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EARLY YEARS

LATE REFLECTIONS.

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Vol.1

GiQTTIH"GEir.

is. 1M3 6

C. H. PARRY, M.D. F.R.S.

Dear Parky,
I dedicate this little volume to
you. May you trace in it some lineaments of a
friend, who is indebted to you for much of the pleasure
of those " Early Years," when the sublime grandeur
of Alpine Solitudes, and the " busy hum of Towered
Cities," in turn delighted us ! And may the Reflec
tions of Experience draw us .still nearer to each other,
till the glorious consummation of that more than
imaginable bliss, when days, and years, and time
itself, shall be no more, and " Early and Late" be
alike absorbed in an eternal present !
Believe me to remain,
With the most afFeotionate esteem,
Your sincere Friend,
C. CARLYON.

PREFACE.

There is nothing, I believe, which tends
more to shorten the retrospect of life, than
the uniformity of professional roatine. This
I certainly find to be so much the case, with
respect to myself, that thirty years charged
with its important realities, have left far
fainter impressions than the comparatively
few which intervened between my leaving
school and entering upon the practice ^of
my profession. These, and the events con
nected with them, are still so fresh in my recol
lection, that I scarcely require the aid of
written memoranda to enable me to retrace
them. But it was my determination to make
A 2

VI
them, as far as possible, a dead letter, as long
as 1 felt it to be my duty to attend to business
closely ; and, accordingly, for more than half
my life, my correspondence and pursuits have
been chiefly professional. If I now venture
to recur to scenes " redolent with joy and
youth," it is because, through the blessing of a
kind Providence, I feel at liberty to claim some
leisure and repose for the evening of my days,
and to withdraw myself gradually from the cares
and duties of a profession to which I am under
great obligation, and in the lighter exercise of
which I still not unwillingly linger. For some
time past I have been preparing for the press,
notices of old times and friends, but not how
ever without reference to circumstances of per
petual interest, such as tend to shed light and
warmth over intellectual beings of all ages. And
as I began to write, for my own amusement,
miscellaneously, so if I may have been even

Vll

more discursive than was at first intended, I
do not think much apology necessary on this
account, any more than for the insertion of
some common-place and trifling incidents.
Candid and intelligent readers are always
leady to extend to every man's particular
humour, the same indulgence which they would
claim for themselves — and this is but a little
book after all.
From my having had a good deal of inter
course with Coleridge, in Germany, and occa
sionally elsewhere, I have been willing to
make the most of one who has excited such
general interest; but, that I might act fairly
with the public, as well as with his memory,
I have not attempted to exhibit a faultless
portrait ; and, therefore, highly as I estimate
his many amiable qualities, and great as is my
admiration of his intellectual powers, I have
admitted the existence of errors and frailties

VUl
which not only impaired the lustre of his fame,
but bore him down, after much bodily sufiering,
to an untimely grave. Still I have refrained
from inserting, intentionally, a single anecdote,
whereby curiosity would have been gratified,
to the prejudice of worthier motives, or at the
expence of private feelings.
Coleridge, it should be recollected, entered
upon the stage of active life amidst a tumult
of passions, such as the world had scarcely
witnessed before. The moral elements had
long been gathering into the hurricane of
the French Revolution, the preparation for
which may be traced as far back as the first
deflection from Catholic Christianity towEirds
Roman Catholic Apostacy. For, although
literature and science had done much, and the
Reformation more, to disperse the darkness of
the middle ages, superstition, in conjunction
with despotism, still crippled the energies of a

IX
large portion of Europe, and aftbrded pretext
to a host of infidels (who took the field with
daring confidence) for confounding pure religion
with the corruptions of Papal Rome. Thus,
the throne and the altar were placed in
jeopardy everywhere ; men's minds became
bewildered ; and all the ties of civilized
society, private and public, appeared to be
giving way.
This was indeed a time for the good to fear,
for the bad to hope, and for visionaries of every
description, and with every variety of motive,
to project schemes of chimerical amelioration.
It behoves us, therefore, in our retrospect of
the conspicuous characters of this period, to
take into account the temptations with which
they were beset, and the false lights by which
they were allured into new and untried paths.
Nevertheless, justice requires that even this
forbearance should have a limit ; and with

respect to any little severity shown towards
Coleridge, in one or two instances, I must
beg to avail myself of his own motto, " Not
to allow zeal for our friends to transcend the
obligations of conscience."
That I have not attached exaggerated im
portance to the public interest associated with
him, or with Sir H. Davy, I am fortified in
believing, by the opinion of two judicious
friends, to whom I feel greatly obliged, for their
attentively perusing my manuscript, and for
the remarks with which they favoured me.
And whilst I refrain from mentioning their
names, to avoid all appearance of wishing to
shrink from my own exclusive responsibility, I
have thought it due to one of them to annex a
mark to the interesting notes with which his
observations were accompanied.

CONTENTS.

Page
WiNTEK of 1798-9, long and severe  1
Phillips' Epistle from Copenhagen  2
Captain Lyon's allusion to a scene similar to that de-
• scribed by Phillips  3
Snow Storm, and Disaster on Newmarket Heath  5
Coffee, a good restoration after fatigue  7
Middleton, first Bishop of Calcutta, the early friend and
schoolfellow of Coleridge  8
Maltby, Bishop of Chichester, his contemporary and
fellow collegian  9
College recollections of the Rector of St. Mawgan, of
both the above Prelates  9-11
Dr. Bonney's Memoir of Bishop Middleton  10
Middleton taken by Dr. J. Pretyman as Tutor to his Sons 1 1
Pembroke College, Cambridge, celebrated for its number
of Mitred Members  12
India, the scene of Bishop Middleton's great achievements 12
Bishop Heber, in what respect he would not have been
equal to his predecessor  13
Modern Puritans, Note  13
Bishop Middleton's occupations on his voyage to India 14
Middleton and Coleridge alike the unflinching advocates
of the Trinity  15
Author's arrival at Gijttingen, and arrangements for his
residence there  16
Excursion to Dresden in the Easter vacation  17
Leipsio Spring Fair  ,  17
b

Xll Page
Display of ill manners at the Theatre  18
More serious occurrence of a similar kind, at the Opera
House, at Paris  19
Accident at the Louvre  •  20
Dresden particularly attractive at this time to the English 20
Mr. and Mrs. Greatheed  21
Supper at the British Minister's  22
Konigstein  23
Pilnitz  24
First interview with Coleridge at Gbttingen  26
The Master of Jesus College attempts in vain to reclaim
Coleridge  27
Pantisocracy  27
Coleridge a private Soldier  29
Gottingen — row  30
Pedestrian Tour to the Harz wUh Coleridge and others 32
Happiness — what its essential quality ?  34
Electorate of Mentz  35
Disaster at a Hessian Village  35
Lines in praise of Brandy  38
Tobacco — its pernicious tendency  ,. 39
Epigram of Petrus Scriverius on a Tobacco Pipe  41
Ascent of the Brocken  42
The Brocken Spectre, and various superstitions  43 et seq.
Coleridge fond of a Pun  45
Jordan's account of the Brocken Spectre  47
Mr. Hawe's account from Sir D. Brewster's " Letters on
Natural Magic"  49
Coleridge's definition of Sublimity  51
The subject of Sublimity continued  51 et seq.
Extract from " Travels of G. D. F. Scheller in Lapland
and Bothnia"  gg
" Lines on the Brocken," written by Coleridge at
Werningerode  64
Ditto, in the Album on the summit of the Brocken  66
Valley of Chamouni, seldom visited by the English
during the \\'ar of the Revolution  q-

Xlll
/-I ^&ge
, Lines written by Coleridge in the Album of a Giittingen
Student  63
Sir J. Mackintosh  68
Mr. Poole, of Stowey  69
Coleridge's " War Eclogue," objected to  70
His " Conciones ad Populum''  71-81
, Byron and Shelley  82
Quotation from Preface to Cantos 6, 7, and 8, of Don
Juan  84
Atheism — ^poetically pourtrayed by Coleridge  86
yNote relative to Lord Byron  87
Dr. Darwin  88
Nostalgia — ^its influence on Coleridge  89
Nightingales abound at Gottingen  90
Quotation from Coleridge relative to them  90
Coleridge is anxious to make his fellow-tourists Meta
physicians  91
Shakspeare  t  92
,Coleridge a friend to revealed religion  92
His conversation relative to the old English Divines 93 et seq.
Jeremy Taylor and Washington Irving, parallel passage
in their writings  96,97
Lessing — ^Translation of his Fable of Jupiter and the
Horse  98
English at Gottingen no church-goers  100
Interesting Letter from Dr. Parry, in which this circum
stance is alluded to  tOO
Coleridge at Keswick, with further remarks on the ob
servation of Sunday  101 et seq.
Extract from the Rev. John Rose's " Hulsean Lectures" 104
" Society of Friends" deny the Divine appointment of
the Christian Sabbath  108
Waltzing party near the Bielman's Hohle  110
The German Women considered by Coleridge superior
to the Men  m
Louis XVIII. at Blankenburg  112
b 2

XIV Page
Fatiguing walk from Blankenburg toGoslar  114
Goslar a free City  115
St. Christopher a favourite Saint  115
Goslar the residence of Mr. and Miss Wordsworth, in
1798-9  116
A day spent with them at Grassmere, in 1801  116
Their Voyage with Coleridge from Yarmouth to Hambui^ 119
Anecdote of Coleridge and a Danish fellow-pas
senger  120 et seq.
Other amusing extracts from Coleridge's correspondence
when at Ratzeburg  123 et seq.
Clausthall a Town in the centre of the Harz  126
Political Conversation, in which Coleridge defended Fox
against Pitt  127
His antipathy to the French  129
Never tired of mental exercise  130
A most entertaining fellow-tourist  130
Modes of evincing our Nationality  132 et seq.
Dr. Daniel Dodds  133
Mrs. Mary Row; ridiculous application of a ridiculous
story   134
Return to Gottingen  136
Hiibichen-Stein  137
Dermestes Typographus, a destructive insect to the
white fir  137
Charms of Nature relished by man and by no other animal 137
Poem of" Christabel"  139
" Rime of the Ancient Mariner"  140
" Religious Musings"  141
" Fears in Solitude"  141
War of the French Revolution defended  142
Tragedy of Osorio. Remorse  143
Sheridan's conduct relative to it  144
Duels — their usual character illustrated  1 45 et seq.
Doctor Boutatz, his account of a Duel at Paris  150
Queen of Prussia  ^^^

XV
.^ Page
Review of 15,000 Hessian troops by the King of
Prussia, at Hesse Cassel  153
Coleridge, his conversation with a Hessian Peasant  154
Effect of home-sickness on the Hessian Soldiers in North
America  157
Ranez des vaches, translated from the French  159
Masqued ball at Cassel  160
Table d'hote at ditto  160
Coleridge's take-leave Supper at Professor Blumenbach's 161
" Anti-Jacobin" Newspaper  162
Anti-religious state of Germany at this time  163
Scene from " The Rovers''  164 et seq.
Coleridge leaves Gbttingen for England, accompanied by
the Author as far as Brunswick  170
Ascent of the Brocken, and a night passed in a wretched
hovel on the summit  171
Glorious Sun-rise from the summit of the Brocken  172
Fatiguing walk to Elbingerode  173
Coleridge's account of the German Incubus  174
Chatterton's Works — Dean Milles' argument respecting
them conclusive  175
Conversazione at Wolfenbuttel  176
Wolfenbuttel Library  176
Hans Sachs — Lessing  176
Curious Omission in a Bible  177
Brunswick — reception at the Inn, and unexpected visit of
friends from Gbttingen  178
Parody of Shenstone's Lines on the Hospitality of Inns 278
Projected Pedestrian Tour through Scandinavia  179
Discourse on the quality of virtuous love  180,181
Professor Wilson's testimony to Coleridge's poetical merit 181
Anecdote from " Archenholz's Seven Years' War"  182
Emperor Paul  • 183
Schloezer's Miniature History of Russia  183
Professor Roose — Zimmermann — Wiedeman — Eschen-
burg— Kant  183-185

