
 most trite and commonplace examples were in fact the 
 best. He said that during a long confinement to his room 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF MR. COLERIDGE 317 
 
 he had taken up the Schoolmen, and was astonished at the 
 immense learning and acute knowledge displayed by them ; 
 that there was scarcely anything which modern philosophers 
 had proudly brought forward as their own, which might 
 not be found clearly and systematically laid down by them 
 in some or other of their writings. Locke had sneered 
 at the Schoolmen unfairly, and had raised a foolish laugh 
 against them by citations from their Quid libet questions, 
 which were discussedon the eves of holy days, and in which 
 the greatest latitude was allowed, being considered mere 
 exercises of ingenuity. We had ridiculed their quiddities, 
 and why ? Had we not borrowed their quantity and their 
 quality, and why then reject their quiddity, when every 
 schoolboy in logic must know that of everything may be 
 asked, Quantum est ? Quale est ? and Quid est ? the last bring- 
 ing you to the most material of all points, its individual 
 being. He afterwards stated, that in a History of Specula- 
 tive Philosophy which he was endeavouring to prepare 
 for publication, he had proved, and to the satisfaction of 
 Sir James Mackintosh, that there was nothing in Locke 
 which his best admirers most admired, that might not be 
 found more clearly and better laid down in Descartes or 
 the old Schoolmen ; not that he was himself an implicit 
 disciple of Descartes, though he thought that Descartes 
 had been much misinterpreted. 
 
 When we got on the subject of poetry and Southey, 
 he gave us a critique of the Curse of Kehama, the fault of 
 which he thought consisted in the association of a plot 
 and a machinery so very wild with feelings so sober and 
 tender : but he gave the poem high commendation, admired 
 the art displayed in the employment of the Hindu monstro- 
 sities, and begged us to observe the noble feeling excited 
 of the superiority of virtue over vice ; that Kehama went 
 on, from the beginning to the end of the poem, increasing 
 in power, whilst Kailyal gradually lost her hopes and her 
 protectors ; and yet by the time we got to the end, we had 
 arrived at an utter contempt and even carelessness of the 
 power of evil, as Exemplified in the almighty Rajah, and 
 felt a complete confidence in the safety of the unprotected 
 virtue of the maiden. This he thought the very great 
 merit of the poem. 
 
318 TABLE TALK 
 
 When we walked home with him to the inn, he got 
 on the subject of the English Essay for the year at Oxford, 1 
 and thought some consideration of the corruption of 
 language should be introduced into it. It originated, he 
 thought, in a desire to abbreviate all expression as much as 
 possible ; and no doubt, if in one word, without violating 
 idiom, I can express what others have done in more, and 
 yet be as fully and easily understood, I have manifestly 
 made an improvement ; but if, on the other hand, it be- 
 comes harder, and takes more time to comprehend a thought 
 or image put in one word by Apuleius than when expressed 
 in a whole sentence by Cicero, the saving is merely of pen 
 and ink, and the alteration is evidently a corruption. 
 
 April 21. — Richmond. 
 
 Before breakfast we went into Mr. May's delightful 
 book-room, where he was again silent in admiration of the 
 prospect. After breakfast, we walked to church. He seemed 
 full of calm piety, and said he always felt the most delight- 
 ful sensations in a Sunday churchyard, that it struck 
 him as if God had given to man fifty-two springs in every 
 year. After the service, he was vehement against the 
 sermon, as commonplace, and invidious in its tone towards 
 the poor. Then he gave many texts from the lessons and 
 gospel of the day, as affording fit subjects for discourses. 
 He ridiculed the absurdity of refusing to believe everything 
 that you could not understand ; and mentioned a rebuke of 
 Dr. Parr's to a man of the name of Frith, and that of another 
 clergyman to a young man, who said he would believe 
 nothing which he could not understand : ' Then, young 
 man, your creed will be the shortest of any man's I know. 5 
 
 As we walked up Mr. Cambridge's meadows towards 
 Twickenham, he criticized Johnson and Gray as poets, and 
 did not seem to allow them high merit. The excellence of 
 verse, he said, was to be untranslatable into any other 
 words without detriment to the beauty of the passage; 
 the position of a single word could not be altered in Milton 
 without injury. Gray's personifications, he said, were mere 
 printer's devils' personifications— persons with a capital 
 
 1 On Etymology. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF MR. COLERIDGE 319 
 
 letter, abstract qualities with a small one. He thought 
 Collins had more genius than Gray, who was a singular 
 instance of a man of taste, poetic feeling, and fancy, with- 
 out imagination. He contrasted Dryden's opening of the 
 10th satire of Juvenal with Johnson's : 
 
 Let observation, with extensive view, 
 Survey mankind from Ganges to Peru, 
 
 which was as much as to say, 
 
 Let observation with extensive observation observe mankind. 
 
 After dinner he told us a humorous story of his enthu- 
 siastic fondness for Quakerism, when he was at Cambridge, 
 and his attending one of their meetings, which had entirely 
 cured him. When the little children came in, he was in 
 raptures with them, and descanted upon the delightful 
 mode of treating them now, in comparison with what he 
 had experienced in childhood. He lamented the haughti- 
 ness with which Englishmen treated all foreigners abroad, 
 and the facility with which our government had always 
 given up any people which had allied itself to us, at the 
 end of a war ; and he particularly remarked upon our 
 abandonment of Minorca. These two things, he said, 
 made us universally disliked on the Continent ; though, 
 as a people, most highly respected. He thought a war 
 with America inevitable ; and expressed his opinion that 
 the United States were unfortunate in the prematureness 
 of their separation from this country, before they had in 
 themselves the materials of moral society — before they 
 had a gentry and a learned class, — the former looking back- 
 wards, and giving the sense of stability ; the latter looking 
 forwards, and regulating the feelings of the people. 
 
 Afterwards, in the drawing-room, he sat down by Pro- 
 fessor Rigaud, with whom he entered into a discussion of 
 Kant's System of Metaphysics. The little knots of the 
 company were speedily silent : Mr. C.'s voice grew louder ; 
 and abstruse as the subject was, yet his language was so 
 ready, so energetic, and so eloquent, and his illustrations 
 so very neat and apposite, that the ladies even paid him 
 the most solicitous and respectful attention. They were 
 really entertained with Kant's Metaphysics ! At last I took 
 one of them, a very sweet singer, to the pianoforte ; and, 
 
320 TABLE TALK 
 
 when there was a pause, she began an Italian air. She 
 was anxious to please. him, and he was enraptured. His 
 frame quivered with emotion, and there was a titter of 
 uncommon delight on his countenance. When it was over, 
 he praised the singer warmly, and prayed she might finish 
 those strains in heaven ! 
 
 This is nearly all, except some anecdotes, which I recollect 
 of our meeting with this most interesting, most wonderful 
 man. Some of his topics and arguments I have enumerated ; 
 but the connexion and the words are lost. And nothing 
 that I can say can give any notion of his eloquence and 
 manner — of the hold which he soon got on his audience — 
 of the variety of his stores of information — or, finally, of 
 the artlessness of his habits, or the modesty and temper 
 with which he listened to, and answered arguments, contra- 
 dictory to his own. — J. T. C. 
 
 The following address has been printed before ; but it cannot 
 be too widely circulated, and it will form an appropriate 
 conclusion to this volume. 
 
 To Adam Steinmetz K . 
 
 My deab Godchild, 
 
 I offer up the same fervent prayer for you now, 
 as I did kneeling before the altar, when you were baptized 
 into Christ, and solemnly received as a living member 
 of His spiritual body, the Church. 
 
 Years must pass before you will be able to read, with 
 an understanding heart, what I now write. But I trust 
 that the all-gracious God, the Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the Father of Mercies, who, by His only-begotten 
 Son (all mercies in one sovereign mercy !) has redeemed 
 you from the evil ground, and willed you to be born out 
 of darkness, but into light — out of death, but into life — 
 out of sin, but into righteousness, even into the ' Lord our 
 Bighteousness ' ; I trust that He will graciously hear the 
 prayers of your dear parents, and be with you as the spirit 
 of health and growth in body and mind ! 
 
 My dear Godchild ! You received from Christ's minister 
 at the baptismal font, as your Christian name, the name 
 of a most dear friend of your father's, and who was to me 
 
321 
 
 even as a son, the late Adam Steinmetz, whose fervent 
 aspiration, and ever-paramount aim, even from early 
 youth, was to be a Christian in thought, word, and deed 
 — in will, mind, and affections. 
 
 I too, your Godfather, have known what the enjoy- 
 ments and advantages of this life are, and what the more 
 refined pleasures which learning and intellectual power can 
 bestow ; and with all the experience that more than three- 
 score years can give, I now, on the eve of my departure, 
 declare to you (and earnestly pray that you may here- 
 after live and act on the conviction) that health is a great 
 blessing — competence obtained by honourable industry a 
 great blessing — and a great blessing it is to have kind, 
 faithful, and loving friends and relatives ; but that the 
 greatest of all blessings, as it is the most ennobling of all 
 privileges, is to be indeed a Christian. But I have been 
 likewise, through a large portion of my later life, a sufferer, 
 sorely afflicted with bodily pains, languors, and manifold 
 infirmities ; and, for the last three or four years, have, 
 with few and brief intervals, been confined to a sick-room, 
 and, at this moment, in great weakness and heaviness, write 
 from a sick-bed, hopeless of a recovery, yet without prospect 
 of a speedy removal ; and I, thus on the very brink of the 
 grave, solemnly bear witness to you, that the Almighty 
 Redeemer, most gracious in his promises to them that truly 
 seek him, is faithful to perform what he hath promised, 
 and has preserved, under all my pains and infirmities, the 
 inward peace that passeth all understanding, with the 
 supporting assurance of a reconciled God, who will not 
 withdraw his spirit from me in the conflict, and in his own 
 time will deliver me from the Evil One ! 
 
 0, my dear Godchild ! eminently blessed are those who 
 begin early to seek, fear, and love their God, trusting 
 wholly in the righteousness and mediation of their Lord, 
 Redeemer, Saviour, and everlasting High Priest, Jesus Christ ! 
 
 preserve this as a legacy and bequest from your unseen 
 Godfather and friend, 
 
 S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 Grove, Highgate, 
 July 13, 1834. 
 
 He died on the 25th day of the same month. 
 
 TABLE TALK Y 
 
OMNIANA 
 
 [1812 and 1836] 
 
 Y 2 
 
The following articles include Coleridge' a contributions to Southey' s 
 anonymous Omniana, or Horae Otiosiores, 1812 (reprinted, with 
 differences, from Aikin's Athenaeum, 1807-8) , where they are starred 
 in the contents pages as being ' by a different writer '. Inserted 
 among these are Coleridge's marginalia, written in Mr. Gillman's 
 copy of the Omniana, together with as much of the context (usually 
 Southey's) as is necessary to explain the annotation. 
 
 The Omniana of 1812 are followed by others first added in 
 the Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1836. 
 
1812. 
 
 17. Hell. 1 
 
 *Bellarmin makes sweating and crowding one of the 
 chief torments of Hell, which Lessius (no doubt after an 
 actual and careful survey,) affirms to be exactly a Dutch 
 mile, (about a league and a half English,) in diameter. But 
 Ribera, grounding his map on deductions from the Apoca- 
 lypse, makes it two hundred Italian miles. Lessius, it may 
 be presumed, was a Protestant, 2 for whom, of course, a 
 smaller Hell would suffice. — S. T. C. 
 
 37. Anthony Pubver. [His translation of the Bible.] 3 
 
 I am he who am, is better than / am that I am. — R. S. 
 
 No ! The sense of that is = because, or in that [I am,] in 
 [thai] I am, [meanmgr] I [affirm] myself [to be], — [affirming] 
 myself to be, I am. Causa sua. My own [though*] is the 
 ground of my own existence. — C. MS. 
 
 *45. Thomas O'Brien MacMahon. 4 
 
 I have a book, the author of which must have been in a 
 violent passion during the whole time that he was writing 
 it, and certainly had not cooled when he penned the title- 
 page, — for thus it is entitled, 
 
 The Candor and Good Nature of Englishmen exemplified in 
 their deliberate, cautious, and charitable way of characterizing the 
 
 1 The greater part of this article is Southey's, but Coleridge stars and 
 initials as his own the portion we have given. Omitted in 1836. 
 
 2 A mistake ; see ' Lessius ' in index. 
 
 3 The note has been partly cut away in binding. The words in [] are 
 conjectural ; the letters italicized are visible. 
 
 * Coleridge stars and initials this as his own. It is not marked by 
 Southey, nor included in 1836. It appears, however, among the 
 ' Omniana ' of the Athenaeum. (Passage 63, in Dec, 1807). 
 
326 OMNIANA 
 
 Customs, Manners, Constitution, and Religion of Neighbouring 
 Nations, of which their own Authors are everywhere produced as 
 Vouchers : their moderate, equitable, and humane mode of govern- 
 ing States dependent on them ; their elevated, courteous, and 
 conciliating Stile and Deportment, on all occasions ; with, in par- 
 ticular, a true and well-supported specimen of the ingenuous and 
 liberal manner in which they carry on Religious Controversy. — 
 By Thomas O'Brien MacMahon. 
 
 This book contains one very amusing passage : — 
 
 ' You sent out the children of your princes,' says he, addressing 
 the Irish, ' and sometimes your princes in person, to enlighten this 
 kingdom, then sitting in utter darkness ; and how have they 
 recompensed you ? Why, after lawlessly distributing your estates, 
 possessed for thirteen centuries or more by your illustrious families, 
 whose antiquity and nobility, if equalled by any nation in the 
 world, none but the immutable God of Abraham's ever beloved 
 and chosen, though at present wandering and afflicted, people 
 surpasses ; after, I say, seizing on your inheritances, and flinging 
 them among their Cocks, Hens, Crows, Rooks, Daws, Wolves, Lions, 
 Foxes, Rams, Bulls, Hogs, and other birds and beasts of prey ; or 
 vesting them in the sweepings of their jails, their Smallwoods, 
 Dolittles, Barebones, Strangeways, Smarts, Sharps, Tarts, Sterns, 
 Churls, and Savages ; their Greens, Blacks, Browns, Grays, and 
 Whites ; their Smiths, Carpenters, Brewers, Barbers, Bakers, and 
 Taylors ; their Sutlers, Cutlers, Butlers, Trustlers, and Jugglers ; 
 their Norths, Souths, and Wests ; their Fields, Rows, Streets, and 
 Lanes ; their Tom's sons, John's sons, Will's sons, James's sons, 
 Dick's sons, and Wat's sons ; their Shorts, Longs, Lows, Flats, and 
 Squats ; their Packs, Slacks, Tacks, and Jacks ; and to complete 
 their ingratitude and injustice, they transported a cargo of notorious 
 traitors to the Divine Majesty among you, impiously calling the 
 filthy lumber, Ministers of God's word.'—S. T. C. 
 
 60. Small Wit. 
 
 [Coleridge's oomment on Southey's article.] 
 
 The Pun may be traced from its minimum, in which it 
 exists only in the violent intention and desire of the Punster 
 to make one. This is the fluxion or pre-nascent Quantity, 
 the Infinitesimal first Moment, or Differential, of a Pun — 
 as that of the man who hearing Lincoln mentioned, grum- 
 bling most gutturally, shaking his head, and writhing his 
 nose, muttered, — ' Lincoln, indeed ! ~Lmccoln ! Lincooln ! 
 
SMALL WIT— LIONS OF ROMANCE 327 
 
 You may well call it Linkcoln ! — (a pause) — I was never 
 so bit with Bugs in a place, in my whole Life before ! ' 
 Here the reason (i. e. vindictive anger striving to ease itself 
 by contempt — the most frequent origin of Puns, next to 
 that of scornful Triumph exulting and insulting — see Para- 
 dise Lost, vi.) or cause of the impulse or itch to let a pun 
 was substituted for the Pun itself, which the man's wit 
 could not light on. This therefore is the minim. At the 
 other extreme lies the pun polysyllabic, of which accept the 
 following as a specimen : 
 
 Two nobles in Madrid were straddling side by side, 
 Both shamefully diseased : espying whom, I cried — 
 What figures these men make ! The wight, that Euclid cons, 
 Sees plainly that they are — Parallel o' -pippy-Dons ! — S. T. C. 
 
 68. Cupid and Psyche [Calderon's Auto Sacra- 
 mental]. 
 [Coleridge's comment on Southey's article.] 
 
 I do not find fault with this outline of the Fable and Plot 
 of Calderon's Cupid and Psyche ; but with R. S. for giving 
 this only. Half a dozen passages selected from the 72 
 Autos Sacramentales and translated as Southey would have 
 translated them — and the sketch of the Plot we should 
 have thanked him for, as an agreeable though unnecessary 
 Over-weight.— S. T. C. 
 
 70. Lions of Romance. 
 
 There is a distinction made in Palmerin de Oliva between Leones 
 Coronados and Leones Pardos. The former, who may be called 
 Lions Royal, are those who know blood-royal instinctively, and 
 respect it, I suppose, as a family sort of tie. The others have no 
 such instinct. — R. S. 
 
 There is a much better reason for this distinction ; and 
 I wonder that our zoologists have not noticed the evident 
 diversity (the variety, at least) of the Leones Pardos, or 
 Leopard Lions, with low round foreheads, and the eyes 
 almost at the top of the face, as contrasted with the 
 magnificent Leone Coronado with high square forehead, &c. 
 — C. MS. 
 
328 OMNIANA 
 
 76. The Gossamer. 
 Spenser calls the gossamer 
 
 The fine nets, which oft we woven see 
 Of scorched dew. 
 
 Henry More alludes to this opinion, which seems to have been then 
 commonly held. — B. S. 
 
 From a Glossary of Hard Words printed in the reign 
 of James I., I find the true derivation of Gossamer e= — Coma 
 virginis, Coma Matris Dei, — God's Dame's Hair. So Gossip 
 is God's Sib, or Cousin, — the still nearer baptismal Rela- 
 tions being God-father, God-mother. — S. T. C. 
 
 87. The French Decade. 
 
 We 1 have nothing to say in defence of the French revolu- 
 tionists, as far as they are personally concerned in this 
 substitution of every tenth for the seventh day as a day of 
 rest. It was not only a senseless outrage on an ancient 
 observance, around which a thousand good and gentle 
 feelings had clustered ; it not only tended to weaken the 
 bond of brotherhood between France and the other mem- 
 bers of Christendom ; but it was dishonest, and robbed 
 the labourer of fifteen days of restorative and humanizing 
 repose in every year, and extended the wrong to all the 
 friends and fellow-labourers of man in the brute creation. 
 Yet when we hear Protestants, and even those of the 
 Lutheran persuasion, and members of the Church of 
 England, inveigh against this change as a blasphemous 
 contempt of the fourth commandment, we pause : and 
 before we can assent to the verdict of condemnation, we 
 must prepare our minds to include in the same sentence, at 
 least as far as theory goes, the names of several among the 
 most revered reformers of Christianity. Without referring 
 to Luther, we will begin with Master Frith, a founder and 
 martyr of the Church of England, having witnessed his 
 faith amid the flames in the year 1533. This meek and 
 
 1 ' I ' is substituted throughout for ' we ' in 1836. 
 
THE FRENCH DECADE 329 
 
 enlightened, no less than zealous and orthodox divine, in 
 his ' Declaration of Baptism ', thus expresses himself : — 
 
 Our forefathers, which were in the beginning of the Church, did 
 abrogate the Sabbath, to the intent that men might have an example 
 of Christian liberty. Howbeit, because it was necessary that a day 
 should be reserved in which the people should come together to 
 hear the word of God, they ordained instead of the Sabbath, which 
 was Saturday, the next following, which is Sunday. And although 
 they might have kept the Saturday with the Jew, as a thing 
 indifferent, yet they did much better. 
 
 Some three years after the martyrdom of Frith, i. e. anno 
 1536, being the 28th of Henry VIII, suffered Master Tindal, 
 in the same glorious cause : and he likewise, in his answer 
 to Sir T. More, hath similarly resolved this point. ' As for 
 the sabbath,' (writes this illustrious martyr, and translator 
 of The Word of Life), ' As for the sabbath, we be lords of 
 the sabbath, and may yet change it into Monday, or any 
 other day, as we see need ; or we may make every tenth 
 day Holy Day only, if we see cause why. Neither was 
 there any cause to change it from the Saturday, save only 
 to put a difference between us and the Jews : neither need 
 we any Holy Day at all, if the people might be taught 
 without it.' This great man believed, that if Christian 
 nations should ever become Christians indeed, there would 
 every day be so many hours taken from the labour for 
 the perishable body, to the service of the soul and the 
 understandings of mankind, both masters and servants, as 
 to supersede the necessity of a particular day. At present, 
 our Sunday may be considered as so much Holy Land, rescued 
 from the sea of oppression and vain luxury, and embanked 
 against the fury of its billows. 
 
 89. Ride and Tie. 
 
 ' On a scheme of perfect retribution in the moral world,' 
 — observed Empeiristes, and paused to look at, and wipe 
 his spectacles — 
 
 ' Frogs ', interposed Musaello, ' must have been experi- 
 mental philosophers, and experimental philosophers must 
 all transmigrate into frogs.' 
 
 'The scheme will not be yet perfect ', added Gelon, ' unless 
 
330 OMNIANA 
 
 ' our friend Empeiristes, is specially privileged to become 
 an elect frog twenty times successively, before he reascends 
 into a Galvanic philosopher.' 
 
 ' Well, well,' replied Empeiristes, with a benignant 
 smile, ' I give my consent, if only our little Mary's fits do 
 not recur.' 
 
 Little Mary was Gelon's only child, and the darling and 
 god-daughter of Empeiristes. By the application of gal- 
 vanic influence, Empeiristes had removed a nervous affection 
 of her right leg, accompanied with symptomatic epilepsy. 
 The tear started into Gelon's eye, and he pressed the 
 hand of his friend, while Musaello half-suppressing, half- 
 indulging a similar sense of shame, sportively exclaimed, — 
 ' Hang it, Gelon ! somehow or other these philosopher 
 fellows always have the better of us wits, in the long run ! ' 
 
 90. Jeremy Taylor. 
 
 The writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor are a perpetual 
 feast to me. His hospitable board groans under the weight 
 and multitude of viands. Yet I seldom rise from the perusal 
 of his works, without repeating or recollecting the excellent 
 observation of Minucius Felix : — Tabulas et errores ah im- 
 peritis parentibus discimus ; et quod est gravius, ipsis studiis 
 et disciplinis elaboramus. 
 
 91. Criticism. 
 
 Many of our modern criticisms on the works of our 
 elder writers, remind me of the connoisseur, who, taking 
 up a small cabinet picture, railed most eloquently at the 
 absurd caprice of the artist in painting a horse sprawling. 
 ' Excuse me, sir,' replied the owner of the piece, ' you 
 hold it the wrong way : it is a horse galloping.' 
 
 92. Public Instruction. 
 
 Our statesmen, who survey with jealous dread all plans 
 for the education of the lower orders, may be thought to 
 proceed on the system of antagonist muscles ; and in the 
 belief, that the closer a nation shuts its eyes, the wider it 
 will open its hands. Or do they act on the principle, that 
 
PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 331 
 
 the status belli is the natural relation between the people 
 and the government, and that it is prudent to secure the 
 result of the contest by gouging the adversary in the first 
 instance ? Alas ! the policy of the maxim is on a par with 
 its honesty. The Philistines had put out the eyes of Samson, 
 and thus, as they thought, fitted him to drudge and grind 
 
 Among the slaves and asses, his comrades, 
 As good for nothing else, no better service. 
 
 But his darkness added to his fury without diminishing his 
 strength, and the very pillars of the Temple of Oppression — 
 
 With horrible convulsion, to and fro, 
 He tugg'd, he shook — till down they came, and drew 
 The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder, 
 Upon the heads of all who sat beneath, 
 Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, and priests, 
 Their choice nobility ! — Sam. Agonistes. 
 
 The error might be less unpardonable with the statesmen 
 of the continent, — but with Englishmen, who have Ireland 
 in one direction, and Scotland in another'; in the one 
 ignorance, sloth and rebellion, in the other general in- 
 formation, industry, and loyalty ; verily it is not error 
 merely, but infatuation. 
 
 93. Tractors. 
 
 The Tractors are no new mode of quackery — witness this extract 
 from one of the rogues of the days of old * : ' How famous is that 
 martial ring, which, carried in some fit place, or rubbed on some 
 such part, will allay and cure, &c.' — R. S. 
 
 *Southey should have recollected that the very same 
 Philosophers and the same Medical Board, who denounced 
 animal magnetism in Paris, confirmed, after a series of 
 experiments, the positive effect of Iron applied externally 
 to the body, in rheumatism, &c— Perkins' Tractors have 
 considerable, but not any peculiar powers. — C. MS. 
 
 97. Picturesque Words. 
 
 Who is ignorant of Homer's Il-q\iov dvoo-tyvWov ? Yet 
 in some Greek Hexameters (MSS.) we have met with a 
 
332 OMNIANA 
 
 compound epithet, which may compete with it for the prize 
 of excellence in 'flashing on the mental eye' a complete 
 image— it is an epithet of the brutified archangel (see 
 p. 12 1 ), and forms the latter half of the verse,— 
 
 JLepKOKepmwxa- %ovrav. 
 
 Ye youthful bards ! compare this word with its literal 
 translation, ' Tail-horn-hoofed Satan,' and be shy of com- 
 pound epithets, the component parts of which are indebted 
 for their union exclusively to the printer's hyphen. Henry 
 More indeed would have naturalized the word without 
 hesitation, and Cercocekonychotjs would have shared the 
 astonishment of the English reader in the glossary to his 
 Song of the Soul, with Achronycul, Anaisthaesie, &c. &c. 
 
 98. Meteorilithes. 
 
 [This article is starred, in 1812 and is not disclaimed in 8. T. C.'s 
 marked copy. It is therefore included here, although omitted both in the 
 Remains of 1836 and in Thomas Ashe's edition of 1884.] 
 
 The largest specimen of these substances which has ever 
 been described, has escaped the notice of all the philosophers 
 who have written upon the subject. 
 
 Walckenaer in a note to Azara's Travels, upon the mass 
 of iron and nickel found in the Chaco, says that two other 
 such masses have been discovered ; one which Pallas has 
 described, and one which was dug up at Aken near Magde- 
 bourg. Gaspar de Villagra, in his Historia de la Nueva 
 Mexico, mentions a fourth, evidently of the same nature 
 as these, and considerably larger than the largest of them. 
 The tradition of the natives concerning it supports the most 
 probable theory of its origin. A demon in the form of an 
 old woman, appeared to two brothers, who were leading 
 a horde or swarm of the ancient Mexicans, in search of a 
 new country ; she told them to separate, and threw down 
 
 * i. e. of Omniana, 1812, where Southey writes : ' All painters repre- 
 sent the devil with a tail, and in one of the prints to the Dutch translation 
 of Bunyan's Holy War, it may be seen in what manner his breeches- 
 maker accommodates it.' 
 
METEORILITHES— TOLERATION 333 
 
 this block of iron which she carried on her head to be the 
 boundary between them. 
 
 Villagra describes it as something like the back of a 
 tortoise in shape and in weight about eight hundred quin- 
 tales ; 1 he calls it massy iron, ' hierro bien rnazizo y amasado ' ; 
 it was smooth without the slightest rust, and there was 
 neither mine near it, nor vein of metal, nor any kind of 
 stone any way resembling it. 
 
 Y como quien de vista es buen testigo, 
 Digo que es un metal tan puro y liso, 
 
 Y tan limpio de orin como si fuera 
 Una refina plata de Capella. 
 
 Y lo que mas admira nuestro caso, 
 Es que no vemos genero de veta, 
 Horrumbra, quemazon, o alguna piedra, 
 Con cuia fuerca muestre y nos paresca 
 
 Averse el gran mojon alii criado. — Canto 2, ff. 10. 
 
 The latitude where this was found is 27 N. The history 
 of the expedition which Villagra accompanied, furnishes 
 some clue for seeking the spot, and it might probably be 
 discovered with little expense of time or labour, by a party 
 travelling from Mexico to Monterrey. 
 
 102. Toleration. 
 
 The state, with respect to the different sects of Religion 
 under its protection, should resemble a well-drawn por- 
 trait. Let there be half a score individuals looking up at 
 it, every one sees its eyes and its benignant smile directed 
 toward himself. 
 
 The framer of preventive laws, no less than private tutors 
 and schoolmasters, should remember, that the readiest way 
 to make either mind or body grow awry, is by lacing it too 
 tight. 
 
 1 The quintal is 132 lb. English. The estimate is of course given by 
 guess ; its size, however, is in some degree proved by this circumstance, 
 that the priest who attended the army consecrated it as an altar, and 
 performed service upon it. The Chaco mass contains at present 624 
 cubic palms, of nine Spanish inches, but large pieces had been broken 
 off, before it was measured. The Siberian one, 1,680 Russian lb. ; that 
 in Germany from 15 to 17 milliers. [Footnote in 1812.'] 
 
334 OMNIANA 
 
 103. Wab. 
 
 It would have proved a striking part of a Vision pre- 
 sented to Adam, the day after the death of Abel, to have 
 brought before his eyes half a million of men crowded 
 together in the space of a square mile. When the first 
 father had exhausted his wonder on the multitude of his 
 offspring, he would then naturally inquire of his angelic 
 instructor, for what purposes so vast a multitude had 
 assembled ? what is the common end ? — alas ! to murder 
 each other, all Cains and yet no Abels ! 
 
 105. Pabodibs. 
 
 Parodies on new poems are read as satires ; on old ones 
 (the soliloquy of Hamlet for instance), as compliments. 
 A man of genius may securely laugh at a mode of attack, 
 by which his reviler, in half a century or less, becomes his 
 encomiast. 
 
 106. M. Dtrputs. 
 
 Among the extravagancies of faith, which have charac- 
 terized many infidel writers, who would swallow a whale 
 to avoid believing that a whale swallowed Jonas, — a high 
 rank should be given to Dupuis, who, at the commence- 
 ment of the French Revolution, published a work in twelve 
 volumes octavo, in order to prove that Jesus Christ was 
 the Sun, and all Christians, worshippers of Mithra. His 
 arguments, if arguments they can be called, consist chiefly 
 of metaphors quoted from the Fathers. What irresistible 
 conviction would not the following passage from South's 
 sermons (Vol. v. p. 165) have flashed on his fancy, had it 
 occurred in the writings of Origen or Tertullian ! and 
 how complete a confutation of all his grounds does not the 
 passage afford to those humble souls who, gifted with 
 common sense alone, can boast of no additional light 
 received through a crack in their upper apartments 1 
 
 Christ, the great Sun of Righteousness and Saviour of the World, 
 having by a glorious Rising, after a red and bloody Setting, pro- 
 claimed his Deity to men and angels ; and by a complete triumph 
 
M. DUPUIS-THE WORSHIP OF HYMEN 335 
 
 over the two grand Enemies of Mankind, Sin and Death, set up the 
 everlasting Gospel in the room of all false Religions, has now 
 changed the Persian Superstition into the Christian Doctrine ; and 
 without the least approach to the idolatry of the former, made it 
 henceforward the duty of all nations, Jews and Gentiles, to worship 
 the rising Sun. 
 
 This one passage outblazes the whole host of Dupuis' 
 Evidences and Extracts. In the same sermon, the reader 
 will meet with Hume's argument against miracles antici- 
 pated, and put in Thomas's mouth. 
 
 107. Heretics oe the Early Ages. 
 
 A large class consists of those who resisted the various corruptions 
 of Christianity step by step, from Cerinthus down to Berengar. — 
 R.S. 
 
 *Hush ! hush ! dear Southey ! do not write on what 
 you do not know. The subjects are so few, with which you 
 are not acquainted, that this abstinence would be but a 
 trifling sacrifice and the occasions of rare occurrence. You 
 might as well have placed Luther and Tom Payne [sic] 
 together, as Berengar and Cerinthus. — S. T. C. 
 
 109. Origin of the Worship oe Hymen. 
 
 The origin of the worship of Hymen is thus related by 
 Lactantius. The story would furnish matter for an excel- 
 lent pantomime. Hymen was a beautiful youth of Athens, 
 who for the love of a young virgin disguised himself, and 
 assisted at the Eleusinian rites : and at this time, he, toge- 
 ther with his beloved, and divers others young ladies of that 
 city, was surprised and carried off by pirates ; who supposing 
 him to be what he appeared, lodged him with his mistress. 
 In the dead of the night, when the robbers were all asleep, 
 he rose and cut their throats. Thence making hasty way 
 back to Athens, he bargained with the parents that he 
 would restore to them their daughter, and all her com- 
 panions, if they would consent to her marriage with him. 
 They did so, and this marriage proving remarkably happy, 
 it became the custom to invoke the name of Hymen at all 
 nuptials. 
 
336 OMNIANA 
 
 110. Egotism. 
 
 It is hard and uncandid to censure the great reformers in 
 philosophy and religion for their egotism and boastfulness. 
 It is scarcely possible for a man to meet with continued 
 personal abuse on account of his superior talents, without 
 associating more and more the sense of the value of his 
 discoveries or detections with his own person. The neces- 
 sity of repelling unjust contempt, forces the most modest 
 man into a feeling of pride and self-consciousness. How 
 can a tall man help thinking of his size, when dwarfs are 
 constantly standing on tiptoe beside him ? Paracelsus was 
 a braggart and a quack : so was Cardan ; but it was their 
 merits, and not their follies, which drew upon them that 
 torrent of detraction and calumny, which compelled them 
 so frequently to think and write concerning themselves, 
 that at length it became a habit to do so. Wolff too, though 
 not a boaster, was yet persecuted into a habit of egotism 
 both in his prefaces and in his ordinary conversation ; and 
 the same holds good of the founder of the Brunonian system, 
 and of his great name-sake Giordano Bruno. The more 
 decorous manners of the present age have attached a dis- 
 proportionate opprobrium to this foible, and many there- 
 fore abstain with cautious prudence from all displays of 
 what they feel. Nay, some do actually flatter themselves, 
 that they abhor all egotism, and never betray it either in 
 their writings or discourse. But watch these men nar- 
 rowly : and in the greater number of cases you will find 
 their thoughts, feelings, and mode of expression, saturated 
 with the passion of contempt, which is the concentrated 
 vinegar of egotism. 1 S. T. C. 
 
 Your very humble men in company, if they produce any 
 thing, are in that thing of the most exquisite irritability 
 and vanity. 
 
 When a man is attempting to describe another person's 
 character, he may be right or he may be wrong ; but in one 
 thing he will always succeed, that is, in describing himself. 
 If, for example, he expresses simple approbation, he praises 
 
 1 Here the article ends in 1812. Coleridge has written in the margin 
 the concluding paragraph : ' Contempt is ' &c. This was reprinted in 
 1S36 and dated 1820. The source of the second and third paragraphs 
 (as they stand in 1S36) is given in the next footnote. 
 
EGOTISM— BULLS 337 
 
 from a consciousness of possessing similar qualities ; — if he 
 approves with admiration, it is from a consciousness of 
 deficiency. A. ' Ay ! he is a sober man.' B. ' Ah ! sir, 
 what a blessing is sobriety ! ' Here A. is a man conscious 
 of sobriety, who egotizes in tuism ; — B- is one who, feeling 
 the ill effects of a contrary habit, contemplates sobriety 
 with blameless envy. Again : — A. ' Yes, he is a warm 
 man, a moneyed fellow ; you may rely upon him. ' B. ' Yes, 
 yes, sir, no wonder ! he has the blessing of being well in 
 the world.' This reflection might be introduced in defence 
 of plaintive egotism, and by way of preface to an examina- 
 tion of all the charges against it, and from what feelings 
 they proceed. 1800. 1 
 
 Contempt is egotism in ill humour. Appetite without 
 moral affection, social sympathy, and even without passion 
 and imagination, — (in plain English, mere Lust,) — is the 
 basest form of egotism, — and being infra human, or below 
 humanity, should be pronounced with the harsh Breathing 
 (or Asperate) as He-goatism. C. MS. 
 
 111. Cap of Liberty. 
 
 Those who hoped proudly of human nature, and admitted 
 of no distinction between Christians and Frenchmen, re- 
 garded the first constitution as a colossal statue of Corinthian 
 brass, formed by the fusion and commixture of all metals in 
 the conflagration of the state. — But there is a common 
 fungus, which so exactly represents the pole and cap of 
 liberty, that it seems offered by Nature herself as the 
 appropriate emblem of Gallic republicanism — mushroom 
 patriots with a mushroom cap of liberty. 
 
 113. Buijls. 
 
 Novi ego aliquem qui dormitabundus aliquando pulsari horam 
 quartam audiverit, et sic numeravit, una, una, una, una ; ac turn 
 prce rei absurditate, quam anima concipiebat, exclamavit, Nm I delirat 
 horologium ! Quater pulsavit horam unam. 
 
 I knew a person who, during imperfect sleep, or dozing as we 
 
 ' From Mr. [John Matthew] Gutch's commonplace book.— H. N. C. 
 
 TABLE TALK Z 
 
338 OMNIANA 
 
 say, listened to the clock as it was striking four, and as it struck, 
 he counted the four, one, one, one, one ; and then exclaimed, Why, 
 the clock is out of its wits : it has struck one four times over ! 
 
 This is a good exemplification of the nature of Bulls, 
 which will be found always to contain in them a confusion 
 of (what the Schoolmen would have called) Objectivity 
 with Subjectivity, in plain English, the impression of a 
 thing as it exists in itself and extrinsically, with the idea 
 which the mind abstracts from the impression. Thus, 
 number, or the total of a series, is a generalization of the 
 mind, an ens rationis not an ens reale. I have read many 
 attempts at a definition of a bull, and lately in the Edin- 
 burgh Review, but.it then appeared to me, that the definers 
 had fallen into the same fault with Miss Edgeworth in her 
 delightful essay on Bulls, and given the definition of the 
 genus, Blunder, for that of the particular species, Bull. 
 y-I venture therefore to proposethe following : — a bull con- 
 sists in a mental juxta-position of incongruous ideas with 
 the sensation, but without the sense, of connection. The 
 psychological conditions of the possibility of a Bull, it would 
 not be difficult to determine ; but it would require a larger 
 space than can be afforded in the Omniana, at least more 
 attention, than our readers would be likely to afford. 
 
 There is a sort of spurious bull, which consists wholly in 
 mistake of language, and which the closest thinker may 
 make, if speaking in a language of which he is not master. 
 
 114. Wise Ignobance. 
 
 It is impossible to become either an eminently great, or 
 truly pious man, without the courage to remain ignorant of 
 many things. This important truth is most happily ex- 
 pressed by the elder Scaliger in prose, and by the younger 
 in verse ; the latter extract has an additional claim from 
 the exquisite terseness of its diction, and the purity of its 
 Latinity. We particularly recommend its perusal to the 
 commentators on the Apocalypse. 
 
 Quare ulterior disquisitio morosi atque satagentis anirnis est ■ 
 
 -T^Ex" P i e 29 <BParS ^ qU<Bdam "*" anim ° neScire veUe ' 
 
WISE IGNORANCE— ROUGE 339 
 
 Ne curiosus qucere causaa omnium, 
 Qucecunque libris vis prophetarum indidit, 
 Affiata ccelo, plena veraci Deo ; 
 Nee operta sacri supparo silentii 
 Irrumpere aude ; sed prudenter prceteri ! 
 Nescire velle quce magister optirnus 
 Docere non vult, erudita inscitia est. 
 
 Josep. Scalig. 
 
 116. Gift of Tongues. 
 
 [Coleridge's comment on Southey's paragraph.] 
 
 §§ 116. In no instance is the Love of the Marvellous more 
 strikingly exhibited than in the ordinary interpretations of 
 this plain and simple narration of St. Luke's. On the 
 inrush of the Spirit, the new converts (Jews, from all 
 parts of the Roman Empire, then met at Jerusalem) rushed 
 out of the House, and addressed the crowd, each his own 
 countrymen, and to the scandal of some and surprise of all, 
 in the vernacular dialects, instead of the sacred (Syro- 
 chaldaic) Language, — just as if a man should pray aloud in 
 a Catholic Church in any other than Latin Prayers. The 
 Apostles sate still the while. At length, observing the 
 workings in the minds of the auditors, the 12 rose at once, 
 and Peter as the Foreman, made the address recorded, 
 and expressly tells them, that the miracle, they had wit- 
 nessed, was a fulfilment of Joel's Prophecy, viz. that Laymen 
 should preach in the Spirit in the Common Tongue. — C. MS. 
 
 117. RotTGE. 
 
 Triumphant generals in Rome wore rouge. The ladies " 
 of France, we presume, and their fair sisters and imitators 
 in Britain, conceive themselves always in the chair of triumph, 
 and of course entitled to the same distinction. The custom 
 originated, perhaps, in the humility of the conquerors, that 
 they might seem to blush continually at their own praises. 
 Mr. Gilpin frequently speaks of a ' picturesque eye : ' with 
 something less of solecism we may affirm, that our fair 
 ever-blushing triumphants have secured to themselves the 
 charm of picturesque cheeks, every face being its own 
 portrait. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 OMNIANA 
 
 118. "EIIEA nTEPOENTA, i.e. Hasty Words. 
 
 I crave mercy (at least of my contemporaries : for if the 
 Omniana should outlive the present generation, the opinion 
 will not need it), but I could not help writing in the blank 
 page of a very celebrated work x the following passage from 
 Picus Mirandola in Epist. ad Hermol. Barb. 
 
 Movent mihi stomaohum Grammatistae quidam, qui cum duas 
 tenuerint vocabulorum origines, ita se ostentant, ita venditant, 
 ita circumferunt jactabundi ut prse ipsis pro nihilo habendos 
 Philosophos arbitrentur. 
 
 119. Motives and Impulses. 
 
 It is a matter of infinite difficulty, but fortunately of 
 comparative indifference, to determine what a man's 
 ■motive may have been for this or that particular action. 
 Rather seek to learn what his objects in general are. 
 What does he habitually wish ? habitually pursue ? and 
 thence deduce his impulses, which are commonly the true 
 efficient causes of men's conduct ; and without which the 
 motive itself would not have become a motive. Let a 
 haunch of venison represent the motive, and the keen 
 appetite of health and exercise the impulse : then place the 
 same or some more favourite dish, before the same man, 
 sick, dyspeptic, and stomach- worn, and we may then weigh 
 the comparative influences of motives and impulses. With- 
 out the perception of this truth, it is impossible to under- 
 stand the character of Iago, who is represented as now 
 assigning one, and then another, and again a third, motive 
 for his conduct, all alike the mere fictions of his own rest- 
 less nature, distempered by a keen sense of his intellectual 
 superiority, and haunted by the love of exerting power, on 
 those especially who are his superiors in practical and 
 moral excellence. Yet how many among our modern critics 
 have attributed to the profound author this, the appropriate 
 inconsistency of the character itself ! 
 
 A second illustration. — Did Curio, the quondam patriot, 
 reformer, and semi-revolutionist, abjure his opinions, and 
 
 1 Diversions of Purley. — H. N. C. 
 
MOTIVES AND IMPULSES 341 
 
 yell the foremost in the hunt of persecution against his old 
 friends and fellow-philosophists, with a cold clear pre- 
 determination, formed at one moment, of making £5,000 
 a-year by his apostasy ? — I neither know nor care. Pro- 
 bably not. But this I know, that to be thought a man of 
 consequence by his contemporaries, to be admitted into the 
 society of his superiors in artificial rank, to excite the 
 admiration of lords, to live in splendour and sensual 
 luxury, have been the objects of his habitual wishes. 
 A flash of lightning has turned at once the polarity of 
 the compass needle : and so, perhaps, now and then, but 
 as rarely, a violent motive may revolutionize a man's 
 opinions and professions. But more frequently his honesty 
 dies away imperceptibly from evening into twilight, and 
 from twilight to utter darkness. — He turns hypocrite so 
 gradually, and by such tiny atoms of motion, that by the 
 time he has arrived at a given point, he forgets his own 
 hypocrisy in the imperceptible degrees of his conversion. 
 The difference between such a man and a bolder bar, is 
 merely that between the hour-hand, and that which tells 
 the seconds, on a watch. Of the former you can see only 
 the motion ; of the latter both the past motion and the 
 present moving. Yet there is, perhaps, more hope of the 
 latter rogue : for he has lied to mankind only and not to 
 himself — the former lies to his own heart, as well as to the 
 public. 
 
 120. Inwabd Blindness. 
 
 Talk to a blind man — he knows he wants the sense of 
 sight, and willingly makes the proper allowances. But 
 there are certain internal senses, which a man may want, 
 and yet be wholly ignorant that he wants them. It is most 
 unpleasant to converse with such persons on subjects of 
 taste, philosophy, or religion. Of course, there is no 
 reasoning with them : for they do not possess the facts, 
 on which the reasoning must be grounded. Nothing is 
 possible, but a naked dissent, which implies a sort of 
 unsocial contempt; or, what a man of kind dispositions 
 is very likely to fall into, a heartless tacit acquiescence, 
 which borders too nearly on duplicity. 
 
342 OMNIANA 
 
 121. The Vices of Slaves no excuse tor Slavery. 
 
 It often happens, that the slave himself has neither the 
 power nor the wish to be free. He is then brutified ; but this 
 apathy is the dire effect of slavery, and so far from being a 
 justifying cause, that it contains the grounds of its bitterest 
 condemnation. The Carolingian race bred up the Mero- 
 vingi as beasts ; and then assigned their unworthiness as 
 the satisfactory reason for their dethronement. Alas ! the 
 human being is more easily weaned from the habit of com- 
 manding than from that of abject obedience. The slave 
 loses his soul when he loses his master : even as the dog 
 that has lost himself in the street, howls and whines till he 
 has found the house again, where he had been kicked and 
 cudgelled, and half -starved to boot. As we however or 
 our ancestors must have inoculated our fellow-creatures 
 with this wasting disease of the soul, it becomes our duty to 
 cure him ; and though we cannot immediately make him 
 free, yet we can, and ought to, put him in the way of be- 
 coming so at some future time, if not in his own person 
 yet in that of his children. The French are not capable 
 of freedom. Grant this ! but does this fact justify the 
 ungrateful traitor, whose every measure has been to make 
 them still more incapable of it ? 
 
 122. Circulation of the Blood. 
 
 The ancients attributed to the blood the same motion of 
 ascent and descent which really takes place in the sap of 
 trees. Servetus discovered the minor circulation from the 
 heart to the lungs. Do not the following passages of 
 Giordano Bruno (published, 1591) seem to imply more ? 
 We put the question, pauperis forma, with unfeigned 
 diffidence. 
 
 De Immenso et Innumerabili, lib. vi. cap. 8. 
 
 Ut in nostra corpora sanguis per totum circumcursat et recursat, 
 sic in toto mundo, astro, tenure. 
 
 Quare non aliter quam nostro in corpora sanguis 
 Hinc meat, hinc remeat, neque ad inferiora fluit vi 
 Majore, ad supera a pedibus quam deinde recedat — 
 
CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD 343 
 
 and still more plainly, in the ninth chapter of the same 
 book, 
 
 Quid esset 
 Quodam ni gyro Naturae cunota redirent 
 Ortus ad proprios rursum ; si sorbeat omnes 
 Pontus aquas, totum non restituatque perenni 
 Ordine ; qua possit rerum consistere vita ? 
 Tanquam si totus concurrat sanguis in unam, 
 In qua consistat, partem, nee prima revisat 
 Ordia, et antiquos cursus non inde resumat. 
 
 It is affirmed in the ' Supplement to the Scotch Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica,' that Des Cartes was the first who, in 
 defiance of Aristotle and the Schools, attributed infinity to 
 the universe. The very title of Bruno's poem proves, that 
 this honour belongs to him. 
 
 Feyjoo lays claim to a knowledge of the circulation [of 
 the blood] for Francisco de la Reyna, a farrier, who pub- 
 lished a work upon his own art at Burgos, in 1564. The 
 passage which he quotes is perfectly clear. For manera, 
 que la sangre anda en torno, y en rueda por todos los miem- 
 bros, excluye toda duda. Whether Reyna himself claimed 
 any discovery, Feyjoo does not mention ; — but these 
 words seem to refer to some preceding demonstration of 
 the fact. I am inclined to think that this, like many other 
 things, was known before it was discovered ; just as the 
 preventive powers of the vaccine disease, the existence of 
 Adipocire in graves, and certain principles in grammar and 
 in population, upon which bulky books have been written, 
 and great reputations raised in our days. 
 
 123. Peritub^; Pabcbee Charts. 
 
 What scholar but must at times have a feeling of 
 splenetic regret, when he looks at the list of novels, in two, 
 three, or four volumes each, published monthly by Messrs. 
 Lane, &c, and then reflects, that there are valuable works 
 of Cudworth, prepared by himself for the press, yet still 
 unpublished by the University which possesses them, and 
 which ought to glory in the name of their great author ! 
 and that there is extant in MSS. a folio volume of 
 imprinted sermons by Jeremy Taylor. Surely, surely, the 
 
344 OMNIANA 
 
 patronage of the gentlemen of the Literary Fund might be 
 employed more beneficially to the literature and to the 
 actual literati of the country, if they would publish the 
 valuable manuscripts that lurk in our different public 
 libraries, and make it worth the while of men of learning 
 
 to correct and annotate the copies, instead of , but we 
 
 are treading on hot embers ! 
 
 124. To Have and to Be. 
 
 The distinction is marked in a beautiful sentiment of a 
 German poet : Hast thou any thing ? Share it with me 
 and I will pay thee the worth of it. Art thou any thing ? 
 O then let us exchange souls ! 
 
 The following is offered as a mere playful illustration : 
 
 ' Women have no souls,' says prophet Mahomet. 
 
 Nay, dearest Anna ! why so grave ? 
 
 I said, you had no soul, 'tis true : 
 
 For what you are, you cannot have — 
 
 'Tis I, that have one, since I first had you. 
 
 125. Party Passion. 
 
 ' Well, Sir ! ' exclaimed a lady, the vehement and impas- 
 sionate partisan of Mr. Wilkes, in the day of his glory, and 
 during the broad blaze of his patriotism, — ' Well, Sir ! and 
 will you dare deny, that Mr. Wilkes is a great man, and an 
 eloquent man ? ' ' Oh ! by no means, Madam ! I have 
 not a doubt respecting Mr. Wilkes's talents.' ' Well, but, 
 Sir ! is he not a fine man, too, and a handsome man ? ' 
 — ' Why, Madam ! he squints— doesn't he ? ' ' Squints ? 
 yes, to be sure he does, Sir ! but not a bit more, than a 
 gentleman and a man of sense ought to squint ! ! ' 
 
 126. Goodness of Heart Indispensable to a 
 Man of Genius. 
 
 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 a great poet without being first 
 a good man. — Ben Jonson's Dedication to Volpone. 
 
GOODNESS OF HEART 345 
 
 Ben Jonson has borrowed this just and noble sentiment 
 from Strabo, lib. I. 
 
 Oux oi&v ayaObv -yevecr&u Troirjrriv, /xrj Trporepov yevrjOevra 
 avSpa ayaOov. 
 
 127. Milton and Ben Jonson. 
 
 Those who have more faith in parallelism than myself, 
 may trace Satan's address to the sun in Paradise Lost to 
 the first lines of Ben Jonson's Poetaster : — 
 
 Light ! I salute thee, but with wounded nerves, 
 Wishing thy golden splendour pitchy darkness ! 
 
 But even if Milton had the above in his mind, his own 
 verses would be more fitly entitled an apotheosis of 
 Jonson's lines than an imitation. 
 
 128. Statistics. 
 
 We all remember Burke's curious assertion that there 
 were 80,000 incorrigible jacobins in England. Mr. Colqu- 
 houn is equally precise in the number of beggars, prosti- 
 tutes, and thieves in the city of ' London. Mercetinus, 
 who wrote under Lewis XV, seems to have afforded the 
 precedent ; he assures his readers, that by an accurate 
 calculation there were '50,000 incorrigible Atheists in the 
 city of Paris ! ! ' Atheism then may have been a co-cause 
 of the French revolution ; but it should not be burthened 
 on it, as its monster -child. 
 
 129. Magnanimity. 
 
 The following ode was written by Giordano Bruno, 
 under prospect of that martyrdom which he soon after 
 suffered at Rome, for atheism : i. e. as is proved by all 
 his works, for a lofty and enlightened piety, which was of 
 course unintelligible to bigots, and dangerous to an apos- 
 tate hierarchy. If the human mind be, as it assuredly is, 
 the sublimest object, which nature affords to our contem- 
 plation, these lines which portray the human mind under 
 
346 OMNIANA 
 
 the action of its most elevated affections, have a fair claim 
 to the praise of sublimity. The work, from which they are 
 extracted, is exceedingly rare, (as are, indeed, all the works 
 of the Nolan Philosopher,) and I have never seen them 
 quoted. 
 
 Dsedaleas vacuis plumas nectere humeris 
 Concupiant alii ; aut vi suspendi nubium 
 Alis, ventorumve appetant remigium ; 
 Aut orbit* flammantis raptari alveo ; 
 Bellerophontisve alitem. 
 
 Nos vero illo donati sumus genio, 
 Ut fatum intrepidi objectasque umbras cernimus, 
 Ne cseoi ad lumen sous, ad perspicuas 
 Natures voces surdi, ad Divum nmnera 
 Ingrato adsimus pectore. 
 
 Non curamus stultorum quid opinio 
 De nobis ferat, aut queis dignetur sedibus. 
 Alis asoendimus sursum melioribus ! 
 Quid nubes ultra, ventorum ultra est semita, 
 Vidimus, quantum satis est. 
 
 Illuc conscendent plurimi, nobis duoibus, 
 Per scalam proprio erectam et firmam in pectore, 
 Quam Deus, et vegeti sors dabit ingeni, 
 Non manes, pluma, ignis, ventus, nubes, spiritus, 
 Divinantum phantasmata ! 
 
 Non sensus vegetans, non me Ratio arguet 
 Non indoles exculti clara Ingenii; 
 Sed perfidi Sycophant* supercilium 
 Absque Lance, Statera, Trutina, Oculo, 
 Miraculum armati segete. 
 
 Versificantis Grammatistse encomium, 
 Buglossse Grsecissantum, et Epistolia 
 Lectorem libri salutantum a limine, 
 Latrantum adversum Zoilos, Momos, Mastiges, 
 Hinc absint Testimonia ! 
 
 Procedat nudus, quern non ornant Nubilse, 
 Sol ! Non conveniunt Quadrupedum phalerae 
 Humano dorso ! Porro Veri Species 
 Qusesita, inventa, et patefacta me efferat ! 
 
 Etsi nullus intelligat, 
 Si cum Natura sapio, et sub Numine, 
 
 Id vere plus quam satis est. 
 
MAGNANIMITY 347 
 
 The conclusion alludes to a charge of impenetrable 
 obscurity, in which Bruno shares one and the same fate 
 with Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and in truth with every great dis- 
 coverer and benefactor of the human race ; excepting only 
 when the discoveries have been capable of being rendered 
 palpable to the outward senses, and have therefore come 
 under the cognizance of our ' sober judicious critics,' the 
 men of 'sound common sense;' i.e. of those snails in 
 intellect, who wear their eyes at the tips of their feelers, 
 and cannot even see unless they at the same time touch. — 
 When these finger-philosophers affirm that PJato, Bruno, 
 &c. must have been ' out of their senses,' the just and 
 proper retort is : ' Gentlemen ! it is still worse with you, 
 you have lost your reason.' 
 
 By the by, Addison in the Spectator has grossly misre- 
 presented the design and tendency of Bruno's Bestia 
 Triomphante ; the object of which was to show of all the 
 theologies and theogonies, which have been conceived for 
 the mere purpose of solving problems in the material 
 universe, that as they originate in the fancy, so they all end 
 in delusion, and act to the hindrance or prevention of 
 sound knowledge and actual discovery. But the principal 
 and more important truth taught in this allegory, is, that 
 in the concerns of morality, all pretended knowledge of the 
 will of heaven, which is not revealed to man through his 
 conscience ; that all commands, which do not consist in the 
 unconditional obedience of the will to the pure reason, with- 
 out tampering with consequences (which are in God's power, 
 not in ours) ; in short, that all motives of hope and fear 
 from invisible powers, which are not immediately derived 
 from, and absolutely coincident with, the reverence due to 
 the supreme reason of the universe, are all alike dangerous 
 superstitions. The worship founded on them, whether 
 offered by the Catholic to St. Francis, or by the poor 
 African to his Fetish, differ in form only, not in substance. 
 Herein Bruno speaks not only as a philosopher but as an 
 enlightened Christian ; — the Evangelists and Apostles 
 every where representing their moral precepts, not as 
 doctrines then first revealed, but as truths implanted in 
 the hearts of men, which their vices only could have 
 obscured. 
 
348 OMNIANA 
 
 135. Early English Metre. 
 [Southey's article with Coleridge's comment.] 
 A remarkable rhyme occurs in the metrical Romance 
 of Octouian Imperator. 
 
 Whan they were seght alle yn same, 
 And Florence herde Florentyne's name, 
 Sche swore her oth be Seynt Jame 
 
 Al so prest, 
 So hyght my sone that was take fra me 
 
 In that forest. 
 
 Mr. Weber observes upon the passage, that ' this sin- 
 gular rhyme strongly supports the opinion of Wallis and 
 of Tyrwhitt in his Essay on the versification of Chaucer, that 
 the final e which is at present mute, was anciently pro- 
 nounced obscurely like the e feminine of the French.' 
 
 Mr. Weber is so faithful and accurate an editor, that 
 I doubt not the words fra me are divided as he has printed 
 them in the manuscript which he has followed ; but I find 
 among my memoranda made in perusing Gower, some 
 years ago, some passages marked which lead to a contrary 
 inference. In Berthelette's edition, 1554, this couplet occurs. 
 
 For loue is euer fast byme 
 
 Which taketh none hede of due tyme. — Jf. 81. 
 
 And again, 
 
 So that the more me mervaileth 
 
 What thyng it is my lady aileth, 
 
 That all myn herte, and all my tyme 
 
 She hath, and do no better byme. — ff. 108. 
 
 In both places the words by me are thus contracted 
 into one. This must have been because they were pro- 
 nounced so in the printer's days ; — whether they were so 
 in the poet's might be determined by a manuscript, if there 
 be any existing of his own age. The first stanza of Troilus 
 and Creseide contains another instance of contraction. 
 
 The double sorow of Troilus to tellen 
 That was King Priamus sonne of Troy. 
 In loving how his aventuris fellen 
 From wo to wele, and after out of joy, 
 My purpose is, er that I part froy. — R. S. 
 
EARLY ENGLISH METRE 349 
 
 The last couplet with the ' froy ' from Chaucer is very 
 strong, and I think decisive : but the first line of the first 
 couplet seems too catalectic and unmetrical even for 
 Gower, on supposition of ' byme ' being a monosyllable 
 
 V — w 
 
 unless it can be shewn from other passages that Gower 
 meant it to be read, For Love is ever fast byme 
 i_/ — >_> — o — — — 
 
 or that we ought to read ' evermore ' for ' ever '. — C. MS. 
 
 153. Aqua Vit^e. 
 
 One Theoricus . . . wrote a proper treatise of Aqua Vitse, says 
 Stanihurst, wherein he praiseth it unto the ninth degree. ' He 
 . . .', &c— R. S. 
 
 Even this is not so hearty, so heart-felt an eulogy on 
 Aqua vitse, the Brannte (= Brandy) wein, as I met with 
 painted on a Board in a Public House on the skirts of the 
 Harz in Germany. 1 
 
 Des Morgans ist das Branntwein gut, 
 
 Desgleichen zum Mittage : 
 
 Und wer am Abend ein Sehliickgen thut, 
 
 Der ist frei von aller Plage : 
 
 Auch kann es gar kein Schade seyn 
 
 Zum Mitternacht, das Brannte Wein ! 
 
 i. e. ' Of a morning is the Brandy- wine good, and the like 
 at noon-day ; and he who takes a sip at evening-tide is free 
 from all care. Likewise it can sure be no harm at midnight, 
 the Brandy-wine.' — C. MS. 
 
 155. Negkoes and Narcissuses. 
 
 There are certain tribes of Negroes who take for the Deity 
 of the day the first thing they see or meet with in the 
 morning. Many of our fine ladies, and some of our very 
 fine gentlemen, are followers of the same sect ; though by 
 aid of the looking-glass they secure a constancy as to the 
 object of their devotion. 
 
 1 Coleridge is responsible for the bad German. 
 
350 OMNIANA 
 
 156. An Anecdote. 
 
 We here in England received a very high character of 
 
 L or( j E during his stay abroad. 'Not unlikely, Sir,' 
 
 replied the traveller, ' a dead dog at a distance is said to 
 smell like musk.' 
 
 157. The Pharos at Alexandbia. 
 
 Certain full and highly-wrought dissuasives from sen- 
 sual indulgences, in the works of theologians as well as of 
 satirists and story-writers, may, not unaptly, remind one 
 of the Pharos ; the many lights of which appeared at a 
 distance as one, and this as a polar star, so as more often 
 to occasion wrecks than prevent them. 
 
 At the base of the Pharos the name of the reigning 
 monarch was engraved, on a composition, which the artist 
 well knew would last no longer than the king's life. Under 
 this, and cut deep in the marble itself, was his own name 
 and dedication : ' Sostratos of Gyndos, son of Dexiteles, to 
 the Gods, Protectors of Sailors ! ' — So will it be with the 
 Georgium Sidus, the Perdinandia, &c. &c. — Flattery's 
 Plaister of Paris will crumble away, and under it we shall 
 read the names of Herschel, Piazzi, and their compeers. 
 
 158. Sense and Common Sense. 
 
 I have noticed two main evils in philosophizing. The 
 first is the absurdity of demanding proof for the very facts 
 which constitute the nature of him who demands it — a 
 proof for those primary and unceasing revelations of self- 
 consciousness, which every possible proof must pre-sup- 
 pose ; reasoning, for instance, pro and con, concerning the 
 existence of the power of reasoning. Other truths may be 
 ascertained ; but these are certainty itself, (all at least 
 which we mean by the word) and are the measure of every 
 thing else which we deem certain. The second evil is, that 
 of mistaking for such facts mere general prejudices, and 
 those opinions that, having been habitually taken for 
 granted, are dignified with the name of Common Sense. 
 
SENSE AND COMMON SENSE— TOLERATION 351 
 
 Of these, the first is the more injurious to the reputation, 
 the latter more detrimental to the progress of philosophy. 
 In the affairs of common life we very properly appeal to 
 common sense ; but it is absurd to reject the results of the 
 microscope from the negative testimony of the naked eye. 
 Knives are sufficient for the table and the market ; — but for 
 the purposes of science we must dissect with the lancet. 
 
 As an instance of the latter evil, take that truly powerful 
 and active intellect, Sir Thomas Browne, who, though he 
 had written a large volume in detection of vulgar errors, 
 yet peremptorily pronounces the motion of the earth round 
 the sun, and consequently the whole of the Copernican 
 system, unworthy of any serious confutation, as being 
 manifestly repugnant to Common Sense ; which said Com- 
 mon Sense, like a miller's scales used to weigh gold or gases, 
 may, and often does, become very gross, though unfor- 
 tunately not very uncommon, nonsense. And as for the 
 former (which may be called Logica Prcepostera), I have 
 read, in metaphysical essays of no small fame, arguments 
 drawn ab extra in proof and disproof of personal identity, 
 which, ingenious as they may be, were clearly anticipated 
 by the little old woman's appeal to her little dog for the 
 solution of the very same doubts, occasioned by her petti- 
 coats having been cut round about. 
 
 If I be not I, 1 he'll bark and he'll rail ; 
 But if I be I, he'll wag his little tail. 
 
 159. TOLfiEATION. 
 
 I dare confess that Mr. Locke's treatise on Toleration 
 appeared to me far from being a full and satisfactory 
 answer to the subtle and oft-times plausible arguments of 
 Bellarmin, and other Romanists. On the whole, I was more 
 pleased with the celebrated W. Penn's tracts on the same 
 subject. The following extract from his excellent letter 
 to the King of Poland appeals to the heart rather than to 
 the head, to the Christian rather than to the Philosopher ; 
 and besides, overlooks the ostensible object of religious 
 penalties, which is not so much to convert the heretic, as 
 to prevent the spread of heresy. The thoughts, however, 
 
 1 Coleridge's MS. alteration. ISIS and 1S36 read ' If it ia not me ' 
 
352 OMNIANA 
 
 are so just in themselves, and expressed with so much life 
 and simplicity, that it well deserves a place in the Omniana. 
 
 Now, O Prince ! give a poor Christian leave to expostulate with 
 thee. Did Christ Jesus or his holy followers, endeavour, by precept 
 or example, to set up their religion with a carnal sword ? Called 
 he any troops of men or angels to defend him ? Did he encourage 
 Peter to dispute his right with the sword ? But did he not say, 
 Put it up 1 Or did he countenance his over-zealous disciples, when 
 they would have had fire from heaven, to destroy those that were 
 not of their mind ? No ! But did not Christ rebuke them, saying, 
 Ye know not what spirit ye are of ? And if it was neither Christ's 
 spirit nor their own spirit that would have fire from heaven — Oh ! 
 what is that Spirit that would kindle fire on earth, to destroy such 
 as peaceably dissent upon the account of conscience ! 
 
 O King ! when did the true Religion persecute ? When did 
 the true church offer violence for religion ? Were not her weapons 
 prayers, tears, and patience ? Did not Jesus conquer by these 
 weapons, and vanquish cruelty by suffering ? Can clubs, and 
 staves, and swords, and prisons, and banishments, reach the soul, 
 convert the heart, or convince the understanding of man ! When 
 did violence ever make a true convert, or bodily punishment a sin- 
 cere Christian ? This maketh void the end of Christ's coming. 
 Yea, it robbeth God's spirit of its office, which is to convince the 
 world. That is the sword by which the ancient Christians overcame. 
 
 The Theory of Persecution seems to rest on the following 
 assumptions : I. A duty implies a right. We have a right 
 to do whatever it is our duty to do. II. It is the duty, and 
 consequently the right, of the supreme power in a state, 
 to promote the greatest possible sum of well-being in that 
 state. III. This is impossible without morality. IV. But 
 morality can neither be produced or preserved in a people 
 at large without true religion. V. Relative to the duties of 
 the legislature or governors, that is the true religion which 
 they conscientiously believe to be so. VI. As there can be 
 but one true religion, at the same time, this one it is their 
 duty and right to authorize and protect. VII. But the 
 established religion cannot be protected and secured except 
 by the imposition of restraints or the influence of penalties 
 on those, who profess and propagate hostility to it. VIII. 
 True religion, consisting of precepts, counsels, command- 
 ments, doctrines, and historical narratives, cannot be 
 effectually proved or defended, but by a comprehensive 
 
TOLERATION— NEW SPECIES OP HISTORY 353 
 
 view of the whole, as a system. Now this cannot be hoped 
 for from the mass of mankind. But it may be attacked, 
 and the faith of ignorant men subverted, by particular 
 objections, by the statement of difficulties without any 
 counter-statement of the greater difficulties which would 
 result from the rejection of the former, and by all the other 
 stratagems used in the desultory warfare of sectaries and 
 infidels. This is, however, manifestly dishonest and dan- 
 gerous ; and there must exist therefore a power in the state 
 to prevent, suppress, and punish it. IX. The advocates 
 of toleration have never been able to agree among them- 
 selves concerning the limits to their own claims ; have 
 never established any clear rules, what shall and what shall 
 • not be admitted under the name of religion and conscience. 
 Treason and the grossest indecencies not only may be, but 
 have been, called by these names : as among the earlier 
 Anabaptists. X. And last, it is a petitio principii, or begging 
 the question, to take for granted that a state has no power 
 except in case of overt acts. It is its duty to prevent a 
 present evil, as much at least as to punish the perpetrators 
 of it. Besides, preaching and publishing are overt acts. 
 Nor has it yet been proved, though often asserted, that 
 a Christian sovereign has nothing to do with the eternal * 
 happiness or misery of the fellow creatures entrusted to 
 his charge. 
 
 160. Hint fob a new Species oe 1 History. 
 
 The very knowledge of the opinions and customs of so consider- 
 able a part of mankind as the Jews now are, and especially have 
 been heretofore, is valuable both for pleasure and use. It is a very 
 good piece of history, and that of the best kind, viz. of Human 
 Nature, and of that part of it which is most different from us, and 
 commonly the least known to us. And indeed, the principal 
 advantage which is to be made by the wiser sort of men of most 
 writings, is rather to see what men think and are, than to be 
 informed of the natures and truth of things ; to observe what 
 thoughts and passions have occupied men's minds, what opinions 
 and manners they are of. In this view it becomes of no mean 
 importance to notice and record the strangest ignorance, the most 
 putid fables, impertinent trifling, ridiculous disputes, and more 
 
 1 Coleridge's MS. correction adopted in 1836, 1812 reads ' external '. 
 
 TABLE TALK A 3u 
 
354 OMNIANA 
 
 ridiculous pugnacity in the defence and retention of the subjects 
 disputed. — Publisher's preface to the reader. Lightfoot's Works, vol. i. 
 
 In the thick volume of title pages and chapters of con- 
 tents (composed) of large and small works correspondent 
 to each (proposed), hy a certain omni-pregnant, nihili-par- 
 turient genius of the editor's acquaintance, not the least 
 promising is ' A History of the Morals and (as connected 
 therewith) of the Manners of the English Nation from the 
 Conquest to the present Time '. From the chapter of con- 
 tents it appears, that my friend is a steady believer in the 
 uninterrupted progression of his fellow-countrymen ; that 
 there has been a constant growth of wealth and well-being 
 among us, and with these an increase of knowledge ; and 
 with increasing knowledge an increase and diffusion of 
 practical goodness. The degrees of acceleration, indeed, 
 nave been different at different periods. The moral being 
 has sometimes crawled, sometimes strolled, sometimes 
 walked, sometimes run ; but it has at all times been moving 
 onward. If in any one point it has gone backward, it has 
 been only in order to leap forward in some other. The work 
 was to commence with a Numeration Table, or Catalogue 
 raisonne, of those virtues or qualities, which make a man 
 hapj>y in himself, and which conduce to the happiness of 
 those about him, in a greater or lesser sphere of agency. 
 The degree and the frequency, in which each of these 
 virtues manifested themselves, in the successive reigns from 
 William the Conqueror inclusive, were to be illustrated by 
 apposite quotations, from the works of contemporary 
 writers, not only of historians and chroniclers, but of the 
 poets, romance-writers, and theologians, not omitting the 
 correspondence between literary men, the laws and regula- 
 tions civil and ecclesiastical, and whatever records the 
 industry of antiquarians has brought to light in their pro- 
 vincial, municipal and monastic histories — tall tomes and 
 huge ! undegenerate sons of Anac, which look down from a 
 dizzy height on the dwarfish progeny of contemporary wit, 
 and can find no associates in size at a less distance than two 
 centuries ; and in arranging which the puzzled librarian must 
 commit an anachronism in order to avoid an anatopism. 
 
 Such of these illustrations as most amused or impressed 
 me, when I heard them (for alas ! even his very title pages 
 
HINT FOR A NEW SPECIES OF HISTORY 355 
 
 and contents my friend composes only in air) I shall pro- 
 bably attempt to preserve in different parts of the Om- 
 niana. At present I shall cite one article only which 
 I found watered on a blank leaf of his memorandum book, 
 superscribed : ' Flattering News for Anno Domini 2000, 
 wherever it shall institute a comparison between itself 
 and the 17th and 18th centuries.' It consists of an 
 extract, say rather, an exsection, from the Kingston 
 Mercantile Advertiser, from Saturday, August the 15th, 
 to Tuesday, August 18, 1801. This paper, which contained 
 at least twenty more advertisements of the very same kind, 
 was found by accident among the wrapping papers in the 
 trunk of an Officer just returned from the West India 
 station. They stand here exactly as in the original, from 
 which they are reprinted. 
 
 Kingston, July 30, 1801. 
 Ran away, about three weeks ago, from a penn near Halfway 
 Tree, a negro Wench, named Nancy, of the Chamba country, strong 
 made, an ulcer on her left leg, marked D C diamond between. 
 She is supposed to be harboured by her husband Dublin, who has 
 the direction of a wherry working between this town and Port Royal, 
 and is the property of Mr. Fishley, of that place ; the said negro 
 man having concealed a boy in his wherry before. Half a joe will 
 be paid to any person apprehending the above described wench, 
 and delivering to Mr. Archibald M'Lea, East-end ; and if found 
 secreted by any person the law will be put in force. 
 
 Kingston, August 13, 1801. 
 Strayed on Monday evening last, a Neggro Boy of the Moco 
 country, named Joe, the property of Mr. Thos. Williams, planter, 
 in St. John's, who had sent him to town under the charge of a Negro 
 Man, with a cart for provisions ; the said Boy is perhaps from 15 
 to 18 years of age, about twelve months in the country, no mark, 
 speaks little English but can tell his owner's name ; had on a long 
 oznaburgh frock. It is supposed he might have gone out to vend 
 some pears and lemon-grass and have lost himself in the street. 
 One Pistole will be paid to any person apprehending and bringing 
 him to this Office. 
 
 Kingston, July 1, 1801. 
 Forty Shillings Reward. 
 Strayed on Friday evening last, (and was seen going up West 
 Street the following morning), a small bay 
 
 HORSE, 
 
 a a 2 
 
356 OMNIANA 
 
 the left ear lapped, flat rump, much scored from the saddle on his 
 back, and marked on the near side F M with a diamond between. 
 Whoever will take up the said horse, and deliver him to W. Balantine, 
 butcher, back of West Street, will receive the above reward. 
 
 Kingston, July 4, 1801. 
 Strayed on Sunday morning last, from the subscriber's house, 
 in East-street, a bright dun He-MuLE, the mane lately cropped, 
 a large chafe slightly skinned over on the near buttock, and other- 
 wise chafed from the action of the harness in his recent breaking. 
 Half a joe will be paid to any person taking up and bringing the 
 said Mule to the subscriber's house, or to the Store in Harbour- 
 street. JOHN WALSH. 
 
 Kingston, July 2, 1801, 
 
 TEN POUNDS REWARD, 
 
 RAN AWAY 
 
 About two years ago, from the subscriber, a Negro Woman, 
 named 
 
 DORAH, 
 
 purchased from Alexander M'Kean, Esq. She is about 20 years 
 of age, and 5 feet 6 or 7 inches high ; has a mark on one of her 
 shoulders, about the size of a quarter dollar, occasioned, she says, 
 by the yaws ; of a coal black complexion, very artful, and most 
 probably passes about the country with false papers and under 
 another name ; if that is not the case, it must be presumed she 
 is harboured about Green Pond, where she has a mother and other 
 connexions. 
 
 What a History ! Horses and Negroes ! Negroes and 
 Horses ! It makes me tremble at my own Nature ! — 
 Surely, every religious and conscientious Briton is equally 
 a debtor in gratitude to Thomas Clarkson, and his fellow 
 labourers, with every African : for on the soul of every 
 individual among us did a portion of guilt rest, as long as 
 the slave trade remained legal. 
 
 A few years back the public was satiated with accounts 
 of the happy condition of the slaves in our colonies, and 
 the great encouragements and facilities afforded to such 
 of them, as by industry and foresight laboured to better 
 their situation. With what truth this is stated as the 
 general tone of feeling among our planters, and their 
 agents, may be conjectured from the following sentences, 
 
NEW SPECIES OF HISTORY— SENSIBILITY 357 
 
 which made part of (what in England we call) the leading 
 paragraph of the same newspaper. 
 
 Strange as it may appear, we are assured as a fact, that a number 
 of slaves in this town have purchased lots of land, and are abso- 
 lutely in possession of the fee simple of lands and tenements; 
 Neither is it uncommon for the men slaves to purchase and manu- 
 mize their wives, and vice versa, the wives their husbands. To 
 account for this, we need only look to the depredations daily com- 
 mitted, and the impositions practised to the distress of the com- 
 munity and ruin of the fair trader. Negro yards too, under such 
 direction, will necessarily prove the asylum of run-aways from the 
 
 country 
 
 171. Sensibility. 
 
 In an obscure and short-lived periodical publication 1 , 
 which has long since been used off as ' winding sheets for 
 herrings and pilchards,' I met with one paragraph, which 
 deserves preservation, as connected with public evils in 
 general, as well as more, particularly with a subject noticed 
 in the former volume. 2 
 
 There is observable among the many, a false and bastard sensi- 
 bility, prompting to remove those evils and those alone, which 
 disturb their enjoyments by being present to their senses. Other 
 miseries, though equally certain and far more terrible, they not 
 only do not endeavour to remedy ; they support them, they fatten 
 on them. Provided the dunghill be not before their parlour- window, 
 they are well content to know that it exists, and that it is the 
 hot-bed of their luxuries. 
 
 To this grievous failing we must attribute the frequency of war, 
 and the long continuance of the slave-trade. The merchant found 
 no argument against it in his ledger ; the citizen at the crowded 
 feast was not nauseated by the filth of the slave vessel ; the fine 
 lady's nerves were not shattered by the shrieks. She could sip 
 a beverage sweetened with the product of human blood, and worse 
 than that, of human guilt, and weep the while over the refined 
 sorrows of Werter or of Clementina. But sensibility is not 
 benevolence. Nay, by making us tremblingly alive to trifling 
 misfortunes, it frequently precludes it, and induces effeminate and 
 cowardly selfishness. Our own sorrows, like the princes of Hell in 
 
 1 The Watchman No. IV, March 25, 1796 (altered). 
 
 2 i. e. Omniana, 1812, vol. i. The reference is to the article ' Hint 
 for a new Species of History ', p. 353 of the present edition. 
 
358 OMNIANA 
 
 Milton's Pandsemonium, sit enthroned ' bulky and vast ' : while 
 the miseries of our fellow-creatures dwindle into pigmy forms, and 
 are crowded, an innumerable multitude ! into some dark corner 
 of the heart. There is one criterion, by which we may always dis- 
 tinguish benevolence from mere sensibility. Benevolence impels 
 to action, and is accompanied by self-denial. 
 
 172. Text Spabbbstg. 
 
 When I hear (as who now can travel twenty miles in 
 a stage coach without the probability of hearing !) an ignor- 
 ant religionist quote an unconnected sentence of half a 
 dozen words from any part of the Old or New Testament, 
 and resting on the literal sense of these words the eternal 
 misery of all who reject, nay, even of all those countless 
 myriads who have never had the opportunity of accepting, 
 this, and sundry other articles of faith conjured up by the 
 same textual magic ; I ask myself, what idea these persons 
 form of the Bible, that they should use it in a way which 
 they themselves use no other book in ? They deem the 
 whole written by inspiration. Well ! but is the very 
 essence of rational discourse, i. e. connection and depen- 
 dency, done away, because the discourse is infallibly 
 rational ? The mysteries, which these spiritual Lynxes 
 detect in the simplest texts, remind me of the 500 non- 
 descripts, each as large as his own black cat, which Dr. 
 Katterfelto, by aid of his solar microscope, discovered in 
 a drop of transparent water. 
 
 But to a contemporary, who has not thrown his lot in 
 the same helmet with them, these fanatics think it a crime 
 to listen. Let them then, or far rather, let those who are 
 in danger of infection from them, attend to the golden 
 aphorisms of the old and orthodox divines. ' Sentences in 
 scripture (says Dr. Donne) like hairs in horsetails, concur 
 in one root of beauty and strength ; but being plucked out, 
 one by one, serve only for springes and snares' 
 
 The second I transcribe from the preface to Lightfoot's 
 works. ' Inspired writings are an inestimable treasure to 
 mankind, for so many sentences, so many truths. But 
 then the true sense of them must be known : otherwise, so 
 many sentences, so many authorized falsehoods.' 
 
TEXT SPARRING— PELAGIANISM 359 
 
 173. Pelagianism. 
 
 Our modern latitudinarians will find it difficult to sup- 
 pose, that any thing could have been said in the defence of 
 Pelagianism equally absurd with the facts and arguments 
 which have been adduced in favour of original sin (taking 
 sin as guilt ; i. e. observes a Socinian wit, the crime of 
 being born). But in the comment of Rabbi Akibah on 
 Ecclesiastes xii. 1, we have a story of a mother, who must 
 have been a most determined believer in the uninheri- 
 tability of sin. For having a sickly and deformed child, 
 and resolved that it should not be thought to have been 
 punished for any fault of its parents or ancestors, and yet 
 having nothing else to blame the child for, she seriously 
 and earnestly accused it before the Judge of having kicked 
 her unmercifully during her pregnancy ! 
 
 I am firmly persuaded, that no doctrine was ever widely 
 diffused, among various nations through successive ages, 
 and under different religions, (such as is the doctrine of 
 original sin, and redemption, those fundamental articles of 
 every known religion professing to be revealed) which is 
 not founded either in the nature of things or in the neces- 
 sities of our nature. In the language of the schools, it 
 carries with it presumptive evidence, that it is either objec- 
 tively or subjectively true. And the more strange and 
 contradictory such a doctrine may appear to the under- 
 standing, or discursive faculty, the stronger is the pre- 
 sumption in its favour : for whatever satirists may say, 
 and sciolists imagine, the human mind has no predilection 
 for absurdity. I do not however mean, that such a doc- 
 trine shall be always the best possible representation of the 
 truth, on which it is founded, for the same body casts 
 strangely different shadows in different places and different 
 degrees of light ; but that it always does shadow out some 
 such truth and derives its influence over our faith from 
 our obscure perception of that truth. Yea, even where the 
 person himself attributes his belief of it to the miracles, 
 with which it was announced by the founder of his religion. 
 
360 OMNIANA 
 
 174. The Soul and its Oegans of Sense. 
 
 It is a strong presumptive proof against materialism, that 
 there does not exist a language on earth, from the rudest 
 to the most refined, in which a materialist can talk for five 
 minutes together, without involving some contradiction in 
 terms to his own system. Objection. Will not this apply 
 equally to the astronomer ? Newton, no doubt, talked of 
 the sun's rising and setting, just like other men. What 
 should we think of the coxcomb, who should have objected 
 to him, that he contradicted his own system ? Answer. — 
 No ! it does not apply equally ; say rather, it is utterly 
 inapplicable to the astronomer and natural philosopher. 
 For his philosophic, and his ordinary language speak of 
 two quite different things, both of which are equally true. 
 In his ordinary language, he refers to a fact of appearance, 
 to a phenomenon common and necessary to all persons in 
 a given situation : in his scientific language he determines 
 that one position, figure, &c. which being supposed, the 
 appearance in question would be the necessary result, and 
 all appearances in all situations may be demonstrably fore- 
 told. Let a body be suspended in the air, and strongly 
 illuminated. What figure is here ? A triangle. But what 
 here ? A trapezium, — and so on. The same question put 
 to twenty men, in twenty different positions and distances, 
 would receive twenty different answers : and each would 
 be a true answer. But what is that one figure which 
 being so placed, all these facts of appearance must result, 
 according to the law of perspective ? — Aye ! this is a 
 different question, — this is a new subject. The words, 
 which answer this, would be absurd, if used in reply to 
 the former. 1 
 
 Thus, the language of the scriptures on natural objects is 
 as strictly philosophical as that of the Newtonian system. 
 Perhaps, more so. For it is not only equally true, but it is 
 universal among mankind, and unchangeable. It describes 
 facts of appearance. And what other language would have 
 been consistent with the divine wisdom ? The inspired 
 writers must have borrowed their terminology, either from 
 
 1 See Church and State, Appendix, p. 231. — H. N. C. 
 
THE SOUL AND ITS ORGANS OP SENSE 361 
 
 the crude and mistaken philosophy of their own times, and 
 so have sanctified and perpetuated falsehood, unintelligible 
 meantime to all but one in ten thousand ; or they must 
 have anticipated the terminology of the true system, with- 
 out any revelation of the system itself, and so have become 
 unintelligible to all men ; or lastly, they must have re- 
 vealed the system itself, and thus have left nothing for 
 the exercise, development, or reward of the human under- 
 standing, instead of teaching that moral knowledge, and 
 enforcing those social and civic virtues, out of which the 
 arts and sciences will spring up in due time, and of their 
 own accord. But nothing of this applies to the materialist ; 
 he refers to the very same facts, which the common lan- 
 guage of mankind speaks of : and these too are facts, that 
 have their sole and entire being in our own consciousness ; 
 facts, as to which esse and conscire are identical. Now, 
 whatever is common to all languages, in all climates, at all 
 times, and in all stages of civilization, must be the Expo- 
 nent and Consequent of the common consciousness of man, 
 as man. Whatever contradicts this universal language, 
 therefore, contradicts the universal consciousness, and the 
 facts in question subsisting exclusively in consciousness, 
 whatever contradicts the consciousness, contradicts the 
 fact. Q. E. D. 
 
 I have been seduced into a dry discussion, where I had 
 intended only a few amusing facts in proof, that the mind 
 makes the sense, far more than the senses make the mind. 
 If I have life and health, and leisure, I purpose to compile 
 from the works, memoirs, transactions, &c, of the different 
 philosophical societies in Europe, from magazines, and the 
 rich store of medical and psychological publications fur- 
 nished by the English, French, and German press, all the 
 essays and cases, that relate to the human faculties under 
 unusual circumstances (for pathology is the crucible of 
 physiology) ; excluding such only as are not intelligible 
 without the symbols or terminology of science. These 
 I would arrange under the different senses and powers : 
 as the eye, the ear, the touch, &c. ; the imitative power, 
 voluntary and automatic : the imagination, or shaping and 
 modifying power ; the fancy, or the aggregative and 
 associative power ; the understanding, or the regulative, 
 
362 OMNIANA 
 
 substantiating, and realizing power ; the speculative 
 reason, — vis theoretica ei scientifica, or the power by which 
 we produce, or aim to produce, unity, necessity, and uni- 
 versality in all our knowledge by means of principles 
 a priori 1 ; the will, or practical reason ; the faculty of 
 choice (Germanice, Willkuhr), and (distinct both from the 
 moral will, and the choice) the sensation of volition, which 
 I have found reason to include under the head of single 
 and double touch. Thence I propose to make a new 
 arrangement of madness, whether as defect, or as excess, 
 of any of these senses or faculties ; and thus by appro- 
 priate cases to show the difference between, I. a man, 
 having lost his reason, but not his senses or understand- 
 ing — that is, he sees things as other men see them ; he 
 adapts means to ends, as other men would adapt them, 
 and not seldom, with more sagacity ; but his final end 
 is altogether irrational. II. His having lost his wits, 
 i. e. his understanding or judicial power ; but not his 
 reason or the use of his senses. Such was Don Quixote ; 
 and, therefore, we love and reverence him, while we despise 
 Hudibras. III. His being out of his senses, as is the ease 
 of an hypochondrist, to whom his limbs appear to be of 
 glass. Granting that, all his conduct is both rational (or 
 moral) and prudent ; IV. or the case may be a combina- 
 tion of all three, though I doubt the existence of such 
 a case ; or of any two of them ; V. or lastly, it may be 
 merely such an excess of sensation, as overpowers and 
 suspends all ; which is frenzy or raving madness. 
 
 A diseased state of an organ of sense, or of the inner 
 organs connected with it, will perpetually tamper with the 
 understanding, and unless there be an energetic and watch- 
 ful counteraction of the judgement (of which I have known 
 more than one instance, in which the comparing and reflect- 
 
 1 This phrase, a priori, is, in common, most grossly misunderstood, 
 and an absurdity burthened on it which it does not deserve ! By know- 
 ledge a priori, we do not mean that we can know any thing previously 
 to experience, which would be a contradiction in terms ; but having 
 once known it by occasion of experience) i. e. something acting upon 
 us from without) we then know that it must have pre-existed, or the 
 experience itself would have been impossible. By experience only I 
 know, that I have eyes ; but then my reason oonvinces me, that I must 
 have had eyes in order to the experience. 
 
THE SOUL AND ITS ORGANS OF SENSE 363 
 
 ing judgement has obstinately, though painfully, rejected 
 the full testimony of the senses) will finally overpower it. 
 But when the organ is obliterated, or totally suspended, 
 then the mind applies some other organ to a double use. 
 Passing through Temple Sowerby, in Westmoreland, some 
 ten years back, I was shown a man perfectly blind, and 
 blind from his infancy ; Fowell was his name. This man's 
 chief amusement was fishing on the wild and uneven banks 
 of the River Eden, and up the different streams and tarns 
 among the mountains. He had an intimate friend, like- 
 wise stone blind, a dexterous card-player, who knows 
 every gate and stile far and near throughout the country. 
 These two often coursed together, and the people, here 
 as every where, fond of the marvellous, affirm that they 
 were the best beaters up of game in the whole country. 
 The every way amiable and estimable John Gough of 
 Kendal is not only an excellent mathematician ; but an 
 infallible botanist and zoologist. He has frequently at 
 the first feel corrected the mistakes of the most experi- 
 enced sportsman with regard to the birds or vermin which 
 they had killed, when it chanced to be a variety or rare 
 species, so completely resembling the common one that 
 it required great steadiness of observation to detect the 
 difference, even after it had been pointed out. As to 
 plants and flowers, the rapidity of his touch appears fully 
 equal to that of sight ; and the accuracy greater. Good 
 heavens ! it needs only to look at him ! — Why, his face 
 sees all over ! It is all one eye ! I almost envied him : for 
 the purity and excellence of his own nature, never broken 
 in upon by those evil looks (or features, which are looks 
 become fixtures) with which low cunning, habitual cupidity, 
 presumptuous sciolism, and heart-hardening vanity, cale- 
 donianize the human face, — it is the mere stamp, the 
 undisturbed ectypon of his own soul ! Add to this, that he 
 is a Quaker, with all the blest negatives, without any of the 
 silly and factious positives, of that sect, which with all its 
 bogs and hollows is still the prime sunshine spot of Chris- 
 tendom in the eye of the true philosopher. When I was 
 in Germany, in the year 1798, I read at Hanover, and 
 met with two respectable persons, one a clergyman, the 
 other a physician, who confirmed to me, the account of the 
 
364 OMNIANA 
 
 upper-stall master at Hanover, written by himself, and 
 countersigned by all his medical attendants. As far as I 
 recollect, he had fallen from his horse on his head, and in 
 consequence of the blow lost both his sight and hearing for 
 nearly three years, and continued for the greater part of 
 this period in a state of nervous fever. His understanding, 
 however, remained unimpaired and unaffected ; and his 
 entire consciousness, as to outward impressions, being con- 
 fined to the sense of touch, he at length became capable 
 of reading any book (if printed, as most German books are, 
 on coarse paper) with his fingers, in much the same manner 
 in which the pianoforte is played, and latterly with an 
 almost incredible rapidity. Likewise by placing his hand, 
 with the fingers all extended, at a small distance from 
 the lips of any person that spoke slowly, and distinctly 
 to him, he learned to recognize each letter by its different 
 effects on his nerves, and thus spelt the words as they were 
 uttered : and then returned the requisite answers, either 
 by signs of finger-language to those of his own family, or 
 to strangers by writing. It was particularly noticed both 
 by himself from his sensations, and by his medical atten- 
 dants from observation, that the letter R, if pronounced 
 full and strong, and recurring once or more in the same 
 word, produced a small spasm, or twitch in his hand and 
 fingers. At the end of three years he recovered both his 
 health and senses, and with the necessity soon lost the 
 power, which he had thus acquired. 
 
 N.B.— The editor scarcely need observe, that the preced- 
 ing article is taken from his friend's ' volume of title pages ', 
 &c, scattered in his memorandum books. 
 
 175. Sir George Etherege, &c. 
 
 Often and often had I read Gay's Beggar's Opera, and 
 always delighted with its poignant wit and original satire, 
 and if not without noticing its immorality, yet without 
 any offence from it. Some years ago, I for the first time 
 saw it represented in one of the London Theatres ; and such 
 were the horror and disgust with which it impressed me 
 so grossly did it outrage all the best feelings of my nature 
 
SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE, ETC. 365 
 
 that even the angelic voice and perfect science of Mrs. 
 Billington lost half its charms, or rather increased my aver- 
 sion to the piece by an additional sense of incongruity. 
 Then I learned the immense difference between reading 
 and seeing a play, — no wonder, indeed. Eor who has not 
 passed over with his eye a hundred passages without 
 offence, which he yet could not have even read aloud, or 
 have heard so read by another person, without an inward 
 struggle ? In mere passive silent reading the thoughts 
 remain mere thoughts, and these too not our own, — phan- 
 toms with no attribute of place, no sense of appropriation, 
 that flit over the consciousness as shadows over the grass 
 or young corn in an April day. But even the sound of our 
 own or another's voice takes them out of that lifeless, 
 twilight realm of idea, which is the confine, the intermun- 
 dium, as it were, of existence and non-existence. Merely 
 that the thoughts have become audible, by blending with 
 them a sense of outness gives them a sort of reality. What 
 then, when by every contrivance of scenery, appropriate 
 dresses, accordant and auxiliary looks and gestures, and 
 the variety of persons on the stage, realities are employed 
 to carry the imitation of reality as near as possible to per- 
 fect delusion ? If a manly modesty shrinks from uttering 
 an indecent phrase before a wife or sister in a private 
 room, what must be the effect when a repetition of such 
 treasons (for all gross and libidinous allusions are empha- 
 tically treasons against the very foundations of human 
 society, against all its endearing charities, and all the 
 mother virtues) is hazarded before a mixed multitude in a 
 public theatre ? When every innocent female must blush 
 at once with pain at the thoughts she rejects, and with 
 indignant shame at those, which the foul hearts of others 
 may attribute to her ! 
 
 Thus too with regard to the comedies of Wycherly, Van- 
 burgh, and Etherege, I used to please myself with the flatter- 
 ing comparison of the manners universal at present among 
 all classes above the lowest with those of our ancestors even 
 of the highest ranks. But if for a moment I think of those 
 comedies, as having been acted, I lose all sense of com- 
 parison in the shame, that human nature could at any time 
 have endured such outrages to its dignity ; and if conjugal 
 
366 OMNIANA 
 
 affection and the sweet name of sister were too weak, that 
 yet filial piety, the gratitude for a mother's holy love, should 
 not have risen and hissed into infamy these traitors to 
 their own natural gifts, who lampooned the noblest passions 
 of humanity in order to pander for its lowest appetites. 
 
 As far, however, as one bad thing can be palliated by 
 comparison with a worse, this may be said, in extenuation 
 of these writers ; that the mischief, which they can do 
 even on the stage, is trifling compared with that style of 
 writing which began in the pest-house of French litera- 
 ture, and has of late been imported by the Littles of the 
 age, which consists in a perpetual tampering with the 
 morals without offending the decencies. And yet the ad- 
 mirers of these publications, nay, the authors themselves, 
 have the assurance to complain of Shakespeare (for I will not 
 refer to one yet far deeper blasphemy) — Shakespeare, whose 
 most objectionable passages are but grossnesses against 
 lust, and these written in a gross age ; while three-fourths 
 of their whole works are delicacies for its support and sus- 
 tenance. Lastly, that I may leave the reader in better 
 humour with the name at the head of this article, I shall 
 quote one scene from Etherege's Love in a Tub, which for 
 exquisite, genuine, original humour, is worth all the rest 
 of his plays, though two or three of his witty contempo- 
 raries were thrown in among them, as a make-weight. 
 The scene might be entitled, ' the different ways in which 
 the very same story may be told, without any variation in 
 matter of fact ' : for the least attentive reader will perceive 
 the perfect identity of the Footboy's account with the 
 Frenchman's own statement in contradiction of it. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 Scene, Sir Frederick's Lodging. 
 
 Enter Dxrroy and Clabk. 
 
 Clark. I wonder Sir Frederick stays out so late. 
 Duf. Dis is noting ; six, seven o'olock in the morning is ver good 
 hour. 
 
 Clark. I hope he does not use these hours often. 
 Duf. Some six, seven time a veek ; no oftiner. 
 Clark. My Lord commanded me to wait his coming. 
 
SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE, ETC. 367 
 
 Duf. Matre Clark, to divertise you, I vill tell you, how I did get 
 be acquainted vid dis Bedlam Matre. About two, tree year ago 
 me had for my convenience discharge myself from attending [Enter 
 a Foot-boy] as Matre D'ostel to a person of condition in Parie ; it 
 hapen after de dispatch of my little affaire — 
 
 Foot-b. That is, after h'ad spent his money, Sir. 
 
 Duf. Jan foutre de laoque ; me vil have vip and de belle vor 
 your breeck, rogue. 
 
 Foot-b. Sir, in a word, he was a Jack-pudding to a mountebank, 
 and turned off for want of wit : my master picked him up before 
 a puppet-show, mumbling a half-penny custard, to send him with 
 a letter to the post. 
 
 Duf. Morbleu, see, see de insolence of de foot boy English, bogre, 
 rascale, you lie, begar I vill cutte your troate. [Exit Foot-boy. 
 
 Clark. He's a rogue ; on with your story, Monsieur. 
 
 Duf. Matre dark, I am your ver humble serviteur ; but begar 
 me have no patience to be abuse. As I did say, after de dispatche 
 of my affair!, van day being idele, vich does produce de mellan- 
 chollique, I did valke over de new bridge in Parie, and to devertise 
 de time, and my more serious toughte, me did look to see de mar- 
 rionete, and de jack-pudding, vich did play hundred pretty tricke, 
 time de collation vas come ; and vor I had no company, I was 
 unvilling to go to de Cabarete, but did buy a darriole, littel custarde 
 vich did satisfie my appetite ver vel : in dis time young Monsieur 
 de Grandvil (a jentelman of ver great quality, van dat vas my ver 
 good friend6, and has done me ver great and insignal faveure) come 
 by in his caroche vid dis Sir Frolick, who did pention at the same 
 academy, to learn de language, de bon mine, de great horse, and 
 many oder tricke : Monsieur seeing me did make de bowe and did 
 beken me come to him : he did telle me dat de Englis jentelman 
 had de letre vor de poste, and did entreate me (if I had de oppor- 
 tunity) to see de. letre deliver : he did telle me too, it void be ver 
 great obligation : de memory of de favour I had received from his 
 famelye, beside de inclination I naturally have to serve de strangere, 
 made me returne de complemen vid ver great civility, and so I did 
 take de letre and see it delivere. Sir Frollick perceiving (by de 
 management of dis affaire) dat I vas man d'esprit, and of vitte, 
 did entreate me to be his serviteur ; me did take d' affection to his 
 persone, and was contents to live vid him, to counsel and advise 
 him. You see now de lie of de bougre de lacque Englishe, morbleu. 
 
 175 1 . Evidence. 
 
 When I was at Malta, there happened a drunken squabble 
 on the road between Valette and St. Antonio, between a 
 1 So numbered in 1812, where it is omitted in the list of contents. 
 
368 OMNIANA 
 
 party of soldiers, and another of sailors. They were brought 
 before me on the next morning, and the great effect, which 
 their intoxication had produced on their memory, and the 
 little or no effect on their courage in giving evidence, may 
 be seen by the following specimen. The soldiers swore 
 that the sailors were the first aggressors, and had assaulted 
 them with the following words—' D— n your eyes ! &c. who 
 stops the line of march there ? ' The sailors with equal 
 vehemence and unanimity averred, that the soldiers were 
 the first aggressors, and had burst in on them, calling out 
 ' Heave to, you lubbers ! or we'll run you down.' 
 
 176. Force of Habit. 
 
 An Emir had bought a left eye of a glass eye-maker, 
 supposing that he would be able to see with it. The man 
 begged him to give it a little time ; he could not expect 
 that it would see all at once as well as the right eye, which 
 had been for so many years in the habit of it. 
 
 177. Phxenix. 
 
 The Phoenix lives a thousand years, ' a secular bird of 
 ages : ' and there is never more than one at a time in the 
 world. Yet Plutarch very gravely informs us, that the 
 brain of the phcenix is a pleasant bit, but apt to occasion 
 the head-ache. By the by, there are few styles that are not 
 fit for something. I have often wished to see Claudian's 
 splendid Poem on the Phcenix translated into English verse 
 in the elaborate rhyme and gorgeous diction of Darwin. 
 Indeed, Claudian throughout would translate better than 
 any of the ancients. 
 
 178. Memory and Recollection. 
 
 Beasts and babies remember, i. e. recognize : man 
 alone recollects. This distinction was made by Aristotle. 
 
 179. Aliquid ex Nihilo. 
 
 In answer to the Nihil e nihilo of the atheists, and their 
 near relations, the Anima-mundi men, a humourist pointed 
 
ALIQUID EX NIHILO— BEARDS 369 
 
 to a white blank in a rude wood-cut, which very ingeniously 
 served for the head of hair in one of the figures. 
 
 184. Beer and Ale. 
 
 [Sonthey's article with Coleridge's oomment.] 
 
 Hops and turkies, carp and beer, 
 Came into England all in a year. 
 
 A different reading of this old distich adds reformation 
 to the list of imports, and thereby fixes the date to 
 Henry VIII's time. 
 
 What was the difference between the beer then introduced 
 into this country, and the ale of our ancestors ? There 
 is a passage quoted by Walter Harris, in the Antiquities 
 of Ireland, from the Norman poet, Henry of Araunches, in 
 which the said Henry speaks with notable indecorum of 
 this nectar of Valhalla. 
 