XVI Page
Zimmermann's opinion of Kant's Philosophy  184
German Literati — Spinozists  185
Mr. Hawkins in high estimation in the North of Germany 185
Coleridge departs for England  186
His residence at Gbttingen, with various matters relative
to that University, and Professor Blumenbach in
particular  186 et seq.
Spinozism  193
Giordano Bruno  195
Mr. Wordsworth and his sister visit Gbttingen  196
Sir H. Davy introduced to Coleridge by Mr. Cottle  198
A winter's evening in London  199
Phenomena of Dreams discussed and illustrated ...199 et seq.
Ghost stories how sometimes to be explained  202
References to Writers on the Subject of Dreams  210
WhatisTime? Note  213
Coleridge's illustration of the infinite divisibility of matter 214
Dr. Doddridge's dream  215
Extraordinary dream of Mr. Williams of Scorrier, pre
dictive of the murder of Mr. Perceval  219
^Coleridge's " Table Talk"  221
Story of" The Phantom Portrait"  224
Johnson's hypercriticism of Shakspeare  225
Great importance of rightly apprehending the doctrine of
the ordinary influences of the Holy Spirit  232
Coleridge's first Lay Sermon  233
Interesting passage from Milton's Comus  235
Sir H. Davy's poetical exposition of Spinozism  236
, Coleridge's " Devil's Walk"  239
Davy and Coleridge both had offers of " Holy Orders" 242
An Infidel put to flight by Sir H. Davy  243
A similar achievement by his friend Coleridge  245
Samuel Drew, the great Cornish JMetaphysician, incited
to enter the Church  248
Sir H.Davy (traits of character)  248 et seq.
Curious incident at his dinner table  250

XVll Page
Jeu d'esprit on his marriage  251
Sir Thomas Bernard, a great friend of Davy's  252
Bishop Sherlock, a quotation from his Sermons  253
Frequent references to Coleridge in Dr. Paris's Life of
Davy  256
Brief retrospect of his Life and Writings  260 et seq.
Phrenology defended  274
Coleridge's last letter  280
His opinion of the Athanasian Creed  281
The condemnatory clauses objected to  285
The Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity in the highest
degree consolatory  286
The Deity Tri-personal  287
The clause which declares that there are not three
Eternals but one Eternal, open to objection  288
The expression " Every Person by Himself" in another
of the clauses, equally objectionable  289
Paley's application of the word Person to the Godhead,
objectionable  290
Observations on 1 John v. 7  292
Church of England makes no pretension to infallibility 294
All attempts at analogy where the Deity is included,
objectionable  295
The Second Person of the Trinity only incarnate  296
Remarks on a quotation of Professor Turton's, from Paley 299
The Liturgy of the Church of England, admirable  301
Observations on Psalm ii. 7  302
Quotation from Leslie relative to the above text  303
Critical letter of Mr. P.Carlyon  304
Letter from Bishop Middleton to the Rector of St. Mawgan 308
Le Bas, in his Life of Middleton, takes little notice of
his career at Cambridge  311

EARLY YEARS

LATE REFLECTIONS.

The winter of 1798-9 was remarkably long and
severe ; snow remained on the ground, even in Corn
wall, till the latter end of February or beginning of
March ; and our intercourse with the Continent, which
was then almost exclusively carried on by the way of
Cuxhaven and Hamburgh, was interrupted for very
many weeks together. On leaving Cornwall with two
friends, one of whom was my lamented brother, the
late Rector of Truro, we were twice snowed up in
posting to London, tirst at a little inn, at Bridestowe,
Devon ; and, secondly, at Blandford, where, with the
passengers from I know not how many coaches, we
were detained a day or two, owing to the great accu
mulation of snow in some of the Dorsetshire defiles.*

* The winters of 1S32 and the three following have been so remarkably
mild, that the absence of old Father Christmas, on his white horse, has even
been a matter of lamentation to the junior members of the community.

Such winters have, however, their occasional charms,
and I shall never forget the gratification I experienced,
after escaping from Blandford, from the following
occurrence. We slept at Hertfordbridge. A partial
thaw had taken place the preceding evening, and all
Nature around us was wet and comfortless ; but the
wind returning in the night to a cold quarter, afforded
us an opportunity of witnessing, when we arose in the
morning, a scene of such transcendent beauty as could
only be rivalled by what Phillips has so charmingly
described, in his poetical epistle to the Earl of Dorset,
from Copenhagen, March 9rh, 1709 : — •
" From frozen climes, and endless tracks of snow,
From streams that northern winds forbid to flow,
What present shall the Muse to Dorset bring?"
After depicting the miseries of a northern winter, he
proceeds : —
" And yet but lately have 1 seen, e'en here.
The winter in a lovely dress appear.
Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow,
Or winds began through hazy skies to blow.
At evening a keen eastern breeze arose ;
And the descending rain unsullied froze.
Soon as the silent shades of night witlidrew,
The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view
The face of nature, in a rich disguise.
And brightened every object to my eyes ;
For every shrub, and every blade of grass,
And every pointed thorn, seemed wrought in glass ;
In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show,
While through the ice the crimson berries ^low

3
The thick sprung reeds the wateiy marshes yield.
Seem polished lances in a hostile field.
The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine,
Glazed over, in the freezing a;ther shine.
The frighted birds the rustling branches shun,
That wave and glitter in the distant sun.
When, if a sudden gust of wind arise,
The brittle forest into atoms flies ;
Tlie crackling wood beneath the tempest bends.
And in a spangled shower the prospect ends.
Or, if a southern gale the region warm.
And by degrees unbind the wintry charm.
The traveller a miry country sees.
And journies sad beneath the dripping trees."
Such was the scene which charmed us on our first
stage from Hertfordbridge, equally beautiful with that
described by Phillips, but more transient in propor
tion to the less enduring intensity of the cold. A
bright sun, giving at first increased brilliancy to the
crystallized objects around us, together with the
agitation of a moderate breeze, in no long time broke
the enchantment, and, before the middle of the day,
the fairy vision had entirely disappeared, leaving an
impression which the perusal of the poetical and
beautifully graphic epistle from Copenhagen preserves
in all its freshness.
There is an allusion to a similar scene, varying only
with local circumstances, in Captain Lyon's " Nar
rative of an Expedition to the North Pole," where he
says, " In the Polar regions, what are called fogs, are
in fact from the sea, and a sky of most provoking
B 2

brilliancy is frequently seen over head. The view from
the deck is bounded to about a hundred yards, and
such is the rapid formation of the icicles on the rigging,
that it is actually possible, when the temperature is
low, to see them grow beneath the eye. Yet, chilling
as this may appear, the sudden clearing of the fog
no sooner permits the sun to break forth in its full
vigour, than the ship and rigging glisten in the most
brilliant manner, as if they were of glass, and a rapid
thaw quickly restores every thing to its original
colour." In our case, the thaw, which was merely that pro
duced by the noon-day sun, had not the effect of
making the roads very miry, nor did we "journey
sad beneath the dropping trees." Our greatest in
convenience was from the demand made upon our
pockets for an additional pair of horses, which the
obstruction occasioned by the snow ou the preceding
day made necessary, but which were no longer re
quired by us, in passing over well-beaten roads.
But, "he that has travelled much about," knows that
it is easier to be accommodated with the addition,
than the abstraction, of a pair of post-horses, and
we therefore made no great resistance to an obvious
imposition. The enchanted landscape, bespangled
with crystals that glistened like diamonds on every
side, together with the pleasure of drawing near to
the Metropolis, after many vexatious delays, and

perils by snow and storm, put us in good humour ;
and, I may add, that, with one of our party, it was
evident that the eclat of driving to his hotel in a
chaise and four, overcame any paltry consideration
of economy.
After remaining a few days in London, I set off with
two other passengers, in the mail-coach for Norwich,
the weather being apparently favourable. We pro
ceeded at the usual speed of these excellent vehicles
for the first thirty-five miles, when a snow-storm
coming on, diificulties began to gather around us, and
although a good coachman and strong cattle con
tinued to force a way for us for some time, yet we
found, at last, on reaching an extensive common, that
we were getting considerably but of the road. It
was therefore deemed necessary to pull up, and,
abandoning the coach in the midst of snow on the
common, to lead the horses back to the nearest inn as
well as we could. One of the lamps which we took
with us soon went out, and there was no small diffi
culty in retracing, with the assistance of the other,
the track made by the wheels, which was rapidly filling
with drifting and falling snow.
The coachman and guard were bound, on account
of the horses, to make the best of their way back to
some inn ; but the passengers had their choice of
accompanying them or of remaining snowed up in the
coach ; which latter alternative one of us only pre-
B 3

6
feried. The other, an elderly and gouty citizen of
London, decided on accompanying me at the peril of
his life, which he would, more than once, have been
content to lay down, with his exhausted body, on
the snow, if I had not exerted myself to cheer him on
from time to time and allowed him my arm to lean
upon. He had begun, early in our journey, to regret
that, allured, like myself, by the appearance of a
favourable change of weather, he had ventured to
leave his own snug home, and each successive stage
poured forth his lamentations more and more piteously
— Domum ! domutn ! dulce domum ! At first he
would not have exposed himself to such an inclement
night for a great deal ; then he assigned a more defi
nite value to his calamity, and he would not have
encountered such weather for a hundred pounds, no,
not even, at last, for a thousand. He might have
taken up the plaintive strain of Hassan, the camel-
driver, and, mutatis mutandis, have exclaimed —
" Sa^d was the hour, and wreckless was the night.
When I from London's walls did take my flight,"
which, if not quite so much in character with a Lon
doner as his illustration drawn from pounds, shillings,
and pence, would at least have served to show how
the extremes of cold and heat meet alike in misery.
After little less than an hour's painful marcli
against wind and snow, and with four spirited horses

to keep in order, we arrived at length at the wished-
for inn ; but from its being about that time of night
when folks are apt to be dead asleep, we were con
tent to make our way at once to the stables, and there
remained, with gradually increasing warmth, in the
same quarters with our horses until seven in the morn
ing, when a good breakfast soon followed our admis
sion into the inn ; and, about eight, the weather
having sufficiently cleared to allow us to proceed, the
guard gave the order, and we made another start.
Arriving at the coach with some difficulty, we found
our fellow-passenger safe, and well satisfied with
having remained there through the night, wrapt in his
own great coat and Sancho's far-famed substitute for
a blanket. Still we were enjoying the superior com
fort of a good internal lining from a warm breakfast,
which he was glad enough to procure, the first oppor
tunity ; for the blessings of sleep are transient ; and
Sancho's philosophy, with the warmest cloak into the
bargain, will not satisfy the cravings of hunger in a
cold frosty morning, like a warm breakfast; nor is
any beverage more to be recommended on such occa
sions, than a cup of good coffee, which drives the
blood round through every crank and cranny of the
system, cheers and invigorates both mind and body,
and leaves no after-account to be settled with the
head or heart. We found the roads in many places
almost impassable from the vast accumulation of snow.

8
which made it often necessary for us to get out of the
coach and walk, so that we did not arrive at Norwich
until thirty hours after the usual time. There I
remained with my good and hospitable friends, the
Peels, till the ebb was pronounced to be sufiiciently
clear of ice to admit of a packet's getting to Cux
haven, which port I reached, after a voyage of six
days from Yarmouth, on the 14th of March, 1799.
During my stay at Norwich, I called on Mr. Mid
dleton, who afterwards became the first Bishop of
Calcutta. He had received his education at Christ's
Hospital, and was the early friend and associate of
Coleridge, most of whose many biographers have
mentioned, that it was owing to a present of Bowles's
Sonnets, made to him in his seventeenth year by
Middleton, that he was drawn aside at that time
from controversial theology and Avild metaphysics
to the charms of poetry. He is even said to have
transcribed these sonnets no less than forty times in
eighteen months, in order to make presents of them
to his companions. But he was born a metaphysician
as well as a poet, and no one has exemplified more
fully the truth of that well-known line of Horace,
" Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret."
Bishop Middleton was a contemporary likewise,
at Cambridge, and an intimate college friend, of mv

brother's, the rector of St. Mawgan, Cornwall, to
whom I am indebted for some interesting particulars
relative to him at this period of his life. Although
he came to the university a first-rate classic, yet it so
happened that Maltby, the present Bishop of Chi
chester, was of the same year and college ; and when
Middleton took his Bachelor of Arts degree, he found
himself so completely eclipsed by his college com
petitor, that his spirits drooped, and he seemed
disposed to retire from the race of literature, and to
fall thenceforward into the rear of learned society.
Great as were his mental endowments, he had on no
occasion proved himself a match for Maltby at prize
fighting. His odes and epigrams were good, but
Maltby's were better, or more according to the
academic formula. Moreover, his application was
far inferior to Maltby's, who, to his classical honours,
added that of being eighth Wrangler, whilst Middle-
ton was only fourth Senior Optime.
Their last struggle together was for the Chancel
lor's medals, for which none below the rank of Senior
Optime can contend, when Maltby was as usual vic
torious. I have heard my brother say, that nothing
could exceed Middleton's despondency at this time.
He bitterly felt to how much higher distinction he
might have attained, if he had but been more diligent
during his three probationary years ; whereas, the
honours he had acquired, scarcely gave him a claim