 Nescio quod Stygice monstrum conforme paludi 
 Cervisiam plerique vocant ; nil spissius ilia 
 Dum bibitur, nil clarius est dum mingitur, unde 
 Constat quod multas faeces in ventre relinquit. — R. S. 
 
 I remember a similar German Epigram on the Goslar Ale, 
 which may be englished thus : — 
 
 This. Goslar Ale is stout and staunch ; 
 But sure 'tis brew'd by Witches ! 
 Scarce do you feel it warm in paunch, 
 Odsblood ! 'tis in your Breeches ! — S. T. C. 
 
 191. Beabds. 
 
 'There is a female Saint, whom the Jesuit Sautel, in his Annus 
 Sacer Poeticus, has celebrated for her beard, — a mark of divine 
 favour bestowed upon her for her prayers.' — R. S. 
 
 Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixere ! What, can nothing 
 be one's own ? This is the more vexatious, for at the age 
 of 18 I lost a [legacy of £50] * for the following Epigram 
 
 1 Two or three words in Coleridge's handwriting were cut away here 
 by the binder, but the emendation suggested above is almost certainly 
 correct. 
 
 TABLE TALK B b 
 
370 OMNIANA 
 
 on my godmother's beard, which she had the barbarity to 
 revenge by striking me out of her will — 
 
 So great the charms of Mrs. Munday, 
 
 That men grew rude a kiss to gain : 
 This so provok'd the Dame that one day 
 
 [To Wisdom's Power] did she complain. 
 
 Nor vainly she address' d her prayer, 
 
 Nor vainly to that Power applied : 
 The Goddess bade a length of Hair 
 
 In deep recess heT muzzle hide. 
 
 Still persevere ! to Love be callous ! 
 
 For I have your petition heard : 
 To snatch a kiss were vain (cried Pallas), 
 
 Unless you first should shave your beard.' — S. T. C. 
 
 195. AMPmBiOTrs Fish. 
 
 [Southey's quotation with Coleridge's comment.] 
 
 Among the number of odd things in New Holland, the 
 amphibious fish is not the least remarkable. ' We found 
 (says Captain Cook) a small fish of a singular kind ; it is 
 about the size of a minnow, and had two verj- strong 
 breast-fins ; we found it in places that were quite dry, 
 where we supposed it might have been left by the tide, 
 but it did not seem to have become languid by the want 
 of water ; for upon our approach it leaped away, by the 
 help of the breast-fins, as nimble as a frog ; neither indeed 
 did it seem to prefer water to land ; for when we found it in 
 the water, it frequently leaped out and pursued its way 
 upon dry ground ; we also observed that when it was in 
 places where small stones were standing upon the surface 
 of the water at a little distance from each other, it chose 
 rather to leap from stone to stone, than to pass through 
 the water, and we saw several of them pass entirely over 
 puddles in this manner till they came to dry ground and 
 then leap away.' 
 
 Cook's first Voyage, B. 3. Ch. 2. 
 
 Qy. The Tadpole of the Rana paradoxa ? — C. MS. 
 
 [Southey with Coleridge's comment.] 
 
 I have been assured that small fish have been found in 
 India, after a shower, upon the roof of a house. The thing 
 
AMPHIBIOUS FISH— FRENCH-ENGLISH 371 
 
 was affirmed so positively that it could not be disbelieved 
 without rejecting the direct testimony of one whose veracity 
 there was every reason for believing,* it certainly appears 
 impossible, nevertheless it ought to be mentioned in justice 
 to Captain Percival's opinion [that ' the spawn is by some 
 unknown process carried up with the rain into the sky and 
 then let down with it upon the earth in a condition imme- 
 diately to become alive ']. — R. S. 
 
 * The fact is, I believe, out of doubt. The showers may 
 possibly have originated in Land or Lake water-spouts by 
 electrical Sussorption — and the Fish or the already impreg- 
 nated Sperm have [remainder is cut away]. — C. MS. 
 
 205. Brevity oe the Greek and English compared. 
 
 As an instance of compression and brevity in narration, 
 unattainable in any language but the Greek, the following 
 distich was quoted : 
 
 Xpv&ov avf/p fvpav, ?Xnre fipSxov' airap 6 ^pvcrbv, 
 bv \lnev, oiie eipiiv, '/^f, on fvpt, fjpoxov. 
 
 This was denied by one of the company, who instantly ren- 
 dered the lines in English, contending with reason that the 
 indefinite article in English, together with the pronoun 
 ' his,' &c. should be considered as one word with the noun 
 following, and more than counterbalanced by the greater 
 number of syllables in the Greek words, the terminations 
 of which are in truth only little words glued on to them. 
 The English distich follows, and the reader will recollect 
 that it is a mere trial of comparative brevity, wit and 
 poetry quite out of the question. 
 
 Jack finding gold left a rope on the ground ; 
 
 Bill missing his gold used the rope, which he found. 
 
 207. French-English. 
 
 [Southey's article with Coleridge's comment.] 
 
 It is curious to observe how the English Catholicks of 
 the 17th century wrote English like men who habitually 
 spoke French. Corps is sometimes used for the living body, 
 
 b b2 
 
372 OMNIANA 
 
 . . . and when they attempt to versify, their rhymes are 
 only rhymes according to a French pronunciation.* 
 
 This path most fair I walking winde 
 
 By shadow of my pilgrimage, 
 Wherein at every step I find 
 An heavenly draught and image 
 Of my frail mortality, 
 Tending to eternity. 
 
 The tree that bringeth nothing else 
 But leaves and breathing verdure 
 • Is fit for fire, and not for fruit 
 
 And doth great wrong to Nature. — R. S. 
 
 * I doubt [it] 1 . It seems mor[e] likely that ' B[y] shadow 
 of [' is] isochronous [?] an amphibr[ach] w - w, two [of] 
 the Breves, [?] being equ[al] to one Lon[g,] and that [the] 
 remainde[r of] the Line is a Ditrochceus, - w - w, grim[age] 
 rhyming to Image — and vsrdiire an asson[ant] to Nature. 
 
 211. Valentine Gretrapes. 
 
 [Southey'a quotation from Henry More, with Coleridge's comment.] 
 
 ' This I can speak by experience of myself, especially 
 when I was young, that every night, when going to bed 
 I unbuttoned my doublet, my breast would emit a sweet 
 aromatick smell, and every year after about the end of 
 winter, or approaching of the spring, I had usxially sweet 
 herbous scents in my nostrils, no external object appearing 
 from whence they came.' 
 
 Qy. Had hot the philosophic Divine been eating Aspara- 
 gus ?— C. MS. 
 
 212. Henry More's Song oe the Sotjl. 
 
 There is * perhaps no other poem in existence, which has so little 
 that is good in it, if it has anything good. — R. S. 
 
 *27 Dec. 1819. Mr. (J. H.) Frere, of all men eminently 
 </>iAoKaA.os, of the most exquisite Taste, observed this very 
 day to me how very very grossly Southey had wronged this 
 
 1 This MS. annotation has been mutilated by the binder ; conjectural 
 emendations are given in square brackets. 
 
MORE'S SONG OF THE SOUL— GLOW-BEAST 373 
 
 Poem. I cannot understand in what mood S. could have 
 been : it is so unlike him. — C. MS. 
 
 He soon begins * to imitate John Bunyan in his nomenclature, — 
 but oh ! what an imitation of that old King of the Tinkers ! — R. S. 
 
 * False, cruelly false ! Again and again I puzzle myself 
 to guess in what most unsoutheyian mood Southey could 
 have been when he thought and wrote the above. S.T.C. — 
 And the phrase old king of the Tinkers ! applied to the 
 Author of the inimitable Pilgrim's Progress, that model 
 of beautiful, pure, and harmonious English, no less than 
 of still higher merits, outrages my moral Taste. — C. MS. 
 
 The following extract is the best specimen that can be given of 
 the strain of feeling, which Henry More could express in no better 
 language than an inharmonious imitation of Spenser's, barbarized 
 by the extremes of carelessness the most licentious, and erudition 
 the most pedantic. — R. S. 
 
 After so very sharp a censure, of the justice of which 
 the following extract is to be the proof, who would have 
 expected a series of stanzas for the greater part at least so 
 chaste in language, and easy in versification ? Southey 
 must have wearied himself out with the Poem, till the mist 
 from its swamps and stagnants had spread over its green 
 and flowery Plots and Bowers. — C. MS. 
 
 219. The Stigmata. 
 In intolerant and barbarous bigotry, indeed, the writer is only 
 surpassed by the Eclectic reviewer, who affirms that 'thousands 
 of unhappy spirits and thousands yet to increase their number, will 
 everlastingly look back with unutterable anguish on the nights 
 and days on which Shakespeare * ministered to then- guilty 
 delights.'— R. S. 
 
 * Churlish Priest ! 
 
 A blessed Angel shall my sweet Shakespeare be, 
 When thou lyest howling !— Hamlet. C. MS. 
 
 242. Glow-Beast. 
 [Southey's quotation with Coleridge's comment.] 
 ' The Valley of Calchaquina, running 30 leagues in length 
 from N. to S., is but of a small breadth, and almost enclosed 
 
374 OMNIANA 
 
 on both sides by high ridges of mountains, that make 
 the borders of Peru and Chili. It is reported that in the 
 night there is a sort of creature seen here which casts 
 a mighty light from its head, and many are of opinion 
 that light is caused by a carbuncle ; but as yet this 
 creature could never be taken or killed, because it suddenly 
 baffles all the designs of men, leaving them in the dark, 
 by clouding that light.' 1 
 
 Qy. A large Lanthorn-fly that had settled by accident 
 on the forehead of a wild ox ? — C. MS. 
 
 1809-16. 
 
 [Added in 1836.] 
 
 The Will and the Deed. 
 
 The will to the deed, — the inward principle to the outward 
 act, — is as the kernel to the shell"; but yet, in the first place, 
 the shell is necessary for the kernel, and that by which it 
 is commonly known ; — and, in the next place, as the shell 
 comes first,. and the kernel grows gradually and hardens 
 within it, so is it with the moral principle in man. Legality 
 precedes morality in every individual, even as the Jewish 
 dispensation preceded the Christian in the education of the 
 world at large. 
 
 The Will for the Deed. 
 
 When may the will be taken for the deed ? — Then when 
 the will is the obedience of the whole man ; — when the will 
 is in fact the deed, that is, all the deed in our power. In 
 every other case, it is bending the bow without shooting 
 the arrow. The bird of Paradise gleams on the lofty 
 branch, and the man takes aim, and draws the tough yew 
 into a crescent with might and main, — and lo ! there is 
 never an arrow on the string. 
 
 1 History of Paraguay, &c, by F. Nicholas del Techo. 
 
TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD 375 
 
 Sincerity. 
 
 The first great requisite is absolute sincerity. Falsehood 
 and disguise are miseries and misery-makers, under what- 
 ever strength of sympathy, or desire to prolong happy 
 thoughts in others for their sake or your own only as sym- 
 pathizing with theirs, it may originate. All sympathy, not 
 consistent with acknowledged virtue, is but disguised 
 selfishness. 
 
 Truth and Falsehood. 
 
 The pre-eminence of truth over falsehood, even when 
 occasioned by that truth, is as a gentle fountain breathing 
 from forth its air -let into the snow piled over and around 
 it, which it turns into its own substance, and flows with 
 greater murmur ; and though it be again arrested, still it 
 is but for a time ; — it awaits only the change of the wind, 
 to awake and roll onwards its ever increasing stream : 
 
 I semplici pastor i 
 Sul Vesolo nevoso, 
 Fatti curvi e canuti, 
 
 D' alto stupor son muti, 
 Mirando al fonte ombroso 
 
 II Po con poohi umori ; 
 Posoia udendo gP onori 
 Dell' urna angusta e stretta, 
 Che'l Adda, che '1 Tesino 
 Soverchia il suo cammino, 
 Che ampio al mar s' affiretta, 
 Che si spuma, e si suona, 
 
 Che gli si da corona ! 
 
 Chiabrera, Rime, xxviii. 
 
 But falsehood is fire in stubble ;— it likewise turns all the 
 light stuff around it into its own substance for a moment, 
 one crackling blazing moment, — and then dies ; and all its 
 converts are scattered in the wind, without place or evidence 
 of their existence, as viewless as the wind which scatters 
 them. 
 
376 OMNIANA 
 
 i Religious Ceremonies. 
 
 A man may look at glass, or through it, or both. Let all 
 earthly things be unto thee as glass to see heaven through ! 
 Religious ceremonies should be pure glass, not dyed in the 
 gorgeous crimsons and purple blues and greens of the 
 drapery of saints and saintesses. 
 
 Association. 
 
 Many a star, which we behold as single, the astronomer 
 resolves into two, each, perhaps, the centre of a separate 
 system. Oft are the flowers of the bind-weed mistaken for 
 the growth of the plant, which it chokes with its inter- 
 twine. And many are the unsuspected double stars, and 
 frequent are the parasite weeds, which the philosopher 
 detects in the received opinions of men : — so strong is the 
 tendency of the imagination to identify what it has long 
 consociated. Things that have habitually, though, perhaps, 
 accidentally and arbitrarily, been thought of in connection 
 with each other, we are prone to regard as inseparable. 
 The fatal brand is cast into the fire, and therefore Meleager 
 must consume in the flames. To these conjunctions of 
 custom and association — (the associative power of the 
 mind which holds the mid place between memory and 
 sense,) — we may best apply Sir Thomas Browne's remark, 
 that many things coagulate on commixture, the separate 
 natures of which promise no concretion. 
 
 Curiosity. 
 
 The curiosity of an honourable mind willingly rests 
 there, where the love of truth does not urge it farther on- 
 ward, and the love of its neighbour bids it stop ; — in other 
 words, it willingly stops at the point, where the interests of 
 truth do not beckon it onward, and charity cries, Halt ! 
 
 New Truths. 
 
 To all new truths, or renovation of old truths, it must 
 be as in the ark between the destroyed and the about-to-be 
 
NEW TRUTHS— LIE USEFUL TO TRUTH 377 
 
 renovated world. The raven must be sent out before the 
 dove, and ominous controversy must precede peace and the 
 olive-wreath. 
 
 Vicious Pleasures. 
 
 Centries, or wooden frames, are put under the arches of 
 a bridge, to remain no longer than till the latter are con- 
 solidated. Even so pleasures are the devil's scaffolding to 
 build a habit upon ; — that formed and steady, the pleasures 
 are sent for fire-wood, and the hell begins in this life. 
 
 Meriting Heaven. 
 
 Virtue makes us not worthy, but only worthier, of hap- 
 piness. Existence itself gives a claim to joy. Virtue and 
 happiness are incommensurate quantities. How much 
 virtue must I have, before I have paid off the old debt of 
 my happiness in infancy and childhood ! ! We all out- 
 run the constable with heaven's justice ! We have to earn 
 the earth, before we can think of earning heaven. 
 
 Dust to Dust. 1 
 We were indeed, — 
 
 iravTa kovis, kcu wdvra yehas, Ka\ iravra to fir\h(V — 
 
 if we did not feel that we were so. 
 
 Human Countenance. 
 
 There is in every human countenance either a history or 
 a prophecy, which must sadden, or at least soften, every 
 reflecting observer. 
 
 Lie Useful to Truth. 
 
 A lie accidentally useful to the cause of an oppressed 
 truth : Thus was the tongue of a dog made medicinal to 
 a feeble and sickly Lazarus. 
 
 1 [Anth. Pal. ix. 124, Glyconis.] 
 
378 OMNIANA 
 
 Science in Roman Catholic States. 
 
 In Roman Catholic states, where science has forced its 
 way, and some light must follow, the devil himself cun- 
 ningly sets up a shop for common sense at the sign of the 
 Infidel. 
 
 Voluntary Belief. 
 
 ' It is possible,' says Jeremy Taylor, ' for a man to bring 
 himself to believe any thing he hath a mind to.' But 
 what is this belief ? — Analyse it into its constituents ;— is 
 it more than certain passions or feelings converging into 
 the sensation of positiveness as their focus, and then asso- 
 ciated with certain sounds or images 1 — Nemo enim, says 
 Augustine, huic evidentiae contradicet, nisi quern plus de- 
 fensare delectat, quod sentit, quam, quid sentiendum sit, 
 invenire. 
 
 Amanda. 
 
 Lovely and pure, — no bird of Paradise, to feed on dew 
 and flower -fragrance, and never to alight on earth, till shot 
 by death with pointless shaft ; but a rose, to fix its roots in 
 the genial earth, thence to suck up nutriment and bloom 
 strong and healthy, — not to droop and fade amid sunshine 
 and zephyrs on a soilless rock ! Her marriage was no 
 meagre prose comment on the glowing and gorgeous poetry 
 of her wooing ; — nor did the surly over-browing rock of 
 reality ever cast the dusky shadow of this earth on the soft 
 moonlight of her love's first phantasies. 
 
 Hymen's Torch. 
 
 The torch of love may be blown out wholly, but not that 
 of Hymen. Whom the flame and its cheering light and 
 genial warmth no longer bless, him the smoke stifles ; for 
 the spark is inextinguishable, save by death : — 
 
 nigro circumvehtus amictu 
 Maeret Hymen, fumantque atrae sine lumine taedae. 
 
YOUTH AND AGE— INSCRIPTION ON A CLOCK 379 
 
 Youth and Age. 
 
 Youth beholds happiness gleaming in the prospect. Age 
 looks back on the happiness of youth ; and instead of 
 hopes, seeks its enjoyment in the recollections of hope. 
 
 December Morning. 
 
 The giant shadows sleeping amid the wan yellow light 
 of the December morning, looked like wrecks and scattered 
 ruins of the long, long night. 
 
 Archbishop Leighton. 
 
 Next to the inspired Scriptures, — yea, and as the vibra- 
 tion of that once struck hour remaining on the air, stands 
 Leighton's Commentary on the first Epistle of Peter. 
 
 Christian Honesty. 
 
 ' ! that God,' says Carey, in his Journal in Hindos- 
 tan, ' would make the Gospel successful among them ! 
 That would undoubtedly make them honest men, and I 
 fear nothing else ever will.' Now this is a fact, — spite of 
 infidels and psilosophizing Christians, a fact. A perfect 
 explanation of it would require and would show the 
 psychology of faith, — the difference between the whole 
 soul's modifying an action, and an action enforced by 
 modifications of the soul amid prudential motives or 
 favouring impulses. Let me here remind myself of the 
 absolute necessity of having my whole faculties awake and 
 imaginative, in order to illustrate this and similar truths ; — 
 otherwise my writings will be no other than pages of 
 algebra. 
 
 Inscription on a Clock in Cheapside. 
 
 What now thou do'st, or art about to do, 
 Will help to give thee peace, or make thee rue ; 
 When hov'ring o'er the line this hand will tell 
 Th© last dread moment — 'twill be heaven or hell. 
 
380 OMNIANA 
 
 Read for the last two lines — 
 
 When wav'ring o'er the dot this hand shall tell 
 The moment that secures thee heaven or hell ! 
 
 Rationalism is not Reason. 
 
 Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. An awful text ! Now 
 because vengeance is most wisely and lovingly forbidden 
 to us, hence we have by degrees, under false generaliza- 
 tions and puny sensibilities, taken up the notion that 
 vengeance is no where. In short, the abuse of figurative 
 interpretation is endless ; — instead of being applied, as it 
 ought to be, to those things which are the most eompre- 
 sensible, that is, sensuous, and which therefore are the 
 part* likely to be figurative, because such language is a 
 condescension to our weakness, — it is applied to rot away 
 the very pillars, yea, to fret away and dissolve the very 
 corner stones of the temple of religion. O, holy Paul ! 
 O, beloved John ! full of light and love, whose books are 
 full of intuitions, as those of Paul are books of energies, — 
 the one uttering to sympathizing angels what the other toils 
 to convey to weak-sighted yet docile men : O Luther ! 
 Calvin ! Fox, with Penn and Barclay ! Zinzendorf ! 
 and ye too, whose outward garments only have been singed 
 and dishonoured in the heathenish furnace of Roman apos- 
 tasy, Francis of Sales, Fenelon ; — yea, even Aquinas and 
 Scotus ! — With what astoundment would ye, if ye were 
 alive with your merely human perfections, listen to the 
 creed of our, so called, rational religionists ! Rational ! — 
 They, who in the very outset deny all reason, and leave us 
 nothing but degrees to distinguish us from brutes ; — a 
 greater degree of memory, dearly purchased by the greater 
 solicitudes of fear which convert that memory into fore- 
 sight. ! place before your eyes the island of Britain in 
 the reign of Alfred, its unpierced woods, its wide morasses 
 and dreary heaths, its blood-stained and desolated shores, 
 its untaught and scanty population ; behold the monarch 
 listening now to Bede, and now to John Brigena ; and then 
 see the same realm, a mighty empire, full of motion, full 
 of books, where the cotter's son, twelve years old, has read 
 
RATIONALISM IS NOT REASON 381 
 
 more than archbishops of yore, and possesses the opportu- 
 nity of reading more than our Alfred himself ; — and then 
 finally behold this mighty nation, its rulers and its wise 
 
 men listening to Paley and to Malthus ! It is 
 
 mournful, mournful. 
 
 Inconsistency. 
 
 How strange and sad is the laxity with which men in 
 these days suffer the most inconsistent opinions to lie 
 jumbled lazily together in their minds, — holding the anti- 
 moralism of Paley and the hypophysics of Locke, and yet 
 gravely, and with a mock faith, talking of God as a pure 
 spirit, of passing out of time into eternity, of a peace which 
 passes all understanding, of loving our neighbour as our- 
 selves, and God above all, and so forth ! — Blank contra- 
 dictions ! — What are these men's minds but a huge lumber- 
 room of bully, that is, of incompatible notions brought 
 together by a feeling without a sense of connection ? 
 
 Hope in Humanity. 
 
 Consider the state of a rich man perfectly Adam Smithed, 
 yet with a naturally good heart ; — then suppose him sud- 
 denly convinced, vitally convinced, of the truth of the 
 blessed system of hope and confidence in reason and hu- 
 manity ! Contrast his new and old views and reflections, 
 the feelings with which he would begin to receive his rents, 
 and to contemplate his increase of power by wealth, the 
 study to relieve the labour of man from all mere annoy and 
 disgust, the preclusion in his own mind of all cooling down 
 from the experience of individual ingratitude, and his con- 
 viction that the true cause of all his disappointments was, 
 that his plans were too narrow, too short, too selfish ! 
 
 Wenn das Elend viel ist auf der Erde, so beruhet der Grund 
 davon, nach Abzug des theils ertraglichen, theils verbesser- 
 lichen, theils eingebildeten Uebels der Naturwelt, ganz allein in 
 den moralischen Handlungen der Menschen. 1 my God ! 
 
 1 Although the misery on the earth is great indeed, yet the foundation 
 of it rests, after deduction of the partly bearable, partly removable, 
 and partly imaginary, evil of the natural world, entirely and alone on 
 the moral dealings of men. — H. N. C. 
 
382 OMNIANA 
 
 What a great, inspiriting, heroic thought ! Were only a 
 hundred men to combine even my clearness of conviction 
 of this, with a Clarkson and Bell's perseverance, what 
 might not be done ! How awful a duty does not hope 
 become ! What a nurse, yea, mother of all other the fairest 
 virtues ! We despair of others' goodness, and thence are 
 ourselves bad. ! let me live to show the errors of the 
 most of those who have hitherto attempted this Work, — 
 how they have too often put the intellectual and the moral, 
 yea, the moral and the religious, faculties at strife with 
 each other, and how they ought to act with an equal eye to 
 all, to feel that all is involved in the perfection of each ! 
 This is the fundamental position. 
 
 Self-love in Religion. 
 
 The unselfishness of self-love in the hopes and fears of 
 religion consists ; — first, — in the previous necessity of a 
 moral energy, in order so far to subjugate the sensual, 
 which is indeed and properly the selfish, part of our nature, 
 as to believe in a state after death, on the grounds of the 
 Christian religion : — secondly, — in the abstract and, as it 
 were, unindividual nature of the idea, self, or soul, when 
 conceived apart from our present living body and the 
 world of the senses. In my religious meditations of hope 
 and fear, the reflection that this course of action will pur- 
 chase heaven for me, for my soul, involves a thought of 
 and for all men who pursue the same course. In worldly 
 blessings, such as those promised in the Old Law, each 
 man might make up to himself his own favourite scheme 
 of happiness. ' I will be strictly just, and observe all the 
 laws and ceremonies of my religion, that God may grant 
 me such a woman for my wife, or wealth and honour, with 
 which I will purchase such and such an estate,' &c. But 
 the reward of heaven admits no day-dreams ; its hopes and 
 its fears are too vast to endure an outline. ' I will endeavour 
 to abstain from vice, and force myself to do such and such 
 acts of duty, in order that I may make myself capable of 
 that freedom of moral being, without which heaven would 
 be no heaven to me.' Now this very thought tends to 
 annihilate self. For what is a self not distinguished from 
 
SELF-LOVE IN RELIGION 383 
 
 any other self, but like an individual circle in geometry, 
 uncoloured, and the representative of all other circles. 
 The circle is differenced, indeed, from a triangle or square ; 
 so is a virtuous soul from a vicious soul, a soul in bliss 
 from a soul in misery, but no wise distinguished from other 
 souls under the same predicament. That selfishness which 
 includes, of necessity, the selves of all my fellow-creatures, 
 is assuredly a social and generous principle. I speak, as 
 before observed, of the objective or reflex self ; — for as to 
 the subjective self, it is merely synonymous with conscious- 
 ness, and obtains equally whether I think of me or of him ; 
 — in both cases it is I thinking. 
 
 Still, however, 1 freely admit that there neither is, nor 
 can be, any such self-oblivion in these hopes and fears when 
 practically reflected on, as often takes place in love and 
 acts of loving kindness, and the habit of which constitutes 
 a sweet and loving nature. And this leads me to the third 
 and most important reflection, namely, that the soul's infi- 
 nite capacity of pain and joy, through an infinite duration, 
 does really, on the most high-flying notions of love and 
 justice, make my own soul and the most anxious care for 
 the character of its future fate, an object of emphatic duty. 
 What can be the object of human virtue but the happiness 
 of sentient, still more of moral beings ? But an infinite 
 duration of faculties, infinite in progression, even of one 
 soul, is so vast, so boundless an idea, that we are unable to 
 distinguish it from the idea of the whole race of mankind. 
 If to seek the temporal welfare of all mankind be disin- 
 terested virtue, much more must the eternal welfare of my 
 own soul be so ; — for the temporal welfare of all mankind is 
 included within a finite space and finite number, and my 
 imagination makes it easy by sympathies and visions of 
 outward resemblance ; but myself in eternity, as the object 
 of my contemplation, differs unimaginably from my present 
 self. Do but try to think of yourself in eternal misery ! 
 — you will find that you are stricken with horror for it, 
 even as for a third person ; conceive it in hazard thereof, 
 and you will feel commiseration for it, and pray for it with 
 an anguish of sympathy very different from the outcry of 
 an immediate self -suffering. 
 
 Blessed be God ! that which makes us capable of vicious 
 
384 OMNIANA 
 
 self-interestedness, capacitates us also for disinterestedness. 
 That I am capable of preferring a smaller advantage of my 
 own to a far greater good of another man, — this, the power 
 of comparing the notions of ' him and me ' objectively, 
 enables me likewise to prefer — at least furnishes the con- 
 dition of my preferring — a greater good of another to 
 a lesser good of my own ; — nay, a pleasure of his, or ex- 
 ternal advantage, to an equal one of my own. And thus 
 too, that I am capable of loving my neighbour as myself, 
 empowers me to love myself as my neighbour, — not only as 
 much, but in the same way and with the very same feeling. 
 
 This is the great privilege of pure religion. By diverting 
 self-love to our self under those relations, in which alone it 
 is worthy of our anxiety, it annihilates self, as a notion of 
 diversity. Extremes meet. These reflections supply a 
 forcible, and, I believe, quite new argument against the 
 purgatory, both of the Romanists, and of the modern Mil- 
 lenarians, and final Salvationists. Their motives do, indeed, 
 destroy the essence of virtue. 
 
 The doctors of self-love are misled by a wrong use of the 
 words, — ' We love ourselves ! ' Now this is impossible for 
 a finite and created being in the absolute meaning of self ; 
 and in its secondary and figurative meaning, self signifies 
 only a less degree of distance, a narrowness of moral view, 
 and a determination of value by measurement. Hence the 
 body is in this sense our self, because the sensations have 
 been habitually appropriated to it in too great a propor- 
 tion ; but this is not a necessity of our nature. There is a 
 state possible even in this life, in which we may truly say, 
 ' My self loves,' — freely constituting its secondary or objec- 
 tive love in what it wills to love, commands what it wills, 
 and wills what it commands. The difference between self- 
 love, and self that loves, consists in the objects of the 
 former as given to it according to the law of the senses, 
 while the latter determines the objects according to the 
 law in the spirit. The first loves because it must ; the 
 second because it ought ; and the result of the first is not 
 in any objective, imaginable, comprehensible, action, but 
 in that action by which it abandoned its power of true 
 agency and willed its own fall. This is, indeed, a mystery. 
 How can it be otherwise ? — For if the will be uncondi- 
 
SELF-LOVE IN RELIGION 385 
 
 tional, it must be inexplicable, the understanding of a 
 thing being an insight into its conditions and causes. But 
 whatever is in the will is the will, and must therefore be 
 equally inexplicable. 
 
 In a word, the difference of an unselfish from a selfish 
 love, even in this life, consists in this, that the latter 
 depends on our transferring our present passion or appe- 
 tite, or rather on our dilating and stretching it out in 
 imagination, as the covetous man does ; — while in the 
 former we carry ourselves forward under a very different 
 state from the present, as the young man, who restrains 
 his appetites in respect of his future self as a tranquil and 
 healthy old man. This last requires as great an effort of 
 disinterestedness as, if not a greater than, to give up a pre- 
 sent enjoyment to another person who is present to us 
 The alienation from distance in time and from diversity of 
 circumstance, is greater in the one case than in the other. 
 And let it be remembered, that a Christian may exert all 
 the virtues and virtuous charities of humanity in any 
 state ; yea, in the pangs of a wounded conscience, he may 
 feel for the future periods of his own lost spirit, just as 
 Adam for all his posterity. 
 
 magical, sympathetic, anima ! principium hylarchicum ! 
 rationes spermaticae ! Xo'yoi ttoititikoi ! formidable words ! 
 And O man ! thou marvellous beast-angel ! thou ambitious 
 beggar ! How pompously dost thou trick out thy very 
 ignorance with such glorious disguises, that thou mayest 
 seem to hide it in order only to worship it ! 
 
 Limitation of Love of Poetry. 
 
 A man may be perhaps, exclusively a poet, a poet most 
 exquisite in his kind, though the kind must needs be of 
 inferior worth ; I say, may be ; for I cannot recollect 
 any one instance in which I have a right to suppose it. 
 But, surely, to have an exclusive pleasure in poetry, not 
 being yourself a poet ; — to turn away from all effort, and 
 to dwell wholly on the images of another's vision, — is an 
 unworthy and effeminate thing. A jeweller may devote 
 his whole time to jewels unblamed ; but the mere amateur, 
 who grounds his taste on no chemical or geological idea, 
 
 TABLE TALK C C 
 
386 OMNIANA 
 
 cannot claim the same exemption from despect. How shall 
 he fully enjoy Wordsworth, who has never meditated on 
 the truths which Wordsworth has wedded to immortal 
 verse ? 
 
 Humility of the Amiable. 
 
 It is well ordered by nature, that the amiable and 
 estimable have a fainter perception of their own qualities 
 than their friends have ; — otherwise they would love them- 
 selves. And though they may fear flattery, yet if not jus- 
 tified in suspecting intentional deceit, they cannot but love 
 and esteem those who love and esteem them, only as lovely 
 and estimable, and give them proof of their having done 
 well where they have meant to do well. 
 
 Temper in Argument. 
 
 All reasoners ought to be perfectly dispassionate, and ready to 
 allow all the force of the arguments, they are to confute. But more 
 especially those, who are to argue in behalf of Christianity, ought 
 carefully to preserve the spirit of it in their manner of expressing 
 themselves. I have so much honour for the Christian clergy, that 
 I had much rather hear them railed at, than hear them rail ; and 
 I must say, that I am often grievously offended with the generality 
 of them for their method of treating all who differ from them in 
 opinion. — Mks. Chapone. 
 
 Besides, what is the use of violence ? None. What is 
 the harm ? Great, very great ; — chiefly, in the confirma- 
 tion of error, to which nothing so much tends, as to find 
 your opinions attacked with weak arguments and unworthy 
 feelings. A generous mind becomes more attached to 
 principles so treated, even as it would to an old friend, 
 after he had been grossly calumniated. We are eager to 
 make compensation. 
 
 Patriarchal Government. 
 
 The smooth words used by all factions, and their wide 
 influence, may be exemplified in all the extreme systems, 
 as for instance in the patriarchal government of Pilmer. 
 Take it in one relation, and it imports love, tender anxiety, 
 
PATRIARCHAL GOVERNMENT— TRIMMING 387 
 
 longer experience, and superior wisdom, bordering on reve- 
 lation, especially to Jews and Christians, who are in the 
 life-long habit of attaching to patriarchs an intimacy with 
 the Supreme Being. Take it on the other side, and it 
 imports that a whole people are to be treated and governed 
 as children by a man not so old as very many, not older 
 than very many, and in all probability not wiser than the 
 many, and by his very situation precluded from the same 
 experience. 
 
 Callous Self-Conceit. 
 
 The most hateful form of self-conceit is the callous form, 
 when it boasts and swells up on the score of its own ignor- 
 ance, as implying exemption from a folly. 'We profess not to 
 understand ; ' — ' We are so unhappy as to be quite in the 
 dark as to the meaning of this writer ; ' — ' All this may be 
 very fine, but we are not ashamed to confess that to us 
 it is quite unintelligible ' : — then quote a passage without 
 the context, and appeal to the Public, whether they under- 
 stand it or not ! — Wretches ! Such books were not written 
 for your public. If it be a work on inward religion, appeal 
 to the inwardly religious, and ask them ! — If it be of true 
 love and its anguish and its yearnings, appeal to the true 
 lover ! What have the public to do with this ? 
 
 A Librarian. 
 
 He was like a cork, flexible, floating, full of pores and 
 openings, and yet he could neither return nor transmit the 
 waters of Helicon, much less the light of Apollo. The poet, 
 by his side, was like a diamond, transmitting to all around, 
 yet retaining for himself alone, the rays of the god of day. 
 
 Trimming. 
 
 An upright shoe may fit both feet ; but never saw I a glove 
 that would fit both hands. It is a man for a mean or 
 mechanic office, that can be employed equally well under 
 either of two opposite parties. 
 
 CC2 
 
388 OMNIANA 
 
 Death. 
 
 Death but supplies the oil for the inextinguishable lamp 
 of life. 
 
 Love an Act of the Will. 
 
 Love, however sudden, as when we fall in love at first, 
 sight, (which is, perhaps, always the case of love in its 
 highest sense,) is yet an act of the will, and that too one of 
 its primary, and therefore ineffable acts. This is most 
 important ; for if it be not true, either love itself is all a 
 romantic hum, a mere connection of desire with a form 
 appropriated to excite and gratify it, or the mere repetition 
 of a day-dream ; — or if it be granted that love has a real, 
 distinct, and excellent being, I know not how we could 
 attach blame and immorality to inconstancy, when con- 
 fined to the affections and a sense of preference. Either, 
 therefore, we must brutalize our notions with Pope : — 
 
 Lust, thro' some certain strainers well refin'd, 
 Is gentle love and charms all woman-kind : 
 
 or we must dissolve and thaw away all bonds of morality 
 by the irresistible shocks of an irresistible sensibility with 
 Sterne. 
 
 Wedded Union. 
 
 The well-spring of all sensible communion is the natural 
 delight and need, which undepraved man hath to transfuse 
 from himself into others, and to receive from others into 
 himself, those things, wherein the excellency of bis kind 
 doth most consist ; and the eminence of love or marriage 
 communion is, that this mutual transfusion can take place 
 more perfectly and totally in this, than in any other mode. 
 
 Prefer person before money, good-temper with good 
 sense before person ; and let all, wealth, easy temper, strong 
 understanding and beauty, be as nothing to thee, unless 
 accompanied by virtue in principle and in habit. 
 
 Suppose competence, health, and honesty ; then a happy 
 marriage depends on four things : 1. An understanding 
 proportionate to thine, that is, a recipiency at least of 
 
WEDDED UNION 389 
 
 thine : — 2. natural sensibility and lively sympathy in 
 general : — 3. steadiness in attaching and retaining sensi- 
 bility to its proper objects in its proper proportions : 
 — 4. mutual liking ; including person and all the thousand 
 obscure sympathies that determine conjugal liking, that is, 
 love and desire to A. rather than to B. This seems very 
 obvious and almost trivial : and yet all unhappy marriages 
 arise from the not honestly putting, and sincerely answer- 
 ing each of these four questions : any one of them nega- 
 tived, marriage is imperfect, and in hazard of discontent. 
 
 DlFEEBENCE BETWEEN HOBBES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 In the most similar and nearest points there is a differ- 
 ence, but for the most part there is an absolute contrast, 
 between Hobbes and Spinoza. Thus Hobbes makes a state 
 of war the natural state of man from the essential and 
 ever continuing nature of man, as not a moral, but only 
 a frightenable, being ; — Spinoza makes the same state 
 a necessity of man out of society, because he must then be 
 an undeveloped man, and his moral being dormant ; and so 
 on through the whole. 
 
 The End may Justify the Means. 
 
 Whatever act is necessary to an end, and ascertained to 
 be necessary and proportionate both to the end and the 
 agent, takes its nature from that end. This premised, the 
 proposition is innocent that ends may justify means. Re- 
 member, however, the important distinction : — Unius facti 
 diversi fines esse possunt : unius actionis non possunt. 
 
 I have somewhere read this remark : — Omne meritum 
 est voluntarium, aut voluntate originis, aut origine volun- 
 tatis. Quaintly as this is expressed, it is well worth con- 
 sideration, and gives the true meaning of Baxter's famous 
 saying, — ' Hell is paved with good intentions '. 
 
 Negative Thought. 
 
 On this calm morning of the 13th of November, 1809, it 
 occurs to me, that it is by a negation and voluntary act of 
 no thinking that we think of earth, air, water, &c. as dead. 
 
390 OMNIANA 
 
 It is necessary for our limited powers of consciousness, that 
 we should be brought to this negative state, and that this 
 state should pass into custom ; but it is likewise necessary 
 that at times we should awake and step forward ; and this 
 is effected by those extenders of our consciousness — sorrow, 
 sickness, poetry, religion. The truth is, we stop in the 
 sense of life just when we are not forced to go on, and then 
 adopt a permission of our feelings for a precept of our 
 reason. 
 
 Man's Return to Heaven. 
 
 Heaven bestows light and influence on this lower World, 
 which reflects the blessed rays, though it cannot recom- 
 pence them. So man may make a return to God, but no 
 requital. 
 
 Young Prodigies. 
 
 Fair criticism on young prodigies and Rosciuses in verse, 
 or on the stage, is arraigned,— 
 
 as the envious sneaping frost 
 That bites the first-born infants of the spring. 
 
 If there were no better answer, the following a good heart 
 would scarcely admit ;— but where nine-tenths of the ap- 
 plause have been mere wonderment and miracle- lust (Wun- 
 dersucht) these verses are an excellent accompaniment to 
 other arguments : — 
 
 Well, say it be ! — Yet why of summer boast, 
 
 Before the birds have natural cause to sing ? 
 
 Why should we joy in an abortive birth ? 
 
 At Christmas I no more desire a rose, 
 
 Than wish a snow in May's new budding shows; 
 
 But like of each thing that in reason grows. 
 
 Love's Labour 's Lost. 1 
 
 Welsh Names. 
 
 The small numbers of surnames, and those Christian 
 names and patronymics, not derived from trades, &c. is one 
 1 Slightly altered.— H. N. C. 
 
WELSH NAMES— GERMAN LANGUAGE 391 
 
 mark of a country either not yet, or only recently, un- 
 feudalized. Hence in Scotland the Mackintoshes, Macau- 
 lays, and so on. But the most remarkable show of this 
 I ever saw, is the list of subscribers to Owen's Welsh Dic- 
 tionary. In letter D. there are 31 names, 21 of which are 
 Davis or Davits, and the other three are not Welshmen. 
 In E. there are 30 ; 16 Evans ; 6 Edwards ; 1 Edmonds ; 
 1 Egan, and the remainder Ellis. In G. two-thirds are 
 Griffiths. In H. all are Hughes and Howell. In I. there 
 are 66 ; all Joneses. In L. 3 or 4 Lewises ; 1 Lewellyn ; 
 all the rest Lloyds. M. four-fifths Morgans. 0. entirely 
 Owen. R. all Roberts or Richards. T. all Thomases. V. 
 all Vaughans ; — and W. 64 names, 56 of them Williams. 
 
 Gebmak Lastgttage. 
 
 The real value of melody in a language is considerable as 
 subadditive ; but when not jutting out into consciousness 
 under the friction of comparison, the absence or inferiority 
 of it is, as privative of pleasure, of little consequence. For 
 example, when I read Voss's translation of the Georgics, I 
 am, as it were, reading the original poem, until something 
 particularly well expressed occasions me to revert to the 
 Latin ; and then I find the superiority, or at least the 
 powers, of the German in all other respects, but am made 
 feelingly alive, at the same time, to its unsmooth mixture 
 of the vocal and the organic, the fluid and the substance, of 
 language. The fluid seems to have been poured in on the cor- 
 puscles all at once, and the whole has, therefore, curdled, 
 and collected itself into a lumpy soup full of knots of curds 
 misled by interjacent whey at irregular distances, and the 
 curd lumpets of various sizes. 
 
 It is always a question how far the apparent defects of 
 a language arise from itself or from the false taste of the 
 nation speaking it. Is the practical inferiority of the 
 English to the Italian in the power of passing from grave 
 to light subjects, in the manner of Ariosto, the fault of the 
 language itself ? Wieland, in his Oberon, broke success- 
 fully through equal difficulties. It is grievous to think 
 how much less careful the English have been to preserve 
 
392 OMNIANA 
 
 than to acquire. Why have we lost, or all but lost, the ver 
 or for as a prefix — fordone, forwearied, &c. ; and the zer or 
 to—zerreissen, to rend, &c. Jugend, J tingling : youth, young- 
 ling ; why is that last word now lost to common use, and 
 confined to sheep and other animals ? 
 
 'Ev t(3 <j>poveiv fir/Sev 77S10-TOS /Stos- Soph. 
 
 His life was playful from infancy to death, like the snow 
 which in a calm day falls, but scarce seems to fall, and 
 plays and dances in and out till the very moment that it 
 gently reaches the earth. 
 
 The Univeese. 
 
 It surely is not impossible that to some infinitely superior 
 being the whole universe may be as one plain, the distance 
 between planet and planet being only as the pores in a grain 
 of sand, and the spaces between system and system no 
 greater than the intervals between one grain and the grain 
 adjacent. 
 
 Haeberous. 
 
 Harberous, that is, harbourous, is the old version of St. 
 Paul's c^iAo'^evos, and a beautiful word it is. Kdo^ios 
 should be rendered a gentleman in dress and address, in 
 appearance and demeanour, a man of the world in an 
 innocent sense. The Latin mundus has the same double 
 force in it ; only that to the rude early Romans, to have a 
 clean pair of hands and a clean dress, was to be drest ; just 
 as we say to boys, ' Put on your clean clothes ! ' 
 
 The different meanings attached to the same word or 
 phrase in different sentences, will, of course, be accom- 
 panied with a different feeling in the mind ; this will affect 
 the pronunciation, and hence arises a new word. We should 
 vainly try to produce the same feeling in our minds by and 
 he as by who ; for the different use of the latter, and its 
 feeling, having now coalesced. Yet who is properly the 
 same word and pronunciation, as 6 with the digammate 
 prefix, and as qui koX 6. 
 
ADMONITION— CHERUBIM AND SERAPHIM 393 
 
 An Admonition. 
 
 There are two sides to every question. If thou hast 
 genius and poverty to thy lot, dwell on the foolish, per- 
 plexing, imprudent, dangerous, and even immoral, conduct 
 of promise-breach in small things, of want of punctuality, 
 of procrastination in all its shapes and disguises. Force men 
 to reverence the dignity of thy moral strength in and for 
 itself,-seeking no excuses or palliations from fortune, or 
 sickness, or a too full mind that, in opulence of conception, 
 overrated its powers of application. But if thy fate should 
 be different, shouldest thou possess competence, health and 
 ease of mind, and then be thyself called upon to judge such 
 faults in another so gifted, — ! then upon the other view 
 of the question, say, am I in ease and comfort, and dare I 
 wonder that he, poor fellow, acted so and so ? Dare I 
 accuse him ? Ought I not to shadow forth to myself that, 
 glad and luxuriating in a short escape from anxiety, his 
 mind over -promised for itself ; that, want combating with 
 his eager desire to produce things worthy of fame, he 
 dreamed of the nobler, when he should have been pro- 
 ducing the meaner, and so had the meaner obtruded on 
 his moral being, when the nobler was making full way on 
 his intellectual ? Think of the manifoldness of his accu- 
 mulated petty calls ! Think, in short, on all that should 
 be like a voice from heaven to warn thyself against this 
 and this, and call it all up for pity and for palliation ; and 
 then draw the balance. Take him in his whole, — his head, 
 his heart, his wishes, his innocence of all selfish crime, and 
 a hundred years hence, what will be the result ? The good, 
 — were it but a single volume that made truth more visible, 
 and goodness more lovely, and pleasure at once more akin 
 to virtue and, self -doubled, more pleasurable ! and the evil, 
 — while he lived, it injured none but himself ; and where 
 is it now ? in his grave. Follow it not thither. 
 
 To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do Cry. 
 
 The mighty kingdoms angelical, like the thin clouds at 
 dawn, receiving and hailing the first radiance, and singing 
 and sounding forth their blessedness, increase the rising 
 
394 OMNIANA 
 
 joy in the heart of God, spread wide and utter forth the 
 joy arisen, and in innumerable finite glories interpret all 
 they can of infinite bliss. 
 
 Definition of Miracle. 
 A phsenomenon in no connection with any other pheno- 
 menon, as its immediate cause, is a miracle ; and what is 
 believed to have been such, is miraculous for the person so 
 believing. When it is strange and surprising, that is, 
 without any analogy in our former experience — it is called 
 a miracle. The kind defines the thing :— the circumstances 
 the word. 
 
 To stretch out my arm is a miracle, unless the mate- 
 rialists should be more cunning than they have proved 
 themselves hitherto. To reanimate a dead man by an act 
 of the will, no intermediate agency employed, not only is, 
 but is called, a miracle. A scripture miracle, therefore, 
 must be so defined, as to express, not only its miracular 
 essence, but likewise the condition of its appearing miracu- 
 lous ; add therefore to the preceding, the words prater 
 omnem priorem experientiam. 
 
 It might be defined likewise an effect, not having its cause 
 in any thing congenerous. That thought calls up thought is 
 no more miraculous than that a billiard ball moves a bil- 
 liard ball ; but that a billiard ball should excite a thought, 
 that is, be perceived, is a miracle, and, were it strange, 
 would be called such. For take the converse, that a 
 thought should call up a billiard ball ! Yet where is the 
 difference, but that the one is a common experience, the 
 other never yet experienced ? 
 
 It is not strictly accurate to affirm, that every thing 
 would appear a miracle, if we were wholly uninfluenced by 
 custom, and saw things as they are : for then the very 
 ground of all miracles would probably vanish, namely, the 
 heterogeneity of spirit and matter. For the quid ulterius ? 
 of wonder, we should have the we plus ultra of adoration. 
 Again — the word miracle has an objective, a subjective, 
 and a popular meaning ; — as objective, — the essence of a 
 miracle consists in the heterogeneity of the consequent and 
 its causative antecedent ; — as subjective, — in the assump- 
 tion of the heterogeneity. Add the wonder and surprise 
 
DEFINITION OF MIRACLE 395 
 
 excited, when the consequent is out of the course of expe- 
 rience, and we know the popular sense and ordinary use of 
 the word. 
 
 Death, and Gbounds oe Beixef in a Future State. 
 
 It is an important thought, that death, judged of by cor- 
 poreal analogies, certainly implies discerption or dissolution 
 of parts ; but pain and pleasure do not ; nay, they seem 
 inconceivable except under the idea of concentration. 
 Therefore the influence of the body on the soul will not 
 prove the common destiny of both. I feel myself not the 
 slave of nature (nature used here as the mundus sensibilis) 
 in the sense in which animals are. Not only my thoughts 
 and affections extend to objects trans-natural, as truth, 
 virtue, God ; not only do my powers extend vastly beyond 
 all those, which I could have derived from the instruments 
 and organs, with which nature has furnished me ; but I 
 can do what nature per se cannot. I ingraft, I raise heavy 
 bodies above the clouds, and guide my course over ocean 
 and through air. I alone am lord of fire and light ; other 
 creatures are but their alms-folk, and of all the so called 
 elements, water, earth, air, and all their compounds (to 
 speak in the ever -enduring language of the senses, to which 
 nothing can be revealed, but as compact, or fluid, or aerial), 
 I not merely subserve myself of them, but I employ them. 
 Ergo, there is in me, or rather I am, a prseter-natural, that 
 is, a super-sensuous thing : but what is not nature, why 
 should it perish with nature ? why lose the faculty of 
 vision because my spectacles are broken ? 
 
 Now to this it will be objected, and very forcibly too ; — 
 that the soul or self is acted upon by nature through the 
 body, and water or caloric, diffused through or collected 
 in the brain, will derange the faculties of the soul by de- 
 ranging the organization of the brain ; the sword cannot 
 touch the soul ; but by rending the flesh, it will rend the 
 feelings. Therefore the violence of nature may, in destroy- 
 ing the body, mediately destroy the soul ! It is to this 
 objection that my first sentence applies ; and is an impor- 
 tant, and, I believe, a new and the only satisfactory reply I 
 have ever heard. 
 
396 OMNIANA 
 
 The one great and binding ground of the belief of God 
 and a hereafter, is the law of conscience : but as the apti- 
 tudes and beauty, and grandeur, of the world, are a sweet 
 and beneficent inducement to this belief , a constant fuel to 
 our faith, so here we seek these arguments, not as dissatis- 
 fied with the one main ground, not as of little faith, but 
 because, believing it to be, it is natural we should expect to 
 find traces of it, and as a noble way of employing and de- 
 veloping, and enlarging the faculties of the soul, and this, 
 not by way of motive, but of assimilation, producing virtue. 
 2d April, 1811. 
 
 Hatred of Injustice. 
 
 It is the mark of a noble nature to be more shocked with 
 the unjust condemnation of a bad man than of a virtuous 
 one ; as in the instance of Strafford. For in such cases the 
 love of justice, and the hatred of the contrary, are felt more 
 nakedly, and constitute a strong passion per se, not only 
 unaided by, but in conquest of, the softer self-repaying 
 sympathies. A wise foresight too inspires jealousy, that so 
 may principles be most easily overthrown. This is the 
 virtue of a wise man, which a mob never possesses, even as 
 a mob never, perhaps, has the malignant finis ultimus, 
 which is the vice of a man. 
 
 Religion. 
 
 Amongst the great truths are these : 
 
 I. That religion has no speculative dogmas ; that all 
 is practical, all appealing to the will, and therefore all 
 imperative. / am the Lord thy God : Thou shalt have none 
 other gods but me. 
 
 II. That, therefore, miracles are not the proofs, but the 
 necessary results, of revelation. They are not the key of 
 the arch and roof of evidence, though they may be a com- 
 pacting stone in it, which gives while it receives strength. 
 Hence, to make the intellectual faith a fair analogon or 
 unison of the vital faith, it ought to be stamped in the mind 
 by all the evidences duly co-ordinated, and not designed 
 by single pen-strokes, beginning either here or there. 
 
RELIGION 397 
 
 III. That, according to No. I, Christ is not described 
 primarily and characteristically as a teacher, but as a doer ; 
 a light indeed, but an effective light, the sun which causes 
 what it shows, as well as shows what it first causes. 
 
 IV. That a certain degree of morality is presupposed in 
 the reception of Christianity ; it is the substratum of the 
 moral interest which substantiates the evidence of miracles. 
 The instance of a profligate suddenly converted, if properly 
 sifted, will be found but an apparent exception. 
 
 V. That the being of a God, and the immortality of 
 man, are every where assumed by Christ. 
 
 VI. That Socinianism is not a religion, but a theory, 
 and that, too, a very pernicious, or a very unsatisfactory, 
 theory. Pernicious, — for it excludes all our deep and awful 
 ideas of the perfect holiness of God, his justice and his 
 mercy, and thereby makes the voice of conscience a delu- 
 sion, as having no correspondent in the character of the 
 legislator ; regarding God as merely a good-natured plea- 
 sure-giver, so happiness be produced, indifferent as to the 
 means : — Unsatisfactory, for it promises forgiveness without 
 any solution of the difficulty of the compatibility of this 
 with the justice of God ; in no way explains the fallen con- 
 dition of man, nor offers any means for his regeneration. 
 ' If you will be good, you will be happy,' it says : that may 
 be, but my will is weak ; I sink in the struggle. 
 
 VII. That Socinianism never did and never can subsist 
 as a general religion. For 1. It neither states the disease, 
 on account of which the human being hungers for revela- 
 tion, nor prepares any remedy in general, nor ministers any 
 hope to the individual. 2. In order to make itself endur- 
 able on scriptural grounds, it must so weaken the texts and 
 authority of scripture, as to leave in scripture no binding 
 ground of proof of any thing. 3. Take a pious Jew, one of 
 the Maccabees, and compare his faith and its grounds with 
 Priestley's ; and then, for what did Christ come ? 
 
 VIII. That Socinianism involves the shocking thought 
 that man will not, and ought not to be expected to, do his 
 duty as man, unless he first makes a bargain with his 
 Maker, and his Maker with him. Give me, the individual 
 me, a positive proof that I shall be in a state of pleasure 
 after my death, if I do so and so, and then I will do it, 
 
398 OMNIANA 
 
 not else ! And the proof asked is not one dependent on, 
 or flowing from, his moral nature and moral feelings, but 
 wholly extra-moml, namely, by his outward senses, the 
 subjugation of which to faith, that is, the passive to the 
 actional and self-created belief, is the great object of all 
 religion ! 
 
 IX. That Socinianism involves the dreadful reflection, 
 that it can establish its probability (its certainty being 
 wholly out of the question and impossible, Priestley himself 
 declaring that his own continuance as a Christian, depended 
 on a contingency,) only on the destruction of all the argu- 
 ments furnished for our permanent and essential distinc- 
 tion from brutes ; that it must prove that we have no 
 grounds to obey, but, on the contrary, that in wisdom we 
 ought to reject and declare utterly null, all the commands 
 of conscience, and all that is implied in those commands, 
 reckless of the confusion introduced into our notions of 
 means and ends by the denial of truth, goodness, justice, 
 mercy, and the other fundamental ideas in the idea of God ; 
 and all this in order to conduct us to a Mahomet's bridge 
 of a knife's edge, or the breadth of a spear, to salvation. 
 And, should we discover any new documents, or should an 
 acuter logician make plain the sophistry of the deductions 
 drawn from the present documents (and surely a man who 
 has passed from orthodoxy to the loosest Arminianism, and 
 thence to Arianism, and thence to direct Humanism, has 
 no right from his experience to deny the probability of 
 this) — then to fall off into the hopeless abyss of atheism. 
 For the present life, we know, is governed by fixed laws, 
 which the atheist acknowledges as well as the theist ; and 
 if there be no spiritual world, and no spiritual life in a 
 spiritual world, what possible bearing can the admission or 
 rejection of this hypothesis have on our practice or feelings ? 
 
 Lastly, the Mosaic dispensation was a scheme of national 
 education ; the Christian is a world-religion ; and the 
 former was susceptible of evidence and probabilities which 
 do not, and cannot, apply to the latter. A savage people 
 forced, as it were, into a school of circumstances, and 
 gradually in the course of generations taught the unity of 
 God, first and for centuries merely as a practical absti- 
 nence from the worship of any other, — how can the prin- 
 
RELIGION— THE APOSTLES' CREED 399 
 
 ciples of such a system apply to Christianity, which goes 
 into all nations and to all men, the most enlightened, even 
 by preference ? 
 
 Writing several years later than the date of the pre- 
 ceding paragraphs, I commend the modern Unitarians for 
 their candour in giving up the possible worshipability of 
 Christ, if not very God, — a proof that truth will ultimately 
 prevail. The Arians, then existing, against whom Water- 
 land wrote, were not converted ; but in the next genera- 
 tion the arguments made their way. This is fame versus 
 reputation. 
 
 The Apostles' Creed. 
 
 Is it not probable from what is found in the writings of 
 Cyril, Eusebius, Cyprian, Marcellus of Ancyra and others, 
 that our present Apostles' Creed is not the very Symbolum 
 Fidei, which was not to be written, but was always repeated 
 at baptism ? For this latter certainly contained the doc- 
 trine of the eternal generation of the Logos ; and, there- 
 fore, it seems likely that the present Apostles' creed was an 
 introductory, and, as it were, alphabetical, creed for young 
 catechumens in their first elementation. Is it to be be- 
 lieved that the Symbolum Fidei contained nothing but the 
 mere history of Jesus, without any of the peculiar doc- 
 trines, or that, if it did not contain something more, the 
 great and vehement defenders of the Trinity would speak 
 of it so magnificently as they do, even preferring its autho- 
 rity to that of the scriptures ? — Besides, does not Austin 
 positively say that our present Apostles' creed was gathered 
 out of the scriptures ? Whereas the Symbolum Fidei was 
 elder than the Gospels, and probably contained only the 
 three doctrines of the Trinity, the Redemption, and the 
 Unity of the Church. May it not have happened, when 
 baptism was administered so early, and at last even to 
 infants, that the old Symbolum Fidei became gradually 
 inusitatum, as being appropriated to adult proselytes from 
 Judaism or Paganism ? This seems to me even more than 
 probable ; for in proportion to the majority of born over 
 converted Christians must the creed of instruction have 
 been more frequent than that of doctrinal profession. 
 
400 OMNIANA 
 
 A Good Heart. 
 
 There is in Abbt's Essays an attempt to determine the 
 true sense of this phrase, at least to unfold (auseinanderset- 
 zeri) what is meant and felt by it. I was much pleased with 
 the remarks, I remember, and with the counterposition of 
 Tom Jones and Sir Charles Grandison. Might not Luther 
 and Calvin serve ? But it is made less noticeable in these 
 last by its co-existence with, and sometimes real, more 
 often apparent, subordination to fixed conscious principles, 
 and is thus less naturally characteristic. Parson Adams 
 contrasted with Dr. Harrison in Fielding's Amelia would do. 
 Then there is the suppression of the good heart and the 
 substitution of principles or motives for the good heart, as 
 in Laud, and the whole race of conscientious persecutors. 
 Such principles constitute the virtues of the Inquisition. 
 A good heart contrasts with the Pharisaic righteousness. 
 This last contemplation of the Pharisees, the dogmatists, 
 and the rigorists in toto genere, serves to reconcile me to 
 the fewness of the men who act on fixed principles. For 
 unless there exist intellectual power to determine aright 
 what are the principia jam fixa et formata, and unless there 
 be the wisdom of love preceding the love of wisdom, and 
 unless to this be added a graciousness of nature, a loving 
 kindness, — these rigorists are but bigots often to errors, 
 and active, yea, remorseless in preventing or staying the 
 rise and progress of truth. And even when bigoted adhe- 
 rents to true principles, yet they render truth unamiable, 
 and forbid little children to come thereunto. As human 
 nature now is, it is well, perhaps, that the number should 
 be few, seeing that of the few, the greater part are pre- 
 maturities. 
 
 The number of those who act from good-hearted impulses, 
 a kindly and cheerful mood, and the play of minute sympa- 
 thies, continuous in their discontinuity, like the sand-thread 
 of the hour-glass, and from their minuteness and transiency 
 not calculated to stiffen or inflate the individual, and thus 
 remaining unendangered by egotism, and its unhandsome 
 vizard contempt, is far larger ; and though these tempera- 
 mental yro-virtues will too often fail, and are not built to 
 stand the storms of strong temptation ; yet on the whole 
 
A GOOD HEART 401 
 
 they carry on the benignant scheme of social nature, like 
 the other instincts that rule the animal creation. But of 
 all the most numerous are the men, who have ever more 
 their own dearliest beloved self, as the only or main goal 
 or butt of their endeavours straight and steady before their 
 eyes, and whose whole inner world turns on the great axis 
 of self-interest. These form the majority, if not of man- 
 kind, yet of those by whom the business of life is carried 
 on ; and most expedient it is, that so it should be ; nor 
 can we imagine any thing better contrived for the advan- 
 tage of society. For these are the most industrious, 
 orderly, and circumspect portion of society, and the 
 actions governed by this principle with the results, are 
 the only materials on which either the statesman, or indi- 
 viduals, can safely calculate. 
 
 There is, indeed, another sort (a class they can scarcely 
 be called), who are below self-interest ; who live under the 
 mastery of their senses and appetites ; and whose selfish- 
 ness is an animal instinct, a good a tergo, not an attraction, 
 a re prospecta, or (so to speak) from a projected self. In 
 fact, such individuals cannot so properly be said to have 
 a self, as to be machines for the self of nature : and are as 
 little capable of loving themselves as of loving their neigh- 
 bours. Such there are. Nay (if we were to count only 
 without weighing), the aggregate of such persons might 
 possibly form a larger number than the class preceding. 
 But they may safely be taken up into the latter, for the 
 main ends of society, as being or sure to become its mate- 
 rials and tools. Their folly is the stuff in which the sound 
 sense of the worldly-wise is at once manifested and remu- 
 nerated ; their idleness of thought, with the passions, appe- 
 tites, likings and fancies, which are its natural growth, 
 though weeds, give direction and employment to the indus- 
 try of the other. The accidents of inheritance by birth, of 
 accumulation of property in partial masses, are thus coun- 
 teracted, and the aneurisms in the circulating system pre- 
 vented or rendered fewer and less obstinate, — whilst animal 
 want, the sure general result of idleness and its accom- 
 panying vices, tames at length the selfish host, into the 
 laborious slaves and mechanic implements of the self- 
 interested. Thus, without public spirit, nay, by the pre- 
 
 TABLE TALK D d 
 
402 OMNIANA 
 
 dominance of the opposite quality, the latter are the public 
 benefactors : and, giving steadfastness and compactness 
 to the whole, lay in the ground of the canvas, on which 
 minds of finer texture may impress beauty and harmony. 
 Lastly, there is in the heart of all men a working prin- 
 ciple, — call it ambition, or vanity, or desire of distinction, 
 the inseparable adjunct of our individuality and personal 
 nature, and flowing from the same source as language — 
 the instinct and necessity in each man of declaring his 
 particular existence, and thus of singling or singularizing 
 himself. In some this principle is far stronger than in 
 others, while in others its comparative dimness may pass 
 for its non-existence. But in thoughts at least, and secret 
 fancies, there is in all men (idiocy of course excepted) a wish 
 to remain the same and yet to be something else, and 
 something more, or to exhibit what they are, or imagine 
 they might be, somewhere else and to other spectators. 
 Now, though this desire of distinction, when it is dispro- 
 portionate to the powers and qualities by which the indivi- 
 dual is indeed distinguished, or when it is the governing 
 passion, or taken as the rule of conduct, is but a ' knavish 
 sprite,' yet as an attendant and subaltern spirit, it has its 
 good purposes and beneficial effects : and is not seldom 
 
 sent with broom before, 
 
 To sweep the dust behind the door. 
 
 Though selfish in its origin, it yet tends to elevate the indi- 
 vidual from selfishness into self-love, under a softer and 
 perhaps better form than that of self-interest, the form of 
 self-respect. Whatever other objects the man may be pur- 
 suing, and with whatever other inclinations, he is still by 
 this principle impelled and almost compelled to pass out of 
 himself in imagination, and to survey himself at a sufficient 
 distance, in order to judge what figure he is likely to make 
 in the eyes of his fellow men. But in thus taking his 
 station as at the apex of a triangle, while the self is at 
 one angle of the base, he makes it possible at least that the 
 image of his neighbour may appear at the other, whether 
 by spontaneous association, or placed there for the purposes 
 of comparison ; and so both be contemplated at equal dis- 
 tance. But this is the first step towards disinterestedness • 
 
A GOOD HEART 403 
 
 and though it should never be reached, the advantage of 
 the appearance is soon learnt, and the necessity of avoiding 
 the appearance of the contrary. But appearances cannot 
 be long sustained without some touch of the reality. At all 
 events there results a control over our actions ; some good 
 may be produced, and many a poisonous or offensive fruit 
 will be prevented. Courtesy, urbanity, gallantry, munifi- 
 cence ; the outward influence of the law shall I call it, or 
 rather fashion of honour — these are the handsome hypo- 
 crisies that spring from the desire of distinction. I ask 
 not the genius of a Machiavel, a Tacitus, or a Swift ; — it 
 needs only a worldly experience and an observing mind, to 
 convince a man of forty that there is no medium between 
 the creed of misanthropy and that of the gospel. 
 
 A pagan might be as orthodox as Paul on the doctrine of 
 works. First,- — set aside the large portion of them that 
 have their source in the constitutional temperament, — 
 the merit of which, if any, belongs to nature, not to the 
 individual agent ; and of the remaining number of good 
 works, nine are derived from vices for one that has its origin 
 in virtue. I have often in looking at the water -works, 
 and complex machinery of our manufactories, indulged a 
 humorous mood by fancying that the hammers, cogs, fly- 
 wheels, &c. were each actuated by some appetite, or passion 
 — hate, rage, revenge, vanity, cupidity, &c, while the 
 general result was most benignant, and the machine, taken 
 as a whole, the product of power, knowledge, and benevo- 
 lence ! Such a machine does the moral world, the world 
 of human nature, appear — and to those who seem ever 
 more to place the comparison and the alternative between 
 hell and earth, and quite overlook the opposition between 
 earth and heaven, I recommend this meditation. 
 
 Evidences of Christianity. 1 
 
 I. Miracles-as precluding the contrary evidence of no 
 miracles. 
 
 II. The material of Christianity, its existence and 
 history. 
 
 1 Dictated to, and communicated by, Dr. Brabant of Devizes.— 
 H. N. C. 
 
 D d2 
 
404 OMNIANA 
 
 III. The doctrines of Christianity, and the correspon- 
 dence of human nature to those doctrines, — illustrated, 1st, 
 historically — as the actual production of a new world, and 
 the dependence of the fate of the planet upon it ; — 2nd, 
 individually — from its appeal for its truth to an asserted 
 fact, — which, whether it be real or not, every man possessing 
 reason has an equal power of ascertaining within himself ; 
 —namely, a will which has more or less lost its freedom, 
 though not the consciousness that it ought to be and may 
 become free ; — the conviction that this cannot be achieved 
 without the operation of a principle connatural with itself ; 
 — the evident rationality of an entire confidence in that 
 principle, being the condition and means of its operation ; 
 — the experience in his own nature of the truth of the pro- 
 cess described by Scripture as far as he can place himself 
 within the process, aided by the confident assurances of 
 others as to the effects experienced by them, and which he 
 is striving to arrive at. All these form a practical Chris- 
 tian. Add, however, a gradual opening out of the intel- 
 lect to more and more clear perceptions of the strict coin- 
 cidence of the doctrines of Christianity, with the truths 
 evolved by the mind, from reflections on its own nature. 
 To such a man one main test of the objectivity, the entity, 
 the objective truth of his faith, is its accompaniment by an 
 increase of insight into the moral beauty and necessity of 
 the process which it comprises, and the dependence of that 
 proof on the causes asserted. Believe, and if thy belief be 
 right, that insight which gradually transmutes faith into 
 knowledge will be the reward of that belief. The Chris- 
 tian, to whom, after a long profession of Christianity, the 
 mysteries remain as much mysteries as before, is in the 
 same state as a schoolboy with regard to his arithmetic to 
 whom the facit at the end of the examples in his cyphering 
 book is the whole ground for his assuming that such and 
 such figures amount to so and so. 
 
 3rd. In the above I include the increasing discoveries in 
 the correspondence of the history, the doctrines and the 
 promises of Christianity, with the past, present, and pro- 
 bable future of human nature ; and in this state a fair 
 comparison of the religion as a divine philosophy, with all 
 other religions which have pretended to revelations and 
 
EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 405 
 
 all other systems of philosophy ; both with regard to the 
 totality of its truth and its identification with the manifest 
 march of affairs. 
 
 I should conclude that, if we suppose a man to have con- 
 vinced himself that not only the doctrines of Christianity, 
 which may be conceived independently of history or time, 
 as the Trinity, spiritual influences, &c. are coincident with 
 the truths which his reason, thus strengthened, has evolved 
 from its own sources, but that the historical dogmas, 
 namely, of the incarnation of the creative Logos, and his 
 becoming a personal agent, are themselves founded in phi- 
 losophical necessity ; then it seems irrational, that such a 
 man should reject the belief of the actuar appearance of 
 a religion strictly correspondent therewith, at a given time 
 recorded, even as much as that he should reject Caesar's 
 account of his wars in Gaul, after he has convinced himself 
 a priori of their probability. 
 
 As the result of these convictions he will not scruple to 
 receive the particular miracles recorded, inasmuch as it 
 would be miraculous that an incarnate God should not 
 work what must to mere men appear as miracles ; inas- 
 much as it is strictly accordant with the ends and benevo- 
 lent nature of such a being, to commence the elevation of 
 man above his mere senses by attracting and enforcing 
 attention, first through an appeal to those senses. But 
 with equal reason will he expect that no other or greater 
 force should be laid on these miracles as such ; that they 
 should not be spoken of as good in themselves, much less 
 as the adequate and ultimate proof of that religion ; and 
 likewise he will receive additional satisfaction, should he 
 find these miracles so wrought, and on such occasions, as 
 to give them a personal value as symbols of important 
 truths when their miraculousness was no longer needful or 
 efficacious. 
 
 Confbssio Fidel Nov. 3, 1816. 
 I. 
 I. I believe that I am a free-agent, inasmuch as, and so 
 far as, I have a will, which renders me justly responsible 
 for my actions, omissive as well as commissive. Likewise 
 
406 OMNIANA 
 
 that I possess reason, or a law of right and wrong, which, 
 uniting with my sense of moral responsibility, constitutes 
 the voice of conscience. 
 
 II. Hence it becomes my absolute duty to believe, and 
 I do believe, that there is a God, that is, a Being, in whom 
 supreme reason and a most holy will are one with an 
 infinite power ; and that all holy will is coincident with 
 the will of God, and therefore secure in its ultimate con- 
 sequences by His omnipotence ; — having, if such similitude 
 be not unlawful, such a relation to the goodness of the 
 Almighty, as a perfect time-piece will have to the sun. 
 
 COBOLLAEY. 
 
 The wonderful works of God in the sensible world are 
 a perpetual discourse, reminding me of his existence, and 
 shadowing out to me his perfections. But as all language 
 presupposes in the intelligent hearer or reader those pri- 
 mary notions, which it symbolizes ; as well as the power 
 of making those combinations of these primary notions, 
 which it represents and excites us to combine, — even so 
 I believe, that the notion of God is essential to the human 
 mind ; that it is called forth into distinct consciousness 
 principally by the conscience, and auxiliarly by the manifest 
 adaptation of means to ends in the outward creation. It 
 is, therefore, evident to my reason, that the existence of 
 God is absolutely and necessarily insusceptible of a scientific 
 demonstration, and that Scripture has so represented it. 
 For it commands us to believe in one God. / am the Lord 
 thy God : thou shalt have none other gods but me. Now 
 all commandment necessarily relates to the will ; whereas 
 all scientific demonstration is independent of the will, and 
 is apodictic or demonstrative only as far as it is compulsory 
 on the mind, volentem, nolentem. 
 
 III. My conscience forbids me to propose to myself the 
 pains and pleasures of this life, as the primary motive, or 
 ultimate end, of my actions ; — on the contrary, it makes 
 me perceive an utter disproportionateness and heterogeneity 
 between the acts of the spirit, as virtue and vice, and the 
 things of the sense, such as all earthly rewards and punish- 
 ments must be. Its hopes and fears, therefore, refer me to 
 
CONFESSIO FIDEI 407 
 
 a different and spiritual state of being : and I believe in 
 the life to come, not through arguments acquired by my 
 understanding or discursive faculty, but chiefly and effec- 
 tively, because so to believe is my duty, and in obedience 
 to the commands of my conscience. 
 
 Here ends the first table of my creed, which would have 
 been my creed, had I been born with Adam ; and which, 
 therefore, constitutes what may in this sense be called 
 natural religion, that is, the religion of all finite rational 
 beings. The second table contains the creed of revealed 
 religion, my belief as a Christian. 
 
 II. 
 
 IV. I believe, and hold it as the fundamental article of 
 Christianity, that I am a fallen creature ; that I am of 
 myself capable of moral evil, but not of myself capable of 
 moral good, and that an evil ground existed in my will, 
 previously to any given act, or assignable moment of time, 
 in my consciousness. I am born a child of wrath. This 
 fearful mystery I pretend not to understand. I cannot 
 even conceive the possibility of it, — but I know that it is 
 so. My conscience, the sole fountain of certainty, com- 
 mands me to believe it, and would itself be a contradiction, 
 were it not so — and what is real must be possible. 
 
 V. I receive with full and grateful faith the assurance 
 of revelation, that the Word, which is from all eternity 
 with God, and is God, assumed our human nature in order 
 to redeem me, and all mankind from this our connate cor- 
 ruption. My reason convinces me, that no other mode 
 of redemption is conceivable, and, as did Socrates, would 
 have yearned after the Redeemer, though it would not dare 
 expect so wonderful an act of divine love, except only as 
 an effort of my mind to conceive the utmost of the infinite 
 greatness of that love. 
 
 VI. I believe, that this assumption of humanity by the 
 Son of God, was revealed and realized to us by the Word 
 made flesh, and manifested to us in Christ Jesus ; and 
 that his miraculous birth, his agony, his crucifixion, death, 
 resurrection, and ascension, were all both symbols of our 
 redemption (tf>aiv6fieva tS>v vovfx.ivmv) and necessary parts of 
 the awful process. 
 
408 OMNIANA 
 
 VII. I believe in the descent and sending of the Holy- 
 Spirit, by whose free grace obtained for me by the merits 
 of my Redeemer, I can alone be sanctified and restored 
 from my natural inheritance of sin and condemnation, be 
 a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of God. 
 
 COROLLABY. 
 
 The Trinity of persons in the Unity of the God would 
 have been a necessary idea of my speculative reason, 
 deduced from the necessary postulate of an intelligent 
 creator, whose ideas being anterior to the things, must be 
 more actual than those things, even as those things are 
 more actual than our images derived from them ; and who, 
 as intelligent, must have had co-eternally an adequate idea 
 of himself, in and through which he created all things both 
 in heaven and earth. But this would only have been a" 
 speculative idea, like those of circles and other mathema- 
 tical figures, to which we are not authorized by the practical 
 reason to attribute reality. Solely in consequence of our 
 Redemption does the Trinity become a doctrine, the belief 
 of which as real is commanded by our conscience. But to 
 Christians it is commanded, and it is false candour in a 
 Christian, believing in original sin and redemption there- 
 from, to admit that any man denying the divinity of Christ 
 can be a Christian. The true language of a Christian, 
 which reconciles humility with truth would be ; — God and 
 not man is the judge of man : which of the two is the 
 Christian, he will determine ; but this is evident, that if 
 the theanthropist is a Christian, the psilanthropist cannot 
 be so ; and vice versa. Suppose, that two tribes used the 
 same written characters, but attached different and oppo- 
 site meanings to them, so that niger, for instance, was used 
 by one tribe to convey the notion black, by the other, white ; 
 — could they, without absurdity, be said to have the same 
 language ? Even so, in the instance of the crucifixion, the 
 same image is present to the theanthropist and to the 
 psilanthropist or Socinian — but to the latter it represents 
 a mere man, a good man indeed and divinely inspired, but 
 still a mere man, even as Moses or Paul, dying in attesta- 
 tion of the truth of his preaching, and in order by his 
 
CONFESSIO FIDEI 409 
 
 resurrection to give a proof of his mission, and inclusively 
 of the resurrection of all men : — to the former it represents 
 God incarnate taking upon himself the sins of the world, 
 and himself thereby redeeming us, and giving us life ever- 
 lasting, not merely teaching it. The same difference, that 
 exists between God and man, between giving and the de- 
 claration of a gift, exists between the Trinitarian and the 
 Unitarian. This might be proved in a few moments, if we 
 would only conceive a Greek or Roman, to whom two 
 persons relate their belief, each calling Christ by a different 
 name. It would be impossible for the Greek even to guess, 
 that they both meant the same person, or referred to the 
 same facts. 
 
TABLE TALK, ETC. 
 
 PROM ALLSOP'S LETTERS, CONVERSATIONS 
 
 AND RECOLLECTIONS OF S. T. COLERIDGE 
 
 1836 
 
 [The paragraphs to which a date is affixed are extracts 
 from Coleridge's letters ; the others are Allsop's recol- 
 lections of Coleridge's conversations.] 
 
COBBETT. 
 
 December 13, 1819. 
 
 Have you seen Cobbett's last number ? It is the most 
 plausible and the best written of anything I have seen 
 from Ms pen, and apparently written in a less fiendish 
 spirit than the average of his weekly effusions. The 
 self-complacency with which he assumes to himself ex- 
 clusively, truths which he can call his own only as a horse- 
 stealer can appropriate a stolen horse, by adding mutila- 
 tion and deformities to robbery, is as artful as it is amusing. 
 Still, however, he has given great additional publicity to 
 weighty truths, as, ex. gr., the hollowness of commercial 
 wealth ; and from whatever dirty corner or straw moppet 
 the ventriloquist Truth causes her words to proceed, 
 I not only listen, but must bear witness that it is Truth 
 talking. His conclusions, however, are palpably absurd 
 — give to an over -peopled island the countless back settle- 
 ments of America, and countless balloons to carry thither 
 man and maid, wife and brat, beast and baggage — and then 
 we might rationally expect that a general crash of trade, 
 manufactures, and credit, might be as mere a summer 
 thunderstorm in Great Britain as he represents it to be in 
 America. 
 
 One deep, most deep, impression of melancholy, did 
 Cobbett's letter to Lord Liverpool leave on my mind, — 
 the conviction that, wretch as he is, he is an overmatch 
 in intellect for those, in whose hands Providence, in its 
 retributive justice, seems to place the destinies of our 
 country ; and who yet rise into respectability, when we 
 compare them with their parliamentary opponents. 
 
 SCOTT. 
 
 April 8, 1820. 
 
 I occasioned you to misconceive me respecting Sir 
 Walter Scott. My purpose was to bring proofs of the 
 
414 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 energetic or inenergetic state of the minds of men, induced 
 by the excess and unintermitted action of stimulating 
 events and circumstances, — revolutions, battles, news- 
 papers, mobs, sedition and treason trials, public har- 
 angues, meetings, dinners ; the necessity in every indi- 
 vidual of ever increasing activity and anxiety in the 
 improvement of his estate, trade, &c, in proportion to 
 the decrease of the actual value of money, to the multi- 
 plication of competitors, and to the almost compulsory 
 expedience of expense, and prominence, even as the 
 means of obtaining or retaining competence ; the conse- 
 quent craving after amusement as proper relaxation, as 
 rest freed from the tedium of vacancy ; and, again, after 
 such knowledge and such acquirements as are ready coin, 
 that will pass at once, unweighed and unassayed ; to the 
 unexampled facilities afforded for this end by reviews, 
 magazines, &c, &c. The theatres, to which few go to 
 see a play, but to see Master Betty or Mr. Kean, or some 
 one indi< idual in some one part : and the single fact that 
 our neighbour, Mathews, has taken more, night after 
 night, than both the regular theatres conjointly, and 
 when the best comedies or whole plays have been acted 
 at each house, and those by excellent comedians, would 
 have yielded a striking instance, and illustration of my 
 position. But I chose an example in literature, as more 
 in point for the subject of my particular remarks, and 
 because every man of genius, who is born for his age, 
 and capable of acting immediately and widely on that 
 age, must of necessity reflect the age in the first instance, 
 though as far as he is a man of genius, he will doubtless 
 be himself reflected by it reciprocally. Now I selected 
 Scott for the very reason, that I do hold him for a man of 
 very extraordinary powers ; and when I say that I have 
 read the far greater part of his novels twice, and several 
 three times over, with undiminished pleasure and interest ; 
 and that, in my reprobation of the Bride of Lammer- 
 moor (with the exception, however, of the almost Shake- 
 spearian old witch-wives at the funeral) and of the Ivanhoe, 
 I mean to imply the grounds of my admiration of the 
 others, and the permanent nature of the interest which 
 they excite. In a word, I am far from thinking that Old 
 
SCOTT 415 
 
 Mortality or Guy Mannering would have been less admired 
 in the age of Sterne, Fielding, and Richardson, than they 
 are in the present times ; but only that Sterne, &c, 
 would not have had the same immediate popularity in the 
 present day as in their own less stimulated, and, there- 
 fore, less languid reading world. 
 
 Of Sir Walter Scott's poems I cannot speak so highly, 
 still less of the Poetry in his Poems ; though even in these 
 the power of presenting the most numerous figures, and 
 figures with the most complex movements, and under rapid 
 succession, in true picturesque unity, attests true and peculiar 
 genius. You cannot imagine with how much pain I used, 
 
 many years ago, to hear 's contemptuous assertions 
 
 respecting Scott ; and if I mistake not, I have yet the frag- 
 ments of the rough draft of a letter written by me so long 
 ago as my first lectures at the London Philosophical Society, 
 Fetter Lane, and on the backs of the unused admission 
 tickets. 
 
 One more remark. My criticism was confined to the one 
 point of the higher degree of intellectual activity implied 
 in the reading and admiration of Fielding, Richardson, and 
 Sterne ; — in moral, or, if that be too high and inwardly a word, 
 in mannerly manliness of taste the present age and its best 
 writers have the decided advantage, and I sincerely trust 
 that Walter Scott's readers would be as little disposed to 
 relish the stupid lechery of the courtship of Widow Wadman, 
 as Scott himself would be capable of presenting it. And, 
 that though I cannot pretend to have found in any of these 
 novels a character that even approaches in genius, in truth 
 of conception, or boldness and. freshness of execution, to 
 Parson Adams, Blifil, Strap, Lieutenant Bowling, Mr. Shandy, 
 Uncle Toby and Trim, and Lovelace ; and though Scott's 
 female characters will not, even the very best, bear a com 
 parison with Miss Byron, Clementina Emily, in Sir Charles f 
 Grandison ; nor the comic ones with Tabitha Bramble, or 
 with Betty (in Mrs. Bennett's Beggar Girl) ; and though, by 
 the use of the Scotch dialect, by Ossianic mock-highland 
 motley-heroic, and by extracts from the printed sermons, 
 memoirs, &c, of the fanatic preachers, there is a good 
 deal of false effect and stage trick : still the number of 
 characters so good produced by one man, and in so rapid 
 
416 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 ■i 
 
 a succession, must ever remai* an illustrious phenomenon 
 in literature, after all the subtractions for those borrowed 
 from English and German sources, or compounded by 
 blending two or three of the old drama into one, — ex. gr. 
 the Caleb in the Bride of Lammermoor . 
 
 Scott's great merit, and, at the same time, his felicity, 
 and the true solution of the long-sustained interest novel 
 after novel excited, lie in the nature of the subject ; not 
 merely, or even chiefly, because the struggle between the 
 Stuarts and the Presbyterians' and sectaries, is still in lively 
 memory, and the passions of the adherency to the former, 
 if not the adherency itself, extant in our own fathers' or 
 grandfathers' times ; nor yet (though this is of great weight) 
 because the language, manners, &c, introduced are suffi- 
 ciently different from ouk own for poignancy, and yet 
 sufficiently near and similar jot sympathy; nor yet be- 
 cause, for the same reason, the author, speaking, reflecting, 
 and descanting in his owl person, remains still (to adopt 
 a painter's phrase) in sufficient keeping with his subject 
 matter, while his characters can both talk and feel inter- 
 esting to us as men, without recourse to antiquarian in- 
 terest, and nevertheless without moral anachronism (in all 
 which points the Ivanhoe is so wofully the contrary, for 
 what Englishman cares for Saxon or Norman, both brutal 
 invaders, more than for Chinese and Cochin-Chinese ?) — 
 yet great as all these causes are, the essential wisdom and 
 \ happiness of the subject consists in this, — that the contest 
 between the loyalists and their opponents can never be 
 obsolete, for it is the contest between the two great moving 
 principles of social humanity ; religious adherence to the 
 past and the ancient, the* desire and the admiration of 
 permanence, on the one hant| ; afrd the passion for increase 
 of knowledge, for truth, as the offspring of reason — in 
 
 ^ short, the mighty instincts of progression and free agency, 
 on the other. In all subjects of deep and lasting interest, 
 you will detect a struggle between two opposites, two 
 polar forces, both of which are alike necessary to our 
 human well-being, and necessary each to the continued 
 existence of the other. Well, therefore, may we contem- 
 plate with intense feelings those whirlwinds which are for 
 free agents the appointed means, and the only possible 
 
SCOTT 417 
 
 condition of that equilibrium in which our moral Being 
 subsists ; while the disturbance of the same constitutes 
 our sense of life. Thus in the ancient Tragedy, the lofty 
 struggle between irresistible fate and unconquerable free 
 will, which finds its equilibrium in the providence and the 
 future retribution of Christianity. If, instead of a contest 
 between Saxons and Normans, or the Fantees and Ashan- 
 tees,— a mere contest of indifferents ! of minim surges in 
 a boiling fish-kettle,— Walter Scott had taken the struggle 
 between the men of arts and the men of arms in the time 
 of Becket, and made us feel how much to claim our well- 
 wishing there was in the cause and character of the priestly 
 and papal party, no less than in those of Henry and his 
 knights, he would have opened a new mine, instead of trans- 
 lating into Leadenhall Street Minerva Library sentences, 
 a cento of the most common incidents of the stately self- 
 congruous romances of D'Urfey, Scuderi, &c. N.B. I have 
 not read the Monastery, but I suspect that the thought or 
 element of the faery work is from the German. I perceive 
 from that passage in the Old Mortality, where Morton is 
 discovered by old Alice in consequence of calling his dog 
 Elphin, that Walter Scott has been reading Tieck's Phan- 
 tasies (a collection of faery or witch tales), from which both 
 the incident and name is borrowed. 
 
 April 8, 1820. 
 
 I forget whether I ever mentioned to you, that some 
 eighteen months ago I had planned and half collected, half 
 manufactured and invented a work, to be entitled The 
 Weather-BOJJNT> Traveller ; or, Histories, Lays, Legends, 
 Incidents, Anecdotes, and Remarks, contributed during a 
 detention in one of the Hebrides, recorded by their Sec- 
 retary, Lory McHaroldson, Senachy in the Isle of . 
 
 The principle of the work I had thus expressed in the 
 first chapter : ' Though not fact, must it needs be false ? 
 These things have a truth of their own, if we but knew 
 how to look for it. There is a humanity (meaning by 
 this word whatever contradistinguishes man), there is a 
 
 TABLE TALK E e 
 
418 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 humanity common to all periods of life, which each period 
 from childhood has its own way of representing. Hence, 
 in whatever laid firm hold of us in early life, there lurks 
 an interest and a charm for our maturest years, but which 
 he will never draw forth, who, content with mimicking 
 the unessential, though natural defects of thought and 
 expression, has not the skill to remove the childish, yet 
 leave the childlike untouched. Let each of us then relate 
 that which has left the deepest impression on his mind, 
 at whatever period of his life he may have seen, heard, 
 or read it ; but let him tell it in accordance with the 
 present state of his intellect and feelings, even as he has, 
 perhaps (Alnaschar-like), acted it over again by the par- 
 lour fire-side of a rustic inn, with the fire and the candles 
 for his only companions.' 
 
 On the hope of my Lectures answering, I had intended 
 to have done this work out of hand, dedicating the most 
 genial hours to the completion of Ghristabel, in the belief 
 that in the former I should be rekindling the feeling, and 
 recalling the state of mind, suitable to the latter. But 
 the hope was vain. 
 
 In stating the names and probable size of my works, 
 I by no means meant any reference to the mode of their 
 publication ; I merely wished to communicate to you the 
 amount of my labours. In two moderate volumes it was 
 my intention to comprise all those more prominent and 
 systematic par ts of my lucubrations on Shakespeare as should 
 be published (in the first instance at least, in the form of 
 books), and having selected and arranged them, to send the 
 more particular illustrations and analysis to some respect- 
 able magazine. In like manner, I proposed to include the 
 philosophical critiques on Dante, Milton, Cervantes, &c, in 
 a series of Letters entitled, The Reviewer in Exile, or Critic 
 confined to an Old Library. Provided the truths (which 
 are, I dare affirm, original, and all tending to the same prin- 
 ciples, and proving the endless fertility of true principle, 
 and the decision and power of growth which it communi- 
 cates to all the faculties of the mind) are but in existence, 
 and to be read by such as might wish to read, I have no 
 choice as to the mode ; nay, I should prefer that mode which 
 most multiplied the chances. So too as to the order. For 
 
CASTLES IN THE AIR 419 
 
 many reasons, it had been my wish to commence with the 
 Theological Letters : one, and not the least, is the strong 
 desire I have to put you and Hartley and Derwent Cole- 
 ridge in full possession of my whole Christian creed, with the 
 grounds of reason and authority on which it rests ; but 
 especially to unfold the true ' glorious liberty of the Gos- 
 pel,' by showing the distinction between doctrinal faith 
 and its sources and historical belief, with their reciprocal 
 action on each other ; and thus, on the one hand, to do 
 away the servile superstition which makes men Bibliolators, 
 and yet hides from them the proper excellences, the one 
 continued revelation of the Bible documents, which they 
 idolize ; and, on the other hand, to expose, in its native 
 worthlessness, the so-called evidences of Christianity 
 first brought into toleration by Arminius, and into fashion 
 by Grotius and the Socinian divines : for as such I con- 
 sider all those who preach and teach in the spirit of Socin- 
 ianism, though even in the outward form of a defence of 
 the thirty-nine articles. 
 
 The functions of a simple, earnest, and skilful country 
 surgeon, living in a small town or village, and circulating 
 in a radius of ten miles, are, and might always be made, 
 superior in real, urgent, instant, and fitting relief, to the 
 Lady Bountiful, and even to that of the Parson of the 
 parish. I often t hink with pleasure of the active practical 
 benevolence of Salter. 1 His rides were often sixty, aver- 
 aging more than thirty miles, every day, over bad roads 
 and in dark nights ; yet not once has he been known to 
 refuse a summons, though quite sure that he would receive 
 no remuneration, nay, not sure that it would not be neces- 
 sary to supply wine or cordials, which, in the absence of 
 the landlord of his village, must be at his own expense. 
 This man was generally pitied by the affluent and the idle, 
 on the score of his constant labours, and the drudgery 
 which he almost seemed to court. Yet with little reason : 
 for never knew I the man more to be envied, one more 
 cheerful, more invariably kind, or more patient : always 
 
 1 Salter, if I recollect right, lived in Devonshire; but whether at 
 Ottery or in its neighbourhood, I am ignorant. (Allsop's note.) 
 
 E e 2 
 
420 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 kind from real kindness and delicacy of feeling ; never, even 
 for a moment, angry. The present system of money-making, 
 and, what is worse, sleight of hand, and other tricks for 
 ostentation and stage effect, leaves little hope of future 
 Salters. 
 
 THOTTGHT AND LANGUAGE. 
 
 I believe that processes of thought might be carried 
 on independent and apart from spoken or written language. 
 I do not in the least doubt, that if language had been 
 denied or withheld from man, or that he had not dis- 
 covered and improved that mode of intercommunication, 
 thought, as thought, would have been a process more 
 simple, more easy, and more perfect than at present, 
 and would both have included and evolved other and 
 better means for its own manifestations, than any that 
 exist now. 
 
 THE CHT7ECH, THE AEMY, AND THE FAIR SEX. 
 
 A clergyman has even more influence with the women 
 than the handsome captain. The captain will captivate 
 the fancy, whilst the young parson seizes upon the imagin- 
 ation, and subdues it to his service. The captain is con- 
 scious of his advantages, and sees the impression he has 
 made long before his victim suspects the reality of any 
 preference. The parson, unless he be the vain fop, for 
 which, however, his education essentially unfits him, has 
 often secured to himself the imagination, and, through 
 the imagination, the best affections of those amongst whom 
 he lives, before he is seriously attached himself. 
 
 CAEN WOOD. 
 
 Hark yet again to that sweet strain ! See how calm, 
 how beauteous that prospect toward my garden ! (Thus 
 he used sportively to call the demesne of Caen Wood, and 
 its honest, though unreasoning owner, his head gardener.) 
 Would to God I could give out my being amidst flowers, 
 and the sight of meadowy fields, and the chaunt of birds. 
 Death without pain at such a time, in such a place as this, 
 
CAEN WOOD— MIRACLES 421 
 
 would be a reward for life. If I fear at all, I fear dying— 
 I do not fear death. 
 
 CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 No, no ; Lamb's scepticism has not come lightly, nor 
 is he a sceptic. The harsh reproof to Godwin for his con- 
 temptuous allusion to Christ before a well-trained child, 
 proves that he is not a sceptic. His mind, never prone to 
 analysis, seems to have been disgusted with the hollow 
 pretences, the false reasonings, and absurdities of the 
 rogues and fools with which all establishments, and all 
 creeds seeking to become established, abound. I look 
 upon Lamb as one hovering between earth and heaven ; 
 neither hoping much nor fearing anything. 
 
 It is curious that he should retain many usages which 
 he learnt or adopted in the fervour of his early religious 
 feelings, now that his faith is in a state of suspended 
 animation. Believe me, who know him well, that Lamb, 
 say what he will, has more of the essentials of Christianity 
 than ninety-nine out of a hundred professing Christians. 
 He has all that would still have been Christian had Christ 
 never lived or been made manifest upon earth. 
 
 MIRACLES. 
 
 I deprecate a literal still more than an ideal religion. 
 The miracles may be fairly illustrated by the familiar 
 example of a lecture with experiments at the institution. 
 A man ignorant of the law whence these conjurations 
 proceeded would be acted upon in a very different manner, 
 when compared with the philosopher who, familiar with 
 the law, or the principle whence they emanate, and with 
 which they are congruous, sees in them only the natural 
 results, hardly the confirmation of that which had pre- 
 viously been known. Compare this with the no-results 
 obtained from meteorology, a science so misnamed, which 
 so far from being in its infancy is not yet in its foetal state. 
 The meteorological journals are as little to be relied upon, 
 as would be the account of a ploughman, taken to an ex- 
 perimental lecture at the institution. Ignorant of the 
 law and the principle, he would give an account of the 
 
422 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 results, so different from the actual facts, that no one could 
 conjecture a law from his evidence. So with the miracles. 
 They are supererogatory. The law of God and the great 
 principles of the Christian religion would have been the 
 same had Christ never assumed humanity. It is for these 
 things, and for such as these, for telling unwelcome truths, 
 that I have been termed an atheist. It is for these opinions 
 that William Smith assured the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 that I was (what half the clergy are in their lives) an atheist. 
 Little do these men know what atheism is. Not one man 
 in a thousand has either strength of mind or goodness of 
 heart to be an atheist. I repeat it. Not one man in ten 
 thousand has goodness of heart or strength of mind to be 
 an atheist. 
 
 And, were I not a Christian, and that only in the sense 
 in which I am a Christian, I should be an atheist with 
 Spinoza ; rejecting all in which I found insuperable diffi- 
 culties, and resting my only hope in the gradual, and 
 certain because gradual, progression of the species. 
 
 This, it is true, is negative atheism ; and this is, next 
 to Christianity, the purest spirit of humanity ! 
 
 CAELILE. 
 
 Disliking the whole course and conduct of Carlile, 
 I yet hold with him as against his judges and persecutors. 
 I hold the assertion that Christianity is part and parcel 
 of the law of the land, to be an absurdity. It might as 
 well be said because there is, or might be, a law to protect 
 carpenters in the exercise of their trade, that architecture 
 is part and parcel of the law. The government, or rather 
 the party administering the functions of government, 
 have never had the courage to place the question in its 
 true light, and bring the action for a crime against society, 
 not against a creed. When a man gives up the right of 
 self-defence to a state, it is tacitly understood that the 
 state undertakes to protect him equally against 1 bodies 
 
 1 To explain this allusion it will be necessary to state that the prose- 
 cution against Carlile was carried on by a loyal and constitutional 
 association, better known, at that time, as the Bridge Street Gang. 
 I have preserved an impromptu of Coleridge's (which I wrote down at 
 
CARLILE 423 
 
 of men as against individuals. Carlile may be wrong ; 
 his 'persecutors undoubtedly are so. 
 
 How I loathed the horrid speeches of the Attorney- 
 General and of Mr. Justice Bayley, at the trial of that 
 wretched man (Carlile). They said in so many words, 
 ' The Unitarian who differs with you in nine points out 
 of ten is sacred, but in the one point where he agrees with 
 you, you condemn the deist.' Certainly the repeal of the 
 act against Unitarianism was entirely and unequivocally 
 an acknowledgement that those points were not of moment. 
 Carlile, if he had not been blinded by the steams arising 
 from that hell, his own mind, might have taken advantage 
 of this. Judge Abbot acted very well ; he put the question 
 on the ground of incivism, and not on the religious ground. 
 No doubt the early Christians who in the second century 
 threw down altars, attacked with uproar, railing and abuse, 
 the existing religion, are not to be considered as martyrs, 
 but as justly punished on the ground of incivism ; their con- 
 duct was contrary to the injunction of their Great Master. 
 
 THE DEIST. 
 
 The vulgar notion that a deist neither believes in a 
 future state nor in the existence of spirits is false, according 
 
 the time) upon this body ; the allusions in, and the application of, which 
 will be readily made by all interested. 
 
 Jack Snipe 
 
 Eats tripe, 
 
 It is therefore credible 
 
 That tripe is edible. 
 
 And therefore, perforce, 
 
 It follows, of course, 
 
 That the devil will gripe 
 
 All who do not eat tripe. 
 
 And as Niok is too slow 
 
 To fetch 'em below, 
 
 And Gifford, the attorney, 
 
 Won't quicken their journey ; 
 
 The Bridge-Street Committee 
 
 That colleague without pity, 
 
 To imprison and hang 
 
 Carlile and his gang, 
 
 Is the pride of the city : 
 
 And 'tis association 
 
 That, alone, saves the nation 
 
 From death and damnation. (Allsop's note.) 
 
424 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 to the evidence of Christ himself ; who expressly says, 
 when questioned on this point, ' Believe ye not this; 
 neither would ye believe if one were to rise from the dead. 
 And again, ' No man who believes not in this, is worthy 
 to be received.' 
 
 LIBEL. 
 
 The paradox that the greater the truth the greater the 
 libel, has done much mischief. I had once intended to 
 have written a treatise on Phrases and their Consequences, 
 and this would have been at the head. Certainly, if ex- 
 tended, it has some truth ; a man may state the truth in 
 words, and yet tell a he in spirit, and as such deserve 
 punishment for calumny. 
 
 POLITICIANS AND MEN OF LETTERS. 
 
 All men in power are jealous of the pre-eminence of 
 men of letters ; they feel, as towards them, conscious of 
 inferior power, and a sort of misgiving that they are, 
 indirectly, and against their own will, mere instruments and 
 agents of higher intellects. 
 
 Men in power, for instance Lord Castlereagh, are con- 
 scious of inferiority, and are yet ashamed to own, even to 
 themselves, the fact, which is only the more evident by 
 their neglect of men of letters. So entirely was Mr. Pitt 
 aware of this, that he would never allow of any intercourse 
 with literary men of eminence ; fearing, doubtless, that 
 the charm which spellbound his political adherents would, 
 at least for the time, fail of its effect. 
 
 A GENERAL WANT OE INTELLECT. 
 
 There is a -great, a general want of intellect at this time, 
 so much so that when any convulsion occurs, it will tell 
 fatally. The fabric of our society resembles a house of 
 cards built by children, which so long as the squares sup- 
 port a roof, and that roof an angle, and the inter-depen- 
 dence is sufficient, all seems well; but the moment the 
 fabric is shaken, and when the component parts can no 
 longer form an angle, it will assuredly fall to the ground. 
 
A GENERAL WANT OF INTELLECT 425 
 
 See First Lay Sermon. The Second Lay Sermon, and 
 the Letters to Judge Fletcher are, in truth, wonderful 
 prophecies. 
 
 CHRISTABEL. 
 
 If I should finish Christabel, I shall certainly extend it 
 and give new characters, and a greater number of incidents. 
 This the ' reading public ' require, and this is the reason that 
 Sir Walter Scott's Poems, though so loosely written, are 
 pleasing, and interest us by their picturesqueness. 
 
 If a genial recurrence of the ray divine should occur for 
 a few weeks, I shall certainly attempt it. I had the whole 
 of the two cantos in my mind before I began it ; certainly 
 the first canto is more perfect, has more of the true wild 
 weird spirit than the last. I laughed heartily at the con- 
 tinuation in Blackwood, which I have been told is by 
 Maginn : it is in appearance, and in appearance only, 
 a good imitation ; I do not doubt but that it gave more 
 pleasure, and to a greater number, than a continuation by 
 myself in the spirit of the two first cantos. 
 