10
upon his college for a fellowship. Still, difficult as
it was for him, under these circumstances, to regain
his own self-esteem, which, with every one, is more or
less dependant upon the opinion of the world, his
was a mind too conscious of its own powers to suc
cumb altogether ; and we accordingly find, from the
memoir prefixed to the volume of his Sermons and
Charges published after his death, by Dr. Bonney,
that he entered into holy orders soon after taking his
A.B. degree. From that time he seems to have been
determined to run the race that was set before him,
with diligence equal to his strength.
The following extract from a letter written by him,
when on his voyage to India, to a young friend in
England, has an interest in connection with the fore
going statement, which induces me to transcribe it from
the memoir alluded to above : — -
" I have often," he says, " lamented that young
men who have gained credit at the taking of their
first degree at Cambridge, act afterwards as if they
were exempted from all exertion ; the honours which
they may have obtained at the age, perhaps, of twenty-
one, fully satisfy their ambition, and they seem de
termined to rest upon them for the remainder of their
lives ; whereas, in truth, they are intrinsically nothing ;
though considered as letters of recommendation, and
facilities afforded to success in the real business of life,
they are of the highest value, and really deserve the

11
pains bestowed in acquiring them ; but it is one of
the instances in which men mistake means for ends,
which I suppose to be the great practical error of
human life."
In the same memoir it is merely said, that Middle-
ton owed his first important step in life to his repu
tation as a clergyman and a scholar ; but this is
probably not quite correct. His successful rival was
nearly connected with Bishop Pretyman, and, I believe,
became private tutor to his sons immediately after
taking his Bachelor's degree. Dr. John Pretyman,
the Bishop's brother, had likewise sons to educate;
and whatever leaning there might have been towards
Middleton, for the reason alleged, it was generally
supposed that there was a much greater readiness to
take him by the hand, in consideration of the fre
quent disappointments he had met with in his prize-
contests with Maltby.
Such feelings and motives were honourable to both
parties, and correspondent thereunto has been the
result, since each has eventually risen to the highest
dignity in his profession. When I went to the Univer
sity a few years after they had quitted it, they were
frequently the subject of conversation at Pembroke,
as stars of such lustre naturally would be in a small
society, which has nevertheless the honour of claiming
far more than its numerical proportion of mitred

12
heads."* But it is to India we have to look for the
noblest monuments of Bishop Middleton's virtues,
piety, and talents ; and, independently of this very
interesting prefatory memoir, the cause of Christianity
is greatly indebted to Dr. Bonney for collecting and
publishing the valuable evidence, contained in his
Sermons and Charges, of his judicious conduct in
laying the foundation of an episcopal church in that
previously benighted land. The European popula
tion, instead of letting their light shine before the
heathen, to the glory of their Heavenly Father, were
scarcely less sensual than the wretched idolaters by
whom they were surrounded. How exemplary, how
extraordinary then must have been the exertions of
an individual who, in such a state of society, could
steadfastly proceed in the work to which he was ap
pointed, having to contend alike with native super
stitions, the lukewarmness of many of his fellow-
countrymen, and the various and still more vexatious
obstacles to church discipline, arising out of the con
flicting opinions of the different professors of Chris
tianity. In his Charges aud Sermons, there is perhaps
as much sound divinity as can be found anv where in
the same compass ; and however we may revere the
» The distinction which Pembroke College enjoys, for the number of
bishops educated in it, must have begun early ; since it is said of Queen
Elizabeth, that on one of her visits to Cambridge, she exclaimed, as she
passed it, in entering the town, " 0 doinm aniiqua ct vencraliilis! O cpisco-
porum matey ! — Dr. H.

13
memory and admire the exalted character of his suc
cessor. Bishop Heber, it will scarcely be questioned
that he was the fittest of those two eminently learned
and pious men, to lay the first stone of the episcopal
fabric in India. I regret that a letter which the
Bishop, on leaving England, wrote to my brother, has
been mislaid, as its contents would, I believe, have
thrown a pleasing tint over the familiar lineaments of
a mind whose deeper characters are to be traced else
where. It might have been seen that, like Bishop
Heber, he could be cheerful even at a season when he
was addressing friends to whom he expressed his fears
that he should never see them more. And doubtless,
like Heber, he would have thought it no offjence to reli
gion, to relieve occasionally the profound abstractions
of his mind, by seeking entertainment in the perusal
of some of those wonderful works of the imagination
which the pen of Sir Walter Scott has produced ;
works which may well be deemed worthy of such
readers — an offence nevertheless not to be overlooked
by some modern puritans!* But we must not sup-

* Whatever dislike the Dissenters may entertain for novels and romances,
it is quite certain, that many remarkable men amongst them, even some of
their eminent lights and guides, have not wholly abstained from the use of
such books. Robert Hall read them with pleasure, and doubtless with
benefit ,¦ and Wesley, like Warburton, seems to have thought with the elder
Pliny, that no book could be used without profit. Kihil enim tegit quod non
eacerpcret; dicere eti&m nolcbai, nullum esse librum tarn malum, utnon aliqua
parte prodesset. Plin. Epist. iii. 5. Indeed, he was himself in some sort a
novelist, for he actually abridged "The Fool of QuaUty," and published it

14
pose that he would allow the bow to remain long
unstrung ; for we are told that during the whole of
the voyage to India, this exemplary man applied him
self to such subjects as were likely to be useful in his
new station. He read Hebrew and Persian, as well as
theology ; and to his infinite honour, he laid down,
among other exercises, the following rules of life,
for his future conduct : —
"Invoke divine aid. Preach frequently, and 'as
one having authority.' Promote schools, charities,
literature, and good taste ; nothing great can be ac
complished without policy. Persevere against discour
agement. Keep your temper. Employ leisure in

with the new title of " Henry, Earl of Morland." Nor have there been
wanting among those members of the established church, who most resemble
dissenters in their opinions and habits, many persons capable both of giving
and receiving pleasure from this forbidden source. Cowper delighted in the
Argenis, and Cunningham wrote " The Velvet Ctishion." Even the Quakers
have not abstained from these vanities of a thoughtless world ; for Bernard
Barton has occupied his leisure with the frivolous and foolish jingle of an idle
song ; and William Howit has indulged the wildest riot of fancy and fiction
in his Pantiha.
But in truth, books of this kind, like all other books, are iu the predica
ment of Martial's Epigrams — Sunt bona, sunt qucedam mediocria, su?it mala
plura. Many of them, no doubt, are mischievous ; but it is equally certain
that some are good ; and if they are to be rejected altogether, because they
may not all be useful, by the same rule, we ought not to read any thing. The
error seems to have arisen from some indistinct and unacknowledged per
suasion, that every thing fictitious partakes of the nature of a lie, and must
be evil ; yet all the faculties of the mind may be devoted to some profitable
use, and the imagination, as much as any of them, may be exercised in the
cause of wisdom and virtue. Our Saviour taught hy^ parables, and the
prophets and apostles by figures and allegories. — Dr. H.

15
study, and always have some work in hand. Be punc
tual and methodical in business, and never procras
tinate. Keep up a close connection with friends at
home. Attend to forms. Never be in a hurry. Pre
serve self-possession, and do not be talked out of
conviction. Rise early, and be an economist of time.
Maintain dignity without the appearance of pride ;
manner is something with every body, and every thing
with some. Be guarded in discourse, attentive, and
slow to speak. Never acquiesce in immoral or per
nicious opinions. Beware of concessions and pledges.
Be not forward to assign reasons to those who have
no right to demand them. Be not subservient nor
timid in manner, but manly and independent, firm and
decided. Think nothing in conduct unimportant and
indifferent. Be of no party. Be popular, if possible,
but, at any rate, be respected. Remonstrate against
abuses, Avhere there is any chance of correcting them.
Advise and encourage youth. Rather set than follow
example. Observe a grave economy in domestic
affairs. Practise strict temperance. Remember what
is expected in England ; and lastly, remember the
final account."
In conclusion of this brief notice of Bishop Middle-
ton, it is worthy of remark that he and his friend
Coleridge, each in his own way, were, in the maturity
of their faculties, the alike unflinching advocates of the
doctrine of the Trinity. The Bishop's treatise on the
c 2

16
Greek Article, is supposed to contain one of the best
vindications extant of the Christian Scriptures from
the glosses of Socinian commentators. But it may
not perhaps be quite so easy to define the precise
character of Coleridge's exposition of that supremely
important doctrine.*
I arrived at Gottingen on the 22d of March, 1799,
having taken the precaution of previously writing
to a friend, with whom I had been for two years an
undergraduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, to
apprize him of my intention of rejoining him at this
celebrated Hanoverian University, where he had been
residing above twelve months. Our first concern was
to look out for lodgings, which, with his assistance,
I had no difficulty in procuring at the house of
Herr Dieterich, a wholesale bookseller, who occupied
an extensive range of premises, of which part was
appropriated to the accommodation of his own family
and the book-trade, and the rest let out to lodgers,
with suitable arrangements for supplying likewise all
that was requisite in the way of board. There are two
of my messmates now living who will not have for
gotten the comfortable little dinners which Frau
Knoopen, the old house-keeper and cook, used to
serve up to us at a very moderate price ; the beef,
not over fat certainly, but roasted after the Engfish
• Aids to Reflection, 2d ed. p. 1?3; Table Talk, p. 11.

17
fashion ; the eyerkuchen (omlette), the frog's-legs
fried in batter by way of a treat, the plum-pud
dings, &c. &c., not to omit mentioning, however, the
" gebratene katze," which, at the waggish suggestion
of our young friend, Fred. Parry, the old lady once
imposed upon us for a roast rabbit, with perfect
success, till by the accidental discovery of an extra
ordinary long tail, the trick transpired ; but, being
fortunately healthy feeders, we had no difficulty in
stomaching the joke, with the sauce piquante of a
hearty laugh to help digestion.
I had scarcely become settled at Gottingen, when it
was proposed to me to make a short excursion to
Dresden, in the approaching Easter vacation, with
Messrs. Charles and Frederick Parry, and ¦  .
To this proposal I readily acceded, and we rambled
together three weeks, very agreeably.
At Leipsic, we fell in with the spring fair, the
greatest of the three held there annually ; and as, at
this period of the Revolutionary war, the commerce of
England with the rest of Europe was nearly confined
to the North-German market, we found ourselves
seated, at the table d'h6te of our hotel, with several
of our fellow-countrymen from Manchester, Birming
ham, and elsewhere. These were the men, of all
others, to show us the lions of the fair where mer
chants were assembled from every quarter of Europe,
if not of the world ; and we exceedingly enjoyed the
c 3

18
interesting scene. Even at the table d'h6te, you
are sure to fall in, on such occasions, with an amusing
variety of company, good entertainment, and a respect
able band of musicians. There was, moreover, a
theatre, at this time, open, which was rendered parti
cularly attractive by the presence of some theatrical
stars from Dresden or Berlin. We twice visited it;
but it happened unfortunately that, on one of these
evenings, when something very pathetic was enacting,
and their favourite Kotzebue was commanding tears
to flow on all sides of the house, we, the English
party, who occupied in pretty strong force a box to
ourselves, instead of sympathising with the sobbing
and lachrymose Germans, were suddenly seized with a
fit of laughter, and, by the noise we made, so disturbed
the audience, that all eyes were turned towards us,
whilst by far the greater number, who were standing,
as is usual in the German theatres, in the Parterre,
also faced round upon us bodily. This not a little
alarmed, and, for a while, sufficed to quiet us ; but an
incident occurring soon after to re-excite our risible
faculties, we again burst into loud laughter. This
could be put up with no longer ; and " Out with the
Englanders," was vociferated from every quarter ; all
faces were again directed towards us; and a file of
soldiers, in attendance upon the theatre, was soon at
our box-door, prepared to give effect to the sentence
thus passed upon us by acclamation. AVe, however,

19
succeeded in making our peace a second time, and
took care not to offend the good-natured audience by
any further exhibition of our ill-manners. I have
mentioned this really disgraceful occurrence partly to
show to what an extent young Englishmen can play
the fool abroad, or rather were apt to do so formerly ;
they are obliged, I believe, to be more on their guard
at the present day. It would not, in fact, have been
safe at any time to have forgotten ourselves in a
similar way in a French theatre, for I remember two
of our countrymen getting into a serious scrape by
stripping their coats off, on account of the excessive
heat, and exhibiting themselves in their shirt sleeves
in a front box of the Opera-house at Paris ; which
was no sooner perceived than resented by the audience,
who were only to be appeased by turning out the
delinquents. This took place during the short peace
of Amiens, when the English crowded to Paris to see
the wonderful specimens of art, of every age and
country, and the still more wonderful man at that-
time First Consul, whose policy it was to enrich
the galleries of his capital with the spoils of con
quest, the trophies chiefly of his Italian campaigns.
'Foreigners were admitted gratuitously to the Louvre,
where there seemed to be no other precaution taken
than that of posting on the walls of the saloons —
" La conservation des biens publics exige qu'on ne
les louche pas." This was, however, in fact, far from