 The ' Ancient Mariner ' cannot be imitated, nor the 
 poem, ' Love.' They may be excelled ; they are not imitable. 
 
 COLLABORATION. 
 
 Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk seem to have originated 
 in a sort of familiar conversation between two clever men, 
 who have said, ' Let us write a book that will sell ; you 
 write this, and I will write that,' and in a sort of laughing 
 humour set to work. This was the way that Southey and 
 myself wrote many things together. 
 
 ' WALLENSTEIN ' AND ' REMORSE '. 
 
 I am glad you are now to see the Wallenstein for the first 
 time, as you will then see a specimen of my happiest 
 attempt, during the prime manhood of my intellect, 
 before I had been buffeted by adversity or crossed by 
 fatality. The ' Remorse ' is certainly a great favourite of 
 mine, the more so as certain pet abstract notions of mine 
 are therein expounded. 
 
426 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 JOSEPH HENRY GREEN. 
 
 Mr. Green is indeed a worthy man, at least so all my 
 friends say. Bred up from the age of twelve in a hospital, 
 he has yet not failed to shun their horrid materialism. He 
 has come to a very different conclusion to that at which 
 most other operators, most psychologists have arrived. 
 He has been able to believe in a spiritual first cause and 
 in a presiding free will. This you will see in his preface. 
 
 OUT OF THE PALE OE SOCIETY. 
 
 I deplore in my inmost heart the present mental de- 
 gradation of E., who, not contented with denying the 
 primal truths of religion and the divine nature of man, 
 holds opinions which were ever considered as base, hateful, 
 and to be abhorred ; opinions which degrade man below 
 the beast. Quoted that passage of Cicero, wherein he says, 
 ' Concerning these things there are (or may be) different 
 opinions ; but those who disbelieve the existence of good- 
 ness, not only from the want of it themselves, but after 
 much consideration, are to be held as out of the pale of 
 society.' 
 
 SIR HUMPHRY DAVY. 
 
 Tobin came one morning with a face of much interest 
 to inform me that Davy had made a wonderful discovery. 
 ' I doubt it not ; I think he will make many discoveries.' 
 ' Yes, yes ; but I mean in philosophy. He tells me he has 
 discovered that it is possible there may be a God ! ' 
 
 CLARKSON. 
 
 I once asked Tom Clarkson whether he ever thought of 
 his probable fate in the next world, to which he replied, 
 ' How can I ? I think only of the slaves in Barbadoes ! ' 
 Does Mr. Wilberforce care a farthing for the slaves in the 
 West Indies, or if they were all at the devil, so that his soul 
 were saved ? 
 
 As there is a worldliness or the too-much of this life so 
 
CLARKSON— LORD KENYON 427 
 
 there is another-worldliness, or rather other-worldliness , 
 equally hateful and selfish with this-worldliness. 
 
 THE MUTE CREATION. 
 
 Lord Erskine, speaking of animals, hesitating to call 
 them brutes, hit upon that happy phrase — ' the mute 
 creation'. 
 
 LORD KENYON. 
 
 Lord Kenyon, on the trial of a bookseller, for publish- 
 ing Paine's Age of Reason, in his charge to the jury, 
 enumerated many celebrated men who had been sincere 
 Christians ; and, after having enforced the example of 
 Locke and Newton, — both of whom were Unitarians, and 
 therefore not Christians, — proceeded : ' Nor, gentlemen, 
 is this belief confined to men of comparative seclusion, 
 since men, the greatest and most distinguished both as 
 philosophers and as monarchs, have enforced this belief, 
 and shown its influence by their conduct. Above all, 
 gentlemen, need I name to you the Emperor Julian, who 
 was so celebrated for the practice of every Christian virtue 
 that he was called Julian the Apostle ? ' 
 
 It is indisputable that nervous excitation is contagious. 
 The greater part of ghost stories may be traced to this 
 source. 
 
 Forms exist before the substance out of which they are 
 shaped. 
 
 One thought includes all thought, in the sense that a 
 grain of sand includes the universe. 
 
 I hold with St. Paul that charity is the greatest of the 
 virtues. Original sin is best explained by depravation of 
 the will. Calvinism, or the belief in election, is not simply 
 blasphemy, but superfetation of blasphemy. 
 
 For one person who has remarked or praised a beautiful 
 passage in Walter Scott's works, a hundred have said, 
 
428 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 * How many volumes he has written ! ' So of Mathews : 
 it is not ' How admirable such and such parts are ! ' but, 
 ' It is wonderful that one man can do all this ! ' 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 August 8, 1820. 
 
 Would to heaven I were with you ! In a few days you 
 should see that the spirit of the mountaineer is not yet 
 utterly extinct in me. Wordsworth has remarked (in ' The 
 Brothers ', I believe), 
 
 The thought of death sits light upon the man 
 That has been bred, and dies among the mountains. 
 
 But I fear that this, like some other few of Wordsworth's 
 many striking passages, means less than it seems, or rather 
 promises, to mean. Poets (especially if philosophers too) 
 are apt to represent the effect made upon themselves as 
 general ; the geese of Phoebus are all swans ; and Words- 
 worth's shepherds and estates men are Wordsworth's, 
 even (as in old Michael) in the unpoetic traits of character. 
 Whether mountains have any particular effect on the 
 native inhabitants by virtue of being mountains ex- 
 clusively, and what that effect is, would be a diffi- 
 cult problem." If independent tribes, mountaineers are 
 robbers of the lowlanders ; brave, active, and with all 
 the usual warlike good and bad qualities that result from 
 habits of adventurous robbery. Add clanship and the 
 superstititions that are the surviving precipitate of an 
 established religion, both which are common to the un- 
 civilized Celtic tribes, in plain no less than in mountain, 
 and you have the Scottish Highlanders. But where the 
 inhabitants exist as states or civilized parts of civilized 
 states, they appear to be in mind and character just what 
 their condition and employments would render them in 
 level plain, the same as amid Alpine heights. At least 
 the influence acts indirectly only, as far as the mountains 
 are the causa causae or occasion of a pastoral life instead 
 of an agricultural ; thus combining a lax and common 
 property, possessed by a whole district, with small heredi- 
 tary estates sacred to each, while the properties in sheep 
 
WORDSWORTH 429 
 
 seem to partake of both characters. And truly, to this 
 circumstance, aided by the favourable action of a neces- 
 sarily scanty population (for man is an oak that wants 
 room, not a 'plantation tree), we must attribute whatever 
 superiority the mountaineers of Cumberland and West- 
 moreland and of the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps possess, as the 
 shocking contrast of the Welsh mountaineers too clearly 
 evinces. But this subject I have discussed, and (if I do 
 not flatter myself) satisfactorily, in the Literary Life, and 
 I will not conceal from you that this inferred dependency 
 of the human soul on accidents of birthplace and abode, 
 together with the vague, misty, rather than mystic, con- 
 fusion of God with the world, and the accompanying 
 nature-worship, of which the asserted dependence forms 
 a part, is the trait in Wordsworth's poetic works that I most 
 dislike as unhealthful, and denounce as contagious ; while 
 the odd introduction of the popular, almost the vulgar, 
 religion in his later publications (the popping in, as Hartley 
 says, of the old man with a beard), suggests the painful 
 suspicion of worldly prudence — at best a justification of 
 masking truth (which, in fact, is a falsehood substituted 
 for a truth withheld) on plea of expediency — carried into 
 religion. At least it conjures up to my fancy a sort of 
 Janus head of Spinoza and Dr. Watts, or ' I and my 
 brother the dean '. 
 Permit me, then, in the place of the two lines, 
 
 The thought of death sits easy on the man, 
 
 Who hath been bred, and dies among the mountains, 
 
 to say, 
 
 The thought of death sits easy on the man, 
 
 Whose earnest will hath lived among the deathless. » 
 
 COBBETT AGAIN. 
 
 October 11, 1820. 
 
 The Cobbett is assuredly a strong and battering pro- 
 duction throughout, and in the best bad style of this 
 political rhinoceros, with his coat armour of dry and wet 
 mud, and his one horn of brutal strength on the nose of 
 
430 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 scorn and hate ; not to forget the flaying rasp of his tongue ! 
 There is one article of his invective, however, from which 
 I cannot withhold my vote of consent : that I mean which 
 respects Mr. Brougham's hollow complimentary phrases to 
 the ministry and the House of Lords. 
 
 A single thought is that which it is from other thoughts, 
 as a wave of the sea takes its form and shape from the 
 waves which precede and follow it. 
 
 NEWTON AND KEPLER. 
 
 In the system of gravity, Newton only developed the 
 idea of Kepler. He advanced a step, and there he fixed 
 his followers. Kepler would have progressed, or have been 
 stationary in act at least. 
 
 BROUGHAM. 
 
 I recollect meeting Mr, Brougham well. I met him at 
 Mr. Sharp's with Mr. Horner. They were then aspirants for 
 political adventures. Mr . Horner bore in his conversation and 
 demeanour evidence of that straightforward and generous 
 frankness which characterized him through life. You saw, 
 or rather you felt, that you could rely upon his integrity. 
 His mind was better fitted to reconcile discrepancies than 
 to discover analogies. He had fine, nay, even high, talent 
 rather than genius. Mr. Brougham, on the contrary, had 
 an apparent restlessness, a consciousness, not of superior 
 powers, but of superior activity, a man whose heart was 
 placed in what should have been his head : you were never 
 sure of him — you always doubted his sincerity. He was 
 at that time a hanger-on upon Lord Holland, Mr. Horner 
 being under the auspices of Lord Lansdowne. 
 
 From that time I lost sight of Mr. Brougham for some 
 time. When we next met, the subject of the parliamentary 
 debates was alluded to, previously to which Mr. Brougham 
 had expressed opinions which were in unison with my own 
 upon a matter at that time of great public interest. 
 
 I said ' I could never rely upon what was given for the 
 
BROUGHAM— THE JEWISH RELIGION 431 
 
 future in the newspapers, as they had made him say directly 
 the contrary ; I was glad to be undeceived.' 
 
 ' Oh,' said Brougham, in a tone of voice half confidential 
 and half jocular, ' Oh, it was very true I said so in Parlia- 
 ment, where there is a party, but we know better.' 
 
 I said nothing ; but I did not forget it. 
 
 THEOLOGY. 
 
 The question of the atonement and of the sacrament being 
 introduced, he insisted on the divine origin of the sacra- 
 ment, and that it was to be understood in a mystical 
 sense, not, however, as a real presence. It has very clearly 
 relation to the sixth chapter of John ; nay, Clement 
 expressly affirms it to be a solemn mysterious ceremony, 
 in which he is sustained by Justin Martyr. With respect 
 to free will, in the ordinary acceptation, he affirmed it to 
 be incompatible with omnipotence, with the attributes 
 of that God who is omniscient and omnipresent, who is 
 in all things, and in whom all things are, to whom time past 
 and time to come ever is. Man is not to be saved without 
 his saving grace. 
 
 Speaking of the term ' Son of Man ', taken literally by the 
 Socinians, he said, — ' The Son of Man ! What is it but 
 mockery if he were really a man, the man Jesus Christ. 
 He was incarnate in Trinity or tri-unity ; first, he was 
 incarnate as the Logos, or Word ; next, he was incarnate 
 with the Holy Spirit unto all things, that he might remain 
 in the spirit ; and, lastly, he was incarnate in his humanity.' 
 
 THE JEWISH RELIGION. 
 
 Compared to the Jewish Law, given as it was in thunders 
 and in terrible convulsions of the elements, the miracles of 
 the Christian dispensation were devoid of interest. 
 
 There can be no doubt that a religion like that of the 
 Jews, a religion of punishments and threatenings only, 
 was incomplete ; it must, therefore, be false, or it required 
 to be perfected. 
 
432 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 RICHARD BAXTER. 
 
 Speaking of Baxter, he affirmed that he was a century 
 before his time, that he was a logician, and first applied 
 the tri-fold or tri-une demonstration. Heretofore, the two- 
 fold method only was known as the arguing from a positive 
 to a negative, the reality ergo the visionary. He also first 
 introduced the method of argument, that the thing or 
 reason given contains a positive and its opposite; e.g. 
 reality contains the actual and the potential, as, I sit, the 
 actual, but I have the power, the potentiality, of walking. 
 Baxter tried to reconcile the almost irreconcilable tenets 
 of Calvinism and Arminianism. He more than any other 
 man was the cause of the restoration, and more than any 
 other sectarian was he persecuted by Charles II. 
 
 He is borne out in all his statements by Mrs. Lucy 
 Hutchinson, that most delightful of women and of regi- 
 cidesses. No doubt the Commons had a right to punish 
 the weak and perfidious king, inasmuch as he first appealed 
 to the God of Battles. 
 
 POLITICS. 
 
 The present ministry (the Liverpool-Castlereagh cabinet), 
 although it contains some men of ability, is supported 
 chiefly by its own weakness, which in every instance leads 
 or rather compels it to a mean and abject prostration of 
 the prerogative to the House of Commons, and by the un- 
 popularity of the opposition, arising from their having 
 opposed themselves to the French war and to the grant of 
 assistance to Spain. The grand mistake of Mr. Fox was, 
 that he did not separate the causes of the war from the 
 consequences, but acted as though, having espoused the 
 cause of the French Revolution, he must in every instance 
 advocate its measures. This lost him his party, and swelled 
 the ranks of Mr. Pitt, a man utterly unfitted for the conduct 
 of a war, all his plans being based upon, so called, ex- 
 pediency, and pernicious shortsightedness, which would 
 never allow him to take into his calculation the future. 
 
 Even the very successes of our naval power contributed, 
 and that in a most influential degree, to form and render 
 
POLITICS— POLITICAL ECONOMY 433 
 
 extreme the military spirit in France ; for, utterly and 
 entirely weaning men from commerce and maritime con- 
 cerns, they necessarily gave exclusive attention to military 
 affairs, for on the sea, hope, even, did not exist for France. 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 It is not uncommon for 100,000 operatives (mark this 
 word, for words in this sense are things) to be out of em- 
 ployment at once in the cotton districts (this was in 1820), 
 and, thrown upon parochial relief, are dependent upon 
 hard-hearted taskmasters for food. The Malthusian doc- 
 trine would indeed afford a certain means of relief if this 
 were not a two-fold question. If, when you say to a man, 
 — ' You have no claim upon me ; you have your allotted 
 part to perform in the world, so have I. In a state of 
 nature, indeed, had I food, I should offer you a share from 
 sympathy, from humanity ; but in this advanced and 
 artificial state of society, I cannot afford you relief ; you 
 must starve. You came into the world when it could not 
 sustain you.' What would be this man's answer ? He 
 would say, ' You disclaim all connexion with me ; I have 
 no claims upon you ? / can then have no duties towards 
 you, and this pistol shall put me in possession of your 
 wealth. You may leave a law behind you which shall 
 hang me, but what man who saw assured starvation before 
 him, ever feared hanging.' It is this accursed practice of 
 ever- considering only what seems expedient for the occasion, 
 disjoined from all principle or enlarged systems of action, of 
 never listening to the true and unerring impulses of our 
 better nature, which has led the colder-hearted men to 
 the study of political economy, which has turned our Par- 
 liament into a real committee of public safety. In it is all 
 power vested ; and,in a few years we shall either be governed 
 by an aristocracy, or, what is still more likely, by a con- 
 temptible democratical oligarchy of glib economists, com- 
 pared to which the worst form of aristocracy would be a 
 blessing. 
 
 COMMERCE. 
 
 Commerce has enriched thousands, it has been the cause 
 of the spread of knowledge and of science, but has it added 
 
 TABLE TALK E f 
 
434 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 one particle of happiness or of moral improvement ? Has 
 it given us a truer insight into our duties, or tended to 
 revive and sustain in us the better feelings of our nature ? 
 No ! no ! when I consider what the consequences have been, 
 when I consider thatwhole districts of men, who would other- 
 wise have slumbered on in comparatively happy ignorance, 
 are now little less than brutes in their lives, and something 
 worse than brutes in their instincts, I could almost wish that 
 the manufacturing districts were swallowed up as Sodom and 
 Gomorrah. 
 
 Some men — Jeffrey is one — refer taste to palate. 
 
 Absurd terms, when compared, as ' conclusion of a war ', 
 ' conclusion of a peace ' . In the one case it means the end, 
 in the other the beginning. 
 
 LOCKE AND HUME. 
 
 I am unable to account for Mr. Locke's popularity ; in 
 some degree it may be owing to his having exposed and 
 confuted the absurdities, or rather the absurd part, of the 
 schoolmen. Hume has carried his premises to their natural 
 and inevitable conclusion. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The idea of the mind forming images of itself, is as 
 absurd as the belief of Descartes with respect to the ex- 
 ternal world. There is nothing in the mind which was 
 not previously in the senses, except the mind itself. Philo- 
 sophy, properly so called, began with Pythagoras. He saw 
 that the mind, in the common sense of the word, was itself 
 a fact, that there was something in the mind not individual ; 
 this was the pure reason, something in which we are, not 
 which is in us. 
 
 Socrates seems to have been continually oscillating be- 
 tween the good and the useful. 
 
 To most men, experience is like the stern lights of a ship, 
 which illumine only the track it has passed. 
 
DR. AIKIN— 'AH! IP ONLY' 435 
 
 DB. AIKIN. 
 
 On William Smith, of Norwich, asking me what I thought 
 of the Monthly Beview or Magazine, and of Dr. Aikin, its 
 editor, I was provoked, by his evident wish that I should 
 say something in its favour, to reply, 'That all men of 
 science or literature could attest that the one was a void 
 Aikin, and the other an aching void.' 
 
 January, 1821. 
 
 Interpreting the ' wine ' and the ' ivy garland ' as figures 
 of poetry signifying competence, and the removal of the 
 petty needs of the body that plug up the pipes of the play- 
 ing fountain (and such it is too well known was the intent 
 and meaning of the hardly used poet), and oh ! how often, 
 when my heart has begun to swell from the genial warmth 
 of thought, as our northern lakes from the (so called) bottom 
 winds, when all above and around is stillness and sunshine 
 — how often have I repeated in my own name the sweet 
 stanza of Edmund Spenser : — 
 
 Thou kenst not, Percie, how the rhyme should rage, 
 ! if my temples were bedewed with wine, 
 And girt in garlands of wild ivy twine ; 
 How I could rear the muse on stately stage, 
 And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine 
 With queint Bellona in her equipage. 
 
 Head what follows as you would a note at the bottom 
 of a page. 
 
 But ah ! Mecsenas is ywrapt in clay, and great Augustus long 
 ago is dead. 
 
 (This is a natural sigh, and natural too is the reflec- 
 tion that follows.) 
 
 And if that any buds of poesy 
 Yet of the old stock 'gin to shoot again, 
 'Tis or seZ/-lost the worldling's meed to gain, 
 And with the rest to breathe its ribauldry, 
 Or as it sprung it wither must again ; 
 Tom Piper makes them better melody. 
 Ff 2 
 
436 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 But though natural, the complaint is not equally philoso- 
 phical, were it only on this account, — that I know of no age 
 in which the same has not been advanced, and with the 
 same grounds. Nay, I retract ; there never was a time 
 in which the complaint would be so little wise, though 
 perhaps none in which the fact is more prominent. Neither 
 philosophy nor poetry ever did, nor as long as they are 
 terms of comparative excellence and contradistinction, ever 
 can be popular, nor honoured with the praise and favour 
 of contemporaries. But, on the other hand, there never was 
 a time in which either books, that were held for excellent 
 as poetic or philosophic, had so extensive and rapid a sale, 
 or men reputed poets and philosophers of a high rank were 
 so much looked up to in society, or so munificently, almost 
 profusely, rewarded. Walter Scott's poems and novels 
 (except only the two wretched abortions, Ivanhoe and The 
 Bride of Bavensmuir, or whatever its name may be) supply 
 both instance and solution of the present conditions and 
 components of popularity, viz. to amuse without requiring 
 any effort of thought, and without exciting any deep 
 emotion. The age seems sore from excess of stimulation, 
 just as, a day or two after a thorough debauch and long 
 sustained drinking-match, a man feels all over like a 
 bruise. Even to admire otherwise than on the whole, and 
 where ' I admire ' is but a synonym for ' I remember I 
 liked it very much when I was reading it,' is too much an 
 effort, would be too disquieting an emotion. Compare 
 Waverley, Guy Mannering, and Co., with works that had 
 an immediate run in the last generation, Tristram Shandy, 
 Boderick Bandom, Sir Charles Orandison, Clarissa Harhwe, 
 and Tom Jones (all which became popular as soon as pub- 
 lished, and therefore instances fairly in point), and you will 
 be convinced that the difference of taste is real, and not 
 any fancy or croaking of my own. 
 
 January, 1821. 
 
 I have already the written materials and contents re- 
 quiring only to be put together, from the loose papers and 
 commonplace or memorandum books, and needing no other 
 
COLEEIDGE'S LITERARY REMAINS 437 
 
 change, whether of omission, addition, or correction, than 
 the mere act of arranging, and the opportunity of seeing 
 the whole collectively bring with them of course, — I. Char- 
 acteristics of Shakespeare's Dramatic Works, with a Critical 
 Review of each Play ; together with a relative and com- 
 parative Critique on the kind and degree of the Merits and 
 Demerits of the Dramatic Works of Ben Jonson, Beaumont 
 and Fletcher, and Massinger. The History of the English 
 Drama ; the accidental advantages it afforded to Shake- 
 speare, without in the least detracting from the perfect 
 originality or proper creation of the Shakespearian Drama ; 
 the contradistinction of the latter from the Greek Drama ; 
 and its still remaining uniqueness, with the causes of this, 
 from the combined influences of Shakespeare himself, as 
 man, poet, philosopher, and finally, by conjunction of all 
 these, dramatic poet ; and of the age, events, manners, and 
 state of the English language. This work, with every art 
 of compression, amounts to three volumes of about five 
 hundred pages each. — II. Philosophical Analysis of the 
 Genius and Works of Dante, Spenser, Milton, Cervantes, 
 and Calderon, with similar, but more compressed Criticisms 
 on Chaucer, Ariosto, Donne, Rabelais, and others, during 
 the predominance of the Romantic Poetry. In one large 
 volume. — These two works will, I flatter myself, form a 
 complete code of the principles of judgement and feeling 
 applied to Works of Taste ; and not of Poetry only, but of 
 Poesy in all its forms, Painting, Statuary, Music, &c, &c. — 
 III. The History of Philosophy considered as a Tendency 
 of the Human Mind to exhibit the Powers of the Human 
 Reason, to discover by its own Strength the Origin and 
 Laws of Man and the World from Pythagoras to Locke and 
 Condillac. Two Volumes. — IV. Letters on the Old and 
 New Testament, and on the Doctrine and Principles held 
 in common by the Fathers and Founders of the Refor- 
 mation, addressed to a Candidate for Holy Orders ; includ- 
 ing Advice on the Plan and Subjects of Preaching, proper 
 to a Minister of the Established Church. 
 
 To the completion of these four works I have literally 
 nothing more to do than to transcribe ; but, as I before 
 hinted, from so many scraps and Sibylline leaves, inclu- 
 ding margins of books and blank pages, that, unfortunately, 
 
438 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 I must be my own scribe, and not done by myself, they will 
 be all but lost ; or perhaps (as has been too often the case 
 already) furnish feathers for the caps of others ; some for 
 this purpose, and some to plume the arrows of detraction, 
 to be let fly against the luckless bird from whom they had 
 been plucked or moulted. 
 
 In addition to these — of my great work, to the prepara- 
 tion of which more than twenty years of my life have been 
 devoted, and on which my hopes of extensive and permanent 
 utility, of fame, in the noblest sense of the word, mainly 
 rest — that by which I might, 
 
 As now by thee, by all the good be known, 
 
 When this weak frame lies moulder'd in the grave, 
 Which self-surviving I might call my own, 
 Which Folly cannot mar, nor Hate deprave — 
 The incense of those powers, which, risen in flame, 
 Might make me dear to Him from whom they came — 
 
 of this work, to which all my other writings (unless I except 
 my Poems, and these I can exclude in part only) are intro- 
 ductory and preparative ; and the result of which (if the 
 premises be, as I with the most tranquil assurance am con- 
 vinced they are — insubvertible, the deductions legitimate, 
 and the conclusions commensurate, and only commensurate, 
 with both), must finally be a revolution of all that has been 
 called Philosophy or Metaphysics in England and Prance 
 since the era of the commencing predominance of the 
 mechanical system at the restoration of our second Charles, 
 and with this the present fashionable views, not only of 
 religion, morals, and politics, but even of the modern physics 
 and physiology. You will not blame the earnestness of my 
 expressions, nor the high importance which I attach to 
 this work ; for how, with less noble objects, and less faith 
 in their attainment, could I stand acquitted of folly, and 
 abuse of time, talents, and learning, in a labour of three- 
 fourths of my intellectual life ? Of this work, something 
 more than a volume has been dictated by me, so as to 
 exist fit for the press, to my friend and enlightened pupil, 
 Mr. Green ; and more than as much again would have been 
 evolved and delivered to paper, but that, for the last six 
 or eight months, I have been compelled to break off our 
 
THE GREAT WORK 439 
 
 weekly meeting, from the necessity of writing (alas ! alas ! 
 of attempting to write) for purposes, and on the subjects of 
 the passing day. — Of my poetic works, I would fain finish 
 the Christabel. Alas ! for the proud time when I planned, 
 when I had present to my mind, the materials, as well as 
 the scheme, of the Hymns entitled Spirit, Sun, Earth, Air, 
 Water, Fire, and Man : and the Epic Poem on — what still 
 appears to me the one only fit subject remaining for an Epic 
 Poem — Jerusalem besieged and destroyed by Titus. 
 
 STEELE. 
 
 I sometimes compare my own life with that of Steele 
 (yet oh ! how unlike !) led to this from having myself also 
 for a brief time borne arms, and written ' private ' after my 
 name, or rather another name ; for being at a loss when 
 suddenly asked my name, I answered Cumberback, and 
 verily my habits were so little equestrian, that my horse, 
 I doubt not, was of that opinion. Of Steele, also, it might 
 in one sense, at least, have been said, 
 
 Lingering he raised his latch at eve, 
 
 Though tired in heart and limb ! 
 He loved no other -place, and yet 
 
 Home was no home to him. 
 
 Oh ! the sorrow, the bitterness of that grief which springs 
 from love not participated, or not returned in the spirit 
 in which it is bestowed. Fearful and enduring is that 
 canker-worm of the soul, that 
 
 Grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear, 
 A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, 
 Which finds no natural outlet, no relief 
 In word, or sigh, or tear. 
 
 I sometimes think I shall write a book on the duties of 
 women, more especially to their husbands. If such a book 
 were well written, I cannot doubt but that its results would 
 be most salutary. I am inclined to think that both men 
 and women err in their conduct and demeanour towards 
 each other, quite as much from ignorance and unconscious- 
 ness of what is displeasing, as from selfishness or disregard. 
 But to the execution of such a work, or rather such works 
 
440 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 (for ' A New Duty of Man ' is quite as much required, and 
 this must be written by an affectionate and right-minded 
 woman), the present sickly delicacy, the over-delicacy (and 
 therefore essential indelicacy) of the present taste would 
 be opposed. To be of any use it should be a plain treatise, 
 the results of experience, and should be given to all newly 
 married couples by their parents, not in the form of ad- 
 monition, but rather as containing much important informa- 
 tion which they can no where else obtain. 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 Had Lord Byron possessed perseverance enough to 
 undergo the drudgery of research, and had his theologi- 
 cal studies and attainments been at all like mine, he would 
 have been able to unsettle all the evidences of Christianity, 
 upheld as it is at present by simple confutation. Is it pos- 
 sible to assent to the doctrine of redemption as at present 
 promulgated, that the moral death of an unoffending being 
 should be a consequence of the transgression of humanity 
 and its atonement ? ' 
 
 SCOTT. 
 
 Walter Scott's novels are chargeable with the same 
 faults as Bertram, et id omne genus, viz., that of minister- 
 ing to the depraved appetite for excitement, and, though 
 in a far less degree, creating sympathy for the vicious and 
 infamous, solely because the fiend is daring. Not twenty 
 lines of Scott's poetry will ever reach posterity ; it has 
 relation to nothing. 
 
 When I wrote a letter upon the scarcity, it was generally 
 said that it was the production of an immense cornfactor, 
 and a letter was addressed to me under that persuasion, 
 beginning ' Crafty Monopolist '. 
 
 It is very singular that no true poet should have arisen 
 from the lower classes, when it is considered that every 
 peasant who can read knows more of books now than did 
 iEschylus, Sophocles, or Homer ; yet if we except Burns, 
 none such have been. 
 
CRASHAW 441 
 
 CRASHAW. 
 
 Crashaw seems in his poems to have given the first ebul- 
 lience of bis imagination, unshapen into form, or much of, 
 what we now term, sweetness. In the poem, Hope, by way 
 of question and answer, his superiority to Cowley is self- 
 evident. In that on the name of Jesus equally so ; but 
 his lines on St. Theresa are the finest. 
 
 Where he does combine richness of thought and diction 
 nothing can excel, as in the lines you so much admire — 
 
 Since 'tis not to be had at home, 
 
 She'l travel to a martyrdome. 
 
 No home for her confesses she, 
 
 But where she may a martyr be. 
 
 She'l to the Moores, and trade with them 
 
 For this invalued diadem, 
 
 She offers them her dearest breath 
 
 With Christ's name in't, in change for death. 
 
 She'l bargain with them, and will give 
 
 Them God, and teach them how to live 
 
 In Him, or if they this deny, 
 
 For Him she'l teach them how to die. 
 
 So shall she leave amongst them sown, 
 
 The Lord's blood, or, at least, her own. 
 
 Farewell then, all the world — adieu, 
 
 Teresa is no more for you : 
 
 Farewell all pleasures, sports and joys, 
 
 Never till now esteemed toys — 
 
 Farewell whatever dear'st may be, 
 
 Mother's arms or father's knee ; 
 
 Farewell house, and farewell home, 
 
 She's for the Moores and martyrdom. 
 
 These verses were ever present to my mind whilst 
 writing the second part of Christabel ; if, indeed, by some 
 subtle process of the mind they did not suggest the first 
 thought of the whole poem. — Poetry, as regards small poets, 
 may be said to be, in a certain sense, conventional in its 
 accidents and in its illustrations ; thus Crashaw uses an 
 image : — 
 
 As sugar melts in tea away, 
 
 which, although proper then, and true now, was in bad taste 
 at that time equally with the present. In Shakespeare, in 
 Chaucer there was nothing of this. 
 
442 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 The wonderful faculty which Shakespeare above all other 
 men possessed, or rather the power which possessed him in 
 the highest degree, of anticipating everything, evidently is 
 the result — at least partakes — of meditation, or that mental 
 process which consists in the submitting to the operation 
 of thought every object of feeling, or impulse, or passion 
 observed out of it. I would be willing to live only as long 
 as Shakespeare were the mirror to nature. 
 
 THE GEAHD ASTD THE SUBLIME. 
 
 What can be finer in any poet than that beautiful 
 passage in Milton — 
 
 . . . Onward he moved 
 And thousands of his saints around. 
 
 This is grandeur, but it is grandeur without completeness : 
 but he adds — 
 
 Far off their coming shone ; 
 
 which is the highest sublime. There is total completeness. 
 
 So I would say that the Saviour praying on the Moun- 
 tain, the Desert on one hand, the Sea on the other, the 
 city at an immense distance below, was sublime. But 
 I should say of the Saviour looking towards the City, his 
 countenance full of pity, that he was majestic, and of the 
 situation that it was grand. 
 
 When the whole and the parts are seen at once, as 
 mutually producing and explaining each other, as unity in 
 multeity, there results shapeliness— forma formosa. Where 
 the perfection of form is combined with pleasurableness in 
 the sensations, excited by the matters or substances so 
 formed, there results the beautiful. 
 
 Corollary. — Hence colour is eminently subservient to 
 beauty, because it is susceptible of forms, i.e. outline, and 
 yet is a sensation. But a rich mass of scarlet clouds,' seen 
 without any attention to the form of the mass or of the 
 parts, may be a delightful but not a beautiful object or 
 colour. 
 
 When there is a deficiency of unity in the line forming 
 the whole (as angularity, for instance), and of number in 
 the plurality or the parts, there arises the formal. 
 
THE GRAND AND THE SUBLIME 443 
 
 When the parts are numerous, and impressive, and pre- 
 dominate, so as to prevent or greatly lessen the attention 
 to the whole, there results the grand. 
 
 Where the impression of the whole, i.e. the sense of 
 unity, predominates, so as to abstract the mind from the 
 parts — the majestic. 
 
 Where the parts by their harmony produce an effect of 
 a whole, but there is no seen form of a whole producing 
 or explaining the parts, i.e. when the parts only are seen 
 and distinguished, but the whole is felt— the picturesque. 
 
 Where neither whole nor parts, but unity, as boundless 
 or endless allness — the sublime. 
 
 FORTUNE. 
 
 It often amuses me to hear men impute all their mis- 
 fortunes to fate, luck, or destiny, whilst their successes 
 or good fortune they ascribe to their own sagacity, clever- 
 ness, or penetration. It never occurs to such minds that 
 light and darkness are one and the same, emanating from, 
 and being part of, the same nature. 
 
 NATURE. 
 
 The word Nature, from its extreme familiarity, and in 
 some instances, fitness, as well as from the want of a term, 
 or other name for God, has caused very much confusion 
 in the thoughts and language of men. Hence a Nature- 
 God, or God-Nature, not God in Nature ; just as others, 
 with as little reason, have constructed a natural and sole 
 religion. 
 
 REASON. 
 
 Is it then true, that reason to man is the ultimate 
 faculty, and that, to convince a reasonable man, it is suffi- 
 cient to adduce adequate reasons or arguments ? How, 
 if this be so, does it happen that we reject as insufficient 
 the reasoning of a friend in our affliction for this or that 
 muse or reason, yet are comforted, soothed, and reassured, by 
 similar or far less sufficient reasons, when urged by a friendly 
 
444 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 and affectionate woman ? It is no answer to say that 
 women were made comforters ; that it is the tone, and, in 
 the instance of man's chief, best comforter, the wife of his 
 youth, the mother of his children, the oneness with him- 
 self, which gives value to the consolation ; the reasons are 
 the same, whether urged by man, woman, or child. It 
 must be, therefore, that there is something in the will itself, 
 above and beyond, if not higher than, reason. Besides, is 
 reason or the reasoning always the same, even when free 
 from passion, film, or fever ? I speak of the same person. 
 Does he hold the doctrine of temperance in equal reverence 
 when hungry as after he is sated ? Does he at forty retain 
 the same reason, only extended and developed, as he pos- 
 sessed at four-and- twenty ? Does he not love the meat in his 
 youth which he cannot endure in his old age 1 But these are 
 appetites, and therefore no part of him. Is not a man one 
 to-day and another to-morrow ? Do not the very ablest and 
 wisest of men attach greater weight at one moment to an 
 argument or a reason than they do at another ? Is this 
 a want of sound and stable judgement ? If so, what then is 
 this perfect reason ? for we have shown what it is not. 
 
 PLTTTTTS. 
 
 It is prettily feigned, that when Plutus is sent from 
 Jupiter, he limps and gets on very slowly at first ; but 
 when he comes from Pluto, he runs and is swift of foot. 
 This, rightly taken, is a great sweetener of slow gains. 
 Bacon (alas ! the day) seems to have had this in mind 
 when he says, ' seek not proud gains, but such as thou 
 mayst get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave 
 contentedly.' He that is covetous makes too much haste ; 
 and the wise man saith of him, ' he cannot be innocent.' 
 
 THE CONDITIONS OF SYMPATHY. 
 
 I have often been pained by observing in others, and 
 was fully conscious in myself, of a sympathy with those of 
 rank and condition in preference to their inferiors, and 
 never discovered the source of this sympathy until one day 
 at Keswick I heard a thatcher's wife crying her heart 
 
THE CONDITIONS OF SYMPATHY 445 
 
 out for the death of her little child. It was given me all 
 at once to feel, that I sympathized equally with the poor 
 and the rich in all that related to the best part of humanity 
 —the affections ; but that, in what relates to fortune, to 
 mental misery, struggles, and conflicts, we reserve consola- 
 tion and sympathy for those who can appreciate its force 
 and value. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 There are many men, especially at the outset of life, who, 
 in their too eager desire for the end, overlook the difficulties 
 in the way ; there is another class, who see nothing else. 
 The first class may sometimes fail ; the latter rarely succeed. 
 
 PEIBST. 
 
 In the sense in which I then spoke and thought, I would 
 again repeat the note to the word priest, originally pre- 
 fixed to my Juvenile Poems, though perhaps I should 
 somewhat extend it. 
 
 ' I deem that the teaching the Gospel for hire is wrong, 
 because it gives the teacher an improper bias in favour 
 of particular opinions, on a subject where it is of the last 
 importance that the mind should be perfectly unbiassed. 
 Such is my private opinion : — but I mean not to censure 
 all hired teachers, many among whom I know, and venerate 
 as the best and wisest of men. God forbid that I should 
 think of these when I use the word priest ; a name after 
 which any other term of abhorrence would appear an anti- 
 climax. By a priest I mean a man, who, holding the 
 scourge of power in his right hand, and a Bible translated 
 by authority in his left, doth necessarily cause the Bible and 
 the scourge to be associated ideas, and so produces that 
 temper of mind that leads to infidelity ; infidelity which, 
 judging of Revelation by the doctrines and practices of 
 Established Churches, honours God by rejecting Christ.' 
 
 JUDGE BARRINGTON. 
 
 I have been reading Judge Barrington's Sketches. It is 
 the most pleasant book about Ireland I ever read. I was 
 especially amused by the following : — 
 
446 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 DIALOGUE BETWEEN TOM EMITTER AND HIS MAN. 
 
 Tom Flinter. Dick ! said he ; 
 
 Dick. What ? said he. 
 
 Tom Flinter. Fetch me my hat, says he, 
 
 For I will go, says he, 
 
 To Timahoe, says he ; 
 
 To the fair, says he ; 
 
 And buy all that's there, says he. 
 Dick. Pay what you owe, says he ; 
 
 And then you may go, says he, 
 
 To Timahoe, says he ; 
 
 To the fair, says he ; 
 
 And buy all that 's there, says he ; 
 Tom Flinter. Well, by this and by that, said he, 
 
 Dick ! hang up my hat ! says he. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 
 
 Whenever philosophy has taken into its plan religion, 
 it has ended in scepticism ; and whenever religion excludes 
 philosophy, or the spirit of free inquiry, it leads to wilful 
 blindness and superstition. Scotus, the first of the school- 
 men, held that religion might be above, but could not be 
 adverse to, true philosophy. 
 
 To say that life is the result of organization, is to say 
 that the builders of a house are its results. 
 
 The Friend is a secret which I have entrusted to the 
 public ; and, unlike most secrets, it hath been well kept. 
 
 Inter estingness, the best test and characteristic of love- 
 liness. 
 
 Humour is consistent with pathos, whilst wit is not. 
 
 SEASON AND UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 All that is good is in the reason, not in the understand- 
 ing ; which is proved by the malignity of those who lose 
 their reason. When a man is said to be out of his wits, 
 
REASON AND UNDERSTANDING 447 
 
 we do not mean that he has lost his reason, but only his 
 understanding, or the power of choosing his means or per- 
 ceiving their fitness to the end. Don Quixote (and in a less 
 degree, the Pilgrim's Progress) is an excellent example of 
 a man who had lost his wits or understanding, but not his 
 reason. 
 
 THE GERMAN WRITERS. 
 
 The German writers have acquired a style and an 
 elegance of thought and of mind, just as we have attained 
 a style and smartness of composition (thus in my notes), 
 so that if you were to read an ordinary German author 
 as an English one, you would say, — ' This man has some- 
 thing in him, this man thinks ; ' whereas it is merely a 
 method acquired by them, as we have acquired a style. 
 
 A DISCARDED PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Dr. Young one day was speaking of John Hunter as 
 being greatly over -rated, upon which I replied, — ' Yes, to 
 minds which, like birds entangled in the lime, scoff and 
 sneer at those pinions of power that have emancipated 
 themselves from the thrall which bound them, but are 
 nevertheless impeded in their upward progress by the 
 shackles they have broken, but from the slime of which 
 they are not freed.' 
 
 The Doctor noticed my assimilating weight and gravity, 
 civilly informing me that those who understood these matters 
 considered them as different as fire and heat. 
 
 I said, ' Yes, in that philosophy which, together with 
 a great quantity of old clothes, I discarded thirty years ago, 
 and which, by identifying cause and effect, destroys both.' 
 
 THE LYRICAL BALLADS. 
 
 Longmans offered me the copyright of the Lyrical 
 Ballads, at the same time saying that, if I would write 
 a few more, they would publish my contributions. When 
 I expressed a hope that 3,000 might be circulated, Words- 
 worth spurned at the idea, and said that twenty times that 
 
448 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 number must be sold. I was told by Longmans that the 
 greater part of the Lyrical Ballads had been sold to sea- 
 faring men, who having heard of the Ancient Mariner, con- 
 eluded that it was a naval song-book, or, at all events, that 
 it had some relation to nautical matters. 
 
 EDWARD IRVING. 
 
 Spoke with interest of Irving. Regretted that he should 
 have expressed his inability to preserve his original sim- 
 plicity when addressing an audience of the highest classes. 
 Thought this the feeling of a third or fourth-rate mind ; 
 that he might have been perplexed would not have dero- 
 gated from his character, but to allow an audience to in- 
 fluence him further than the fitness of his discourse to his 
 hearers was not to his advantage. 
 
 The most happy marriage I can picture or image to 
 myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman. 
 
 September 24, 1821. 
 
 And now a few, a very few, words on the latter portion 
 of your letter. You know, my dearest Friend, how I acted 
 myself, and that my example cannot be urged in con- 
 firmation of my judgement. I certainly strive hard to 
 divest my mind of every prejudice, to look at the question 
 sternly through the principle of Right separated from all 
 mere Expedience, nay, from the question of earthly happi- 
 ness for its own sake. But I cannot answer to myself that 
 the image of any serious obstacle to your peace of heart, 
 that the Thought of your full development of soul being 
 put a stop to, of a secret anxiety blighting your utility by 
 cankering your happiness, I cannot be sure — I cannot be 
 sure that this may not have made me weigh with a trembling 
 and unsteady hand, and less than half the presumption of 
 error, afforded by the shrinking and recoil of your moral 
 sense or even feeling, would render it my duty and my 
 
THE SCIENCE OP MORALS 449 
 
 impulse to bring my conclusion anew to the ordeal of my 
 Reason and Conscience. But on your side, my dear Friend ! 
 try with me to contemplate the question as a problem 
 in the science of Morals, in the first instance, and to recol- 
 lect that there are false or intrusive weights possible in 
 the other scale ; that our very virtues may become, or 
 be transformed into, temptations to, or occasions of, 
 partial judgement ; that we may judge partially against 
 ourselves from the very fear, perhaps contempt, of the con- 
 trary ; that self may be moodily gratified by se£/-sacrifice, 
 and that the Heart itself, in its perplexity, may acquiesce 
 for a time in the decision as a more safe way ; and, lastly, 
 that the question can only be fully answered, when Self 
 
 and Neighbour, as equi-distant ^ from the conscience 
 
 or God, are blended in the common term, a Human Being : 
 that we are commanded to love ourselves as our Neighbour 
 in the Law that requires a Christian to love his Neighbour 
 as himself. 
 
 TEOILUS AND CBESSIDA. 
 
 Read the Troilus and Gressida ; dwelt much upon the 
 fine distinction made by Shakespeare between the affection 
 of Troilus and the passion of Cressida. This does not 
 escape the notice of Ulysses, who thus depicts her on her 
 first arrival in the Trojan camp : — 
 
 . . . Fie ! fie upon her ! 
 There 's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, 
 Nay, her foot speaks. Her wanton spirits look out 
 At every joint of her body. Set such down 
 For sluttish spoils of opportunity 
 And daughters of the game. 
 
 The profound affection of Troilus alone deserves the 
 name of love. 
 
 THE HIGHEST GOOD. 
 
 Certainly the highest good is to live happily, and not 
 through a life of mortification to expect a happy death. 
 Should we attain felicity in life, death will be easy, as it will 
 be natural and in due season. Whereas by the present 
 
 TABLE TALK G g 
 
450 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 system of rdigious teaching, men are enjoined to value chiefly 
 happiness at the end of life ; which, if they were implicitly 
 to f ollow, they would, by neglecting the first great duty, 
 that of innocent enjoyment during existence, effectually 
 preclude themselves from attaining. 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 There is no condition (evil as it may be in the eye of 
 reason), which does not include, or seem to include when 
 it has become familiar, some good, some redeeming or re- 
 conciling qualities. I agree, however, that marriage is not 
 one of these. Marriage has, as you say, no natural relation 
 to love. Marriage belongs to society ; it is a social contract. 
 It should not merely include the conditions of esteem and 
 friendship, it should be the ratification of their manifesta- 
 tion. Still I do not know how it can be replaced ; that 
 belongs to the future, and it is a question which the future 
 only can solve. I however quite agree that we can now, 
 better than at any former time, say what will not, what 
 cannot be. 
 
 MORALITY. 
 
 Truly, when I think of what has entered into ethics, what 
 has been considered moral in the early ages of the world, 
 and even now by civilized nations in the east, I incline to 
 believe that morality is conventional ; but when I see the 
 doctrines propounded under the name of political economy, 
 I earnestly hope that it is so. — As illustrations of the opinions 
 held by philosophers, which to us appear abominable or 
 indecent, I refer to some of the rules of Zeno, some parts 
 of the philosophy of Plato, the whole conduct of Phaedon, 
 and the practice of Cato the Censor. 
 
 The Essenians for several ages subsisted by adoption: 
 we shall see if the Shakers continue so long. 
 
 We shun a birth, and make a public exhibition of an 
 execution. The mystery observed at birth is a type of other 
 
MORALITY— PYTHAGORAS 451 
 
 mysteries. It is a matter of silence and secrecy, and wholly 
 withheld from all but the customary officials. 
 
 PYTHAGORAS. 
 
 Pythagoras first asserted that the earth was a globe, 
 and that there were antipodes. He also seems to have been 
 acquainted with the properties of the atmosphere, at least 
 its weight and pressure. He was the most wonderful of 
 those men whom Greece, that treasure-house of intellect, 
 produced to show her treasures, and to be the ornament 
 and gaze of our nature during all time. In his doctrines, 
 the Copernican system may clearly be traced. 
 
 Pythagoras used the mysteries as one of the means to 
 retain the doctrine of an unity while the multitude sunk into 
 Polytheism. 
 
 It is quite certain most of the ancient philosophers were 
 adverse to the popular worship, as tending to degrade the 
 idea of the Divine Being, and to defile the national manners. 
 Idol-worship always demoralizes a people who adopt it. 
 
 Witness the Jews, whose idolatry was followed by 
 universal chastisement. Witness Rome, Greece, and Egypt 
 where idol- worship led to immorality and vice of the most 
 frightful kind. 
 
 Quarrels of anger ending in tears are favourable to love 
 in its spring tide, as plants are found to grow very rapidly 
 after a thunderstorm with rain. 
 
 The heart in its physical sense is not sufficient for a kite's 
 dinner ; yet the whole world is not sufficient for it. 
 
 So Mr. Baker heart did pluck, 
 And did a courting go ! 
 
 And Mr. Baker is a buck ; 
 For why ? — he needs the doe. 
 
 Oh ! there are some natures which, under the most cheer- 
 less, all-threatening, nothing-promising circumstances, can 
 
 G g 2 
 
452 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 draw hope from the invisible ; as the tropical trees, that 
 in the sandy desolation produce their own lidded vessels 
 full of water from air and dew. Alas ! to my root, not 
 a drop trickles down but from the water-pot of immediate 
 friends ; and even so it seems much more a sympathy 
 with their feeling rather than hope of my own, even as 
 I should feel sorrow if Allsop's mother, whom I have never 
 seen, were to die. 
 
 We are none of us tolerant in what concerns us deeply 
 and entirely. 
 
 A man who admits himself to be deceived, must be con- 
 scious that there is something upon, or respecting which, 
 he cannot be deceived. 
 
 A man who wishes for an end, the means of which are 
 criminal, is chargeable with all the guilt. 
 
 SHELLEY. 
 
 I was told by one who was with Shelley shortly before 
 his death, that he had in those moments, when his spirit 
 was left to prey inwards, expressed a wish, amounting to 
 anxiety, to commune with me, as the one only being who 
 could resolve or allay the doubts and anxieties that pressed 
 upon his mind. 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 Leigh Hunt (I think he said) having stated that it was 
 my opinion that Byron only made believe when he painted 
 himself in his poems, Shelley expressed his fears, his belief 
 that there was no counterfeiting, that it was too real ; that 
 he was a being incapable of true sympathy, that he was 
 selfish and sensual beyond his own portraiture. 
 
 LAMB AND SOUTHEY. 
 
 I am much delighted with Lamb's letter to Southey, 
 I have read it many times ; Lamb feels firm and has 
 taken sure ground. 
 
MEN OF LETTERS 453 
 
 GODWIN. 
 
 I used to be much amused with Tobin and Godwin. 
 Tobin would pester me with stories of Godwin's dullness ; 
 and upon his departure Godwin would drop in just to say- 
 that Tobin was more dull than ever. 
 
 Mentioned many things of, and concerning, Godwin ; 
 which, to me, at that time not yet familiar with, the ignor- 
 ance of the learned, with the contradictions, which I have 
 since seen, between the knowledge so called and the prac- 
 tices of men, surprised me much. 
 
 LAMB. 
 
 Spoke in the highest terms of affection and consideration 
 of Lamb. Related the circumstance which gave occasion 
 to the ' Old Familiar Faces '. Charles Lloyd, in one of his 
 fits, had shown to Lamb a letter, in which Coleridge had 
 illustrated the cases of vast genius in proportion to talent 
 and predominance of talent in conjunction with genius, in 
 the persons of Lamb and himself. Hence a temporary cool- 
 ness, at the termination of which, or during its continuance, 
 these beautiful verses were written. 
 
 CAMPBELL. 
 
 Jeffrey, speaking of Campbell, said, ' He is one of the 
 best fellows in the world. If, however, he has a fault, it 
 is that he is envious, and to that degree that he wishes the 
 walls may fall and crush any one who may excel him. 
 He is one of my most intimate friends, and with that 
 little drawback, one of the best fellows in the world.' 
 
 THE SCOTCH. 
 
 Spoke of the cold and calculating character of the Scotch ; 
 agreed that they were in this the same drunk or sober : 
 their heads seemed always so full that they could not 
 hold more, adding, ' We value the Scotch without however 
 liking them ; and we like the Irish without however over- 
 valuing them. Instanced Dr. Stoddart as having most of 
 
454 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 the unamiable traits of the Scotch character without the 
 personally useful ones — doing dirty work for little pay.' 
 
 AN EXCELLENTLY CONTRIVED HANDWRITING. 
 
 Came to me very much heated and fatigued, stayed to 
 refresh before proceeding to Sir George Beaumont's. Had 
 received a letter from Colin Mackenzie, stating that he was 
 occupied in attending the Privy Council, and that he 
 feared he should not be able to dine with him at Sir George 
 Beaumont's. Coleridge not being able to decipher the 
 letter, said, ' It is an excellently contrived kind of hand 
 for the purpose of disguising false orthography. I had 
 before this conceived strong suspicions, that my good 
 friend Colin Mackenzie could not spell, and they are now 
 confirmed.' 
 
 AT SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT'S. 
 
 Met Wilkie at this dinner, who expressed his opinion that 
 patronage did no good but much injury. Said also, that 
 he should never think painting properly estimated until 
 a painter should make his fifteen, twenty, or thirty thou- 
 sand a year like a man at the bar ; an opinion which did 
 him no service with Sir George Beaumont. Speaking of 
 the Queen's trial, I said, 
 
 ' It was a most atrocious affair.' 
 
 ' I am delighted to hear you sanction my use of that 
 opinion ', said Lady Sarah Bathurst, ' indeed it was a most 
 " atrocious " business ; and if any iniquity could withdraw 
 the sun's light, that would surely have occasioned a physical, 
 as well as moral, eclipse.' A general outcry ; an earnest 
 entreaty on the part of Lady Sarah, put an end to this 
 extraordinary scene. 
 
 A SPANISH STORY. 
 
 Quoted with great glee, as one of the best practical 
 jokes extant, if indeed a thing so good must not be true, 
 a story from an old Spanish humorist which had, by 
 some strange oversight or lapsus, escaped the shears of 
 the Inquisition. 
 
A SPANISH STORY 455 
 
 At the sacrament, a priest gave, without perceiving it, 
 a counter instead of a wafer. The communicant thinking 
 it would melt, very patiently waited, but without effect. 
 The priest seeing him hesitate, inquired what was the 
 matter ? ' Matter,' said he, ' I hope you have not made 
 a mistake and given me God the Father, he is so hard 
 and tough there is no swallowing him.' These stories 
 abound in all Catholic countries, especially in Italy. Indeed 
 the religious of all countries are, in the eye of Reason, the 
 greatest blasphemers, seeing that though all affirm God 
 made man in his own image, they make God after their 
 own imaginations. 
 
 A TURKISH STORY. 
 
 I have somewhere read a story of a Turk, who, when in 
 Paris, was prevailed upon to turn Christian, having been 
 promised plenty of wine in this life, and a Paradise of 
 eternal delights in the next. He was regularly instructed 
 in the doctrine of the Church of Rome, and after a time 
 had the sacrament administered to him. The next day, 
 when his instructor was interrogating him, he asked how 
 many gods there were ? 
 
 ' None at all ', said Mustapha. 
 
 ' How ! none at all ? ' said the priest. 
 
 ' No,' replied the sincere believer ; ' you have always 
 taught that there was only one God, and yesterday I eat 
 him.' 
 
 Verily there is no absurdity, how glaring soever in theo- 
 logy, that has not had at one time or other believers and 
 supporters amongst men of the greatest powers and most 
 cultivated minds. 
 
 BOOKS AND CONVERSATION. 
 
 In one respect, and in one only, are books better than 
 conversation. In a book, the mind of the writer is before 
 you, and you can read and re-peruse it in case of doubt, 
 whilst in conversation a link once lost is irrecoverable. 
 Thus in all reported conversations, unless we are intimate 
 with the mind of the person speaking, we often draw a 
 
456 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 wrong conclusion, and attribute that to discontent, to envy, 
 or some other unworthy feeling, which, if we were in 
 possession of the author's reasons and feelings, we should 
 sympathize with, if indeed we did not in every case ac- 
 quiesce in, his conclusions. 
 
 'The Watchman.' 
 
 In order to escape the government regulations, and with 
 a view to contribute as little as possible to a war against 
 freedom, it was decided that I should publish ' The Watch- 
 man ' every eighth day, by which the stamp duty became 
 unnecessary — was, in fact, evaded. 
 
 SIR FRANCIS BURDETT. 
 
 On one occasion Godwin took me to Purley, where we 
 met Sir Francis Burdett. Altogether, during the whole day, 
 
 The feast of reason and the flow of soul 
 
 was without drawback. It was indeed an Attic Feast. 
 
 I was pressed to go again. I went : but how changed ! 
 No longer did I see gentlemen or scholars, I only saw 
 drunkards, who to obscenity, scurrility, and malignity, 
 added every species of grossness and impurity. I had been 
 in the company of sceptics, of Pyrrhonists, but never before 
 had I seen wickedness exhibited so completely without dis- 
 guise, and in all its naked deformity. 
 
 The only emulation was, which could utter the most 
 senseless, the most horrid impurities, uttered in all the 
 uproarious mirth and recklessness of lost souls. I became 
 sick ; I left the room and got into a hackney coach, which 
 happened to be at the door. I was followed by Sir Francis 
 Burdett, who earnestly entreated me to visit him at Wim- 
 bledon. I made no promise, nor did I ever go, and I now 
 blame myself that political predilections should have hin- 
 dered me from visiting him, as it is possible I might have 
 assisted, if not to reclaim, to recall at least the truant 
 energies of one who, in spite of my disgust at the orgies in 
 which he participated, so respectfully entreated me. 
 
SIR FRANCIS BURDETT— POSTAGES 457 
 
 BUONAPARTE. 
 
 When I first heard from Stuart of the Courier that 
 Buonaparte had declared that the interests of small states 
 must always succumb to great ones, I said, ' Thank God ! 
 he has sealed his fate : from this moment his fall is certain.' 
 
 LORD JEFFREY. 
 
 Clarkson (the moral steam engine, or Giant with one 
 idea) had recently published his book, and being in a very 
 irritable state of mind, his wife expressed great fears of 
 the effect of any severe review in the then state of his 
 feelings. I wrote to Jeffrey, and expressed to him my 
 opinion of the cruelty of any censure being passed upon 
 the work as a composition. In return I had a very polite 
 letter, expressing a wish that I should review it. I did so : 
 but when the Review was published, in the place of some 
 just eulogiums due to Mr. Pitt, and which I stated were 
 upon the best authority (in fact, they were from Tom 
 Clarkson himself), was substituted some abuse and de- 
 traction. Yet Clarkson expressed himself gratified and 
 satisfied with the effect of the review, and would not allow 
 me to expose the transaction. Again, Jeffrey had said to 
 me that it was hopeless to persuade men to prefer Hooker 
 and Jeremy Taylor to Johnson and Gibbon. I wrote him 
 two letters, or two sheets, detailing, at great length, my 
 opinions. This he never acknowledged ; but in an early 
 number of the Review he inserted the whole of my com- 
 munication in an article of the Review, and added at the 
 conclusion words to this effect : ' We have been anxious 
 to be clear on this subject, as much has been said on this 
 matter by men who evidently do not understand it. Such 
 are Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, and Miss Baillie.' 
 
 POSTAGES. 
 
 One day, when I had not a shilling which I could spare, 
 I was passing by a cottage not far from Keswick, where 
 a carter was demanding a shilling for a letter, which the 
 woman of the house appeared unwilling to pay, and at last 
 
458 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 declined to take. I paid the postage ; and when the man 
 was out of sight, she told me that the letter was from her 
 son, who took that means of letting her know that he was 
 well : the letter was not to be paid for. It was then opened, 
 and found to be blank ! 
 
 On my return I found a double letter, for which two 
 shillings had been paid. I tore it open, and found it to 
 contain a long communication from Haydon the Artist, 
 which, in allusion to my Poem on Mont Blanc, ended thus : 
 ' Prom this moment you are immortal.' I was ungrateful 
 enough to consider Mr. Haydon's immortality dear at two 
 shillings ! And though I can now smile at the infliction, 
 my judgement remains the same ; and to this day my 
 thanks have not been given to Mr. Haydon for his apo- 
 theosis. 
 
 ERASMUS DARWIN. 
 
 Darwin was so egregiously vain, that, after having given 
 to his son a thesis upon Ocular Spectra, in itself an entire 
 plagiarism from a German book published at Leipzig, he 
 became jealous of the praise it received, and caused it to 
 be given out that he was the real author. Nay, he even 
 wrote letters and verses to himself, which he affixed to his 
 own Poems as being addressed to him, by (I think) Bills- 
 borough, a young admirer of his. He asked his friends 
 whether they had not frequently heard him express opinions 
 like these twenty years ago ? 
 
 Vivid impressions are too frequently mistaken by the 
 young and ardent, for clear conceptions. 
 
 BODY, MIND, AND WILL. 
 
 The argument that the mind is a result of the body, 
 supported by the apparent coincidence of their growth and 
 decay, is a non sequitur. The mind, when acquired or 
 possessed (though subject to progression and retrogression) 
 can never be lost or enfeebled by old age or bodily debility. 
 It is the decay of the bodily powers which enervates or 
 enfeebles the will, by refusing to obey its promptings. 
 
TEACHERS OF YOUTH 459 
 
 TEACHERS OF YOUTH. 
 
 Teachers of youth are, by a necessity of their present 
 condition, either unsound or uncongenial. If they possess 
 that buoyancy of spirit, which best fits them for communi- 
 cating to those under their charge, the knowledge it is held 
 useful for them to acquire, they are deemed unsound. If 
 they possess a subdued sobriety of disposition, the result of 
 a process compared to which the course of a horse in a mill 
 is positive enjoyment, they of necessity become ungenial. 
 Is this a fitting condition, a meet and just return for the 
 class, Instructors ? And yet have I not truly described 
 them ? Has any one known a teacher of youth who, 
 having attained any repute as such, has also retained any 
 place in society as an individual ? Are not all such men 
 ' Dominie Sampsons ' in what relates to their duties, in- 
 terests, and feelings as citizens ; and, with respect to 
 females, do they not all possess a sort of mental odour ? 
 Are not all masters, all those who are held in estimation, not 
 scholars, but always masters, even in their sports ; and 
 are not the female teachers always teaching and setting 
 right ? whilst both not only lose the freshness of youth, 
 both of mind and body, but seem as though they never 
 had been young. They who have to teach, can never 
 afford to learn ; hence their improgression. 
 
 THE FOUNDER OF THE FOLEY FAMILY. 
 
 The most extraordinary and the best attested instance 
 of enthusiasm existing in conjunction with perseverance 
 is related of the founder of the Foley family. This man, 
 who was a fiddler living near Stourbridge, was often 
 witness of the immense labour and loss of time, caused by 
 dividing the rods of iron, necessary in the process of making 
 nails. The discovery of the process called splitting, in 
 works called splitting mills, was first made in Sweden, and 
 the consequences of this advance in art were most disas- 
 trous to the manufacturers of iron about Stourbridge. 
 Foley the fiddler was shortly missed from his accustomed 
 rounds, and was not again seen for many years. He had 
 
460 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 mentally resolved to ascertain by what means the process 
 of splitting of bars of iron was accomplished,; and, without 
 communicating his intention to a single human being, he 
 proceeded to Hull, and thence, without funds, worked his 
 passage to the Swedish iron port. Arrived in Sweden, he 
 begged and fiddled his way to the iron foundries, where, 
 after a time, he became a universal favourite with the 
 workmen ; and, from the apparent entire absence of in- 
 telligence or anything like ultimate object, he was received 
 into the works, to every part of which he had access. He 
 took the advantage thus offered, and having stored his 
 memory with observations and all the combinations, he dis- 
 appeared from amongst his kind friends as he had appeared, 
 no one knew whence or whither. 
 
 On his return to England he communicated his voyage 
 and its results to Mr. Knight and another person in the 
 neighbourhood, with whom he was associated, and by 
 whom the necessary buildings were erected and machinery 
 provided. When at length everything was prepared, it 
 was found that the machinery would not act, at all events 
 it did not answer the sole end of its erection — it would 
 not split the bar of iron. 
 
 Foley disappeared again, and it was concluded that shame 
 and mortification at his failure had driven him away for 
 ever. Not so : again, though somewhat more speedily, 
 he found his way to the Swedish iron works, where he was 
 received most joyfully, and to make sure of their fiddler, 
 he was lodged in the splitting mill itself. Here was the 
 very aim and end of his life attained beyond his utmost 
 hope. He examined the works and very soon discovered 
 the cause of his failure. He now made drawings or rude 
 tracings, and, having abided an ample time to verify his 
 observations and to impress them clearly and vividly on 
 his mind, he made his way to the port, and once more 
 returned to England. This time he was completely success- 
 ful, and by the results of his experience enriched himself 
 and greatly benefited his countrymen. This I hold to be 
 the most extraordinary instance of credible devotion in 
 modern times. 
 
SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS 461 
 
 SIB RICHARD PHILLIPS. 
 
 Phillips left Nottingham, where he had first established 
 himself, at an early age. He afterwards kept a hosiery shop 
 in St. Paul's, and sold the Magazine at the back. He used to 
 boast that he could do more by puffing than all the other 
 booksellers. It is certain that he was a great annoyance 
 to them at one time. He had a host of writers in his pay, 
 whom, however, he never retained." A gross flatterer. 
 I recollect hearing him address some fulsome compliments 
 to Dr. Beddoes, to which the Doctor appeared to listen with 
 patience. He was, after a peroration of ten minutes' dura- 
 tion, told by the Doctor that he was wrong in his chronology. 
 
 ' Not right in my chronology ! ' said the surprised book- 
 seller ; ' what has chronology to do with the matter ? ' 
 
 ' Only this : that so far back as the year 1540, this kind 
 of complimentary insult had become obsolete.' 
 
 The Knight said no more, but decamped at once. 
 
 Once, when in an abstruse argument with Mrs. Barbauld 
 on the Berkleian controversy, she exclaimed, ' Mr . Coleridge ! 
 Mr. Coleridge ! ' 
 
 The Knight was present. No sooner did he hear my 
 name mentioned than he came up to my chair, and after 
 making several obsequious obeisances, expressed his regret 
 that he should have been half-an-hour in the company of 
 so great a man without being aware of his good fortune, 
 adding shortly afterwards, ' I would have given nine 
 guineas a sheet for his conversation during the last hour 
 and half ! ' This too at a time when I had not been at 
 all publicly known more than a month. 
 
 He avowed, indeed, afterwards, that he never feared 
 offending by flattery, being convinced that for one man 
 who was offended ninety-nine were pleased with that, 
 which, if presented to others, they would have deemed 
 nauseating and disgusting. 
 
 FEELING AND EXPRESSION. 
 
 June 29, 1822. 
 It is a great advantage both in respect of Temper, 
 Manners, and the Quickening of the Faculties, for a Boy 
 to have a Sister or Sisters a year or two older than himself. 
 
462 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 But I devote this brief scroll to Feeling : so no more of 
 disquisition, except it be to declare the entire coincidence 
 of my experience with yours as to the very rare occurrence 
 of strong and deep Feeling in conjunction with free power 
 and vivacity in the expression of it. The most eminent 
 Tragedians, Garrick for instance, are known to have had 
 their emotions as much at command, and almost as much 
 on the surface, as the muscles of their countenances ; and 
 the French, who are all Actors, are proverbially heartless. 
 Is it that it is a false and feverous state for the Centre to 
 live in the Circumference ? The vital warmth seldom 
 rises to the surface in .the form of sensible Heat, without 
 becoming hectic and inimical to the Life within, the only 
 source of real sensibility. Eloquence itself — I speak of it 
 as habitual and at call — too often is, and is always like to 
 engender, a species of histrionism. 
 
 In one of my juvenile poems (on a Friend who died in 
 a Frenzy Fever), you will find * that I was jealous of this 
 in myself ; and that it is (as I trust it is), otherwise, I attri- 
 bute mainly to the following causes : — A naturally, at once 
 searching and communicative disposition, the necessity of 
 reconciling the restlessness of an ever -working Fancy with 
 an intense craving after a resting-place for my Thoughts 
 in some principle that was derived from experience, but 
 of which all other knowledge should be but so many re- 
 petitions under various limitations, even as circles, squares, 
 triangles, &c, &c, are but so many positions of space. 
 And lastly, that my eloquence was most commonly excited 
 by the desire of running away and hiding myself from my 
 
 1 To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned 
 Energic Reason and a shaping mind, 
 The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part, 
 And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart — 
 
 Sloth-jaundie'd all ! and from my graspless hand 
 Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass sand. 
 I weep, yet stoop not ! the faint anguish flows, 
 A dreamy pang in Morning's feverous doze. 
 
 Is this piled earth our Being's passless mound ? 
 Tell me, cold grave ! is Death with poppies crown' d ? 
 Tired sentinel I 'mid fitful starts I nod. 
 And fain would sleep, though pillowed on a clod. 
 
 Poetical Works, Oxford Edn., p. 77. 
 
FEELING AND EXPRESSION 463 
 
 personal and inward feelings, and not for the expression of 
 them, while doubtless this very effort of feeling gave a pas- 
 sion and glow to my thoughts and language on subjects 
 of a general nature, that they otherwise would not have 
 had. I fled in a Circle, still overtaken by the Feelings, 
 from which I was evermore fleeing, with my back turned 
 towards them ; but above all, my growing deepening con- 
 viction of the transcendency of the moral to the intellectual, 
 and the inexpressible comfort and inward strength which 
 I experience myself to derive as often as I contemplate 
 truth realized into Being by a human Will ; so that, as 
 I cannot love without esteem, neither can I esteem without 
 loving. Hence I love but few, but those I love as my own 
 Soul ; for I feel that without them I should — not indeed 
 cease to be kind and effluent, but by little and little become 
 a soulless fixed Star, receiving no rays nor influences 
 into my Being, a Solitude which I so tremble at, that I cannot 
 attribute it even to the Divine Nature. 
 
 HERETICS. 
 
 Once, when in the Roman States, I entered a house of 
 entertainment on a Friday, accompanied by a German 
 artist, and, being hungry, asked for some ham or meat. 
 The woman to whom I addressed myself said I could not 
 have it ; it was fast day. I replied we were heretics. She 
 still hesitated, when her husband growled out, ' Let them 
 have it, let them have it ; they are damned already.' Thus 
 satisfying himself that, as we were heretics, or what, singu- 
 lar enough, is here considered synonymous, philosophers, 
 and therefore already damned, he could not injure us 
 farther, but might benefit himself by ministering to our 
 guilty appetites. 
 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 
 
 I have been reading Antony and Cleopatra. It is with 
 me a prime favourite. It is one of the most gorgeous and 
 sustained of all Shakespeare's dramas. In particular do 
 I dote upon the last half of the fifth act. 
 
464 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 THE AMERICANS. 
 
 An American, by his boasting of the superiority of the 
 Americans generally, but more especially in their language, 
 once provoked me to tell him that ' on that head the 
 least said the better, as the Americans presented the extra- 
 ordinary anomaly of a people without a language. That 
 they had mistaken the English language for baggage 
 (which is called plunder in America), and had stolen it.' 
 Speaking of America, it is, I believe, a fact verified beyond 
 doubt, that, some years ago it was impossible to obtain 
 a copy of the Newgate Calendar, as they had all been 
 bought up by the Americans, whether to suppress this 
 blazon of their forefathers, or to assist in their genealogical 
 researches, I never could learn satisfactorily. 
 
 THRIFT . 
 
 It is good to get and good to spend ; but it is not well 
 or seemly to carry the spirit of thrift into kind acts, nor 
 a profuse spirit into thrift. 
 
 GENEROSITY IN MEN AND WOMEN. 
 
 Men are not more generous than women. Men desire 
 the happiness of women apart from themselves, chiefly, 
 if not only, when and where it would be an imputation upon 
 a woman's affections for her to be happy ; and women, on 
 their part, seldom cordially carry their wish for their hus- 
 band's happiness and enjoyment beyond the threshold. 
 Whether it is that women have a passion for nursing, 
 or from whatever cause, they invariably discourage all 
 attempts to seek for health itself, beyond their own abode. 
 When balloons, or these new roads upon which they say 
 it will be possible to travel fifteen miles an hour, for a day 
 together, shall become the common mode of travelling, 
 women will become more locomotive ; the health of all 
 classes will be materially benefited. Women will then 
 spend less time in attiring themselves — will invent some 
 more simple head gear, or dispense with it altogether. 
 
 Thousands of women, attached to their husbands by 
 
GENEROSITY IN MEN. AND WOMEN 465 
 
 the most endearing ties, and who would deplore their death 
 for months, would oppose a separation for a few weeks in 
 search of health, or assent so reluctantly, and with so 
 much dissatisfaction, as to deprive the remedy of all value 
 — rather make it an evil. I speak of affectionate natures 
 and of the various, but always selfish, guises of self-will. 
 
 Caresses and endearment on this side of sickening fond- 
 ness, and affectionate interest in all that concerns himself, 
 from a wife freely chosen, are what every man loves, 
 whether he be communicative or reserved, staid or san- 
 guine. But affection, where it exists, will always prompt 
 or discover its own most appropriate manifestation. All 
 men, even the most surly, are influenced by affection, even 
 when little fitted to excite it. I could have been happy 
 with a servant girl had she only in sincerity of heart 
 responded to my affection. 
 
 ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 
 
 The notion, that affections are of less importance than 
 advantages, or that the latter dare even be weighed in the 
 same scales, is less truly described as opposite to my opinion 
 than as alien from my very nature. As to accomplishments, 
 I do not know whether it is right to cherish a positive 
 opinion of an indifferent thing, that is neither good nor 
 evil. If we leave all moral relations out of view, such as 
 vanity, or the disposition to underrate the solidities of the 
 soul, male or female, &c, &c, the question of accomplish- 
 ments (as they are absurdly called) seems to me to depend 
 on the individual woman, in the same way that dress does. 
 Of two equally amiable and equally beloved women, one 
 looks better in an evening, the other in a morning dress. 
 It is just as it suits, and so with accomplishments. There are 
 two women, to whom, though in different ways, I have been 
 deeply attached in the course of my life. The one had no 
 so-called accomplishments, and not only at the time when 
 I had faith in the return, did I say, ' And I love her all 
 the better ', but I am still convinced that such would be 
 my opinion of any such woman. Accomplishments (in 
 which nothing good, useful, or estimable, is or can be 
 accomplished) would not suit her. Just as I should say to 
 
 TABLE TALK JJ Jj 
 
466 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 a daughter, or should have said to the lassie in question, 
 had she been my wife, ' My dear ! I like to see you with 
 bracelets ; but your hand and fingers are prettiest with- 
 out any ornament, they don't suit rings.' The other 
 lady, on the contrary, became them ; they were indeed so 
 natural for her that they never strike me as accomplish- 
 ments. And, to do her justice, I must say that I am per- 
 suaded that the consciousness of them occupies as little 
 room in her own thoughts. 
 
 Accomplishments, what are they ? why truly the very 
 want of the French, Italian, smattering of terms without 
 relation to things or properties of any kind, and piano- 
 fortery, which meets one now with Jack-o'-lantern ubi- 
 quity, in every first and second story, in every street, is 
 become a presumptive accomplishment as the being free 
 from debt is a negative stock. Mrs. C . . . had no meretricious 
 accomplishments. Did you ever suspect, from anything 
 I ever said, that this lay in the way of my domestic happi- 
 ness ? And she, too, had no accomplishments, to whom 
 the man in the poet sighed forth the 
 
 Dear maid ! no prattler at a mother's knee 
 
 Was e'er so deeply prized as I prize thee, 
 
 Why was I made for love, and love denied to me ? 
 
 ERASMUS. 
 
 I think the Praise of Polly is the most pleasant Book 
 of Erasmus. 
 
 The distich which he returned to Sir Thomas More in 
 the place of the Horse he had borrowed, is as good as was 
 any Steed in the Stable of that most excellent Utopian. 
 I cannot see how a good Catholic could refuse to receive 
 it. He ought to be prepared to renounce his religion who 
 shrinks from the necessary, inevitable, and legitimate con- 
 sequences to which it must lead. Here it is : 
 
 Quod mihi dixisti 
 
 De corpore Christi 
 
 Crede quod edas et edis, 
 
 Sio tibi rescribo 
 
 De tuo Palfrido 
 
 Crede quod habeas et habes. 
 
GARRICK 467 
 
 GAERIOK. 
 
 The warmest admirers of histrionic merit would not 
 wilhngly be supposed to overlook the difference, both in 
 kind and degree, between an excellence that in its very 
 nature is transient, or continuing, only as an echo, in 
 the memory of a single generation, while the name alone 
 remains for posterity, and a power, enduring as the Soul 
 of Man and commensurate With the human language. 
 
 But, without dreading the imputation of a wish to 
 balance weights so unequal, we may assert that if ever 
 two great men might seem to have been made for each 
 other, we have this correspondency presented to us in the 
 instance of Garrick and Shakespeare. It will be sufficient 
 for me to direct attention to one peculiarity, the common 
 and exclusive characteristic of both, — the union of the 
 highest Tragic and Comic Excellence in the same individual. 
 This indeed supersedes the necessity of mentioning the par- 
 ticular merits which it implies and , comprehends, while it 
 is eminently and in the exactest sense of the word char- 
 acteristic, inasmuch as this transcendent power sprung 
 from the same source in both, — from an insight into human 
 nature at its fountain head, which exists in those creations 
 of Genius alone, in which the substance and essential forms 
 are the Gifts of Meditation and self-research, and the in- 
 dividualizing accidents, and the requisite drapery, are sup 
 plied by observation and acquaintance with the world. We 
 may then hope for a second Garrick or of an approach to 
 a Shakespeare where we find a knowledge of Man united to 
 an equal knowledge of Men, and both co-existing with the 
 power of giving Life and Individuality to the products of 
 both. For such a being possesses the rudiments of every 
 character in himself, and. acquires the faculty of becoming, 
 for the moment, whatever character he may choose to 
 represent. He combines in his own person at once the 
 materials and the workman. The precious proofs of this 
 rare excellence in our Greatest Dramatic Poet are in the 
 hands of all men. To exhibit the same excellence in our 
 greatest actor, we can conceive no more lively or impres- 
 sive way than by presenting him in the two extreme Poles 
 
 Hh 2 
 
468 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 of his Creative and almost Protean Genius— in his Richard 
 the Third and his Abel Drugger. 
 
 POLITICAL UNIONS. 
 
 In the language of prophecy, the first and prominent 
 symptom of a good or evil will, or influencing tendency, is 
 brought forward as the condition or occasion of all that 
 follows. The first link in the chain of effects is made the 
 representative of the common cause of them all, or the 
 good or evil state of the moral Being of the agents. So, 
 for instance, a turbulent malcontent disposition in large 
 classes of a country, with the assertion of Rights, un- 
 qualified by, and without any reference to, duties, a vague 
 Lust for Power, mistaken for, and counterfeiting the love 
 of, Liberty — 
 
 Licence they mean when they cry Liberty, 
 
 For who loves that, must first be wise and good — 
 
 show themselves first in clubs, societies, political unions, 
 &c, &c. And this, as the first prominent symptom, foretells 
 and becomes itself a powerful efficient cause of the disrup- 
 tion, disorganization, and anarchy that follow. Most truly, 
 therefore — indeed what great truth and principle of State 
 Wisdom can be mentioned which is not to be found in 
 the oracle of the Hebrew Prophets — most truly doth 
 Isaiah proclaim — ch. viii. v. 9, ' Associate yourselves, O ye 
 people ! and ye shall be broken in pieces. Give ear, all ye 
 of far countries ! Gird yourselves (i. e. form yourselves into 
 Clubs as with Girdles), and ye shall be broken in pieces.' 
 
 MARY LAMB. 
 
 It at once soothes and amuses me to think — nay, to know, 
 that the time will come when this little volume of my dear, 
 and wellnigh oldest friend, dear Mary Lamb, will be not 
 only enjoyed but acknowledged as a rich jewel in the 
 treasury of our permanent English Literature ; and I cannot 
 help running over in my mind the long list of celebrated 
 writers, astonishing Geniuses ! Novels, Romances, Poems, 
 
MARY LAMB— SIR HENRY TAYLOR 469. 
 
 Histories, and dense Political Economy quartos, which, com- 
 pared with Mrs. Leicester's School, will be remembered as 
 often and prized as highly as Wilkie's and Glover's Epics 
 and Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophies compared with 
 Robinson Crusoe ! 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 Quoted the passage from Southey, in which he de- 
 clares the Church to be in danger from the united attacks 
 of Infidels, Papists, and Dissenters. Expressed his surprise 
 at Southey's extreme want of Judgement. ' Any Establish- 
 ment which could fuse into a common opposition, into an 
 opposition on Common Grounds, such heterogeneous and con- 
 flicting materials, would deserve, ought, to be destroyed. I almost 
 wish that Southey had been one of the audience, fit though 
 few, who attended my Lectures on Philosophy ; though 
 I fear that in his present state of mind, he would have 
 perverted, rather than have profited, by them.' 
 
 SIR HENRY TAYLOE. 
 
 The person to whom I alluded in my last is a Mr. T , 
 
 who, within the last two or three years, has held a situation 
 in the Colonial Office, but what, I do not know. From 
 his age and comparatively recent initiation into the office, 
 it is probably not a very influensive one ; and, on the other 
 hand, from the rank and character of his friends, he has 
 occasionally brought up with him to our Thursday evening 
 conver-, or, to mint a more appropriate term, owe-versa- 
 
 zione, it must be a respectable one. Mr. T is Southey's 
 
 friend, and more than a literary acquaintance to me, only 
 in consequence of my having had some friendly intercourse 
 with his uncle during my abode in the north. Of him 
 personally I know little more than that he is a remarkably 
 handsome fashionable-looking young man, a little too deep 
 or hollow mouthed and important in his enunciation, but 
 clever and well read ; and I have no reason to doubt that 
 he would receive any one whom I had introduced to him 
 as a friend of mine in whose welfare I felt anxious interest, 
 with kindness and a disposition to forward his object should 
 it be in his power. 
 
470 ALLSOP'S BECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Hatred of superiority is not, alas ! confined to the 
 ignorant. The best-informed are most subject to jealousy, 
 and to unfair representations of new views and doctrines. 
 
 BURKE. 
 
 Quoted his short Sketch of Burke from the Biographic/, 
 Literaria. Burke possessed and had sedulously sharpened 
 that eye which sees all things, actions, and events, in rela- 
 tion to the laws which determine their existence and cir- 
 cumscribe their possibility. He referred habitually to 
 principles : he was a scientific statesman, and therefore 
 a Seer. For every principle contains in itself the germs of 
 a prophecy ; and, as the prophetic power is the essential 
 privilege of science, so the fulfilment of its oracles supplies 
 the outward, and (to men in general) the only, test, of its 
 claim to the Title. There is not one word I would add or 
 withdraw from this, scarcely one which I would substitute. 
 I can read Burke, and apply everything not merely tem- 
 porary to the present most fearful condition of our country. 
 I cannot conceive a time or a state of things in which the 
 writings of Burke will not have the highest value. 
 
 SNEERERS. 
 
 Observe the fine humanity of Shakespeare in that his 
 sneerers are all worthless villains. Too cunning to attach 
 value to self-praise, and unable to obtain approval from 
 those whom they are compelled to respect, they propitiate 
 their own self-love by disparaging and lowering others. 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Of all the men I ever knew, Wordsworth has the least 
 femineity in his mind. He is all man. He is a man of 
 whom it might have been said, — ' It is good for him to be 
 alone.' 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 I have shown in the Biographia Literaria the great evil 
 of too entire domestication. My after-experience would 
 confirm, nay, even extend this. I incline to think that, 
 
MARRIAGE— POLITICS 471 
 
 unless the husband is abroad the whole day, and therefore 
 only a partaker of his wife's social parties, that in the choice 
 of their associates they should be independent. To ex- 
 clude all that a woman or a man might wish to exclude 
 from his or her help-mate's society, might leave the 
 rest of little value, and lead to mutual discomfort. The 
 Turkish method is good : they have no difference of 
 opinion in that fine country ; but, as our own habits and 
 customs are different, we should seek to make arrange- 
 ments in harmony with them ; and this I think may be 
 accomplished. Why insist upon a married pair — paired 
 not matched — agreeing in the choice of their visitors ? 
 The less the independence of married people, especially 
 that of man, is trenched upon, the better chance of happi- 
 ness for both. Are there any men to whom the wife 
 has a dislike ? why should she be annoyed with their 
 presence ? Are there women amongst his wife's acquaintance 
 who to him are ungenial, why force them upon the husband's 
 distaste or dislike ? I have known permanent aversions, 
 and, what is the same thing, permanent alienations proceed 
 from this cause, all which might have been avoided by each 
 of the parties simply agreeing to see their own friends 
 without the presence or intervention of the other. In the 
 one case the range of the more kindly sympathies may 
 appear to be circumscribed, in the other, dislike is quickly 
 ripened into aversion. 
 
 POLITICS. 
 
 1832. 
 
 I fear that the Revolutionary Spirit which was rebuked 
 by Burke, and derided by Canning, though driven from high 
 places, is not the less active amongst the people. This was 
 my opinion in 1817, and it is still more so now, when the 
 resumption of cash payments has revolutionized our mone- 
 tary system, and with it has caused the most fearful de- 
 vastation in the fortunes and general condition of the agri- 
 culturists — both labourers and proprietors. If what is 
 charged against Goody Peel, or Peel the Candid, be true, 
 the epithet ' genteelly vulgar ' is a term of approval to 
 
472 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 what I should be inclined to apply to him. To improve 
 his fortune or his prospects by fair means is not denied to 
 Mr. Peel ; but to recommend a measure of very doubtful, 
 nay, dangerous policy, merely because it would double 
 his own wealth, when earnestly exhorted by his father 
 against its fearful consequences, is what I dare not be- 
 lieve of Peel (and of him you know I think very meanly), 
 even though charged with it openly, and to my knowledge 
 never denied. The miserable policy of men like Peel will 
 have its reaction during this generation ; for them, the 
 problem will be solved, that half is greater than the whole ; 
 certainly better for them. The danger does not appear 
 now, nay, at the hour of its arrival, I do not think it will 
 appear, to be from within (and I incline to believe that its 
 manifestation must be from without) ; but who can doubt 
 that, if all were right at home, We, this People of England, 
 could have anything really to fear from abroad ? 
 
 It is quite folly to think that any book, or class of books, 
 can be any longer of general interest. Even newspapers, 
 the only papers of general interest as a class, are daily 
 being subdivided. The result of great and constant sub- 
 division is a daily increasing antagonism — or general in- 
 difference of the whole to the subject of each. It may be 
 you are right in thinking, or rather in hoping, that the 
 greater equalization, not in wealth, for that is the reverse, 
 but, in intelligence and the external appearance of all classes, 
 and the growing power and ultimate supremacy of the 
 middle classes, will cause greater mental activity, which 
 must result in a daily increasing, and ultimately in universal, 
 benevolence. I have entertained views not dissimilar, 
 as you well know, and they are now held, in some form 
 or other, by all good men ; but I doubt whether any 
 good can come from the use of evil or antagonist means. 
 Benevolence and kindly feelings towards all that has life, 
 must precede intelligence and mental activity, in those at 
 least who are to effect any great changes in our social con- 
 dition. Owen of Lanark fulfils this condition, as all his 
 life has been devoted to extend and improve the happiness 
 of those under his control of within his influence. He has 
 also the most indomitable perseverance, and has attested, 
 by a life devoted to the most disinterested objects, the 
 
POLITICS 473 
 
 purity and singleness of his purpose. With these qualities, 
 what might not such a man have effected, had he not 
 wilfully stumbled over religion, which was not at all in 
 his way, and thus impaired greatly his power of doing 
 good. 
 
 I recollect writing a very long letter to Mr. Owen, and 
 conjuring him, with tears in my eyes, to avoid this rock ; 
 this vexed question of Fate and Freewill ; of which less 
 seems to be known, by those who argue upon it, than of 
 any other subject of difference. 
 
 The Priesthood grossly cheat us with free-will ; 
 
 Will to do what, but what Heaven first decreed ? 
 Our actions then are neither Good nor 111, 
 
 Since from eternal causes they proceed : 
 Our passions, fear and anger, love and hate, 
 Mere senseless engines that are moved by fate ; 
 Like ships on stormy seas without a guide, 
 Tost b'y the winds, are driven by the tide. 
 
 These lines of Dryden seem to me to express the doctrine 
 and its results better than any other I recollect. It is true 
 the illustrations are now varied, but nothing has been 
 added to the argument either in force or variety. 
 
 •P •!• *P *P *t* 3JC «(C 
 
 From my earliest manhood I perceived that if the people 
 at large were neither ignorant nor immoral, there could 
 be no motive for a sudden and violent change of Govern- 
 ment ; and if they were, there could be no hope but of a 
 change for the worse. 
 
 My feelings, however, and imagination did not remain 
 unkindled in this general conflagration (the French Re- 
 volution) ; and I confess I should be more inclined to be 
 ashamed than proud of myself if they had. I was a sharer 
 in the general vortex, though my little world described 
 the path of its revolution in an orbit of its own. What 
 I dared not expect from constitutions of Government and 
 whole nations, I hoped from Religion and a small company 
 of chosen individuals, and formed a plan, as harmless as 
 it was extravagant, of trying the experiment of human 
 perfectibility on the banks of the Susquehannah ; where 
 
474 ALLSOP'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 our little Society, in its second generation, was to have 
 combined the innocence of the patriarchal age with the 
 knowledge and genuine refinements of European culture ; 
 and where I dreamt that in the sober evening of my life 
 I should behold the Cottages of Independence in the 
 undivided Dale of Industry. 
 
 And oft, soothed sadly by some dirgeful wind^ 
 Muse on the sore ills I had left behind. 
 
 Strange fancies ! and as vain as strange ! Yet to the 
 intense interest and impassioned zeal, which called forth 
 and strained every faculty of my intellect for the organization 
 and defence of this scheme, I owe much of whatever I at 
 present possess, — my clearest insight into the nature of 
 individual man, and my most comprehensive views of 
 his social relations, of the true uses of trade and commerce, 
 and how far the wealth and relative power of nations pro- 
 mote or impede their welfare and inherent strength. 
 
INDEX 
 
 A priori, meaning of, 362 n. 
 
 Abbt, Thomas (1738-66), 400. 
 
 Abyssinian Church, 78. 
 
 Accent and quantity, 271. 
 
 Accomplishments, 465. 
 
 Acoustics, 57. 
 
 Acting, 34, 44, 365, 414, 428, 467. 
 
 Actius, 182. 
 
 Adams, Parson (in Fielding's 
 
 Joseph Andrews), 400. 
 Adiaphori, 180. 
 Admonition, an, 393. 
 Advocates, 158. 
 
 Aeschylus, C.'s boyish preference 
 for, 252; Milton and, 253; 
 religion of, 40, 56. 
 Afghans, the, 38. 
 Age and Youth, 379. 
 Agglutination in languages, 89, 
 
 277, 371. 
 Agreeable, the, 286. 
 Agriculture, 46, 301, 471. 
 Aikin, Dr., 435 
 Alchemy, 169. 
 Ale, 369. 
 Alexandrian Christians, 52, 112, 
 
 171-2; Jews, 266. 
 Alfred, King, 380. 
 Aliquid ex nihilo, 368. 
 All in each, 83 n.. 181. 
 All and the whole, 203, 217. 
 Allegory, Christian, 278 ; Dante's, 
 
 273. 
 Allsop, Thomas, his recollections 
 
 of S. T. C, 411-74. 
 Allston, Washington, 51. 
 Amanda, 378. 
 
 Anterican language, 464 ; naval 
 discipline, 150 ; political sensi- 
 tiveness, 103, 124, 226; war, 
 104. See United States. 
 Amiable, the, 386. 
 Amphibious fish, 370. 
 Amusement, 436. 
 Anabaptists^ 353. 
 Anarchy* mental, 132. 
 
 Andrewes, Lancelot, 290. 
 
 Androgynous, great minds, 201. 
 a. 168, 198, 470. 
 
 Angels, 393. 
 
 Anima naturaliter Christiana, 42, 
 404. 
 
 Animals, 75, 85-6, 270, 427. 
 
 Animal magnetism, 83, 331. 
 
 Antinomianism, 203. 
 
 Ants, 86. 
 
 Apocalypse, the, 338-9. 
 
 Apollos and the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, 52, 112. 
 
 Apostles' Creed, the, 399. 
 
 Appearances deceptive, 81. 
 
 Appetite and passion, 96, 240, 337. 
 
 Apuleius, 318. 
 
 Aqua Vitae, 349. 
 
 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 380. 
 
 Arab poetry (Book of Job), 91, 
 104. 
 
 Arabian Nights, The, 91, 106, 285. 
 
 Arabic, 94, 270. 
 
 Architecture, 200, 248-9. 
 
 Argument, temper in, 386. 
 
 Arians, 43, 279, 311, 398-9. 
 
 Ariosto, 73. 
 
 Aristocracy, 126, 181, 433. 
 
 Aristophanes, 103. 
 
 Aristotle, 83, 118, 316 ; and Des- 
 cartes, 343 ; and Plato, 118 ; on 
 laughter, 278 ; on memory and 
 recollection, 368. 
 
 Arminianism, 398, 432. 
 
 Arminius, 419. 
 
 Army, the, 87, 213 ; French, 126- 
 7. 
 
 Arnauld, Antoine, 98. 
 
 Arthurian Romance, 93, 279. 
 
 Articles, Thirty -nine, 203, 419. 
 
 Arts, the fine, 117, 140. See also 
 Painting, Sculpture, &c. 
 
 Ascension, the, 407. 
 
 Asgill, 146, 167, 179, 197, 242. 
 
 Association, 376 ; historical . 
 
 260. 
 
476 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Astrology, 169. 
 
 Athanasian Creed, 70. 
 
 Atheism, 291, 368, 398; among 
 ecclesiastics, 121 ; and Uni- 
 
 tarianism, 172-3 ; imputed 
 
 to Bruno, 345 ; to Coleridge, 
 422; Pantheistic , 172. 
 
 Athens and slavery, 228. 
 
 Atonement, the, 308; 431. See 
 Redemption. 
 
 Augustine, St., as a theologian, 73 ; 
 on Apostles' Creed, 399 ; on 
 marriage of cousins, 59 ; on 
 voluntary belief, 378. 
 
 Austen, Jane, 86 n. 
 
 Austrians, 187, 276. 
 
 Autumn, 273 ; and winter, 379. 
 
 Bacchus and India, 279. 
 
 Bacon, Aristotle, and Davy, 316 ; 
 
 inconsistencies of , 134 ; 
 
 Baconian induction, 128 ; on 
 
 friendship, 239 ; one of the 
 
 four great English geniuses, 110; 
 style of , 128. 
 
 Balaam, 170. 
 
 Ball, Sir Alexander, 299. 
 
 Bankruptcy, national, 413. 
 
 Baptism, 98, 196, 289, 399. 
 
 Barbauld, Mrs., 106, 461. 
 
 Barclay, Robert, 380. 
 
 Barnabas, St., 291. 
 
 Barnabas, Epistle of, 112, 171, 291. 
 
 Barrington, Sir Jonah, 445. 
 
 Barrow, Isaac (1630-77). 72, 255, 
 312. 
 
 Bartram's Travels, 61-2. 
 
 Basil, St., 73. 
 
 Bathurst, Lady Sarah, 454. 
 
 Baxter, 432 ; and the modern 
 Dissenters, 72 n., 311 ; his Life, 
 114, indispensable as Church 
 
 history, 72 n. ; quoted, 
 
 389 ; his veracity, 72. 
 
 Beards, 369. 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, disregard 
 for fame, 212 ; Little French 
 
 Lawyer, 67, 211 ; love in , 
 
 232, 239 ; Monsieur Thomas, 
 67 ; plots, 211 ; Bollo, 67 ; 
 
 style, 213, 251 ; text of , 
 
 212, 296 ; versifioation, 212, 295- 
 6 ; wit, 67. 
 
 Beaumont, Sir G., 142, 156, 454. 
 
 Beauty and the beautiful, ana- 
 lysed, 442; denned, 165, 286; 
 essays on, lost [but since dis- 
 covered, and included in Cla- 
 rendon Press ed. of C.'s Biog. 
 Lit], 286 ; Burke on , 73. 
 
 Becket, 72, 417. 
 
 Bede, 380. 
 
 Beddoes, Dr. Thomas, 461. 
 
 Beer, 369. 
 
 Bees, 86. 
 
 Beethoven, 132, 258. 
 
 Beggar's Opera, The, 364. 
 
 Behmen, 73. 
 
 Being, chain of, 70. 
 
 Belgian revolution (1830), 132-3, 
 148, 151-2. 
 
 Belief, Christian, 192 ; and faith, 
 192 n. ; voluntary , 378. 
 
 Bell, Rev. Andrew, 382. 
 
 Bellarmine. on Hell, 325 ; on 
 toleration, 288, 351. 
 
 Benevolence, 357, 472. 
 
 Bennett, Agnes Maria, The Beggar 
 Girl, 86 ; [Black Girl, sic], 415. 
 
 Benthamism, 12 »., 152-3, 265; 
 ' canting foppery ', 228. 
 
 Bentley, 116. 
 
 Berengar (Berengarius, d. 1088), 
 335. 
 
 Berkeley, 39, 74, 461. 
 
 Bertram, Maturin's, 440. 
 
 Bible, 108 »., 113 m., 284; as a 
 book, 110, 171 ; authority of 
 397, 399 ; ' Authorized Version ' 
 style of, 68, 115, 181 ; biblio 
 latry, 112, 144, 191, 358, 419 
 canon of the Scriptures, 1 12, 17 1 
 characters : Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob, 95-6 ; David, 60. 
 100, 105 ?i. ; Saul, 52, 55 
 
 Church and the , 445 
 
 Coleridge's study of the 
 
 51 ; commentators on, 88, 98-9 
 133^, 246, 338 ; doctrines of, 
 192 n., 244 ; English Reformers 
 
 and the , 110 ; inspiration 
 
 of the , 170, 196, 379; 
 
 Luther's translation, 110 ; mys- 
 tical interpretations, 105 n., 291; 
 Purver's translation, 325 ; and 
 Science, 360 ; the statesman's 
 
INDEX 
 
 477 
 
 manual, 468 ; text-sparring, 
 111, 144, 358 ; Unitarian inter- 
 pretations, 55, 308, 397, 431. 
 
 Bible, books of the : 
 
 Old Testament. 51, 76; Mosaic 
 books, 49, 100,191,196; Genesis, 
 39, 80, 95, 274-5, 285; Ezra, 
 time of, 105 ; Nehemiah, time 
 of, 191 ; Job, date of, 105 ; pure 
 Arab poetry, 91, 104-5 ; Satan 
 in — — , 104-5 ; Psalms, their 
 authorship, 60 ; devotional 
 character, 105 »., 109 ; mystical 
 import, 105 n., 266 ; translation 
 of, 105; Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, 
 authorship, 60 ; date, 191 ; lan- 
 guage of, 59. 191 ; Prophets, the, 
 196 ; Isaiah, 468 ; language of, 
 59, 191 ; rhythm, 262 n. ; sub- 
 limity, 262 ; Jeremiah, 76 ; 
 Daniel, authority, 42, 76 ; lan- 
 guage, 59 ; Sir Isaac Newton on 
 
 , 134. 
 
 New Testament, 172, 246 ; Sy- 
 noptic Gospels, 43 ; St. John's 
 Gospel, 42-3, 113, 170, 308, 380 ; 
 Romans, 245, 262 ; Ephesians, 
 102. 246 ; Colossians, 102 ; Ti- 
 mothy, 246 ; Titus, 246 ; He- 
 brews, authorship, 42-3, 52, 112, 
 172 ; canonicity, 43, 1 12 ; gnosis 
 in, 112, 172,291; 1 Peter, Leigh- 
 ton's Commentary on. 379 ; 
 1-3 John, 42, 113, 380 ; Revela- 
 tion, 134, 338. 
 
 Bible, texts commented on : 
 
 Genesis i. 49 ; i. 1, 80 ; i. 26, 
 39; ii.7,39; Exodus iii. 14,325; 
 Joshua iii. 79 ; 1 Samuel x. 5, 
 50 ; xxviii. 54-5 ; 2 Kings iii. 
 15, 50; Job xix. 25, 26. 104; 
 Psalms xxii, 105 n. ; ex. 105 n. ; 
 Ecclesiastes xii. 1, 359 ; Isaiah 
 viii. 9, 468 ; Ezekiel xxxvii. 3, 
 91 ; Matthew xxvi. 26, 240 ; 
 63, 99, 100, 102; xxvii. 46, 
 105 m.; Mark iii. 35, 170; 
 xiv. 61, 99 ; xv. 34, 105 n. ; 
 Luke xvi. 31, 424 ; John i. 1, 2, 
 43 ; ii, 4, 170 ; v. 39-47, 424 ; 
 vi. 97, 98, 431 ; vi. 60, 98 ; viii. 
 58, 83 n. ; xv. 28, 55 ; xix. 11, 
 98 ; xix. 34, 42 ; Acts ii. 1-21, 
 
 339 ; xv. 78 ; xxviii, 2, 4, 199 ; 
 Romans xii. 19, 380 ; 1 Corin- 
 thians, viii. 1, 291 ; x. 4, 240 ; 
 xiii. 13, 427 ; Galatians ii. 78 ; 
 Ephesians v. 31-2, 131 ; Colos- 
 sians i. 15, 267 n. ; 1 Timothy 
 iii. 2 (Greek), 392 ; 1 John ii. 
 22, 243 ; v. 7, 42. 
 
 Billington, Elizabeth (1768-1818), 
 365. 
 
 Biographia Literaria, S. T. C.'s., 
 quoted, 23-4, 212 m., 223 m., 
 249 »., 295 m. ; referred to, 22, 
 311, 429, 470. 
 
 Biography, 97. 
 
 Bion, 41. 
 
 Bishops and Charles II, 115 ; 
 their incomes, 303. 
 
 Bitters and tonics, 41, 174. 
 
 Black, 178. 
 
 Blackstone, 180. 
 
 Blackwood's Magazine, 238, 425. 
 
 Blank verse, 295, 305. 
 
 Blindness, inward, 341. 
 
 Blood, circulation of the, 342. 
 
 Blumenbach, the physiologist, 59, 
 84 m. 
 
 Blushing, 83. 
 
 Body and mind, 435, 458. 
 
 Bohme (Behmen), Jacob, 73. 
 