20
being all, for I was witness to a sad misfortune, which
befel an incautious admirer of the very centre piece of
a magnificent collection of vases in a gallery set
apart for their exhibition. A friend and myself were
reposing on a sofa, and enjoying the fine display before
us, when we saw a gentleman approach and touch the
vase in question. It fell, as if by the magic wand of
an enchanter, from its pedestal, and was irreparably
broken. The unconscious magician, who was imme
diately opposite to us, turned pale as death, and
standing for a moment motionless, was instantly
after surrounded by gens-d'armes, and led away we
knew not whither; whilst there ran a murmur through
the room that he was an Englishman ; but this we had
the satisfaction of being fully persuaded that he was
not. We never learnt what became of him, and felt not
a little surprised at the delicate vigilance with which,
without our being aware of the presence of a single
" gentleman-at-arms," les biens publics were guarded.
At Dresden, to return from this long digression, we
found a great many English got together. The Elector
of Saxony remained neuter as long as he was able ;
and his chief city, at all times attractive on account
of its fine situation, its imposing edifices, its splendid
gallery of pictures, and other rare collections, was
more so at that time, when travellers, in search of
adventures, hardly knew which way to turn. The
court likewise, w'.th all its stiflness and formality,

21
had the credit nevertheless of being politely attentive
to visiters, without distinction of nation or religion.
Among the company at this time at Dresden, we were
so fortunate as to fall in with an English family,
consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Greatheed, and their
only son, Mr. Bertie Greatheed, who had resided for
some time at Gottingen, and were most hearty in
renewing their acquaintance with their old friends
from Gottingen, I coming in for my share of attention
through their introduction. The only part of their
establishment which they had brought with them
from England, consisted of a jolly butler and a lady's-
maid, and these, with a due addition of tributary
Germans, enabled them to live in great ease and com
fort. With them we dined almost daily, and at their
table met with whatever was most agreeable to us.
For whether on or around the hospitable board, there
was enough of Germany to mark the country in which
we were residing, whilst the staple appertained to
old England. Mr. Bertie Greatheed, who was then
about twenty years of age, was an amateur artist, and
spent great part of his mornings in the picture gallery,
studying the admirable works, chiefly of the Italian
masters. We likewise saw a good deal of a clever
English artist of the name of Artaud ; but I am not
able to say whether his success in his profession has
eventually fulfilled the expectations which were then
formed respecting him. By a letter written by me at

22
this time, in the possession of ray sister, I am reminded
of a gay and merry supper party, at the residence of
Mr. Elliot, then the British minister at the court of
Saxony. It was &, jite altogether (J V Anglaise ; for
although the scene was laid in Germany, the action, as
well as the dramatis personce, appertained almost ex
clusively to old England. After supper gentlemen
and ladies were called upon to sing. This, luckily
for some present, was an unconditional appeal to their
vocal powers, for it was too late to say " no song no
supper ;" still we were all so far under the inspiration
of the hour, as to be able to join in chorus; and willing
to bear the best vocal testimony in our power to the
soul-stirring influence of our unrivalled national
anthems ; but the songs were by no means all equally
lyrical, and I believe, the good humour with which —
" What shall we have for supper, Mrs. Bond" — ¦
was sung by a gentleman of the party, contributed
as much as any thing to the merriment of the evening.
The songs, in short, were deemed " very good songs,
and very well sung ;" and the festivities of our Anglo-
Saxon evening closed with the unanimous plaudits of
the assembled guests.
I have often heard it said by Germans, with refer
ence to the division and subdivision of what geo
graphers call Germany, into so great a number of
separate states, too often warring one against the other

23
— " Wir haben kein vaterland" — We Germans have no
country — whilst an Englishman, witness the above
relation, seeks to be at home every where, and seems
to consider the whole world his country, and the
land of his birth as constituting the title of his inhe
ritance. " To thee belongs the rural reign ;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine ;
All thine shall be the subject main.
And every shore it circles thine."
Prior to our taking leave of Dresden, we made a
pleasant day's excursion to Konigstein, a small town
in Upper Saxony, about twenty English miles from
Dresden. From the summit of its celebrated fortress,
situated on a stupendous mass of rocks, impending on
the Elbe, and said to be the strongest by nature and
art in the world, we enjoyed a vast and beautiful
prospect of the Bohemian mountains, of parts of the
dominions of Prussia, and of the cities of Dresden and
Meissen. This fortress, besides being the dep6t of
warlike stores and arms of all descriptions, is pro
vided, in case of a protracted siege, with a vast cask,
or reservoir, capable of containing between two and
three thousand pipes of wine. It is said to have been
three years in building, under the direction of General
Kyaw — a jolly old toper, no doubt — and is of such
ample dimensions that on its top is a dancing-room,
capable of accommodating fifty couple, with an

24
orchestra and seats for one hundred spectators. There
is also here a well eight hundred feet deep, sunk by
blasting with gunpowder through the solid rock, which
it took forty years to complete, no water having made
its appearance until the labourers had sunk beneath
the bed of the Elbe, whose waters, it is supposed,
filtering through the crevices of the rocks, at last
furnished an abundant supply.
Thirty-six years have elapsed since this visit to
Konigstein, and whilst I well recollect our dropping
pebbles into the well, and affecting to calculate its
depth, by the return of sound from the splash made by
them in the water, most of the really important features
of this impregnable fortress have past from my
memory. On the road to Konigstein is the Palace of Pilnitz,
where, in August, 1791, a convention is said to have
been signed between the Emperor of Germany and
the King of Prussia, the principal object of which was
to attack France, and to complete the dismemberment
of Poland — ominous events preceding and precipi
tating the ingress of the French Revolution.
Mr. Greatheed was a stanch Foxite, who had
fought more than one election battle, and severely
bled, in pocket, in the anti-ministerial interest.
 ~ and myself were equally stanch Pittites ;
but, prepared as we thus were to take opposite sides,
our discussions were in perfect good-humour, and we

25
talked of the rival senators in somewhat the same
spirit in which Sir Walter Scott has dedicated to their
memories some of the happiest lines for which we are
indebted to that immortal bard. From Dresden, the
Greatheeds went to Berlin, where they were honoured
by the marked attentions of the King and Queen of
Prussia ; and the last time I had the pleasure of see
ing them was on the road between Magdeburg and
Berlin, where we met accidentally, and enjoyed half
an hour's conversation together en passant.
They subsequently succeeded to large property ou the
death of the last Duke of Ancaster, but their great wealth
suflaced not to protect them from the heavy calamity
which awaited them in the loss of their only sou, and
only child, who died in Italy in the prime of life and
hope, adorned with every accomplishment which could
impart the charm of elegance to rank and wealth, or
give poignancy to the grief of his afflicted parents.
The removal of the body to England for interment,
with the permission of Buonaparte, the adoption of a
supposed natural daughter, and other singular cir
cumstances, private and poUtical, connected with his
memory and that of his father, would form a very in
teresting and romantic episode, for the writing of
which, I regret to say, that I am not in possession of
sufficiently accurate materials. I will therefore pur
sue the thread of my story, on our return to Gottingen,
from this pleasant little excursion into Saxony.
D

26
 , who used to dine with us, lodged in an
adjoining street ; but under the same roof with the
Parrys and myself lodged Mr. G  F  , who
subsequently held a commission in the " Cornish
Miners," and resided for many years viith the stafi" of
that regiment at Truro. There were not many more
Englishmen at that time in theUniversity — butof these,
one was the celebrated Coleridge, to whom I was
introduced on the first day of my arrival, when I
dined in company with him at the lodgings of Mr.
H  , a Cantab of St. John's College, afterwards
employed in the diplomatic department of his country.
My prepossessions were far from being in Coleridge's
favour, from having heard a good deal about him
during his last days at Cambridge, where, after giving
proof of talents which, if duly cultivated, would have
placed him among the most learned and brilliant
scholars of the University, he caught and communi
cated the political frenzy of the day, and turning his
back upon Alma Mater, commenced that eccentric and
chequered career in which his life has run. His
genius, of the highest order, brooked no restraint, nor
has ever done homage to a superior ; but his musings,
whether in prose or verse, beautiful exceedingly as
they are, have been not unfrequently like the strains
" Of that wild harp, whose magic tone
Is wakened by the winds alone."

27
My venerated friend and kind patron*, the late
Dr. Pearce, Dean of Ely and Master of the Temple,
was, at that time. Master likewise of Jesus College, to
which Coleridge belonged. He did all he could to
keep him within bounds ; and being himself learned,
very sagacious, and withal a man of the world, no
one could be better qualified to break a spear with
Coleridge. But his repeated efforts to reclaim him
were to no purpose ; and, upon one occasion, after a
long discussion on the visionary and ruinous tendency
of his conduct and schemes, Coleridge cut short the
argument by bluntly assuring him, his friend and
master, that he mistook the matter altogether. He
was neither Jacobin, he said, nor Democrat, but a
Pantisocrat ; and consistently enough with this avowal,
he soon after appears to have been one of a clique
who formed a plan of emigration to America, where,
in company with some fair and enamoured enthu
siasts, they proposed to withdraw into the back set
tlements, and there, apart from the world, occupy
themselves in rearing a brood of young Pantisocrats in
full freedom of thought and action, in order, forsooth,
to see how their untaught ideas would naturally shoot.
That there really was a scheme of this sort in con
templation, I learnt from Coleridge himself, on his
journey home from Germany, when he gave and
• To him, and to the Dean of Norwich, the late Master of Pembroke, I
was indebted for my travelling fellowship.
D 2

28
myself, who accompanied him as far as Brunswick, a
full account of it ; but as I neglected to take notes at
the time, I dare not draw upon my memory for parti
culars, after an interval of thirty years and more,
although I still well remember where the conversation
took place. He admitted that the scheme was per
fectly absurd and visionary, and discoursed about it
very entertainingly, not being much accustomed to
allow any awkward feelings to embarrass his narra
tives, however implicated in them himself.*
* The following extract from a " Collection of Letters, &c." of Coleridge,
lately published by an anonymous /riewd, will supply, very opportunely, my
own imperfect recollection : —
" With reference to the early project of Coleridge, and others, to form a
community on the banks of the Susquehannah, the following brief notice,
from the Friend, will (the Editor doubts not) prove interesting : —
" 'From my earliest manhood, 1 perceived, Coleridge says, that if the people
at large were neither ignorant nor immoral, there could be no motive for a
sudden and violent change of government ; 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 Revolution) ; 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 revolu
tion in an orbit of its own. What I dared not expect from constitutions of
government and whole nations, I hoped from religion and a sniall 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 Susque
hannah; where our little society, in its second generation, was to have com
bined the innocence of the patriarchal age with the knowledge and genuine
refinements of European culture ; and where I dreamt that in the sober even
ing 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 !" '
Letters, S^c. vol. ii. p. 234.

29
From the time of his leaving Cambridge to that of
his residence in Germany, he must have enacted as
many parts as a strolling player. The story goes,
that he was at one time an Unitarian preacher ; at
another, a private in a cavalry regiment, from whence
he is said to have procured his discharge by attract
ing the notice of his commanding officer, who fortu
nately was a good classical scholar, by writing letters
for his comrades, and particularly a Greek letter in
behalf of a soldier under sentence of corporal punish
ment ; but be this as it may, it is certain that he was
not a man to be long unnoticed, in whatever situation
found, or under whatever process of transmigration.*
When in company, his vehemence of manner and
wonderful flow of words and ideas, drew all eyes
towards him, and gave him pre-eminence, despite his
costume, which he aflFected to treat with great indif
ference. He even boasted of the facility with which
he was able to overcome the disadvantage of negli
gent dress ; and I have heard him say, fixing his pro
minent eyes upon himself (as he was wont to do,
whenever there was a mirror in the room), with a sin
gularly coxcomical expression of countenance, that
his dress was sure to be lost sight of the moment he
• A more correct account of the method he took to regain his freedom,
may be found among the very valuable " Reminiscences of Coleridge," in
No. LVIII. oi Fraser's Magazine for October, 1834.
D 3

30
began to talk; an assertion which, whatever may
be thought of its modesty, was not without truth.
I believe it was on the second or third evening after
my arrival at Gottingen, that there was one of those
rows among the German students, for which they have
ever been famous.
These riots were then nothing more than the out-
burstings of a set of the queerest looking fellows in
the world, under pretence of redressing some ima
gined academical grievance ; but of late years they
have assumed a somewhat different character, and
attempts have been made by the students of the dif
ferent German universities, to acquire political im
portance, and to strut upon a wider stage, with so
little success, however, that it may be hoped they will
in future rest satisfied with being, as heretofore, the
peculiar ornaments of their own proper theatres.*
Upon the occasion in question, as upon all similar
ones, the martial bearing and motley costume of the
rioters were alike undistinguishable, the first notice
of an approaching row being an order, vociferated
through the streets, to put out all lights — " Lichter
heraus !" This part of the ceremony had been com
plied with in the room in which I was sitting ; and,
• The disorderly habits of the German students do not appear to be peculiar
to our own times. At least, according to Jacobus Crucius. the students at the
Dutch universities were quite as riotous in the seventeenth century, though
they seem to have had a greater love of foppery than their successors of the
present any.—Menurius Batao, lib. i. ii. iv.— Dr. H.