 Bolingbroke.. 72, 469. 
 
 Books and conversation, 455. 
 
 Boswell, 256. 
 
 Bourrienne, 119. 
 
 Bowdlerization, 281. 
 
 Bowyer, Headmaster of Christ's 
 Hospital, 103, 198. 
 
 Brandy, 349. 
 
 Bridge Street Gang, 422 m. 
 
 Brooke, Lord, 311. 
 
 Brougham, 430. 
 
 Brown, Thomas (1778-1820), 85. 
 
 Brown, Tom, 255 m., 312. 
 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, 351, 376. 
 
 Bruno, Giordano, 336, 342, 345. 
 
 Brunonian system, 336. 
 
 Buckland, Prof., 56. 
 
 Bull, Bishop, 69, 261. 
 
 Bulls, 337, 381. 
 
 Bunyan, 108, 373. 
 
 Grace Abounding, 114. 
 Pilgrim's Progress, 107-8, 
 107 n., 108 m., 373, 447. 
 
478 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Buonaparte, Bourrienne on, 119 ; 
 and France, 140 ; Napier on 
 
 , 139 ; and small 
 
 states, 457 ; invasion of Spain, 
 46. 
 
 Burdett, Sir Francis, 36, 456. 
 
 Burke's conversation, 256 ; elo- 
 quence, 242 ; a great man, 225 ; 
 Pitt and Fox, 245 ; and the 
 revolutionary spirit, 471 ; his 
 statistics, 345 ; on the Sublime, 
 73 ; writes best in a passion, 41. 
 
 Burnet, Bishop, 116. 
 
 Burns, 249 «., 440. 
 
 Butler, Bishop, 85. 
 
 Byron and current Christian apolo- 
 getics, 440 ; Don Juan, 58 ; a 
 fashionable favourite, 282 ; and 
 Goethe, 210 ; his relations with 
 the Lake poets, 27 ; self-por- 
 traiture, 452 ; versification, 34, 
 58 ; and Horace Walpole, 296. 
 
 Caen Wood, 64»., 420. 
 
 Calderon, 327. 
 
 Callimachus, 281. 
 
 Calvin apostrophized, 380 ; and 
 
 Luther, 400 ; and Servetus, 
 
 134, 287 ; Jeremy Taylor and, 
 
 111. 
 Calvinism and Arminianism, 432 ; 
 
 blasphemous, 427 ; Bunyan's, 
 
 108 ; and Quakerism, 88, 289 ; 
 
 and Unitarianism, 173. 
 Cambridge, S. T. C. at, 249, 316, 
 
 319; King's College Chapel. 
 
 249 ; University of, 300, 343. 
 Campbell, 282, 453. 
 Canada, 183. 
 Canning, 11, 45, 92, 119, 274-5, 
 
 471. 
 Canonical writings, 42, 112, 171-2, 
 
 291. 
 Cant, religious, 70, 87. 
 Capitalists, 46, 119, 234. 
 Cardan (Girolamo Cardano, 1501^ 
 
 76), 336. 
 Carey, William, 379. 
 Carlile, Richard, 422. 
 Caroline divines, 110 m., 182 to., 
 
 204, 255. 
 Carolingians, the, 342. 
 Carte, Thomas, 229. 
 
 Castlereagh, Lord, 424, 432. 
 
 Catholic Emancipation, 48, 60, 
 163, 305-6. 
 
 Catholicity, 43, 112, 171, 291. 
 
 Cato, 450. 
 
 Catullus, 182. 
 
 Cause and effect, 110, 447. 
 
 Cavalier slang, 254-5, 312. See 
 also Royalists. 
 
 Celibacy of the Clergy, 231, 235. 
 
 Ceremonies, Religious, 376. 
 
 Cerinthus, 335. 
 
 Cervantes. See Don Quixote. 
 
 Chaldaic, 191. 
 
 Chantrey, Sir Francis, 251. 
 
 Chapone, Mis., 386. 
 
 Characters, 128, 180, 387, 392. 
 
 Charlemagne, 119. 
 
 Charles I and his times, 150 »., 
 236, 285; execution of, 432 
 as a Prince, 247. 
 
 Charles II, persecutes Baxter, 432 
 and the Church of England, 111 
 115 ; and the Presbyterians 
 115 ; his times, 148, 150 n. 
 
 Charlotte. Queen, 454. 
 
 Charms, 183. 
 
 Chaucer, 247, 294, 348-9, 441. 
 
 Chemistry, 85, 201, 248. 
 
 Chiabrera, 375. 
 
 Childhood. 166, 418. 
 
 Chillingworth, William (1602-44), 
 144. 
 
 China, 38. 
 
 Choice, faculty of, 362. 
 
 Christ and Christology, 42, 55, 
 76-7, 99-100, 106 »., 267 and n., 
 285, 308, 397, 399, 405, 407, 
 421-2, 431. See also Trinity, 
 Socinianism, Unitarianism, &c. 
 
 Christianity is assurance, 130 ; 
 and Christ, 421-2 ; and Dis- 
 senters, 165—6 ; doctrinal con- 
 tent of, 77, 102, 289 ; evidences 
 of, 403 ; and Gibbon, 263 ; and 
 Greek Tragedy, 417 ; . in- 
 tellect, and morality, 284 ; 
 
 and Lamb, 421 ; and mytho- 
 logy, 278 ; natural to man, 42, 
 192 n. ; and philosophy, 130 ; 
 and prophecy, 76 : and Pro- 
 testantism, 48 ; and Puritan- 
 ism, 112 ; the sacraments are 
 
INDEX 
 
 479 
 
 Christianity itself, 289 ; and 
 St. Simonianism, 147 ; self- 
 evident, 43 ; and sin, 407 ; and 
 Spinozism, 60 ; and Jeremy 
 Taylor, 110 n. ; and toleration, 
 288 ; and the doctrine of the 
 Divine Unity, 77 ; a world- 
 religion, 398-9. 
 Christ's Hospital, 103, 183, 198. 
 Chrysostom, St., 73, 97, 110. 
 Church, The, 167. Church au- 
 thority, 110m., Ill; the 
 
 only pure democracy, 97, 126, 
 
 165, 228 ; discipline, 165 ; 
 
 Churches of East and West, 
 their common creed, 77 ; and 
 education,' 11; Established 
 
 Church, 214, 445; in 
 
 Ireland, 60, 163, 206 ; Church 
 history, 290 ; idea of the 
 Church, 126, 144-5; and the 
 individual, 192 ; and the Jews, 
 78 ; the primitive, 301 ; before 
 the Reformation, 313 ; and 
 Reunion, 115 ; and the Sab- 
 bath, 301-2, 328; and State, 
 311 ; unity of the Church, 399. 
 Church of England, the, 47 ; 
 S. T. C and, 11-12, 86, 86 m., 
 139 ; Charles II or James II 
 and, 111 ; a curse upon, 214 
 (126); disendowment, 11-12; 
 Dissenters and, 166, 206-7, 311, 
 469; enemies of, 11, 86, 139, 
 300, 303, 305-6, 311, 316, 469 ; 
 one of its founders, 328 ; the 
 National Church, see National ; 
 and the professions, 176, 420 ; 
 prospects of, 205 ; and Pro- 
 testantism, 206 ; Puritans and, 
 115; over-prudent, 126, 214; 
 and the Reformation, 125; 
 revenues of, 303 ; and the royal 
 prerogative, 125, 205, 302. 
 
 Cicero, dialogues, 188 ; on good- 
 ness, 426 ; on Malta, 199 ; style 
 of, 182, 318. 
 
 Cid, the romances of the, 93. 
 
 Circulation of the blood, 342. 
 
 Citizenship, 180, 423. 
 
 Civil War of Seventeenth Century, 
 74, 235-6 ; enduring interest of, 
 37, 285, 416. 
 
 Clarendon, 239. 
 
 Clarissa Harlowe- 436. 
 
 Clarke, Samuel (1626-1701), 99. 
 
 Clarkson, Thomas, 356, 382, 426, 
 457. 
 
 Claude, 141-2. 
 
 Claudian, 268, 278, 368. 
 
 Clement, St., on the Eucharist, 97, 
 431. 
 
 Clementina (in Sir Charles Grandi- 
 son), 357. 
 
 Clergy, the, celibacy of, 231, 235 ; 
 high opinion of, 214 n.-215 »., 
 304, 420. 
 
 ' Clerisy ', 175, 234, 235. 
 
 Cliches, 176. 
 
 Cline, bust of, 251. 
 
 Clubs, 468. 
 
 Cobbett, his manners, 201 ; his 
 style, 242, 429; speaks truth 
 malgre lui, 413 ; versus ' The 
 Times ', 250. 
 
 Cocceius (Johannes Koch, 1603- 
 69), a Dutch theologian, 88. 
 
 Coleridge, Derwent (son), 419 ; 
 Hartley (son), 419, 429 ; James 
 (brother), 190 ; Mr. Justice J. T., 
 (nephew), reminiscences by, 51, 
 145 »., 314 ; Sara (daughter), 
 194. 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 
 affinities with German philo- 
 sophers, 22-6 ; churchmanship, 
 11-12, 86 and »., 139; con- 
 fession of faith, 405, 419 ; 
 conversation, H. N. C. on, 3, 
 5-10, 257 n. ; S. T. C. on his 
 own, 250, 274 ; Patmore on, 
 vii ; De Quincey on, 8-9. 
 
 Coleridge on himself : apologiae 
 pro vita sua, 393, 438 ; and the 
 Church, 86, 139; his Christianity, 
 42, 192 n., 422 ; no horror 
 of death, 81, 157, 313, 420; 
 and his feelings, 462-3 ; and 
 the French Revolution, 189, 
 473 ; early happiness, 425 ; 
 experiences of illness, 157-8, 
 187, 284 ; not intrusive, 273 ; 
 on his Lay Sermons, 425; on 
 his own life, 393, 438-9, 448 ; 
 love for others, 463 ; on his 
 marriage, 439, 466-6; his 
 
480 
 
 INDEX 
 
 memory, 68, 187 ; growth of 
 his metaphysical views, 311 ; 
 sensibility to music, 132, 258 
 (319-20) ; and Pantisocracy, 
 473r-4 ; no feeling for place, 68, 
 260 ; on his poems, 425 ; prin- 
 ciples, 224, 462 ; a ' reasoner ', 
 292 ; his reading of histories, 
 186 ; history of his religious 
 opinions, 103, 308; self-appre- 
 ciations, 425 ; self-pity, 435 ; 
 Shelley and C, 452 ; and Steele, 
 439 ; his sympathies, 114 5 ; 
 ' my system ', 81, 157, 191 (361), 
 310 ; his love of truth, 114. 
 
 Anecdotes of himself : and 
 Mrs. Barbauld, 461 ; and 
 Christ's Hospital, 102, 183, 198 ; 
 as a ' crafty monopolist ', 440 ; 
 and Crashaw, 441 ; and Lord 
 Darnley, 46 ; and the diplo- 
 matist, 274 ; ' dirt cheap ', 292 ; 
 and his 0oggings, 102, 198; 
 and Haydon, 458 ; as a heretic, 
 145 and n., 463 ; and Hum- 
 boldt, 274 ; and Jeffrey, 457 ; 
 and Jews, 120 ; and Keats, 198 ; 
 and Lamb, 453 ; and a lost 
 legacy, 369 ; as a magistrate, 
 367-8 ; at Malta, 367 ; and Sir 
 Richard Phillips, 461 ; postages, 
 457 ; and the Remorse, 35 ; 
 and Romanists, 145 and n., 316, 
 463; and Shelley, 452; and 
 Southey, 425 ; and Spain, 46-7 ; 
 and the thatcher's wife, 444 ; 
 and Thelwall, 122 ; and ' The 
 Watchman ', 456 ; and Dr. 
 Young, 447. 
 
 His pension, 12 n. ; his pla- 
 giarisms, 16-27 ; his poetry : 
 The Ancient Mariner, 106-7, 
 425, 448 ; Christabel, 259, 441 ; 
 
 projected completion, 418, 
 
 425, 439 ; juvenile poems, 445, 
 462 ; Love, 425 ; the Lyrical 
 Ballads, 447 ; Remorse, 35, 55, 
 213, 425 ; Wallenstein, 425 ; 
 his principles, 4, 15 ; politics, 
 10-12 ; his projected opus 
 magnum, 14, 158, 313, 317, 438 ; 
 projected poems, 178, 207, 439 ; 
 other projects, 166, 260, 281, 
 
 312, 417-19, 424, 436, 439-40 ; 
 his prose writings, 14 ; Aids to 
 Reflection, 62; quoted, 70 m., 
 83 n., 123 n. ; Church and State, 
 quoted in footnotes, 37, 38, 75, 
 150, 151, 164, 215 ; The Friend, 
 119, 446 ; quoted in footnotes, 
 110, 125-6, 135, 218, 254 ; Lay 
 Sermons, 425 ; his reading, 15, 
 186 ; his sensibility, 28, 109 »., 
 131, 196, 320, 452. 
 
 Collaboration, 426. 
 
 Collins, William, 319. 
 
 Collyer (? Jeremy Collier, 1650- 
 1726), 255 n. 
 
 Colonization, 149, 233. 
 
 Colours, 73, 177-8, 442. 
 
 Comedy, 274. 
 
 Commerce, 203, 306, 413, 433. 
 
 Common sense, 197, 311, 347, 350 ; 
 in poetry, 91, 219. 
 
 Compassion, 276. 
 
 Competence, 435. 
 
 Compounds, German, 89 ; Greek, 
 332, 371 ; Latin, 277. 
 
 Conceptions, propositions involv- 
 ing contradictory, 82-3, 416 ; 
 a work of the understanding, 
 241 ; impressions not concep- 
 tions, 458. 
 
 ' Conclusions ', 434. 
 
 Condition of England, 433, 470. 
 
 Confessio Fidei, 405. 
 
 Conjunctions, a test of good writ- 
 ing, 242 ; in Greek, 277. 
 
 Conscience, 153, 347, 396, 406-8. 
 
 Conscription, 126-7. 
 
 Consciousness, 390. 
 
 Conservative party, 168. 
 
 Consolation, spiritual, 273. 
 
 Consonants and vowels, 270. 
 
 Constantino, 235. 
 
 Constitution, the English, Black- 
 stone and, 180 ; Canning and, 
 92 ; constitutional law, 213 ; 
 the crown, 213, 215 ; the three 
 estates of the realm, 136, 166, 
 168, 242 ; king and peers as 
 integral a part of the Constitu- 
 tion as are the commons, 138, 
 168 ; settled at the Revolution, 
 161 ; not founded on rights, 
 162 ; and the Roman hierarchy 
 
INDEX 
 
 481 
 
 60-61 ; and the Irish Church, 
 163. 
 Contagious diseases, 174. 
 Contempt, 336, 400, 470. 
 Controversy, 377. 
 Conversation, 256, 455 ; Cole- 
 ridge's, vii, 3, 5-10, 250. 
 Coperniean system, 451. 
 Corcyra, 186 n. 
 Corn Laws, 300, 306. See Tree 
 
 Trade, Protection, &c. 
 Coronation Oath, 215, 306. 
 Corsica, 298. 
 Cosmopolitism, 261. 
 Cotton, Charles, Ode on Winter, 
 
 282 and n. 
 Countenance, Human, 377. 
 Courier, The, 46, 457. 
 Courts, 247. 
 Cowley, 56, 72, 441. 
 Crabbe, 293. 
 Cramp, charm for, 183. 
 Craniology, 68, 123. 
 Crashaw, 441. 
 Creation, 39, 49, 80, 301. 
 Creeds : Apostles', 399 ; Athana- 
 sian and Nicene, 70 ; S. T. C.'s, 
 405, 419. 
 Criticism, contemporary, 330. 
 Cromwell, 186 n., 236. 
 Crucifixion, the, 407-8. 
 Cudworth, Kalph (1617-88), 343. 
 ' Cumberback,' 439. 
 Curiosity, 376. 
 Cuyp, 144. 
 Cyprian, St., 399. 
 Cyril, St., 399. 
 
 Dalton, John, 249 n. 
 
 Dampier, William, 168, 260 n„ 
 
 280. 
 Dancing, 57, 166. 
 Daniel, Samuel, 'the moral poet', 
 
 71 n., 156, 295 and n. 
 Dante, 117, 273. 
 Darnley, Lord, 46. 
 Darwin, Erasmus, 85, 368, 458. 
 Davidi, i.e. Francis David (1510- 
 
 79), an anti -Trinitarian Tran- 
 
 sylvanian bishop, 307. 
 Davis, John, Captain Smith and 
 
 Pocahontas (1817), 312. 
 Davy, Sir Humphry, 44, 316, 426. 
 
 Death, 'that grand word', 185, 
 388, 449; Coleridge and, 81, 
 157, 313, 420-1 ; and immor- 
 tality, 395. 
 Decatur, Commodore, 183. 
 December morning, 379. 
 ' Decencies,' the, 366. 
 Definitions, 228 ; of the beautiful, 
 442 ; farce, 224 ; food, 237 ; the 
 formal, 442; the grand, 443; idea, 
 65 ; knowledge, 76 ; love, 66, 
 313, 385 ; madness, 191 ; maxims, 
 65 ; the majestic, 443 ; medi- 
 cines, 237 ; miracle, 394 ; a 
 nation, 138 ; painting, 76 ; 
 patriotism, 104 ; picturesque, 
 443 ; poetry, 56 ; poison, 237 ; 
 principle, 65 ; shapeliness, 442 ; 
 sublime, 443. 
 Defoe, his irony, 179 ; Bobinson 
 Crusoe, 260 «., 312, 469; his 
 Whiggism, 241. 
 Deists, 423. 
 Deluge, 56-7, 274-5. 
 Democracy, a Church the only 
 pure, 97, 126, 165, 177, 228; 
 
 , monarchy, and aristocracy, 
 
 181, 225-6 ; a paradoxical 
 
 monarchy, 225 ; an oli- 
 garchy, 433 ; its place in the 
 State, 126, 165, 181 ; Roman 
 Catholicism and the, 125. 
 Demosthenes, 277. 
 'Denationalized,' 291, 307, 310. 
 
 Cf. 138. 
 Dependencies, Government of, 
 
 300. 
 De Quincey, quoted, 16-18, 109 n. 
 Descartes, 247, 317, 343, 434. 
 ' Desert island feeling ', the, 312. 
 Devil, 56, 104, 243. 
 Devon, North, 131. 
 Devotional religion, 109, 192, 231, 
 
 290. 
 Dialogues in verse, 188. 
 Difficulties, 445. 
 Diplomacy and diplomatists, 
 
 274-6. 
 Dirt cheap, 292. 
 Discipline, Church, 165 ; Naval, 
 
 150. 
 Diseases, 174, 202, 261. 
 Disendowment, 11-12. 
 
 TABI/B TALK 
 
 II 
 
482 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Dissenters, feelings towards the 
 Church of England, 165-6, 
 206-7, 469 ; dissenting interest, 
 246 ; their pedigree, 311 (398) ; 
 
 the Puritans not , 115 ; 
 
 admission to the Universities, 
 300-5. See Presbyterians, Qua- 
 kers, &c. 
 
 Diversions of Purley, 88, 340. 
 
 Divinity, 216 ; English divines, 
 204, 255. 
 
 Dobrizhoffer, 192. 
 
 Dogs, 85, 86 »., 166. 
 
 Dolce, Carlo, 143. 
 
 Domestication, 470. See Mar- 
 riage. 
 
 Don Quixote, 210, 239, 259 ; con- 
 sidered philosophically, 197, 
 362, 447. 
 
 Donne, 111, 358. 
 
 Douw, Gerard, 249. 
 
 Drake, 169. 
 
 Drama, acted and read, 364 ; 
 dramatic and epic imagination 
 distinguished, 309 ; poetry, 188. 
 
 Drayton, 156, 275. 
 
 Dreams, 49, 110. 
 
 Dress, women's, 465-6. 
 
 Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, 
 166, 194, 241 n. ; commences 
 second great period of the Eng- 
 lish language, 312 ; on fate and 
 freewill, 473 ; his genius, 194, 
 284 ; great wits and madness, 
 233 ; his style, 72, 312, 319. 
 
 ' Dry-footed ' commentators, 88, 
 99. 
 
 Dual, the, in grammar, 184. 
 
 Dundas, Henry (1742-1811), 300. 
 
 Dupuis, Monsieur, 334. 
 
 D'Urfey, Thomas, 417. 
 
 Dust to dust, 377. 
 
 Dutch, the. See Holland. 
 
 Dutch painting, 141-3, 249, 258. 
 
 Duties and rights. See Bights. 
 
 Duty, 130, 154-5, 433-4. 
 
 Each and all, 181. 
 Ebionites, 290. 
 
 Economics. See Political Eco- 
 nomy. 
 Edgeworth, Miss, 338. 
 Edinburgh Review, 316, 338, 457. 
 
 Education, of children, 122 ; the 
 Church and, 11; the curriculum, 
 259-60 ; primary education, 
 330 ; secondary, 259. 
 
 Edward III, 247. 
 
 Edward VI, 111. 
 
 Effeminacy, feminineness and, 
 168, 198 ; in taste, 385. 
 
 Egoism, 284. 
 
 Egotism, 336-7, 400 ; Milton's, 268. 
 
 Egypt and Greece, 56, 130. 
 
 Eldon, Lord, 96. 
 
 Electricity, 64, 149. 
 
 Elegy, 280. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 121, 242, 288. 
 
 Elizabethan writers, 182 n. 
 
 Eloquence, 462. 
 
 Emigration, 149, 233. 
 
 End and means, 86, 148, 389, 452. 
 See Motives. 
 
 Endor, Witch of, 52, 54-5. 
 
 England, Church of. See Church. 
 
 English language, more acquisitive 
 than conservative, 391-2 ; so 
 capable a language, 211 ; com- 
 posite, 200 ; first great period 
 closes with Barrow, 72, 312 ; 
 second begins with Dryden, 312 ; 
 compared with German, 200, 
 243, 280 ; with Greek, 280, 371 ; 
 with Italian, 391 ; Words- 
 worth's contribution, 282. See 
 Style. 
 
 English people, 'denationalized', 
 291 (307, 310) ; disparagement 
 of themselves, 194 ; attitude to 
 foreigners, 194, 319, 325-6; 
 and Irish, 326 ; and stimulants, 
 276 ; women, 57. 
 
 Ennius, 182, 277. 
 
 Envy, 74. 
 
 Epic imagination, 309 ; poem, the 
 Homeric, 281 ; must be national 
 or mundane, 279 ; destruction 
 of Jerusalem the only remaining 
 subject, 177, 278, 439. 
 
 Epicurus, 129. 
 
 Epidemics, 174. 
 
 Epigrams, 344, 369, 370, 466. 
 Epiphanius, ' dullest of the fathers ' , 
 
 290-1. 
 Epitaph, an, 86. 
 Epithets, 69, 103, 331-2. 
 
INDEX 
 
 483 
 
 Erasmus, 98, 246, 466. 
 
 Erigena, 235, 380. See Scotus. 
 
 Error and truth, 114. 
 
 Erskine, Lord, 427. 
 
 ease and conscire, 361. 
 
 Easenians, 450. 
 
 Established Church. See Church 
 
 and Ireland. 
 Estates of the realm. See Con- 
 stitution. 
 Etherege, 365-7. 
 Ethics, 130, 450. See Morality. 
 Eton, 196 n., 232. 
 Etymology, 88-9, 265-6, 318, 328, 
 
 392. 
 Eucharist, the, 97-8, 240, 289, 
 
 431, 466. 
 Euripides, 41, 252-4. 
 Eusebius, 399. 
 Euthanasia, 313, 420-21. 
 Evangelicalism, true and false, 70, 
 
 87, 273. 
 Evidence, value of, 367-8. 
 Excitation, 85. 
 Existence of God, the, Davy and, 
 
 426 ; proofs of, 292. 
 Expedients. See Principles. 
 Experience, 164, 434. Cf. ' lights 
 
 of warning ', 187 n. 
 Experiment and observation, 134. 
 Experimental philosophers, 329. 
 Experimental religion, 404. 
 ' Extremes meet,' 49, 164. 
 
 Face, the human, 377. 
 
 Facts, and principles, 186 and n. ; 
 not truths, 165, 186 n. 
 
 Faith, articles of, 289, 405; or 
 conviction, 98 ; and exultation, 
 261 ; and morals, 204. 
 
 Falkland, Lord, 144. 
 
 Fall, doctrine of the, 56, 84, 178, 
 280, 407. 
 
 Falsehood, 375. 
 7 Fancy, denned, 361 ; and im- 
 agination, 279, 309 ; theologies 
 which originate in the, 347. 
 
 Faraday, 249 n. 
 
 Farce, 224, 274. 
 
 Fatalism, 276. 
 
 Fate and free will, 417. 
 
 Fathers, the, 431 ; reading of, 15 ; 
 the dullest of, 290 ; knowledge 
 
 of, necessary, 112 ; a mis- 
 reading of, 334 ; a quotation, 
 159 ; rhetorical, 73, 97 ; the 
 symbolum fidei in, 399. 
 
 Faust, 207-11, 259. 
 
 Feeling and expression, 462-3. 
 
 Femineity, 168, 198, 470. 
 
 Fenelon, 380. 
 
 Feyjoo, 343. 
 
 Fielding, 92 (Western), 215 to. 
 (Trulliber), 312, 400, 436. 
 
 Filmer, Sir Robert, Patriarchs, 
 386. 
 
 Final-Salvationists, 384. 
 
 Finch, Heneage, 144 n. 
 
 Flaccus, Caius Valerius, 278. 
 
 Flattery, 350, 461. 
 
 Fletcher, see Beaumont and 
 Fletcher. 
 
 Floggings, Coleridge's, 102-3, 198. 
 
 Foley family, the, 459. 
 
 Food, defined, 237. 
 
 Fools and rogues, 41. 
 
 Foreign relations, 472. 
 
 Forms and substance, 427. 
 
 Fortune, 443. 
 
 Fouque, La Motte, 312. 
 
 Fox, C. J., inferior to Burke, 225 ; 
 his French sympathies, 46, 179, 
 432 ; and the ' Friends of the 
 People', 179, 245; and Pitt, 
 179, 244, 432. 
 
 Fox, George, 177, 380. 
 
 France, military spirit in, 126, 
 139, 433; and Portugal, 151. 
 See Buonaparte, French. 
 
 Franchise, 135, 168, 265. 
 
 Francois de Sales, St., 380. 
 
 Free-trade, 227, 300, 306. 
 
 Free will, 404; fate and , 
 
 417 ; and omnipotence, 431 ; 
 
 a presiding , 426 ; and 
 
 Providence, 243, 417 ; and 
 responsibility, 406, 407. 
 
 French, the, 46, 124, 147, 337, 342, 
 462 ; and C. J. Fox, 46, 179 ; 
 hereditary peerage, 160 ; lan- 
 guage, 211 ; naval discipline, 
 150 ; and Scotch, 194 ; taste in 
 drinks, 276. 
 
 French-English, 371. 
 
 French Revolution, the (1789-95), 
 Burke and, 41 ; Coleridge and, 
 
484 
 
 INDEX 
 
 189, 473; Fox and, 46, 432; 
 
 theorists of, 135 »., 174. 
 French Revolution, the (1830), 
 
 124, 127, 133. 
 Frere, J. H., 274, 278, 372. 
 ' Friends of the People,' 179 (245). 
 Friendship, 131, 239. 
 Frith, John, 328. 
 Fuller, Thomas, 267. 
 
 Galileo and Kepler, 133. 
 
 Galvanism, 64, 149, 329-30. 
 
 Garrick, 462, 467. 
 
 Gases, 101. 
 
 Gay, John, 364. 
 
 Gendarmerie, French, 126-7. 
 
 Generosity, 464. 
 
 Genius feminine, 168, 198, 201, 470 ; 
 goodness of heart indispensable 
 
 to, 269, 344 ; , humour and 
 
 wit, 269 ; and imagination, 233 ; 
 all g. metaphysical, 197 ; power 
 of doing something new, 80 ; 
 and selfishness, 74 ; and sub- 
 tlety, 158 ; and talent, 44, 100. 
 
 Gentlemanliness, English, 124 n. ; 
 in Beaumont and Fletcher, and 
 Shakespeare, 252 ; Cowley's, 
 56; Luther's. 246; Othello's, 
 44; St. Paul's, 246, 313; 
 Bishop Sandford's, 313 ; Alger- 
 non Sidney's, 72 ; religion 
 gentlemanly, 87. 
 
 Geology, 248. 
 
 German language, compared with 
 
 English, 200, 211, 243. 280, 
 
 with Greek, 184, 314, with 
 
 Latin, 391 ; its debt to Luther, 
 89, 181-2, 314; names of 
 
 things in, 94 ; literature, 
 
 416, 447 ; theology, 42, 315. 
 
 Germans, the, and hymns, 110 ; 
 and the Scotch, 194 ; the 
 stupidest of, 123 ; nimiety in 
 all, 305 ; some typical Germans, 
 181, 192, 312, 315. 
 
 Ghosts, 39, 49-52, 427. 
 
 Gibbon, 263, 457. 
 
 Gifford, William, 223. 
 
 Gift of tongues, 339. 
 
 Giotto, 116. 
 
 Glow-beast, 373. 
 
 Glyconis, 377. 
 
 Gnosis, 112, 171, 291. 
 
 Gnostics, 43, 112. 
 
 God, existence of, 396-7, 406, 426 ; 
 nature of, 463 ; personality of, 
 104 ; the adorable tetractys, 
 177. 
 
 Godwin, William, 90, 266, 421, 
 453, 456. 
 
 Goethe, 207-11, 243, 259; Sor- 
 rows of Werter, 357. 
 
 Goldsmith, 41. 
 
 Good, the, 147, 173 ; the highest, 
 449 ; and the useful, 286, 434 ; 
 goodness and genius, 269, 344. 
 
 Gospel, the, 379, 403. 
 
 Gossamer, 328. 
 
 Gothic architecture, 200, 248. 
 
 Gothic mind, the, 284. 
 
 Government, 126, 136-7, 245, 473. 
 
 Gower, John, 294, 348-9. 
 
 Grammar, 62, 97, 129, 184; 
 Greek , 184-5, 277; Ho- 
 meric, 186, 277. 
 
 Grammar schools, 96. 
 
 Grand, the, 442-3. 
 
 Grandison, Sir Charles, 357 (Cle- 
 mentina), 400. 415, 436. 
 
 Gratitude, 390. 
 
 Gravitation, 430, 447. 
 
 Gray, Thomas, 282, 318-19. 
 
 Great minds androgynous, 201. 
 Cf. 168, 198, 470 ; great poets 
 good men, 269, 344. 
 
 Greatest happiness principle, 152. 
 See Benthamism. 
 
 Greek architecture, 248; dancing, 
 57 ; drama, 40, 56, 57, 252, 437 ; 
 grammar, 63, 184 ; intellect, 
 451 ; language : Aristophanic 
 Greek, 103; and English, 182, 
 371 ; and German, 314 ; Iapetic 
 59 ; stages in, 72 ; literature, 
 191; 277, 278; logic, 113; 
 oratory, 276 ; philosophy, 42, 
 130; politics, 128, 164; religion, 
 56, 80. 
 
 Greeks, Egypt and the, 56, 130 ; 
 Homeric, 186 ; modern, 272 ; 
 and Persians, 38; and Home, 
 182 
 
 Green, J. H., 426, 438. 
 
 Gregory Nazianz«n, St., 73. 
 
 Greville, Fulke, 311. 
 
INDEX 
 
 485 
 
 Grey, Earl (1764-1845), 136, 167, 
 
 215. 
 Grotius, Hugo (1583-1645), 419. 
 
 Habit. 368, 377. 
 
 Hacket, Bishop John (1592-1670), 
 247. 
 
 Hahnemann, 181. 
 
 Hall, Captain Basil, 124, 227. 
 
 Hamlet, see Shakespeare. 
 
 Hampden, John, 236. 
 
 Handwriting, 454. 
 
 Happiness, 152, 377. 
 
 ' Harberous ', 392. 
 
 Hare, Julius, quoted, 21-6. 
 
 Harmony, 175. 
 
 Harris, James (1709-80), 88. 
 
 Hasty words, 340. 
 
 Have, to, and to be, 344. 
 
 Haydon, 458. 
 
 Hayward, Abraham, trans, of 
 Faust, 207 n., 211. 
 
 Hazlitt, 194. 
 
 Head, Sir Francis Bond, Bubbles 
 from the Brunnens of Nassau 
 (1834), 298. 
 
 Heart, the, 451 ; and head, 87, 
 351 ; a good heart, 400. 
 
 Heat, 149. 
 
 Heaven, 390 ; meriting , 377. 
 
 Hebrew language, 270; Semitic, 
 59; etymology, 62, 270; the 
 Psalms in , 266 ; and San- 
 skrit, 196. 
 
 Hebrew Scriptures, anthropomor- 
 phic, 279 ; the sublime in, 191. 
 
 Hell, 132, 325. 
 
 Henry VIII, court of, 247. 
 
 Herculanean MSS., 129. 
 
 Herder, 187. 
 
 Hereditary peerage, the French, 
 160. 
 
 Heredity, 202. 
 
 Heresy, 351. 
 
 Hermas, the Shepherd of, 97, 171, 
 291. 
 
 Hermesianax, 278. 
 
 Herodotus, 260, 263. 
 
 Herschel, Sir William (1738-1822), 
 350. 
 
 Hervey, Rev. James (1714-58), 
 315. 
 
 Hesiod, 196. 
 
 Hieronimo, 221. 
 
 Highgate oaths, 215, 306. 
 
 History, S. T. C.'s reading of, 186 ; 
 and experience, 164, 434 ; new 
 species of, 353 ; methods of 
 writing, 186. 
 
 Hobbes, 153, 389. 
 
 Hobhouse, Sir J. C, 213. 
 
 Holland, 86, 307; England and 
 (1831), 148, 151. 
 
 Holy Spirit, the, 408, 431. 
 
 Homer's epic, 178, 263, 281 ; gram- 
 mar, 186, 277 ; his heroes, 41, 
 283 ; authorship of the Iliad, 93, 
 185 ; language, 41, 277, 331 ; 
 religion, 56. 
 
 Hooker, on the Bible, 110 ; on the 
 Church, 145 ; and death, 313 ; 
 and the Jesuits, 261 ; the 
 ' judicious ', 75 ; his style, 457. 
 
 Hope, 382. 
 
 Home, T. H. (1780-1862), 105 n. 
 
 Horner, Francis (1778-1817), 179, 
 430. 
 
 Horses and negroes, 356. 
 
 House of Commons, the, and the 
 Army and Navy, 213; principles 
 in, 154 ; and privilege, 36 ; and 
 reform, 47, 174, 226, 237 ; and 
 representation, 11, 135. 167—8, 
 215, 432. 
 
 House of Lords, 168, 226. 
 
 Hudibras, xi, 251, 256, 309, 362. 
 
 Hugo de St. Victor, 182. 
 
 Huguenots, 121. 
 
 Humanism, 398. 
 
 Humboldt, 274. 
 
 Hume, David, 335, 434. 
 
 Hume, Joseph, 213. 
 
 Humility, 386. 
 
 Humour, 146, 176, 269, 446. 
 
 Hunt, Henry (1773-1835), 47. 
 
 Hunt, Leigh, 452. 
 
 Hunter, John (1728-93), 447. 
 
 Husbands. See Marriage. 
 
 Huskisson, Mr., 203. 
 
 Huss, John, 121. 
 
 Hutchinson, Mrs. Lucy, 432. 
 
 Hydrophobia, 101. 
 
 Hymen, 335, 378. 
 
 Hymns, 110. 
 
 Hypotheses, 247. 
 
 Hysteria, 101. 
 
486 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Iapetic languages, 59. 
 
 Ideas, 75 re. ; Aristotle and, 118, 
 118 re. ; instance of, 75 ; Kant 
 and, 118 re. ; of a law, 133 ; 
 logic of, 286; Platonic, 118, 
 118 re. ; or principles, 65 ; self- 
 realizing theories, 230 ; tests of, 
 83 re., 230 ; truths of the reason, 
 83 re. ; ultimate ends, 257 re. 
 
 Identity, 178, 351. 
 
 Idolatry, 49, 451. 
 
 Ignorance, wise, 338. 
 
 Iliad, the. See Homer. 
 
 Illness, 158, 187, 284, 390. 
 
 Imagination, and fancy, 309 ; and 
 genius, 100, 233 ; the modifying 
 faculty, 233, 286, 309, 361 ; and 
 reason, 197. 
 
 Imitation in art, 256-8. 
 
 Immortality, distinction of man, 
 38 ; God and, 194 ; grounds of 
 belief in, 395, 397, 407. 
 
 Imperialism, 264, 457. 
 
 Impressions, 458. 
 
 Impulses and motives, 100, 340, 
 400. 
 
 In verbo Veritas, 336. 
 
 Incarnation, the, 280, 405, 407, 
 431. 
 
 Incivism, 423. 
 
 Inconsistency, 381. 
 
 Independents, the, 115. 
 
 India, Bacchus and, 279. 
 
 Indolence, love of, 244. 
 
 Inequality, social, 444. 
 
 Infant schools, 190. 
 
 Inglis, Sir Robert, 154. 
 
 Inhalations, 101. 
 
 Injustice, hatred of, 398. 
 
 Inquisition, 288, 400. 
 
 Inscription on a Clock, 379-80. 
 
 Insects, 85-6. 
 
 Inspiration. See Bible. 
 
 Instincts, 401. 
 
 Intellect, general want of, 424. 
 
 Intentions, good, 389. 
 
 Interestingness and beauty, 286, 
 446. 
 
 Intolerance, 287. 
 
 Investigation, methods of, 228, 
 248. 
 
 Invocation of saints, 231, 316, 
 347. 
 
 Ireland, 445 ; established church 
 in, 60, 163, 206 ; penal code in, 
 205 re., 206 re., 214; protes- 
 tantism in, 205, 205 re., 214 ; 
 and the Union, 163, 205, 326, 
 331. 
 
 Irish, the, 453 ; agitators, 215. 
 See O'Connell. 
 
 Irenaeus, 97. 
 
 Iron, 148. 
 
 Irving, Edward, 94, 267, 448. 
 
 Irving, Washington, 53»., 185 re. 
 
 Italian, 72, 184, 391 ; Italian 
 painting, 116-17, 143, 195, 250 ; 
 Italians, 176. 
 
 Italy, 145, 245, 455 ; Roman eon- 
 quest of, 232. 
 
 Jacobean writers, 182 re. 
 
 Jacobins : Coleridge no Jacobin, 
 189-90 ; Julius Caesar and 
 
 Cromwell as , 186 re. ; and 
 
 Providence, 90, 187 ; in U.S.A., 
 203. 
 
 Jamaica, slavery in, 355. 
 
 James I, 121, 242. 
 
 James II, 74, 111. 
 
 Jealousy, 65, 470. 
 
 Jeffrey, Lord, 434, 453, 457. 
 
 Jehovah, 104. 266. 
 
 Jerome, St., 73, 291. 
 
 Jerome of Prague, 121. 
 
 Jerusalem, destruction of, as sub- 
 ject for an epic, 177, 278, 439. 
 
 Jesuits, 192, 261. Cf. 148. 
 
 Jesus, 285, 287, 289-90. See 
 Christ. 
 
 Jewish religion, 49, 77, 397, 451 ; 
 prospective and preparatory, 
 60, 76-7, 374, 431, 398-9. 
 
 Jews, the, S. T. C. and, 120 ; in 
 England, 228 ; ideally con- 
 sidered, 178 ; and immortality, 
 54 ; Jacob a typical Jew, 95 ; 
 and the Messiah, 77 ; Jewish 
 oaths, 102 ; and patriarchal 
 government, 387 ; and the 
 Scriptures, 196, 262, 266 ; and 
 Solomon, 59. 
 
 John, St., his logic Oriental, 42 ; 
 and St. Paul, 42, 43, 113, 170-1, 
 308 ; his Platonisms, 308. See 
 Bible. 
 
INDEX 
 
 487 
 
 John Bullism, 124. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, the Whig (1649- 
 1703), 241. 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel (1709-84), 
 
 his antitheses, 255, 284 ; , 
 
 Boswell and Burke, 256 ; con- 
 versation, 256, 284 ; on his- 
 torical associations, 260 ; and 
 nature, 265 ; as a poet, 318-19 ; 
 political pamphlets, 264, 284 ; 
 style, 255, 284, 457 ; on Whigs, 
 166. 
 
 Jonson, Ben : The Alchemist, 212, 
 312 ; and his contemporaries, 
 212, 293, 295; and Donne, 
 111 n. ; The Fox {Volpone), 67, 
 269, 344 ; on grammar, 97 ; 
 and Hieronimo, 221 ; and Milton, 
 345 ; style, 221, 270, 295. 
 
 Jortin, John (1698-1770), 73, 303. 
 
 Journalese, 176, 185. 
 
 Joy, 276. 
 
 Julian the Apostate, 427. 
 
 Julius Caesar a Jacobin, 186 n. 
 
 Junius, 255. 
 
 Juries, 201. 
 
 Justin Martyr,' 431. 
 
 Juvenal, 189, 319. 
 
 Kaiser, 187. 
 
 Kant, 319 ; on existence of God, 
 292 ; on ideas, 118 n. ; his ob- 
 scurity, 347 ; on three great 
 races, 38, 59. 
 
 Katterfelto, Dr., 358. 
 
 Kean, Edmund, 44, 414. 
 
 Keats, 198. 
 
 Keenness and subtlety, 158. 
 
 Kemble, John, 34. 
 
 Kenyon, Lord (Lord Chief Justice, 
 1788-1802), 427. 
 
 Kepler, 133, 430. 
 
 King's College Chapel, 249. 
 
 Klopstock, 279, 314. 
 
 Knowledge denned, 76, 385. 
 
 Kotzebue, 41. 
 
 Kyd, 221 n. 
 
 Lactantius, 335. 
 Laelius Socinus, 173. 
 Lakes, Scotch and English, 130. 
 Lamb, Charles, and Christianity, 
 421; and Coleridge, 453; a 
 
 lost essay, 260 ; Christopher 
 North on, 238 ; a pun by, 191 ; 
 on Shakespeare, 194 ; his letter 
 to Southey, 452 ; Lloyd on, 453. 
 
 Lamb, Mary, 468. 
 
 Lancashire, 433. 
 
 Land, property in, 219, 228. 
 
 Landed interest, 119. 
 
 Landor, W. S., 286. 
 
 Landscape, 130-1, 143. 
 
 Language, corruption of, 318 ; 
 melody in, 391 ; philosophy of, 
 88 ; thought and, 420 ; vowels 
 and consonants, 270. 
 
 Languages, dual number in, 184 ; 
 European, their debt to the 
 schoolmen, 82 ; Iapetic original, 
 59 ; compared, 280 ; Oriental, 
 94, 270 ; teaching of modern, 
 260; variety of, 73. See 
 English, German, Greek, &c. 
 
 Laodicea, Council of, 113. 
 
 Latimer, 287. 
 
 Latin, 59, 72, 182 ; literature, 277. 
 
 Latin Church, 112. 
 
 Latitudinarians, 359. 
 
 Laud, Archbishop, 111, 115, 400. 
 
 Laughter, 273. 
 
 Lawyers, 192, 201, 216, 250. 
 
 Lecture and audience, 225. 
 
 Legality precedes morality, 374. 
 
 Legal studies, 159. 
 
 Legislation, iniquitous, 122. 
 
 Leighton, Archbishop, 379. 
 
 Lennep, Johann Daniel van (1724- 
 71), 88. 
 
 Leo X, 121. 
 
 Leopold I (1790-1865), King of 
 the Belgians, 152. 
 
 Lessing, 210, 305. 
 
 Lessius, Leonardus (Leonard Leys, 
 1554-1623, a Flemish Jesuit), 
 De perfectionibus moribusque 
 divinis (1620), 325. 
 
 L'Estrange, Sir Roger, 254, 312. 
 
 Lewis, Matthew Gregory ( ' Monk '), 
 297. 
 
 Libel,' 37, 424. 
 
 Liberty, 128, 150-1, 150 »., 245, 
 468. 
 
 Librarian, a, 387. 
 
 Lies, 377. 
 
 Life and organization, 100-1, 446. 
 
488 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Light, 73, 149, 248. 
 
 Lights which give no light, 164, 
 187 n., 434. 
 
 Lightfoot, John (1602-75), 353, 
 358. 
 
 Liona, 327. 
 
 Literary Fund, 344. 
 
 Little (Thomas Moore), 366. 
 
 Liturgy, English, 132. 
 
 Liverpool, Earl of (1770-1828), 45, 
 413, 432. 
 
 Lloyd, Charles, 453. 
 
 Lloyd, David (1635-92), State 
 . Worthies (1665), 275. 
 
 Locke, 44 ; on four plus five, 155 ; 
 on mind and the senses, 191 
 (361), 381 ; and Paley, 14, 381 ; 
 and the Schoolmen, 317, 434 ; 
 on toleration, 288, 351 ; a Uni- 
 tarian, 427. 
 
 Lockhart, J. G., Peter's Letters. 
 425. 
 
 Locomotion, effect on women's 
 education, 464. 
 
 Logics, Berkeley's and Spinoza's, 
 74; S. T. C.'s, 9; St. Paul's, 
 113; two kinds of, 83, 129, 286 ; 
 its place in education, 40 ; of 
 seventeenth and nineteenth cen- 
 turies compared, 40 (cf. 127). 
 
 Logos, the, eternal generation of, 
 399, 407 ; incarnation of, 405, 
 407, 431 ; two natures in, 106 n. ; 
 Philo's use of the term, 43, 308. 
 
 Long, John St. John (1798-1834), 
 empiric, twice tried for man- 
 slaughter through the deaths of 
 his patients, 202. 
 
 Love and appetite, 240, 337, 388, 
 449; defined, 66, 75, 313; at first 
 sight, 388 ; and friendship, 131, 
 239 ; lovers' quarrels, 451 ; and 
 the will, 388 ; wisdom of, 400 ; 
 in young men, 96. See Mar- 
 riage. 
 
 Loveliness, test of, 446. 
 
 Loyalty, English, 125. 
 
 Lucan, 277-8. 
 
 Luck, 443. 
 
 Lucretius, 129, 182. 
 
 Lust, 337, 388. 
 
 Luther, apostolical, 72 ; his trans- 
 lation of the Bible, 89, 110 ; and 
 
 Calvin, 400; and German, 89, 
 314 ; on Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 43 ; his favourite divine, 182 ; 
 his hymns, 110; and mar- 
 riage, 131 ; and Tom Paine, 
 335 ; and St. Paul, 246 ; and 
 Rabelais, 233 ; and ' rational ' 
 religion, 380 ; and the Reforma- 
 tion.110, 121 ; and the Sabbath, 
 302,' 329 ; and Jeremy Taylor, 
 111 ; Whitaker's eulogy, 241 ; 
 and Wicliffe, 240 ; his writings; 
 181. 
 
 Lutherans, 288, 328. 
 
 Lyell, Sir Charles, his geology, 
 248. 
 
 Lyttelton, Lord, 52. 
 
 Machiavelli, 120. 
 
 Machinery, 234. 
 
 Mackenzie, Colin (1753 ?-1821), 
 
 454. 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, 44, 257 »., 
 
 317. 
 MacMahon, T. O'B. (fi. 1777), 
 Madness, 84, 132, 191, 233, 362. 
 
 325. 
 Maginn, William, 425. 
 Magnetism and electricity, 64, 149 
 
 and light, 73. 
 Magistracy, unpaid, 92. 
 Malta, architecture of, 200 ; 
 
 S. T. C. in, 145, 225, 367 ; and 
 
 Sir A. Ball, 299 ; not St. Paul's 
 
 Melita, 198 ; peasantry of, 145, 
 
 298. 
 Malthus, and Paley, 381 ; Mal- 
 
 thusian parliament, 302 ; Mai- 
 
 thusian political economy, 10, 
 
 12 n., 197, 228, 307, 433. 
 Man, 147, 180, 243, 276; 'new 
 
 duty of man ', 440. 
 Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, 250. 
 Manners, St. Paul's, 246, 313 ; of 
 
 different periods, 247, 354, 365. 
 Manufacturing system, 45, 301, 
 
 433-4. 
 Marcellus of Ancyra, 399. 
 Marlowe, 207. 
 Marriage, of cousins, 58; happiness - 
 
 in, 59, 388, 439, 448, 464-5, 470 ; 
 
 love and, 96, 378, 450 ; Luther 
 
 and, 131 ; of minors, 58 ; in 
 
INDEX 
 
 489 
 
 Shakespeare and other drama- 
 tists, 232. 
 
 Marryat's Peter Simple, 294. 
 
 Martin, John, 107 and n. 
 
 Marvellous, love of the, 339, 390. 
 
 Mary, the Blessed Virgin, 170. 
 
 Mason, William, 202. 
 
 Massinger, 212, 219, 221, 223, 232, 
 295. 
 
 ' Material sublime,' the, 33, 210. 
 
 Materialism, 38, 394, 426. 
 
 Mathematics, 259, 316. 
 
 Mathews, Charles, 34, 414, 428. 
 
 Matter, 149, 248. 
 
 Maturin's Bertram, 440. 
 
 Maxims and principles, 65, 66, 155. 
 
 Means and ends. See End. 
 
 Medicine, 101-2, 174-5, 237. 
 
 Meditation, faculty of, 442. 
 
 Melanchthon, 287. 
 
 Melita not Malta, 198. 
 
 Memory and recollection, 368. 
 
 Mental anarchy, 132. 
 
 Mephistopheles, 208. 
 
 Mercury as a poison, 181. 
 
 Merit, 377. 
 
 Merovingians, 342. 
 
 Mesothesis, 62, 149, 177, 256, 280. 
 
 Messenger of the Covenant, 285. 
 
 Messiah, the, 76, 99, 105 »., 285. 
 
 Metaphysics, 159, 203, 351. 
 
 Meteorites, 332. 
 
 Meteorology, 421. 
 
 Methodists, 83 n., 110. 
 
 Metre. See Versification. 
 
 Mexico, 332. 
 
 Michael Angelo, 117, 195. 
 
 Middle Ages, 121. 
 
 Middle classes, 472. 
 
 Middleton, Bishop T. E., 267 n. 
 
 Miguel, Dom (1802-66), 244. 
 
 Milesian tales, the, 91. 
 
 Millenarians, 384. 
 
 Milton, his egotism, 92-3, 267-8 ; 
 epic imagination, 309, 442 ; and 
 Euripides, 253 ; one of the four 
 great English writers, 110 m.; 
 his genius, 279 ; theories of 
 government, 181 ; and Ben 
 Jonson, 345 ; Latin prose, 56 ; 
 Latin verse, 281 ; and music, 
 258; and Newton, 257; and 
 Ovid, 254 ; and painting, 194 ; 
 
 Paradise Lost : egotism or sub- 
 jectivity in, 267 ; grandeur and 
 sublimity in, 309, 442 ; equal 
 judgement and genius in, 279 ; 
 the puns in book; vi, 327 ; 
 quoted, 195, 275, 309-10, 345, 
 358 ; universal interest of, 177- 
 178, 279 ; a great philosophical 
 poet, 189 ; definition of poetry, 
 56; style, 56, 254, 318 ; Samson 
 Agonistes, 195, 212, 331 ; his 
 subjectivity, 92-3, 267. 
 
 Mind and body, 458 ; and senses, 
 191, 361, 434. 
 
 Ministers and the Reform Bill, 161, 
 167. 
 
 Minucius Felix, 330. 
 
 Miracles, and belief, 359, 396-7, 
 403, 405, 421; defined, 394; 
 Mosaic and Christian, 79, 431. 
 
 Misanthropy, 403. 
 
 Misery, 381. 
 
 Modesty, 365. 
 
 Modifying faculty, 233, 286, 309, 
 361. 
 
 Mohammedans, 37, 276. 
 
 Monarchy, 225. See Constitution. 
 
 Monasticism and the Universities, 
 235, 305. 
 
 Money, 414, 471. 
 
 Monotheism, 77, 451, 
 
 Moore, Sir J., 314. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 282, 366 ( ' Little ' ). 
 
 Morality, 393 ; conventional, 450 ; 
 legality precedes, 374 ; presup- 
 posed in Christianity, 397. 
 
 Morals of different periods, 354, 
 365-6. See Manners. 
 
 Moravians, 190, 380. 
 
 More, Henry, 332, 372-3, 52 S. 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, 329, 466. 
 
 Morning Post, 113. 
 
 Moses, and immortality, 54, 194 ; 
 language of, 191 ; miracles of, 
 79, 431 ; Mosaic books, 49, 100, 
 191,196; covenant, 78; dispen- 
 sation, 398 ; predictions of, 100. 
 
 Moschus, 41. 
 
 Motives, and impulses, 100, 340, 
 400 ; and principles, 153, 400. 
 
 Mountains, 428. 
 
 Mozart, 141, 258. 
 
 Multeity, 185, 442. 
 
490 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Multitude, the, 162. 
 
 Munro, Sir T., 91. 
 
 Music, 132, 140, 195, 258, 319-20. 
 
 ' Musical glasses,' 291. 
 
 ' My system,' 81, 157, 191, 310. 
 
 Mysteries, the Greek, 80, 451. 
 
 Mythology, 278. 
 
 Nail-making, 459. 
 
 Names, 185. 
 
 Napier's Peninsular War, 139. 
 
 Napoleon. "See Buonaparte. 
 
 National Church, the, 280 ; Cole- 
 ridge and, 11, 139 ; enemies of, 
 139, 300, 303, 311 ; and nation- 
 ality, 167; relations with the 
 
 Church Catholic, 167, with 
 
 the Papacy, 235, 288 ; sacred 
 character of, 214. 
 
 National Debt, 45, 217. 
 
 Nationality, the Church and, 167 ; 
 a nation ' defined, 138 ; and 
 Imperialism, 235, 264, 457 ; and 
 Man, 180. See ' Denational- 
 ized '. 
 
 Nativity of Christ, the, 407. 
 
 Natural religion, 443. 
 
 Naval discipline, 150-1 ; power, 
 432. 
 
 Nazarenes, the, 290. 
 
 Necessity and free will, 243. 
 
 Necker, 136. 
 
 Negative thought, 389. 
 
 Negro emancipation, 244, 246. 
 
 Negroes and horses, 356. 
 
 Nelson, 114. 
 
 Neoplatonism, 130. 
 
 Nervous diseases, 202, 261 ; 
 
 excitation, 427. 
 
 Newgate Calendar, 464. 
 
 ' New Jerusalemites,' 79 n. 
 
 Newspapers, and the Church, 139, 
 
 214, 300 ; democratic , 213, 
 
 300; 'journalese,' 176, 185; 
 and literature, 176 ; as stimu- 
 lants, 414 ; sub-division of, 472 ; 
 
 veracity of, 430-1 ; Whig , 
 
 139. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 44, 133-4, 247, 
 257, 360, 427, 430. 
 
 Niceno Creed, 70. 
 
 Nicias, 263. 
 
 Nimiety, or ' too-muchness ', 305. 
 
 Nitrous oxide, 85. 
 
 Nominalists and Realists, 81. 
 
 Nonconformists, 74, 311. See 
 Dissenters. 
 
 Nonnus, 277. 
 
 ' North, Christopher ' (John Wil- 
 son), 238. 
 
 North, Sir Roger, 254. 
 
 Norway, 288. 
 
 Nosology, 201. 
 
 Oaths, 102 ; Coronation, 215, 306. 
 
 Obscurity, 347. 
 
 Observation and experiment, 134. 
 
 Ockham, William, 81-2, 235. 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 206. 
 
 Ode, the, 2&1. 
 
 ' Old Clothes,'' 120, 262. 
 
 Oligarchy, 433. 
 
 ' Oligosyllabic,' 82. 
 
 Omne ignotum, 41. 
 
 Opposites, synthesis or mesothesis 
 
 of, 49, 69, 72, 82-3, 149, 164, 
 
 177, 250, 416 ; in colours, 177 ; 
 
 in grammar, 62-3 ; in politics, 
 
 37-8, 416. 
 Optimism, 308. 
 Organization and life, 101, 446 ; 
 
 organic and inorganic, 163. 
 Oriental languages, 94, 270. 
 Oriental, St, John's logic, 42. 
 Orientals, 38. 
 Origen, 73, 113, 270, 291. 
 Origin of species, 251. 
 Ossian, 415. 
 Other worldliness, 427. 
 Ovid, 254, 281. 
 Owen, Robert, 472. 
 Oxenstiern (Axel Gustaffson Oxen- 
 
 stjerna, 1583-1654, Chancellor 
 
 to Gustavus Adolphus), 225. 
 Oxford, University of, 40, 305, 
 
 controversy as to system of 
 
 education, 316. 
 
 Pacific Islands, 41. 
 
 Paganini, 141. 
 
 Paine, Tom, 51, 335, 427. 
 
 Painting, denned, 76; Dutch, 
 141-3, 249, 258 ; imitation in, 
 256, 257 ; Italian, 116-17, 143 
 
 195,250; Milton and ,194 ; 
 
 modern , 143 ; philosophy 
 
INDEX 
 
 491 
 
 of, 76, 108 n., 256 ; portraiture, 
 144, 256; progress of, 117; 
 Roman school, 165; state 
 patronage, 140 ; vacant space 
 
 in , 141. See Claude, Cuyp, 
 
 Dolce, Giotto, Michael Angel o, 
 Raffael, Reynolds, Rubens, Te- 
 niers, Titian, Van Huysun. 
 
 Palestrina, 258. 
 
 Paley, 14, 173, 381. 
 
 Paltock, Robert, Peter Wilhins, 
 312. 
 
 Pantheism, and Atheism, 172 ; 
 and Book of Genesis, 80 ; and 
 the Greek mysteries, 80 (451) ; 
 ends in idolatry, 49 ; and Book 
 of Job, 104 ; nature - worship, 
 429, 443 ; Spinoza's, 60 ; Words- 
 worth and, 429. 
 
 Pantisocracy, 473. 
 
 Papacy, the, 71, 121 ; anti- 
 Christian, 231, 235; anti- 
 national, 235-6, 288; extra- 
 national, 231, 305 (cf. 140); 
 temporal power, 71, 121 ; and 
 the Universities, 235, 305. 
 
 Papal infallibility, 111 ; 
 
 supremacy, 111, 182. 
 
 Paracelsus, 336. 
 
 Park, John James (1795-1833), 
 180 and n. 
 
 Parliament, the contemporary, 
 214-15, 302. See Constitution, 
 House of Commons. 
 
 Parodies, 334. 
 
 Parr, Samuel (1747-1825), 318. 
 
 Parts of speech, 62. 
 
 Party spirit, 11, 114, 164; anec- 
 dote of, 344 ; Brougham and, 
 431 ; Burke and, 41 ; and the 
 pulpit, 214. 
 
 Passion and appetite, 96, 240, 337. 
 
 Pathos, 446. 
 
 Patient and physician, 80. 
 
 Patriarchal Government, 386. 
 
 Patriotism and ' cosmopolitism ', 
 262; defined, 104; and in- 
 dividuality, 200 ; and current 
 political economy, 310 ; and 
 the Reform Bill, 161 ; in a 
 slave state, 228 ; and the soil, 
 104. See ' Denationalized '. 
 
 Patronage, Army and Navy, 213. 
 
 Paul, St., his autograph, 113, 171 ; 
 his ' collection ', 291 ; and the 
 Eucharist, 97 ; as a gentleman, 
 246, 313 ; and St. John, 42-3, 
 113, 170-1, 308, 380; and 
 Judaism, 78 ; his logic, 113 ; 
 and Luther, 246 ; and mar- 
 riage, 131 ; and Melita, 198 ; 
 ' Rabbinisms ' of, 308 (cf. 113) ; 
 and slavery, 301 ; his style, 
 245-6, 270; authorized trans- 
 lation of, 270. For Epistle to 
 Hebrews, other Epistles, and 
 quotations, see Bible. 
 
 Paulus, H. E. G. (1761-1851), 315. 
 
 Peasants' War in Germany (1522- 
 5), 187 n. 
 
 Pecca fortiter, 341. 
 
 Pedro, Dom, 244. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 154, 471. 
 
 Pelagianism, 359. 
 
 Penal Code in Ireland. 205 »., 
 206 »., 214. 
 
 Penn, Granville, 56. 
 
 Penn, William, 96, 289-90, 351-2, 
 380. 
 
 Pension List, 12 n. 
 
 Pentecost, 339, 408. 
 
 Pepys, the French, 119. 
 
 Pericles, 263. 
 
 Permanency and Progression, 
 37-8, 416. 
 
 Persecution, 287-8, 351-3, 400. 
 
 Persians, 38 ; their poetry, 90. 
 
 Persius, 278. 
 
 Persons and things, 164. 
 
 Peter, St., 78. 
 
 Peter Wilkins, 312. 
 
 Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk (by 
 J. S. Lockhart), 425. 
 
 Phaedon, 450. 
 
 Phantom Portrait, », 53-4. 
 
 Pharisees, 400. 
 
 Pharos at Alexandria, the, 350. 
 
 Philanthropists, 261. 
 
 Phillips, Sir Richard (1761-1840), 
 461. 
 
 Philo, 43, 196, 308. 
 
 Philosophic and popular language, 
 201 ; and Scriptural, 360. 
 
 Philosophy, a history of, 437 ; 
 never popular, 436 ; begins 
 with Pythagoras, 434 ; and 
 
492 
 
 INDEX 
 
 religion, 405, 446 ; errors in 
 philosophizing, 350. See Psy- 
 chology. 
 
 Philology. See Languages. 
 
 Phoenix, the, 368. 
 
 Phrenology, 68, 123. 
 
 Physicians, 80, 192, 201-2, 216. 
 See Medicine, Surgeons. 
 
 Physiology, 100. 
 
 Piazzi, Giuseppe (1746-1826), Ital. 
 astronomer, 350. 
 
 Picturesque, the, 415, 443. 
 
 Picus Mirandola, 340. 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress, The. See Bun- 
 yan. 
 
 Pindar, 56. 
 
 Piracy, 169. 
 
 Pitt, William, and Burke, 225, 
 245; and Fox, 179, 432; the 
 Edinburgh Review and, 457 ; 
 and men of letters, 424 ; and 
 the Union, 163. 
 
 Piu nell' uno, il, 165, 286, 309. 
 
 Pius V, Pope, 288. 
 
 Plagiarism, 41 ; S. T. C.'s, 14, 17- 
 27 ; Erasmus Darwin's, 458. 
 
 Plants, 85. 
 
 Plato, and Aristotle, 83, 118; 
 and Bacon, 128 n. ; and Chris- 
 tianity, 182 ; and Coleridge, 83 ; 
 Dialogues of, 188 ; epistles of, 
 183 n. ; and ideas, 83, 118 ; 
 and St. John, 113, 308; his 
 works are logical exercises, 55, 
 82 ; morality of, 450 ; obscurity 
 of, 347 ; and Pythagoras, 40 n. ; 
 and Socrates, 26 «., 40, 55, 
 129, 287 ; and Theism, 130. 
 
 Plays, immoral, 365. 
 
 Pleasures, 377. 
 
 Plotinus, 130. 
 
 Plurality of worlds, 292. 
 
 Plutarch, 368. 
 
 Plutus, 444. 
 
 Poetry : dialogues in, 188 ; elegy, 
 280 ; a ' poetical filter ', 281 ; 
 great poets good men, 270, 344 ; 
 love of, 385 ; no great poet 
 from the lower classes, 440 ; 
 Milton's definition of, 56 ; odes, 
 281 ; poetic promise, 80 ; and 
 prose, 73, 255 ; poets and their 
 public, 26 1 , 436 ; and good sense , 
 
 91,196,219; similes in, 128. See 
 Versification. 
 
 Point of rest, the, 175. 
 
 Poisons, 181, 237. 
 
 Poland, 79. 
 
 Polarity, 173, 416. 
 
 Political economy, 433 ; S. T. C. 
 and, 440 ; 'the dismal science', 
 294, 469 ; fundamental prin- 
 ciples, 297 ; modern, castigated, 
 216, 219, 243, 244, 450. See 
 ' Denationalized ', Malthusian- 
 ism, &c. 
 
 Politics, 132, 468, 471, all and the 
 whole in, 203 ; and literature, 
 424 ; statesmanship, 135, 137, 
 330, 401, 470; in the pulpit, 
 214. 
 
 Polybius, 277. 
 
 Polytheism, 451. 
 
 Pontius Pilate, 98-9. 
 
 Poor Laws, 45. 
 
 Pope, 131, 194, 268, 279, 388. 
 
 Pope Pius V, 288. 
 
 Porson, Richard (1759-1808), 42. 
 
 Portrait-painting, 143-4, 257. 
 
 Portugal in 1811, 314 ; England, 
 
 France, and (1831), 148, 
 
 151. 
 
 Postages, 457. 
 
 Poussin, Nicholas, 58. 
 
 Prayer, S. T. C. and, 109 n., 192 ; 
 for the dead, 231 ; difficulty of, 
 109 n. ; in English liturgy, 132 ; 
 modern prayers, 290 ; of three 
 sorts, 108. 
 
 Preaching, 204, 214, 437. 
 
 Presbyterians, and Dissent, 311; 
 and Edward Irving, 266-7 ; 
 Presbyterian prayers, 132 ; and 
 the Restoration, 115; in seven- 
 teenth century, 230. 
 
 Priest, the word, 445. 
 
 Priestly, 308, 397-8. 
 
 Principles in art, 437 ; Burke and, 
 470; and details, 224; and 
 expedients, 206, 433, 448 ; and 
 facts, 127, 186; endless fer- 
 tility of, 418, 470 ; = ideas, 65 ; 
 versus maxims, 65, 155 ; or 
 motives, 153 ; and prophecy, 
 470 ; two great, 37, 416. 
 
 Privilege and law, 36. 
 
INDEX 
 
 493 
 
 Proclus, 272. 
 
 Prodigies, young, 390. 
 
 Professions, the, 216, 420. 
 
 Progression and Permanency, 37, 
 416. 
 
 Prometheus, 56. 
 
 Proofs and signs, 75 n. 
 
 Propertius, 277, 281. 
 
 Property, and its duties, 219 ; and 
 government, 136 ; in land, 
 228. 
 
 Prophecies, S. T. C.'s, 425; 
 growth of, 285 ; Hebrew pro- 
 phet, 196 ; Messianic, 76, 105 n., 
 285 ; and principle, 470. 
 
 Prose, contemporary, 242 ; de- 
 fined, 73, 255 ; and poetry, 
 dialogues in, 188. See Style. 
 
 Prosody. See Versification. 
 
 Protection and Free Trade, 227, 
 300, 306. 
 
 Protestantism, and the Church of 
 England, 206, 214; England 
 Protestant before the Reforma- 
 tion, 235 ; in Ireland, 206, 214 ; 
 and the Papacy, 231 ; and 
 Romanism, their common creed, , 
 48, 77, 231, 313 ; and Council of 
 Trent, 48, 313. 
 
 Prothesis, 62, 177, 178. See 
 Mesothesis. 
 
 Providence; Fatalism, 276 ; and 
 necessity, 243. 
 
 Prudentius, 272 «., 278. 
 
 Psilanthropy, 172, 408. 
 
 Public schools, 259, 260 ». 
 
 Puns, by S. T. C, 326, 337, 370, 
 435, 451; genesis of, 326; 
 illuminative, 62 ; by C. Lamb, 
 191. 
 
 Purcell, 258. 
 
 Purgatory, 384. 
 
 Puritans, and the Bible, 112; 
 and Church of England, 111 ; 
 their divinity, 72 ; and Jaco- 
 bins, 90, 187 ; and St. Bartholo- 
 mew's Day (1662), 115; and 
 Royalists, 115, 236. 
 
 Purver, A. (1702-77), New and 
 Literal Translation of the Bible 
 (1764, 'The Quakers' Bible'), 
 325. 
 
 Pythagoras, and beans, 17 ; and 
 
 the mysteries, 451 ; philosophy 
 began with, 434, 437, 451 ; and 
 Plato, 26 »., 40 n., 55. 
 
 Quacks, 202. 
 
 Quakerism, 261, 363, 380, 450 ; and 
 Calvinism, 88, 289; S. T. C. 
 and, 273. 319 ; democracy, 177, 
 228, 290 ; old and new, 290. 
 
 Quantity and accent, 271. 
 
 Quarantine, 175. 
 
 Quiddities, 82, 317. 
 
 Rabbinism, 43, 308, 359. 
 
 Rabelais, 115, 233. 
 
 Races of men, 59, 298. 
 
 Radicals, 306. 
 
 Raffael, 117, 143. 
 
 Raffles, Sir Stamford, 91. 
 
 Rainbow, the, 57. 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 169. 
 
 Rank, social, 444. 
 
 Rates, equalization of, 46. 
 
 Rationalism, 380 ; S. T. C.'s, 339. 
 
 Raynal, l'Abbe G. T. F., 184. 
 
 Realists and Nominalists, 81. 
 
 Reality, 313. 
 
 Reason, in Aristotle, 118 ; is 
 certainty itself, 350, 437 ; and 
 conscience, 406 ; decides, 44, 
 129, 437 ; and the feelings, 390 ; 
 intuitive, 169, 405 ; in Plato, 
 
 118; the practical , 362, 
 
 408 ; the pure, 197, 434 ; and 
 Rationalism, 380; and Scripture, 
 113; self-evident, 405, 437; 
 and senses, 197, 347, 362, 447 ; 
 the speculative, 362, 408 ; and 
 understanding, 100, 115, 241, 
 446 ; importance of the dis- 
 tinction, 94, 155 ; symbolized 
 by Don Quixote and Sancho 
 Panza, 197, 362, 447 ; Panta- 
 gruel and Panurge, 115 ; Plato 
 and Aristotle, 118 ; reason, ex- 
 perience and understanding in 
 the syllogism, 129 ; what reason 
 is not, 444 ; reason, under- 
 standing, and the will, 204, 444. 
 
 Reasoning, 341, 350, 443 ; S. T. C. 
 a reasoner, in what sense ? 292. 
 
 Recollection and memory. 368. 
 
 Redemption, 204, 287, 407; a 
 
494 
 
 INDEX 
 
 \ 
 
 fundamental article of revealed 
 religion, 359, 407 ; its relation 
 to other dogmas, 280, 359, 399 ; 
 the value of the soul, 292. 
 
 Reform Bill, advocates of, 162, 
 169 ; Catholic emancipation 
 and, 163, 305 ; S. T. C. and, 10 ; 
 and the national Church, 167 ; 
 
 democracy before the , 181 ; 
 
 reformed House of Commons, 
 125 n., 236 ; conduct of minis- 
 ters, 161, 167 ; property and 
 votes, 136 ; and the Rights of 
 Man, 162, 174 ; insincere votes 
 for, 47. 
 
 Reformation, the, Church before, 
 48, 313 ; and devotional reli- 
 gion, 290 ; peculiar character of 
 the English Reformation, 125, 
 205; Luther and, 110, 121; 
 ' that necessary evii ', 290 ; and 
 the Papacy, 121, 235 ; precur- 
 sors of, 235 ; and Reform, 74 ; 
 English Reformers, 110, 302; 
 reformers and heresy, 134, 287 ; 
 stationary on the Continent 
 since 1550, 121. 
 
 Relic-worship, 347. 
 
 Religion : religious ceremonies, 
 376 ; an extender of conscious- 
 ness, 390 ; necessarily exoteric, 
 387, 404; experimental, 387, 
 404 ; and Government, 473 ; 
 ideas and facts both necessary 
 to, 162, 280, 352, 405; and 
 manners, 87 ; natural and 
 revealed, 171, 407 ; and philo- 
 sophy, 446 ; practical not specu- 
 lative, 396 (as also political 
 economy, 217) ; and revelation, 
 171 ; and the sacraments, 98 ; 
 and the state, 352. 
 
 Representation, Parliamentary, 
 and democracy, 225 ; ' direct 
 representation ' a chimera, 265 ; 
 of interests, not delegation of 
 individuals, 135, 138 ; and 
 taxation, 265. 
 
 Republicanism, 56, 139, 337. 
 
 Restoration, the, Baxter and, 432 ; 
 the Church and, 302 ; drama, 
 365-6 ; literature, 254-5 ; and 
 morals, 115 : Nonconformists 
 
 and, 74, 432 ; and philosophy, 
 173. 
 
 Resurrection, the, 302, 407, 409. 
 
 Retribution, moral, 329-30. 
 
 Revelation, 170, 407, 455. 
 
 Reverence, 241. 
 
 Review, principles of a, 113. 
 
 Revolution of 1688, 161, 166, 207. 
 See also Belgian and French 
 Revolution. 
 
 Revolutionary spirit, 471 ; silent 
 revolutions, 176. 
 
 Reyna, F. de la, 343. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 143-4. 
 
 Rhenferd, Jacob (1654-1712), 73, 
 78, 291. 
 
 Rhetoric, 129. 
 
 Ribera, Francisco de, a Spanish 
 Jesuit, 325. 
 
 Richard II, court of, 247. 
 
 Richardson, Samuel, 312, 315, 357 
 (Clementina), 400, 415, 436. 
 
 Richmond, 318. 
 
 'Ride and Tie', 329. 
 
 Rigaud, Stephen Peter, 319. 
 
 Rights and duties, 162, 164, 219, 
 
 244-5, 468 ; of the state, 
 
 288, 352 ; rights of negroes, 
 
 244 ; of property, 219 ; 
 
 of subjects, 288. 
 
 Rights of Man, the, 154, 162, 174. 
 
 Robinson Crusoe, 312, 469. 
 
 Roderick Random, 436. 
 
 Rogues and fools, 41. 
 
 Romans, their conquests, 183, 
 232, 234 ; debt to Greece, 182 ; 
 ideally considered, 178 ; their 
 religion, 77. 
 
 Roman Catholicism, an apostasy, 
 311, 345, 380; appeal of its 
 doctrines, 197 ; and atheism, 
 121 ; in Austria, 187 ; and the 
 Bible, 144; not Catholic, 47; 
 and civil obedience, 288, 306 ; 
 before the Council of Trent, 313 ; 
 and the democracy, 125 ; and 
 the Church of England, 115, 
 311 ; and the Eucharist, 97-8, 
 466; thehierarohy, HOre., 345; 
 and infidelity, 121 ; in Ireland, 
 60, 206, 214; in Italy, and 
 Protestantism, their common 
 creed, 77 ; purgatory, 384 ; the 
 
INDEX 
 
 495 
 
 Real Presence, 97, 466; retenta 
 of, 72, 134 ; and re-union, 115, 
 289 ; and science, 378 ; and 
 Socinianism, 111; Spanish, 140, 
 145 ; and toleration, 288, 351. 
 
 Roman Catholic countries, 148 ; 
 Austria, 187; Italy, 145, 176, 
 455, 463 ; Malta, 145 ; Science 
 in, 378; Sicily, 145, 316; 
 Spain, 140, 145, 455. 
 
 Rome, imperial, 263-4 ; and 
 nationality, 235, 264; repub- 
 lican, 183. 
 
 ' Roscius, the young ' (W. H. W. 
 Betty, 1791-1874), 390. 
 
 Rossetti, Gabriele, Sullo spirito 
 antipapale (1832), 273. 
 
 Rossini, 132, 258 ». 
 
 Rouge, 339. 
 
 Rousseau, 135 to. 
 
 Rowe, Nicholas, 297. 
 
 Royalists, enduring interest of, 
 235-6, 285, 416 ; morality, 115 ; 
 political principles, 228, 236. 
 
 Rubens, 141 »., 142-3. 
 
 Russians, 135 to., 276. 
 
 Sabbath, the, 301, 318, 328. 
 
 Sabellianism, 70, 289. 
 
 Sachs, Hans, 307. 
 
 Sacramentaries, 97-8. 
 
 Sacraments, are Christianity it- 
 self, 289. See Baptism, Eu- 
 charist. 
 
 Saint-Simon, Comte Claude Henri 
 de, 147. 
 
 Sallust, 262. 
 
 Salter, a Devonshire surgeon, 
 419. 
 
 Salvation, 431. 
 
 Sandford, Daniel (1766-1830), Bp. 
 of Edinburgh, 266 to., 313. 
 
 Sanskrit, 59, 196. 
 
 Saracens, the, 298. 
 
 Sarpi, Paolo, 61. 
 
 Satan in Job, 104. 
 
 Satires, Parodies as, 334. 
 
 Scaliger, Joseph J., 339. 
 
 Scanderbeg, 72. 
 
 Scarlett, Sir James (aft. Baron 
 Abinger), 250. 
 
 Scepticism, 446. 
 
 Schelling, S. T. C. and, 22-6. 
 
 Schiller, 33, 210, 211, 305, 425. 
 
 Schmidt, M. I., 187. 
 
 Schlegel, 280. 
 
 Schoolmen, the, 15, 446 ; British, 
 
 82; the Reformation, 121, 
 
 235 ; S. T. C.'s reading of, 15, 
 317 ; Locke and, 317. 
 
 Schools, infant, 190 ; private, 
 132 ; public, 259. 
 
 Sciences, 248, 378. 
 
 Scotland, 130, 132; the Scotch, 
 194, 453. 
 
 Scott, Michael (1175 ?-1234 ?), 
 207, 211. 
 
 Scott, Michael (1789-1835), Tom 
 Cringle's Log, 294. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, his charac. 
 ters ' composed ', 107 n. ; and 
 S. T. C, 260 ; compared with 
 earlier novelists, 415, 436 ; 
 estimate of, 107 to., 414-16, 440 ; 
 and German literature, 416-17 ; 
 his poetry, 415, 425, 436, 440 ; 
 his popularity, 414, 427, 436 ; 
 subjects for, 72, 417 ; and 
 Undine, 107 n. ; Waverley 
 Novels, 34 ; S. T. C. and, 284, 
 414; Bride of Lammermoor, 
 414, 416, 436 ; Guy Mannering, 
 34, 415, 436 ; Ivanhoe, 414, 416, 
 436 ; Monastery, 417 ; Old 
 Mortality, 34, 414-15, 417; 
 Waverley, 436. 
 
 Scotus, Duns, 81, 235, 380, 446. 
 
 Scotus Erigena, 235, 380. 
 
 Scudery, Mile Madelene de, 417. 
 
 Sculpture, 117, 251, 256. 
 
 Sectarians, anti-national, 291 ; 
 and Charles II, 432 ; and 
 toleration, 333 ; uncathoiic, 166. 
 
 Selden, 73; and Donne, 111 to. ; 
 and Drayton, 156 ; on transub- 
 stantiation, 97 to. 
 
 Self, the, 284, 382, 401 ; self-con- 
 ceit, 387 ; self-interest, 401-2 ; 
 self-love, 284, 470 ; self-love in 
 religion, 382, 402, 449; self- 
 praise, 470 ; self-respect, 402 ; 
 self-will, 465 ; selfishness, 74, 
 402. 
 
 Seneca, 117, 256. 
 
 Senses, the, and the appetites, 
 401 ; the mind makes the senses, 
 
496 
 
 INDEX 
 
 191, 361 ; ' out of one's senses ', 
 197, 347, 362, 447. 
 
 Sensibility, 357 ; S. T. C.'s, 28, 
 109 m., 196, 320 ; instances of, 
 131, 262 ; Sterne's, 388. 
 
 Sensuality, 350, 388, 401. 
 
 Sentimental Journey, The, 268. 
 
 Septuagint, the, 266. 
 
 Sequels, 259. 
 
 Sermoni propriora, 191. 
 
 Sermons, 204. 
 
 Servetus, 134, 287, 342. 
 
 Sex in souls, 66. Cf. 168, 198, 
 201, 470. 
 
 Sforza, 192. 
 
 Shaftesbury, Earl of (1621-83), 
 166, 194. 
 
 Shakers, the, 450. 
 
 Shakespeare, characters : Beatrice 
 (Much Ado), 223; Benedict, 
 223 ; Bertram, 251 ; Biron, 223 ; 
 Claudio (Measure for Measure), 
 67 ; Coriolanus, 133 ; Cressida, 
 449; Desdemona, 131; Edmund, 
 221 ; Fool (Lear), 252 ; Goneril, 
 221; James Gurney, 61; Hamlet, 
 34, 65-6, 94, 221 ; Helena (All's 
 Well), 251; Iago, 340; Isa- 
 bella, 67; Lear, 34, 94; Leo- 
 natus, 65 ; Leontes, 65 ; Ophelia, 
 131; Othello, 33-4, 44, 65; 
 Polonius, 65 ; Began, 221 ; 
 Rosaline, 223; Troilus, 449. 
 
 His poetry " characterless ', 
 92, 213, 294. Cf. 252 ; his ex- 
 cellence both in comedy and 
 tragedy, 467 ; his comic scenes, 
 251-2 ; and his contemporaries, 
 92, 212-13, 221, 224, 232, 295, 
 437 ; his dramatic imagination, 
 94, 294, 309, 467, 470; dis- 
 regard of literary fame, 212 ; 
 emendations, 93, 293, 296; 
 
 Garrick and , 467 ; his 
 
 grossnesses, 366 ; historical 
 plays, 210 ; intellectual action, 
 224, 293, 293-6 ; language, 295 
 faculty of meditation, 442 
 morality, 373 ; originality, 437 
 personal character, 212 n. 
 place in English literature, 110 , 
 plays: Aits Well that Ends 
 Well, 251 ; Antony and Cleo 
 
 patra, 463 ; Comedy of Errors, 
 224 ; Lear, 34, 156, 252, 310 ; 
 Love V Labour 's Lost, 222-3 ; 
 Measure for Measure, 67 ; 
 Troilus and Cressida, 283, 449 ; 
 Twelfth Night, 224; Winter's 
 Tale, 65; poems: 223,239-40; 
 sonnets, 239 ; and The Spanish 
 Tragedy, 221 ; Shakespeare the 
 Spinozistic deity, 92 ; style, 
 156, 212-13, 223-4, 254, 293, 
 295; subjectivity of his persona, 
 94, 294, 309, 470 ; sublime in, 
 34 ; taste, 441 ; and The Two 
 Noble Kinsmen, 211 ; versifica- 
 tion, 92, 224 n., 295, 305; 
 wedded love in, 232 ; wit, 269 ; 
 witches, 243 ; women, 131. 
 
 Shapeliness, 442. 
 
 Sheldon, Gilbert, Abp. of Canter- 
 bury, 74. 
 
 Shelley, 452. 
 
 Sherlock, William (1641 ?-1707), 
 70. 
 
 Shipping interest, 203. 
 
 Shrewsbury, Earl and Duke of 
 (1660-1718), 74. 
 
 Sicily, 145, 245, 297-8, 316. 
 
 Sidney, Algernon, 72, 181. 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 239, 242. 
 
 Silence and wisdom, 69. 
 
 Silins Italicus, 278. 
 
 Sin, original, 359, 407, 408, 427 ; 
 and sins, 203. 
 
 Sincerity, 375. 
 
 Sisters, brothers and, 461. 
 
 Skelton, John, 61. 
 
 Slang, 185, 254, 312. 
 
 Slavery, in Jamaica, 355 ; St. 
 Paul and, 301 ; and the State, 
 228 ; and the vices of slaves, 
 342. 
 
 Slave-trade, 246, 355. SeeClarkson. 
 
 Smells, 41. 
 
 Smith, Adam, 381. 
 
 Smith, Robert (first Baron Car- 
 rington, 1752-1838), 45. 
 
 Smith, Sydney, on Bulls [in Edin. 
 Bev.], 338. 
 
 Smith, William (1756-1835), M.P., 
 422, 435. 
 
 Smollett, and Marryat, 294 ; and 
 Scott, 415, 436. 
 
INDEX 
 
 497 
 
 Smuggling, 122. 
 
 Sneerers, 336, 400, 470. 
 
 Snuff, 41. 
 
 Society, 259 ; Christian and hea- 
 then, 164 ; convulsions in, 424. 
 
 Socinianism, 397-9 ; its apolo- 
 getics, 419 ; a Socinian Bishop, 
 315-16 ; Chillingworth and, 144 ; 
 not Christian, 77, 172, 289 ; and 
 the Crucifixion, 408 ; Davidi, 
 307; and Dissent, 311; Laelius, 
 173 ; and logic, 172-3, 308, 359 ; 
 and Philo, 308; and Quaker- 
 ism, 289 ; not a religion, 397 ; 
 amongst Bomanists, 111 ; and 
 sin, 308, 359 ; Socinus, 173, 307 ; 
 and the Son of Man, 55, 431 ; 
 Jeremy Taylor and, 110 n., Ill ; 
 pet texts, 55, 431 ; a pernicious 
 theory, 397. 
 
 Socinus, Faustus (Fausto Paolo 
 Sozzini, 1539-1604), 173, 307. 
 
 Socinus, Laelius (Lelio F. M. 
 Sozini, 1525-62), 173. 
 
 Socrates, 130, 434 ; and Christ, 
 287, 407 ; in Plato and Xeno- 
 phon, 26 to., 40, 55, 129. 
 
 Solomon, 59-60, 100, 191. 
 
 Son of Man, the, 55, 285, 431. 
 
 Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euri- 
 pides, 40, 252; S. T. C. and, 
 252; grammar of, 63 to., 182; 
 and Milton, 254 ; Oedipus Ty- 
 ranus, 312 ; quoted, 392 ; his 
 religion, 40 ; style, 182. 
 
 Sorrow, 390. 
 
 Sotheby, William (1757-1833), 68, 
 315. 
 
 Soul, the, 360, 382 ; women and, 
 344 (c/. 131). 
 
 South, Robert, 255. 
 
 Southey and Bunyan, 114, 373 ; 
 and Byron, 27 ; and S. T. C, 
 425 ; corrected or criticized, 
 317, 325-8, 331, 335, 349, 370- 
 4, 469 ; and Crabbe, 293 ; the 
 Curse of Kehama, 317 ; and here- 
 tics, 335 ; and Lamb, 452 ; and 
 the Peninsular War, 140 ; his 
 poetry, 293, 317 ; quoted, 137 
 and to., 156 to., 192 to. ; his 
 sonnets, 80 ; and the Spaniards, 
 140 ; his style, 255, 293. 
 
 Sovereignty of the people, 154 and 
 n., 174: 
 
 Spain, invasion of, 46-7, 140, 432. 
 
 Spanish character, 176 ; language, 
 184; manners,124 to. ; national- 
 ism, 140; naval discipline, 151 ; 
 religion and superstition, 140, 
 145, 455. 
 
 Speculation and practice, 217, 396. 
 
 Spenser, 64, 435. 
 
 Spinoza and atheism, 172, 422 ; 
 and the Deity, 92 ; and demo- 
 cracy, 177, 225 to. ; and Hobbes, 
 389; his logic, 74, 82, 229; 
 and Pantheism, 60, 172, 429; 
 his unica substantia, 82 ; and 
 Wordsworth, 429. 
 
 Spix, J. B. von, 83. 
 
 Spurzheim, Johann Christoph 
 (1776-1832), 68 to., 69, 123. 
 
 Stael, Mme de, 257 to. 
 
 State, the, and economic inde- 
 pendence, 306 ; and the fine 
 arts, 140 ; idea of, 126, 163, 228 ; 
 and the individual, 164, 190, 
 200 ; and religious toleration, 
 288, 306, 333, 351-3, 422; and 
 slavery, 228; unity of, 227. -See 
 Democracy. 
 
 Statesmanship. See Politics. 
 
 Statistics, curious, 345. 
 
 Statius, 277-8. 
 
 Steele, 439. 
 
 Steinmetz, Adam, 197, 320-1. 
 
 Stella, 122. 
 
 Sterne, 268, 388, 415, 436. 
 
 Stigmata, the, 373. 
 
 Stobaeus, Joannes (b. Stobi in 
 Macedonia, fifth century A. D.), 
 74. 
 
 Stock-jobbers, 119. 
 
 Stoddart, Dr., afterwards Sir John 
 (1773-1856), 453. 
 
 Stoics, 129, 245. 
 
 Stothard, Thomas, 312. 
 
 Strabo, 269, 345. 
 
 Strafford, 396. 
 
 Strong minds, 201. 
 
 Stuart, Daniel, 179, 457. 
 
 Style in prose, the Bible and, 115, 
 
 270 ; Asgill, 146, 179, 242 ; 
 
 Barrow, 72, 255, 312 ; Boling- 
 broke, 72, 469; Burke, 242; 
 
498 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cobbett, 242, 429; Sara Cole- 
 ridge, 194 ; contemporary, 242 ; 
 Cowley, 56, 72; Dryden, 72, 
 312; Gibbon, 263, 457 ; Goethe, 
 210; Fulke Greville, 311; 
 Hooker, 457 ; Dr. Johnson, 255, 
 457 ; Samuel Johnson the Whig, 
 242 ; Ben Jonson, 270 ; Junius, 
 255; Leasing, 210; L'Estrange, 
 254, 312 ; Milton, in English and 
 Latin, 56 ; Roger North, 254-5 ; 
 Old and New Testaments, 270 ; 
 St. Paul, 245-6 ; Schiller, 210 ; 
 Algernon Sidney, 72 ; Southey, 
 255, 293 ; Jeremy Taylor, 72, 
 457. 
 
 Style in verse : Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, 213; Crabbe, 293; 
 Crashaw, 441 ; Samuel Daniel, 
 295; Goethe, 209; Jonson, 221, 
 295 ; Landor, 286 ; Massinger, 
 212-13, 295 ; Milton, 212, 254, 
 318; Schiller, 210; Shake- 
 speare, 212-13, 221, 224, 254, 
 293-6; Southey, 293; Words- 
 worth, 295. 
 
 Sublimity, denned, 442-3; Ger- 
 man, 315 ; Hebrew, 91, 191 ; 
 the ' material sublime ', 33, 
 210 ; and the ridiculous, 291. 
 
 Subtlety, 158. 
 
 Suffictions, 247. 
 
 Suffrage. See Franchise. 
 
 Sunday, 329. 
 
 Sun-nryths, 334. 
 
 Superstition, 145. 
 
 Surgeons, 202, 419. 
 
 Surplice, the, 72. 
 
 Susquehanna, the, 473. 
 
 Sweden, the King of (Marshal 
 Bernadotte, Charles XIV), 151. 
 
 Swedenborg,201; Swedenborgians, 
 79 n. 
 
 Swift, 116, 122, 146, 179, 197. 
 
 Switzerland, 228 ; Swiss Re- 
 formers, 287. 
 
 Syllogistic logic, 129, 286, 292. 
 
 Symbols, 57. 
 
 Sympathy, 444. 
 
 Synoptic Gospels, 43. 
 
 Tacitus, 120, 128 ; quoted, 41. 
 Talent, 100, 269 ; ' talented ', 185. 
 
 Talk and talkers. See Conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 Tariffs. See Free Trade, Pro- 
 tection. 
 
 Tasso, 72-3. 
 
 Taste, 73, 281, 434, 436, 441. 
 
 Taxation, inequality in, 227 ; 
 Johnson on, 264 ; and the 
 National Debt, 217 ; and pro- 
 perty, 218-19 ; and representa- 
 tion, 265 ; in Sicily, 298. 
 
 Taylor, (Sir) Henry, 469. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, his errors, 75, 
 110-12, 330 ; on the Eucharist, 
 98 ; one of the four great 
 English geniuses, 110 ; his 
 prayers, 290 ; his principles, 
 75 ; and Socinianism, 111 ; his 
 style, 72, 457 ; on voluntary 
 belief, 378 ; unprinted sermons, 
 343. 
 
 Taylor, William (1765-1836), A 
 Letter concerning the two first 
 chapters of Luke (1810), 315. 
 
 Teaching, 190, 459. 
 
 Teniers, 141. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 232. 
 
 Tennyson (Turner), Charles, 80. 
 
 Teresa, St., 290, 441. 
 
 Tertullian, 113, 130, 171. 
 
 Text-sparring, 358. 
 
 Theanthropy, 408. 
 
 Theatres, 57, 414. See Acting. 
 
 Thelwall, John, 122. 
 
 Theocritus, 72, 277. 
 
 Theology, 159, 216. 
 
 Theory, use of a, 248. 
 
 Theresa, St., 290, 441. 
 
 Thesis and antithesis, 62-3, 69, 
 83 »., 177. See Opposites. 
 
 Theta, 185. 
 
 Thirlwall, Connop, 249 n. 
 
 Thirty-nine Articles, the, 203, 419. 
 
 Thomson, James,~297. 
 
 Thought, 389, 420, 427, 430. 
 
 Thrift, 464. 
 
 Thucydides, 63, 128, 262-3. 
 
 Thurtell, John (hanged for murder, 
 1824), 123 n. 
 
 Tibullus, 182, 277. 
 
 Tieck, J. Ludwig, 417. 
 
 Tindal. See Tyndale. 
 
 Titian, 249-50. 
 
INDEX 
 
 499 
 
 Tobin, John (1770-1804), 426, 453. 
 
 Toleration, 287-8, 333, 361, 452. 
 
 Tom Cringle's Log, 294. 
 
 Tom Jones, 312, 400, 436. 
 
 Tongues, gift of, 339. 
 
 Tonics and bitters, 101, 174. 
 
 Tooke, John Home, 88, 90, 179, 
 255, 265, 340. 
 
 Tories, contemporary, 243 ; Tory 
 historical arguments, 229 ; ideal, 
 166 ; wits, 116. 
 
 Tractors, 331. 
 
 Tragedy, 251, 274, 417. 
 
 Transubstantiation, 97-8, 231. 
 
 Travel, books of, 61, 280, 297. 
 
 Trent, Council of, 47-8, 61, 313. 
 
 Trimmers, 387. 
 
 Trinity, the, 192, 405 ; Athanasian 
 Creed and, 70 ; the formula of. 
 69-70, 77, 94, 177, 192, 279-801 
 308 ; as idea and as fact, 405, 
 408 ; and Incarnation, 280, 
 408 ; Milton and, 279 ; Nicene 
 Creed and, 70 ; Servetus and, 
 288 ; not a Solitude, 463 ; and 
 the Symbolum Fidei, 399 ; and 
 Unity, 77, 94, 172, 431. 
 
 Tristram Shandy, 268, 415, 436. 
 
 Trulliber, Parson (in Fielding's 
 Joseph Andrews), 215 n. 
 
 Truth, S. T. C. and, xi, 413 ; and 
 error, 114 ; and falsehood, 375 ; 
 for truth's sake, xi, 114, 147-8, 
 413 ; investigation of, 159, 165 ; 
 the ventriloquist, 413. 
 
 Tryphiodorus, 277. 
 
 Turks, the, Church and State one, 
 38, 164; fatalism, 276; and 
 marriage, 471 ; a Turkish story, 
 455 ; Unitarians, 38. 
 
 Tyndale, William, 329. 
 
 Tithes, 304. 
 
 Tyranny and literature, 277. 
 
 Tzetzes, John, 272. 
 
 Understanding, the, 44, 62, 100, 
 155, 279, 359, 361-2, 385 ; Aris- 
 totle and, 83, 118; and belief, 
 318 ; and common sense, 167 ; 
 or discursive faculty, 359, 407; 
 function of, 83 n., 86 ; and the 
 Whigs, 167. See Reason. 
 
 Undine, 107 
 
 Unitarians, 173 ;"not Christians, 
 77, 172, 289, 427 ; S. T. C. and 
 the, 114, 172, 308 ; and Deists, 
 423 ; and Dissent, 311 ; and the 
 Incarnation, 409 ; a misnomer, 
 172; modern, 399; Priestley and 
 the, 308. See Socinianism. 
 
 United States of America, the, and 
 England, 103, 124, 226. 319; 
 as a nation, 183, 203, 226; 
 Northern and Southern States, 
 203,227; trade in, 413. 
 
 Universe, the, 392, 427. 
 
 Universities, the, admission of 
 Dissenters to, 300 ; disliked by 
 the Popes, 235, 305; and 
 savoir-vivre, 259. 
 
 Useful, the, 286, 434. 
 
 Vaccination, 343. 
 
 Valckenaer, Lodewijk Kasper, 186. 
 
 Valerius Flaccus, 278. 
 
 Vanbrugh (Vanburgh), Sir John, 
 365. 
 
 Van Huysun, 258. 
 
 Vanity, 349. 
 
 Varro, 129. 
 
 Vegetable life, 75. 
 
 Venice and James I, 121. 
 
 Verse, defined, 73, 255. 
 
 Versification, 65, 280-1 ; accent 
 and quantity, 271-2 ; Byron's, 
 34, 58 ; contemporary, 58, 128 ; 
 Early English, 348-9 ; English 
 Catholic (seventeenth century), 
 371-2; Gower's, 348-9; Les- 
 sing's, 305; Schiller's, 305; 
 Shakespeare's, 92-3, 224 n., 305; 
 Spenser's, 64-5 ; Tennyson's 
 (1833), 232-3. 
 
 Vico, Giovanni Battista, 93 n., 176, 
 225 m. 
 
 Virgil, 56, 182, 196, 277, 391. 
 
 Virtue, 245, 377. 
 
 Vis inertiae, 248. 
 
 Volition, 362. 
 
 Voss, Johann Heinrich, 391. 
 
 Vowels and Consonants, 270. 
 
 Vox populi, 178, 242-3. 
 
 Walckenaer, Baron Charles Atha- 
 
 nase, 332. 
 ' Walkerites ' [' The Church of 
 
500 
 
 INDEX 
 
 God ' : John Walker, 1768- 
 1833], 79 »., 88. 
 
 Walpole, Horace, 296. 
 
 War, 183, 187 m., 235, 319, 334, 
 357. 
 
 Warburton, Bishop (1698-1779), 
 105, 194, 229. 
 
 Watchman, The, 357, 457. 
 
 Waterland, Daniel (1683-1740), 
 69, 70, 399. 
 
 Watson, Bishop Bichard (1737- 
 1816), 316. 
 
 Watts, Isaac, 429. 
 
 Waxwork, 258. 
 
 Webster, John (1610-82), 'The 
 Displaying of supposed Witch- 
 craft' (1677), 55. 
 
 Wedded love, 232, 388. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 119, 306. 
 
 Welsh language, 184, 390. 
 
 Wesley, John, 83 n., 110, 166. 
 
 West Indies, 150, 244, 355, 426. 
 
 Western, Squire (Tom Jones), 92. 
 
 Wetherell, Sir C, 304. 
 
 Whigs, the ancient and modern, 
 241-2 ; S. T. C. and, 11 ; ex- 
 pedients not principles, 206 ; 
 their historical arguments, 229 ; 
 ideal Whigs, 166, 241 ; incon- 
 sistencies, 46 ; newspapers dis- 
 honest, 139. 
 
 Whitaker, WiUiam (1548-95), 241. 
 
 White, Blanco, 68, 114. 
 
 Whitefield,George(1714-1770),110. 
 
 Wicliffe, John, 121, 240, 305. 
 
 Wieland, 315, 391. 
 
 Wilberforce, William, 426. 
 
 Wilkes, John, 344. 
 
 Wilkie, Sir David, 454. 
 
 Will, the, 384-5, 429 ; to believe, 
 378 ; and the deed, 374 ; God 
 and, 406; and Hell, 132; to 
 love, 388 ; and madness, 132 ; 
 mind, and body, 458 ; and the 
 reason, 347, 362, 444 ; and re- 
 ligion, 98 ; and sin, 407, 427. 
 
 William I (1772-1844), King of 
 the Netherlands, 133, 148, 151. 
 
 William III, 74, 116, 236, 241. 
 
 Wilson, John, 238. 
 
 Wisdom, love of, 400 ; wise 
 ignorance, 338. 
 
 Wit and humour, 176, 269, 446. 
 
 Witchcraft, 52, 54-5. 
 
 Wither(s), George, 138. 
 
 Wolf, Friedrich August, 93 »., 336. 
 
 Women, accomplishments in, 465 ; 
 three classes of, 141 ; and the 
 clergy, 420 ; S. T. C. and, 465-6 ; 
 and men, compared, 66, 75, 87, 
 131, 439, 464 ; and politics, 90, 
 135, 265; and the soul, 344 
 (c/. 131) ; and truth, 147. 
 
 Words and things, 433. 
 
 Wordsworth, and Byron, 27 ; on 
 C. Cotton, 282 n. ; his English, 
 156, 282, 295; and Samuel 
 Daniel, 156, 295; The Excur- 
 sion, 188 ; lack of femineity, 
 470 (c/. 168) ; and Goethe, 210 ; 
 and the Lyrical Ballads, 447 ; 
 on mountains, 428 ; his nature- 
 worship, 429 ; a philosophic 
 poet, 189, 386 ; his popularity, 
 282; The Prelude, 1S8; quoted, 
 87 n, ; and popular religion, 
 429 ; sonnets, 80 ; spectator ab 
 extra, 189, 210-11. 
 
 Worldliness, 97, 426. 
 
 Wotton, Sir H., 313. 
 
 Wycherley, 365. 
 
 Xenophon, 26 »., 40, 55, 287. 
 
 Young, Edward (1683-1765), 314, 
 315. 
 
 Young, ? Thomas (1773-1829), 
 447. 
 
 Youth, and Age, 379 ; vivid im- 
 pressions in, 458. 
 
 Zendavesta, 49. 
 Zeno, 82 »., 129, 450. 
 Zinzendorf, Count N. L.von (1700- 
 
 60), a Moravian, 380. 
 Zola, the Jesuit, 69 ».