31
curious to know what was going on, I sallied forth alone
into the street, where I happened immediately to fall
in with Coleridge, who suggested that, as we were
neutrals, we had better take the safe side and fall into
the, rear of the police, who were already mustered,
and could be discerned approaching by the tramp of
their feet, and the thump, thump, thump of their
staves on the pavement. These gentlemen, not very
unlike a file of old London watchmen, but rather
more en militaire, we allowed to pass us, and then,
following close at their heels, proceeded to the prin
cipal square, in which the rioters were by this time
assembled, and raising their courage by singing the
celebrated " Ein frcues leben," from " Schiller's Rob
bers," preparatory to their making a rush upon the
windows of some unhappy professor who had offended
them ; or, it might be with no other intention than to
honour him with a " per eat," indicative of a further
rod in pickle, unless he complied with their terms.
They were so busy at their work of excitement, that
we appeared to come upon them unawares ; and the
police, evidently knowing what they were about, struck
such immediate panic into the multitudinous choir,
that their dispersion was instantaneous. In their
confusion several were made prisoners, and forthwith
incarcerated in the lock-up house of the University,
from whence they were to be taken on the following

32
morning before the constituted authorities, to be dealt
with as the statutes should direct.
Coleridge and myself, the fun being over, returned
to our respective lodgings, where we were again at
liberty to light our candles and resume our previous
occupations, his being probably the Life of Lessing, on
which he was understood to be, at that time, engaged ;
mine, the writing of a letter to some friend in England,
to whom I had now the adventure of the evening to
communicate. After close appUcation to our academic pursuits for
about six weeks, it was proposed and agreed that the
following party; viz. Coleridge, the two Parrys, Chester,
 , a son of Professor Blumenbach, and myself,
should make a pedestrian tour over the Harz Moun
tains, to the summit of the Brocken. The spring had
made such slow progress that the month of May had this
year but small pretensions to the glowing praises of
the poets. Still, whether lingering in the lap of winter,
or unfolding all the charms with which Buchanan
has arrayed its calends. May is always, to the young
especially, more or less joyous, and to all more or less
the " Flos renascentis juventae
In senium properantis sevi."
Nevertheless, backward as was the spring of 1799, its
beauties were beginning to expand in bud and leaf

33
and many a modest blossom, when, on Saturday, the
11th of May, we sallied forth from Gottingen.
Frederick Parry led the way on horseback, for, being
subject to attacks of asthma, and the youngest, by
several years, of the party, this indulgence was allowed
him, not without an understanding that the pony on
which he rode was, in some measure, common pro
perty. Our whole appearance was grotesque enough.
Coleridge, whose own costume, as usual, was by no
means studied, seemed struck with the great comfort
and convenience of a jacket which I had ordered to be
made for the occasion, and finding that I perceived on
what part of my dress his eyes were fixed, he ex
claimed, " Haud equidem invideo, miror magis," and
trudged on.  's boots were tight, and caused
him no small pain, and in fact it soon appeared that
we were, none of us, exactly equipped as we ought to
have been for a pedestrian tour.
The first part of our road lay chiefly through forests
of beech, and Coleridge's muse presented us with
nothing better for our journals, than the following
couplet : —
" We went, the younger Parry bore our goods
O'er d — bad roads through d — delightful woods.''
But if his muse was dull, the genius of metaphysics
was in full activity, and he endeavoured to enlighten
the minds of his companions by a long discussion.

34
among other things, in favour of an opinion which he
maintained, in opposition to  , that, throughout
nature, pleasurable sensations greatly predominate
over painful. He said, that it must be so, for as the
tendency of pain is to disorganize, the disorganization
of the whole living system must ensue if the balance
lay on its side. Exquisite pleasure becomes pain ;
does exquisite pain, he asked, ever become pleasure?
There was another point which he could not settle so
entirely to his satisfaction, and that was the nature or
essential quality of happiness. He seemed to think
that it might be defined " a consciousness of an excess
of pleasurable sensations, direct or reflex." And when
we find Johnson, in his Dictionary, telling us, in a
quotation from Hooker, that " Happiness is that estate
whereby we attain, so far as possibly may be attained,
the full possession of that which, simply for itself,
is to be desired, and containeth in it after an eminent
sort, the contentation of our desires, the highest degree
of all our perfection ;" he too may at least be consi
dered as leaving this inestimable treasure open to fur
ther analysis, and a more precise definition. It would
certainly have been a high treat to have heard Johnson
and Coleridge discuss this point together.
Passing from the territory of Hanover into a district
appertaining to the Elector of Mentz, we found our
selves, for the first time, among Catholics, not the most
bigotted in the world, but sufliiciently so, at least as

35
far as regarded the peasantry, to make them very sen
sible of the smallest indignity supposed to be offered
to the most uncouth statues and images that ever
mortals set up as objects or instruments of adoration.
An image of our Saviour, as it proved, with a mitre
on its head and a crucifix in its arms, happening par
ticularly to attract our notice, Coleridge, with his
natural good-humoured effrontery, asked a peasant
who was passing by, whether it was not intended for
the Elector of Mentz. " The Elector !" exclaimed the
indignant peasant. " Nein, mein Herr ! Das ist Jesus
Christus." No, Sir, that is Jesus Christ. Which was
letting us off more easily than happened to be the
case upon another short excursion which we after
wards made from Gottingen into the adjoining terri
tory of Hesse-Cassel, of which I hope I may be here
excused for saying a word or two, albeit rather out of
order. We arrived (the same party, with the omission
of Blumenbach) late on a fine summer's evening at a
Hessian village. The inhabitants had, for the most
part, already retired to rest, but there remained a
group or two of peasants to stare at us, and wonder
who we were. They showed no disposition to be
courteous; but, trusting to the ordinary springs
of hospitality with which, although pedestrians, our
pockets were pretty well lined, we entered the large
room of the village alehouse, and asked for refresh-

36
ment and a night's lodging. Was haben sie zu essen ?
Have you any thing for us to eat ?* K'dnnen wir bette
kriegen ? Can we get beds ? No one was ready to
pay us any attention. Hungry as we were, we could
get nothing for supper, not even a cup of coffee.
Beds were out of the question. Could we be accom
modated, we at length inquired, with a few bundles
of clean straw ? This, I believe, we should have had, if
Coleridge had not, at this unlucky moment, exclaimed,
" Why surely these Hessians never can be Christians !"
The Hessians not Christians ! A spark falling on
gunpowder could not have produced a more sudden
explosion. The challenge past from within to the
group on the outside, who, rushing in to the assistance
uf the Maitre d'Hotel, proceeded, without ceremony, to
clear the apartment, and, tired as we were with our
day's exertion, and waiting only to have our respective
beds littered for the reception of our weary limbs, we
were bundled out in " double-quick-time," spite of all

» Literally, what have they (haben sic) to eat '. A most courteous salu
tation ; but being addressed to peasants, even this might have had a con
trary' elTect from what was intended. They may have tliought that we
were quizzing them.
In polite intercourse the Germans invariably make use of the personal
pronoun plurally, just as, under similar circumstances, the French say, voui
etes, instead of <B es; and, after them the English "you are," or "you were,"
not "thou art," or "thou wert." But the Germans carry this point of
refinement further than we do, and in speaking to an inferior person, say
er ist, he is ; or, if still lower, du bist, thou ait.

37
remonstrances, yet not until  , whose locomotive
powers were at their lowest ebb, had come in for a,
heavy blow, which he expressed himself as not at all
liking, and which, in addition to the compliments he
deemed due to the Hessians, drew down some strong
vituperations on the head of our knight errant —
Coleridge — who, there could be no doubt, was the
exciting cause, as we medical men say, of the
disaster. The ill-humoured villagers would hold no parley
with us, and it was sufficiently evident that our only
safe course was to make a rapid retreat to a neigh
bouring wood where we were content to bivouack, at
tended by a large and noble dog of Parry's, which we
had with us, and which would readily have taken an
active part on our side, if fighting and not flying had
been the order of the day. To sleep soundly after
such an adventure, and in such a place, was scarcely
to be expected ; but Morpheus had a friend for once
in Coleridge, whose protracted psychological tirade
upon the inhospitable conduct of the Hessian boors
acted at length as a soporific, so that huddling toge
ther, Turk and all, as closely as we could, we
managed to pass a few hours tolerably well for young
bivouackers ; which is certainly making the best of it ;
for besides that our nerves were far from being of
their usual temper, the ground, although it was a fine
E

38
summer-night, was hard and cold, and the twilight
air felt particularly chilly.
But morn at length arrived, and
" Phcfibus' fiery car
In haste, was climbing up the eastern hill,"
when, having shaken off our broken slumbers, it was
in full council decided that we should, on no account,
re-enter the inhospitable village ; so proceeding in a
different direction, we were fortunate enough after
a short walk to fall in with a snug little inn,
at the bottom of a hill, and at the extremity of a
delightful vale, with civil inmates moreover to wel
come us, who allowed us to take coffee as our bever
age for breakfast, notwithstanding all guests were
strongly recommended, in lines as moral as they were
poetical, to drink brandy, morning, noon, and night,
for the preservation of their health.*
" Brandy is good, at matin prime ;
And mid-day is a very good time ;
A glass at eve ; nor be it said
Without a glass you go to bed."

* This German aqua vitae, which I have here translated brandy (brand-
wein), is much more allied to mountain dew or whisky than to real cogniac,
and commonly goes by the name, in Germany, of Schnapps. It must be con
fessed, that it was not altogether objected to by us in our pedestrian tours ;
but in excuse for an indulgence which fatigue sometimes rendered almost
necessary, we usually qualified It by the addition of milk, a process which
Coleridge denominated, slicatliing.

39
This versification, which is very near the German, was
in perfect keeping with the interior of our inn, in
which it was difficult to say whether tobacco or
whisky had the predominance. Of the Indian
herb, as of whisky, it may with equal truth be
said, that it is alike efficacious at all times and
seasons ; and of the thorough-going tobacco smoker,
as of Sir Walter's gallant mosstrooper, with excuse
for the bathos —
" To him alike is time or tide,
December's snow or July's pride ;
To him alike is tide or time.
Moonless midnight or matin prime."
And yet what can be more deleterious than tobacco ?
Many an honest Deutcher have I seen smoking him
self into the grave !
Rauch — Rauch — immer Rauch !
The countenance pale and haggard ; the frame
emaciated ; the propensity to smoke irresistible !
" A pipe ! a pipe ! my heart's blood for a pipe !"
Neither is there need of much physiological acuteness,
to account for the bad effects of this pernicious habit
on the health. Tobacco is a very powerful narcotic
poison. If the saliva, the secretion of which it pro
vokes, be impregnated with its essential oil and so
E 2

40
swallowed, the deleterious influence is communicated
directly to the stomach, or if, as more frequently
happens, it is ejected, then the blandest fluid of the
human frame, that which, as a solvent and diluent,
performs an office in digestion secondary only to
the gastric juice itself, is lost. Even snuff, my old
friend Abernethy used to say, fuddles the nose ; but
the fumes of tobacco possess a power of stupifying all
the senses and all the faculties, by slow but enduring
intoxication, in dull obliviousness.
I recollect reading, I believe in the Medical and
Chirurgical Review, so long and so creditably con
ducted by Dr. Clutterbuck, the address of a Professor
in some American University to his pupils, on the bad
effects of tobacco. This address, sensible and spirited,
seemed to come from the Professor's very heart. He
deprecated in the most forcible manner the practice
of smoking which had been recently taken up, and
said, " That, prior to the period when pipes were to
be seen in the mouth of every student, the youth of
the university were as different in their looks from
the individuals with whom he was then surrounded,
as health from disease."
I hope yet to be able to find the original address.*

« The following epigram of Petrus Scriverius on a Tobacco Pipe, occurred
to the recollection of Dr. H. on reading the above ; and I have done it into
English verse, as the latinity of his friend, P. S., is not quite as pure as
Cicero's, and may not therefore be intelligible to polite readers :—

41
Yet there is a charm in tobacco, which after bivou
acking in a Hessian wood, and sojourning as I have
done, amidst swarms of relentless mosquitoes, I am
bound to acknowledge ; a compensating charm, which
will uphold its use among mortals, as long as fogs and
malaria, listless hours and uneasy sensations, painful
days and watchful nights, nay as long as sun and
moon and mosquitoes endure.
Even the pathetic old favourite ballad of Darby
and Joan claims for it some indulgence : —
" Together they totter about.
Or sit in the sun at the door ;
And, at night, when old Darby's pipe's out.
His Joan will not smoke one whiff more.''
And what shall we sing or say of our neighbours the

Decipit incantos juvenesque senesque tabaci
Fistula — de Satanae fistula rapta raanu.
Dum struit insidias turdis, tum decipit anceps ;
Ut capiantur aves, fistula dulce canit.
Fistula dulce sapit philocapnis fuUa tabaco ;
Ilia sed ad Stygias fistula ducit aquas.
Neitlier King James's counter blast, nor Burton's melancholy denunciations,
will be thought to surpass this. — See Anat. of Melancholy, Part II. 8. 4.
Old men and young, beware ! beware !
A pipe of tobacco is Satan's snare.
Not surer the net for birds is spread.
By the pipe's sweet notes to capture led ;
Than the whiffs, which the lovers of smoking take,
Are sure to lead to the Stygian lake.
E 3

42
Dutch ? We would not surely deny the comforts of a
pipe to a people
" Breathing the grave pacific air.
Where never mountain zephyr blew.
The marshy levels lank and bare.
Which Pan, which Ceres never knew ;
The Naiads, with obscene attire.
Urging in vain their urns to flow.
While round them chaunt the croaking choir.
And haply soothe some lover's prudent woe.
Or prompt some restive bard and modulate his lyre."
Akenside.

Doubtless this Indian herb, like the mountain dew,
is adapted to certain persons, places and seasons,
and, when used and not abused, may be fairly deemed
to be entitled to a place among the legitimate anti
dotes of the miseries of human life.
I must now return to my account of our ascent of
the Brocken, from whence I have wandered so far and
away. This we effected on the 12th of May, 1799,
being Whit Sunday.
The sun had not yet extended its dissolving in
fluence, even to the snow that lay around the base of
the mountain, beyond the maximum point of annoy
ance to foot passengers ; so that having to wade
through soft snow and swampy soil, and being, ever
and anon, impeded by stunted firs and holes of rocks,
it was not without considerable toil and difliculty, that

43

we reached at length the summit. Upon this occa
sion  , always cheerful and amusing, and now
inspired by the genius loci, composed the following
distich : —
" We climbed to the top without getting a stitch,
But when we got there, we saw never a witch. "
What then did we see ? The Brocken spectre ? No.
It was the wrong time of day. The monster of the
Harz is only visible in the morning when the sun has
risen a few degrees above the horizon, and when
moreover a natural tablet has been provided in the
fog which must opportunely girdle the mountain's
sylvan waist for the spectre's reception. In the ab
sence therefore of the spectre, we visited the magic
circle of stones within which the fairies are said to
assemble and carry on their revels, at the hour of mid
night, in the liquid ether of the mountain top, illu
mined by the moon's pale and bewitching beams.
Here, on the first of May in particular, they merrily
dance, at the aforesaid hour (a fact for which I have
the authority, founded may be on tradition, of our
fellow-traveller Blumenbach), and such persons as at
these times have been attracted to the spot, see their
own ghosts walking up and down with a billet at their
backs, having the names inscribed upon them of any
friends who may have wished them there ; for " I wish
you on the top of the Brocken," is a woe in use through-

44
out the whole of Germany. From the witches' ball
room we adjourned to the adjoining wirthshaus, a
sort of Caravansary, situated almost on the highest
point of the mountain, where we were regaled with
rashers of bacon, and with what more my journal saith
not ; but it is probable that this was one of the occa
sions upon which we did not decline a glass of Schnapps
without the protecting sheath ; for Coleridge was not
only a wise but an indulgent Mentor.
In my haste to proceed up the Brocken, I perceive
that I have omitted to mention, what indeed is not
very important, that we halted the first night at
Satzfeld, or a romantic village bearing some such
name, in the electorate of Hanover, which we had
re-entered. Here we arrived tired and sore enough,
about ten o'clock, yet the latter part of our walk had
lain through a picturesque and highly-interesting
country, much of which Coleridge likened to the
scenery near Dulverton ; whilst our sense of increas
ing fatigue was likewise not a little relieved by the
exhilarating effect of the first view we caught of the
Harz mountains, which burst upon us this afternoon
in all their grandeur. And, as the day further de
clined, a bright moonlight shed a varied interest over
wood and dale and murmuring stream ; but the
wind was bitterly cold ; the frogs were beginning
to drown the voice of the nightingale by their croak
ing ; and Coleridge, who had already designated our

45
tour the Carlyon-Parry-Green-ation, and who was never
above a pun when it crossed his m ind opportunely, in
formed us that the dissonance proceeded from a species
of crocadile (croak-a-deal) so extremely common in
the north of Germany, that he considered Lessing's
Fable of the Frogs, as given by Gifford, almost unintel
ligible to one who had not travelled out of England.
Upon the whole, however, we could not be more glad
than we were to enter our little inn, where we found
but a comfortless supper, and a still more comfortless
lodging ; but hunger was our sauce, and fatigue our
night-cap ; so that after appeasing the former by the
aid of coffee, ham, and metwurst (a sort of German
sausage usually eaten raw), we threw ourselves down,
in perfect reliance on the latter for sleep, on beds
of straw, for such only could we procure. Coleridge
strongly recommended us to take off the whole or the
greater part of our dress, assuring us, on the autho
rity of Professor Blumenbach, whose lectures on
physiology he had attended, that our warmth would
depend on the removal of all pressure from our
limbs. He and  accordingly tried the experi
ment fully, but in this, as in other cases, it was found
that extremes had better be avoided.
I find in my journal the following note relative to
this night's adventure: — "  's snoring mistaken
for the roaring of wind. The rustling of straw for
hail. The tout ensemble for a storm."

46
Marvellous things did our friend Blumenbach, the
historian of the party, relate of the Brocken, the
loftiest of the Harz Mountains, being about 3300
feet above the level of the sea. From its summit we
could look around on the territories of not fewer than
four sovereigns, those namely of Prussia, Hanover,
Saxony, and Mentz, seventy leagues iu extent*, diver
sified by mountain, dale, and plain, finely intersected
by rivers, and said to contain a population of above
five millions. t Still the desolation of the immediate
spot from whence this magnificent view presents itself,
fully justifies the German imprecation, "Would that
you were on the top of the Brocken !" and, to make
the misery complete, doomed, let me add, to spend
the night in the dormitory (a non dormiendo) pro
vided for the accommodation of spectre hunters, with
a full complement of German students {cechter Jenen-
sers — real Jena students) lying about in all directions,
like animals in a menagerie, only not so well ap
pointed. J
Blumenbach's account of the " Blocksberg Ge-
spenst" (Brocken Spectre), given with all due parti
cularity, interested us highly.
Professor Gmelin had published a description of the

? About the 200th part of the whole of Europe.
t Brewster.
t Such a night  , Coleridge, Chester, and myself subsequently
(June 24tli, 1799) spent in the said dormitory.

47
phenomenon, as it appeared to Mr. Jordan in the
" Gottingischen Journal der Wissenschaften" of the
preceding year. Nevertheless, there was not wanting
traditional authority for the spectre's occasional ap
pearance between the spectator and the sun, which,
from being wholly inexplicable, was proportion ably
wonderful, and led to an animated discussion of the pros
and cons, which terminated, as might be expected, in
our giving a unanimous verdict in favour of Mr.
Jordan ; who, of course, considers the renowned
spectre as nothing more than the gigantic shadow of
the spectator himself, projected, at a particular eleva
tion of the sun, on the opposite fog or mist.
But it may be satisfactory to insert here Mr. Jor
dan's own account, as it appeared in the Gottingen
Journal : —
" In the course of my repeated tours through the
Harz," Mr. Jordan says, " I ascended the Brocken
twelve different times ; but I had the good fortune
only twice (both times about Whitsuntide) to see that
atmospheric phenomenon, called the Spectre of the
Brocken, which appears to me worthy of particular
attention, as it must, no doubt, be observed on other
high mountains which have a situation favourable for
producing it.
" The first time I was deceived by this extraordi
nary phenomenon, I had clambered up to the summit
of the Brocken, very early in the morning, in order to

48
wait there for the inexpressibly beautiful view of the sun
rising in the east. The heavens were already streaked
with red ; the sun was just aj)pearing above the
horizon in full majesty, and the most perfect serenity
prevailed throughout the surrounding country, when
the other Harz mountains, in the south-west towards
the Worm mountains, &c. lying under the Brocken,
began to be covered by thick clouds. Ascending at
that moment the granite rocks called the Teufelskanzel,
there appeared before me, though at a great distance,
towards the Worm mountains and the Achtermanns-
hohe, the gigantic figure of a man, as if standing on a
large pedestal. But scarcely had I discovered it when
it began to disappear ; the clouds sank down speedily
and expanded, and I saw the phenomenon no more.
" The second time, however, I saw the spectre
somewhat more distinctly, a little below the summit of
the Brocken, and near the Heinrich's-hohe, as I was
looking at the sun rising about four o'clock in the
morning. The weather was rather tempestuous ; the
sky towards the level country was pretty clear, but the
Harz mountains had attracted several thick clouds,
which had been hovering around them, and which,
beginning to settle on the Brocken, confined the pro
spect. In these clouds, soon after the rising of the
sun, I saw my own shadow, of a monstrous size, move
itself for a couple of seconds exactly as I moved ; but

49
I was soon involved in clouds, and the phenomenon
disappeared .
" It is impossible to see this phenomenon except
when the sun is at such an altitude as to throw his
rays upon the body in a horizontal direction ; for, if
he is higher, the shadow is thrown rather under the
body than before it."
Sir D. Brewster has since admirably described and
explained these and various other still more extraor
dinary phenomena in his " Letters on Natural Magic."
One of the best accounts, he there informs us, of
the Spectre of the Brocken, is that which is given by
M.Haufe, who saw it on the 23d of May, 1797. "After
having been on the summit of the mountain no less
than thirty times, he had at last the good fortune of
witnessing the object of his curiosity. The sun rose
about four o'clock in the morning through a serene
atmosphere. In the south-west, towards Achtermanns
hohe, a brisk west wind carried before it the trans
parent vapours which had not yet been condensed into
thick heavy clouds. About a quarter past four he
went towards the inn, and looked round to see whether
the atmosphere would afford him a free prospect to
wards the south-west, when he observed at a very
great distance, towards Achtermannshohe, a human
figure of a monstrous size. His hat having been
almost carried away by a violent gust of wind, he
F

50
suddenly raised his hand to his head to protect his
hat, and the colossal figure did the same. He imme
diately made another movement, by bending his body,
an action which was repeated by the spectral figure.
M. Haue was desirous of making further experiments,
but the figure disappeared. He remained, however, in
the same position, expecting its return, and in a few
minutes it again made its appearance on the Achter
mannshohe, when it mimicked his gestures as before.
" He then called the landlord of the inn, and having
both taken the same position which he had before,
they looked towards the Achtermannshohe, but saw
nothing. In a very short time, however, two colossal
figures were formed over the above eminence, and
after bending and imitating the gestures of the two
spectators, they disappeared.
" Retaining their position, and keeping their eyes
still fixed upon the spot, the two gigantic spectres
again stood before them, and were foined by a third.
Every movement that they made was imitated by the
three figures, but the effect varied in its intensity,
being sometimes weak and faint, and at other times
strong and well defined." — Letters on Nat. Mag. p. 130.
Coleridge made the profound, although seemingly
trivial, remark that no animal but man appears ever
to be struck with wonder. He was fond of amusing
himself aud his fellow tourists by asking the de-

51
finition of some particular word, closing the inquiry,
after each had exercised his ingenuity, with his own,
which we seldom failed, with due submission to him,
to consider the best.
When we were ascending the Brocken, and ever and
anon stopping to take breath, as well as to survey the
magnificent scene, a long discussion took place upon
the sublime and beautiful. We had much of Burke,
but more of Coleridge. Of beauty much, but more of
sublimity, which was in accordance with the grandeur
of surrounding objects. Many were the fruitless
attempts made to define sublimity satisfactorily,
when Coleridge, at length, pronounced it to consist
in a suspension of the power of comparison.* Terror
has, by many, been considered as essential to sub
limity. It has been said, that " the roar of thunder
or of a cataract, and the beetling cliff suspended half
way betwixt the earth and heaven, threatening to
spread ruin by its fall, impress the mind with feelings
of terror ; and that only such objects produce the

» With reference to this definition, I find the following passage in one of
Coleridge's letters from Germany, inserted in the "Friend," Dec. 1809 : — Speak
ing of a thaw of the frozen lake ot Ratzeburg, he says, " During the whole
night, such were the thunders and bowlings of the breaking ice, that they
have left a conviction on my mind, that there are sounds more sublime than
any sight can be, more absolutely suspending the power of comparison, and
more utterly absorbing the mind's self-consciousness, in its total attention
to the object working upon it."

52
sentiment of sublimity." This is sadly to degrade the
most powerful and noblest emotion of the human
mind. How much more closely beauty is allied to it,
is finely illustrated in the following passage from
Washington Irving's " Account of Himself" — where,
speaking of America, he says, " Her mighty lakes,
like oceans of liquid silver ; her mountains, with
their bright aerial tints ; her valleys, teeming with
wild fertility ; her tremendous cataracts, thundering
in their solitudes ; her boundless plains, waving with
spontaneous verdure ; her broad deep rivers, rolling
in solemn silence to the ocean ; her trackless forests,
where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence ; her
skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and
glorious sunshine ; no, never need an American look
beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful
of natural scenery." Neither can it, I think, be
denied that the exclamation of a French traveller, in
the gorge of the pass leading to Loch Katrine, was
true to nature, albeit quite en Francois. " Ah !" ex
claimed he, under the overwhelming emotions of the
moment, " Je sens et je ne pense pas."
For myself, I can attest that when I first caught a
view of the Alps of Switzerland, I stood, with my
companion Parry, in mute astonishment ; all our facul
ties were, for a while, completely absorbed in the
sublimity of the view before us ; there was no terror

53
blended with our sensations ; we seemed to be exalted
above the earth, in the contemplation, as it were, of
other worlds extending far into the sky.
So, on another occasion, in company and in mutual
communion with the same well-beloved friend, I ex
perienced emotions equally allied to sublimity, but
under circumstances, as to situation, the reverse of
those I have been mentioning.
We were passing the southern extremity of the crest
of that lofty ridge of mountains, which divides Sweden
from Norway, and, after toiling a long summer-day
through defiles of rocks and over roads such as never,
we supposed, were passed before with wheels, we
reached, a little before sunset, the summit of the
mountain ridge, when there burst upon us a scene of
such immense extent and grandeur, as to fulfil to
the utmost the Sublime Attribute of Incomparability.
The atmosphere had been swept by a brisk wind ;
there was not a cloud nor a vapour in the sky to ob
struct our vision, and, losing sight of the world of
rocks beneath us, we abandoned ourselves to the luxury
of the triumph we had achieved, and contemplated,
with irresistible and undivided attention, the vast
Atlantic stretching, northwards and southwards, far
beyond the visible boundaries of the Continent, yet
forming an horizontal girdle, brilliant beyond con
ception with the effulgence of the setting sun, and
F 3

54
embracing in our imaginations half the periphery of
the earth.*
Our emotions, on both the above occasions,Avere those
of intense delight and mute wonder, very different indeed
from what we once experienced on the river Torneo.f
The town of that name is situated at the embouchure
of the river into the northern extremity of the Gulph
of Bothnia ; and about a hundred and twenty miles
higher up, just under the Arctic circle, there is^ rapid
descent in the bed of this magnificent stream, down
which the immense body of water rolls with increasing
* The following quotation from Akenside may serve to illustrate the trans
ition of the beautiful into the sublime, and the incompatibility of terror
with either : — " Ask the swain
Who journies homewards from a summer-day's
Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils.
And due repose, he loiters to behold
The sunshine gleaming, as through amber clouds,
O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween,
His rude expression and untutored airs,
Beyond the power of language, will unfold
The form of beauty smiling at his heart."
Such a scene, contemplated from the summit of a momitain, would produce
the emotion of sublimity rather than that of beauty ; or, at any rate, delight
nearer akin than beauty to a suspension of the mental powers. But let a
fearful precipice suddenly interpose ; and the spectator, alike insensible to
the spell of beauty or of sublimity, will recoil instinctively with horror, and
think only of the danger from which he has to escape.
t This, it must be owned, is a somewhat rapid stride for the purpose of
illustration. From Switzerland, over the mountains of Norway, to Tomeo!
And somewhat ominous perhaps in respect of the subject illustrated. But
there is no boundary to thought ; neither milestones to reminiscence. After
ascending the river Tomeo to about the 70th degree of north latitude, we were
so furiously beset by mosquitoes as to be compelled to return to the town,
where, fortunately for us, there were none of those terrible foes.

55
force till it reaches what is more properly the fall.
Here it acquires the rapidity of an arrow, accom
panied with a deafening roar, to which that of Trol-
hotta is scarcely comparable ; and which is nowhere,
I believe, surpassed on this side the Atlantic.
In ascending the river, our boat had with difficulty
been hauled along its northern border by our boat
men, in order to pass this tremendous fall, which,
with the accompanying tumult and noise of waters,
afforded, at this time, unmixed sensations of sub
limity. But how different were our feelings when
we descended the same fall some days after !
It was about midnight, early in July. The sun had
dipped below the horizon, whilst its rays faintly
illumined the summit of mount Avasaxa ; the light
was that of a summer-morning at sunrise. The whole
of the preceding day we had been gliding down
wards with a celerity which, contrasted with our slow
ascent, caused us to approach the fall sooner than
we expected ; we caught a momentary perception of
our apparently imminent danger, but there was no
stopping the ship, and our boatmen thought it better
to take us by surprise. The brief interval which
preceded our shooting the fall was awful enough. For
an instant our faculties were suspended ; but so far
was the grandeur of the scene from being enhanced
by the terror which the sense of danger inspired,
that the contrary effect was produced, and we

56
were annihilated rather than under any spell of
sublimity.* The rapids here alluded to are known by the name of
the Cataracts of Kattila ; and in Dr. Clarke's " Travels
in Scandinavia," there will be found an admirable ac
count of them, as well as of every thing appertaining to
Lapland. But I have by me an extract relating, chiefly,
to the same cataracts, which I made at Gottingen
from a scarce book in the library of that university —
" Reise — Beschreibung nach Lapland und Both-
nien von Gottlieb David Friedrich Scheller, annis
1705-6-7-8." " Travels of G. D. F. Scheller, in Lapland and
Bothnia, in the years 1705-6-7-8." —
Which extract I shall insert here in the author's
* Much as I may have been inclined at the time, and since, to admire
the simplicity and precision of Coleridge's definition of sublimity, I agree
with my friend. Dr. Kingston, that it is a description rather than a defini
tion J a description too of an emotion which not merely causes a sus
pension of the comparing power, but of all the powers of the mind-f
And "herein," he justly remarks, "is the difference between sublimity
and beauty ; for as the sublime overcomes our faculties, the beautifiil
awakens them. Beauty persuades and sooths us : we reflect, examine, and
compare; it fills us with delight, and we are eloquent in its praise. But
sublimity prostrates and subdues us, leaving us no power to judge, and no
desire to commend. Longinus attempts no definition of the sublime, but
merely describes its peculiar and distinctive effects. In fact, sublimity and
beauty are not qualities of the object, but affections of the mind ; and the same
thing may seem to be invested with the one character or the other, according
to the accidental condition, or the original constitution of the observer."

i- It must be admitted, nevertheless, that contemplation is essentially
Inherent in the emotion. " 'I'ho lieavens iloclare the jjlory of God," and
are the sublimcst object of contemplation. In like manner all the Attri
butes of Divinity— as Omnipresence. Omniscience, Eternitv. Immensity,
&c., arc sublime.

57
own words, in which it requires to be read for its
quaintness and originality. The subjoined translation
will only be acceptable to those who are not familiar
with the German language.
" Ich vor meine wenige Person reisete anno 1708 im
Sommer, solem inocciduum zu observiren, noch 30
Meilen von Tome hinauf nach Norden, da hab ich
erfahren, mit was vor Beschwerlichkeit, ja Lebens
Gefahr man reisen miisse. Kein bequemer Weg zu
Lande gehet nach Lapland, das Land ist sumpficht
und waldicht. Ich muste mich mit einem Fahrzeug
oder kleinen langlicht verfertigten Schifflein auf den
Torne Fluss hinauf fiihren, und durch recht grausame
Wasser-Forsche ziehen und schleppen lassen. Ein
Forsch ist ein solcher Ort in einem Nordlandischen
Fluss, in welchem viel grosse Steine, so wie Klippen
anzusehen, von Natur liegen. Wenn nun der Fluss, der
zwar sonst an andern Orten, welche ohne solche Steine
sind, gantz sanfft und stille gehet, ja als reses oder
stillstehend scheinet, an einem solchen felsigten Ort
stosset, da entstehen viele tausend und iiber ein
ander schlagende Wellen, und sich drehende
Wirbel. Da ist ein solch wallen, knallen, toben,
spritzen, schlagen und turniren, dass man sein eigen
Wort nicht horen kan. Aufwerts oder contra flumen
ist es sehr beschwerlich zu reisen, und gehet gar
langsam. Damuss ein Mann an Strande, wen Weg
ist, gehen, einen Strick iiber die Achsel nehmen und

58
das Schifflein ziehen. Im Riickweg, oder secundum
flumen, schiesst das Schiff, oder Fahrzeug, wie eine
fahrende und sich bald da bald dorthin geschwind
wendende Schlange zwischen den Steinen und Klippen
fort. Diese Fahrzeuge werden des wegen lang und
dabey schmal gebault, damit man desto ungehinderter
durch die Steine fahren konne. Da muss man einen
guten Steuermann zu sich nehmen, der alle Steine
kennet, den Weg gelernet hat und sich zu achten weiss,
sonst wird man von der macht des Wassers an einen
Stein geschlagen, dass das Schiff zu Trummern gehet,
und mancher sein Leben lassen muss. Die Sommer-
Reisen werden auch einem durch die vielen Miichen
beschwerlich geraacht. Denn Lapland pfleget des
Sommers mit sehr viel Miichen erfiillet zu werden,
dass sie sich um einem herum wie dicke Wolken,
sammlen. Wenn einer reiset, so ist immer einMucheu
Vortex um einem, und wenn Mann wandert, so wandert
der Vortex auch mit, also dass ein Reisender gleichsam
das centrum seyn muss. Sie machen nicht nur ein
verdriesslich Gesumme, sondern thun auch mit ihren
Stechen, Beissen und blute Saugen grossen Schaden,
und lassen einem weder Tag noch Nacht Ruhe. Sie
sind gar nicht fortzubringen, sondern viel ehe zu
ergreiffen und zu todten.
" Aus diesen ursachen reisen die Bothnier, insonder-
heit die Biirger zu Torne, liiber im Winter mit denen
Renuthieren. Sic bedieuen sich des Compasses, weil

59
ohne dem, wenn lauter schnee und keine Bahu ist,
nicht fortzukommen. Nach der Kalte fragen die
Herren Tornenser auf solcher Reise nichts. Sie haben
sehr starcke Naturen, dazu sie vielleicht gelangen
durch ihre drey privat-Doctores (1) Toback, (2) den
Brandewein, (3) die Badstuben. Die Badstuben sind
sonderlich in Torne sehr ublich, da badet und schwitzet
man schier alle Wochen, und damit von der haut alle
Unsauberkeit abgehe, auch der Leib fein frisch werde,
haiiet man sich mit Besen, von Birchen-Reisig,
dariiber ich mich offt verwundert." — Aus der Reise-
Beschreibung nach Lapland und Bothnien von Gottlieb
David Friedrich Scheller. Anno 1705-6-7-8.
"I, for my little self, travelled in the summer of
1708, thirty miles to the north of Torneo, to see the
inoccidental sun at midnight, not without experiencing
the diflniculty, and even danger to life, of such a
journey. There is no convenient way by land to Lap
land ; the soil is swampy and woody. I therefore had
to ascend the river Torneo in a wherry, or little bark,
long and light, so as to admit of its passing the fearful
cataracts with which these northern rivers abound.
A forsch (or cataract) is a place in which masses of
stone, like rocks, have been thrown by nature. When
the river, which in other places, where there are no
such rocks, glides so smoothly along as scarcely to
appear to be in motion, encounters one of these
places, then thousands of waves, rising and dashing

60
one on the other, form a whirlpool. Then is there
such rolling and roaring, dinning, foaming, dashing
and whirling, that a man cannot hear his own voice.*
" To travel upwards, or against the stream, is very
difficult, and the progess very slow. At times, when
there is a path by the river-side, a rope from the little
skiff is thrown over some one's shoulders, and thus it
is drawn along. Downwards, or with the stream, the
boat hurries along, now here now there, between stones
and rocks, and, for this reason, is built long and
narrow, that it may be impeded as little as possible
by such obstacles. In such places there is need of a
good steersman, one who is acquainted with all the
rocks, knows by experience the right course, and how
to guard against danger ; otherwise the boat must be
driven, by the force of the waters, against a rock, be
dashed to atoms, and thus many a life be lost.
" Summer travelling is likewise rendered difficult by
the multitude of mosquitoes ; for in summer, Lapland
is filled with such swarms of these insects, that they
gather about a person like a dense cloud. Let the
traveller move which way he will, a vortex of mosqui
toes moves with him, of which he is the centre.
Neither is their tormenting hum (gesumme) all ; for
they likewise do great injury by their stinging, their-
* No one will suspect Southey of borrowing a hint from the " Travels of
G. D. F. Scheller ;" but this account of the Falls of the Torneo may chance
to remind the reader of the celebrated " Cataract of Lodore," with increasing
admiration of the wonderful fertility of the British Poet's mind*

61

biting, and their blood-sucking ; neither suffering
you to rest day nor night. There is no knowing how
to deal with them. For this reason the Bothnians,
especially the citizens of Torneo, prefer travelling with
reindeer in winter. They make use of a compass, for,
without this, when all is snow and no path, it would
be impossible to get on. Upon such occasions the
Torneo-gentlemen do not trouble themselves about the
cold. They have strong natures of their own, for
which they are probably indebted to their three pri
vate doctors — Tobacco — Brandy— and Baths. These
latter especially are in great favour at Torneo, where
the custom is, every week, to bathe and sweat, and
thus remove from the skin every impurity, whilst a
fine freshness is imparted to the whole frame. At the
same time they whip themselves well with birch-
twigs, so as not a little to excite my surprise." — From
the "travels of Gottlieb David Frederick Scheller,
in 1705-6-7-8.
But not only do those scenes in nature vindicate
their claim to sublimity, which overwhelm us by their
grandeur, whilst affording us the purest gratification
— there is a sublimity of a still higher order, for ex
amples of which we must appeal to the Volume of
Inspiration. What comparison shall we find for the
" Bounds of the everlasting hills," and other such
sublime figures scattered over the Bible in endless
profusion ? G

62

" There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun,
who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and his
excellency on the sky.
" The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath
are the everlasting arms." — Deut. xxxiii. 26, 27.
" Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his
hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and compre
hended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed
the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance ?
" Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or,
being His counsellor, hath taught Him ?
" Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and
are counted as the small dust of the balance ; behold,
he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.
" To whom then will ye liken God ? Or what
likeness will ye compare unto Him ?
" It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth,
and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers ; that
stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth
them out as a tent to dwell in.
' " Hast thou not known ? Hast thou not heard, that
the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the
ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?
There is no searching of his understanding." — Is. xl.
What must have been the expansion of thought in
the prophet Habakkuk's mind when, trembling at the
majesty of the Most High, and beseeching Him in
wrath to remember mercy, he could irradiate the
gloom of impending judgment, with the recollection

63
of former kindnesses, and, in a strain of the subfimest
poetry, proclaim to his backsliding countrymen, that
" God came from Teman, and the Holy One from
Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and
the earth was full of His praise. And His brightness
was as the light. He (who in another part of Scripture
is said to cover himself with light as with a garment)
had beams of light coming out of his side ; and there
was the hiding of his power. Before Him went the
pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.
He stood and measured the earth ; He beheld, and
drove asunder the nations ; and the everlasting
mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did
bow ; His ways are everlasting."*
But examples of sublimity might be multipled for
ever out of the Bible — discoursing, as does that in
spired volume throughout, of what mortal eye hath
not seen, nor ear heard ; and raising us, as it does,
from time to eternity ; from the footstool to the throne
of that " eternal, immortal, invisible Being," who
* These instances. of sublime from the Scriptures, do not surpass the
celebrated example quoted by Longinus De Subl. a. 9. from Moses — " Let
there be light, and there was light." He quotes it thus, " God said — what ?
Let light be, and it was ! ! " To this he adds, singularly enough, a second
clause not in the Hebrew, " Let earth be, and it was." — Dr. H.
Mr. Dugald Stewart in like manner remarks, " Let there be light, and
there was light," has been quoted as an instance of sublime writing, by
almost every critic from the time of Longinus ; and that its sublimity arises
partly from the divine brevity with which it expresses the instantaneous
effect of the creative fiat ; partly from the religious sentiment which it iden
tifies with our conception of the moment, when the earth was first visited by
the day-spring from on high."
G 2

64
maketh the " clouds his chariot, and who walketh on
the wings of the wind."
We descended the Brocken very little incommoded
by our refection, and consequently with clear heads,
so that Coleridge was enabled in the evening to enrich
the album at our inn at Werningerode, where we spent
the night, as well as the journals of his companions,
with the following lines, which have since appeared in
print among his Sibylline Leaves.*
" I stood on Brocken's sovran height, and saw
Woods crowding upon woods, hills over hills,
A surging scene, and only limited
By the blue distance. Heavily my way
Downward I dragged through fir-groves evermore.
Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral forms
Speckled with sunuhine ; and, but seldom heard.
The sweet bird's song became an hollow sound ;
And the breeze, murmuring indivisibly,
Preserved its solemn murmur most distinct
From many a note of many a waterfall,
And the brook's chatter ; 'mid whose islet stones
The dingj' kidling with its tinkling bell
Leapt frolicsome, or old romantic goat
Sat, his white beard slow waving. I moved on
In low and languid mood ; for 1 had found
That outward forms, the loftiest, still receive
Their finer influence from the life within ;
Fair cyphers of vague import, where the eye
Traces no spot, in which the heart may readf
• These lines likewise appeared in " The Amulet" for IS29, and still more
recently among the " Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge," published in three
elegant little volumes, a short time before his death.
t " Fair cyphers else ; fair, but of import vague
Or uneonccrning, where the heart not finds."— Por/. Worlcs, vol. i. p. 188.

65

History or prophecy of friend or child,
Or gentle maid, our first and early love.
Or father, or the venerable name
Of our adored country ! O, thou queen,
Thou delegated deity of earth,
O dear, dear England ! how my longing eyes
Turned westward, shaping in the steady clouds
Thy sands and high white cliffs !
My native land !
Filled with the thought of thee this heart was proud.
Yea, mine eyes swam with tears ; that all the view
From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills,
Floated away, like a departing dream,
Feeble and dim ! Stranger, these impulses
Blame thou not lightly ; nor will I profane,
With hasty judgment or injurious doubt.
That man's sublimer spirit, who can feel
That God is every where ! the God who framed
Mankind to be one mighty family,
Himself our father, and the world our home.''
At the little inn on the Brocken, we fell in with a
collection of stammbuchs (albums), illustrative of the
truth with which one of them commenced, viz., that
" all travellers who succeeded in achieving the ascent
of the mountain would naturally seek the further
distinction of enrolling their names in the Brocken-
stammbuch." But this was not enough — they usually
claimed here, as elsewhere, the additional honour of
adding to their names some observations in prose
or verse commemorative of their feelings at the
time. With this custom, several of our party com
plied ; and although Coleridge reserved his greater
G 3

66
effort for Elbingerode, yet the following lines, in
scribed in the Brocken-stammbuch by  , were
dictated by him : —
" 'Tis sweet to him who all the week
Through city crowds must push his way.
To stroll alone through woods and fields.
And hallow thus the Sabbath day.
" But what is all ',o his delight.
Who, having long been doomed to roam.
Throws off the bundle firom his back
Before the door of his own home.
" Home sickness is no baby-pang —
That feel I hourly more and more ;
There 's healing only in thy wings,
Thou breeze that play'st on Albion's shore."
 wrote the following, from Milton : —

" About me round I saw.
Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains.
And liquid lapse of murmuring streams, by these
Creatures that lived and moved and walked or flew ;
Birds on the branches warbling ; all things smiled
With fragrance, and with joy my heart o'erflowed."
And as Coleridge had alluded to Albion's shore, our
young friend Frederick Parry must needs say some
thing too of old England, but not being equally in
spired by the muses, he wrote down in plain English,
that " as the Brocken majestically towers over the
surrounding hills, so does England, the queen of
isles, soar above the other nations of the earth."

67
We much admired his modesty, and took the oppor
tunity of commenting upon the well-known pro
pensity of English travellers to carry the said feeling
of superiority somewhat too far. But Frederick was
young, and what his heart felt his pen expressed.
Almost every where on the Continent, these albums
(Germanic^ stammbuchs) claim the traveller's attention,
and constitute no bad criterion of the intercourse of
any particular place with the rest of the world.
During the long war of the Revolution, they presented
comparatively few notices of English travellers, to
whom the south of Europe in particular was for many
years closed ; insomuch, that at the inn in the
Valley of Chamouni, so frequented by our country
men in peaceful times, it was difficult to catch the
name of an Englishman on the pages of its album,
when I looked them over, in the summer of 1802,
during the opportunity afforded by the short peace
of Amiens,
The Germans, of all mortals the most imagina
tive, take extraordinary delight in their albums ;
and Coleridge being a Noticeable Englandee,
and a poet withal, was not unfrequently requested
to favour with a scrap of verse persons who had
no very particular claims upon his muse. As a spe
cimen of the playful scintillations of this gifted
man upon such occasions, I subjoin the following
quatrain, which he wrote when about to leave the

68
university, in the stammbuch of a Gottingen student,
who had attended the same course of lectures
(Collegium) with him : —
" We both attended the same college,
Where sheets of paper we did blur many.
And now we're going to sport our knowledge.
In England I, and you in Germany."
Thus seizing the only circumstance which there pro
bably was in common between his German friend and
himself, and enshrining a thought which would be
likely to lose nothing by a free transfusion into his
friend's German, with good measure of note and
comment illustrative of his fellow collegian.
Of the many topics of conversation which occupied
us during this eight days' tour, the celebrated Sir J.
Mackintosh formed one. I have been informed
that Coleridge first became acquainted with him
at the house of his friend Mr. Wedgewood, where
subjects drawn from the inmost recesses of the mind,
and, happily perhaps, beyond the reach of ordinary
capacities, were freely discussed ; and, as it must have
been a complete war of Greeks, the tug, no doubt,
was at times terrible. Coleridge, however honour
able the testimony he has elsewhere borne of him,
spoke to us of Mackintosh as of a man who was dis
posed to hold every one cheap whose talents were not,
in his opinion, of a superior order ; and, at the same
time, he told us, without mincing the matter, that

69
he thought very highly of himself, i. e. Coleridge
himself. Tom Poole,* he said, would have been the best match
for him ; for if Mackintosh had stopped him in his
argument, as an unsound logician, telling him that his
major was bad, his minor defective, &c., Poole would
have replied, " My ideas are too important to require
or even to admit, of such dress. Your logical deduc
tions aud scholastic reasoning are mere trash. Take
but half the pains to understand me, that you take to
refute me, by entangling me in your logical network,
and you may chance to acquire knowledge worth pos
sessing." In short, it was evident that Coleridge,
at the period of our tour, had no great liking for Mack
intosh, whatever may have been the cause ; and this,
notwithstanding Mackintosh carried the high opinion
he entertained of him to the length of afterwards
inviting him to accompany him as a " talking com
panion'' to India, in which capacity he would cer
tainly have been no small acquisition.
Coleridge must have been in a capricious mood, and
under the influence of no small chagrin, when he
wrote that eccentric and bitter lampoon, " The
Two Round Spaces on the Tombstone," of which I
have preserved a copy ; but I never expected nor
wished to have seen it in print ; neither can the
• Mr. Poole, of Stowey, so many of whose interesting letters adorn
Dr. Paris's Life of Sir H. Davy.

70
special pleading with which it was not long since
introduced into a celebrated magazine, change the
character of the vindictive spirit in which it appears
to have been conceived and written* ; any more than
the specious psychological vindication which Coleridge
has himself prefixed to the republication of
" Fire — Famine — and Slaughter,"
among his " Sibylline Leaves," can make any earthly
being, of common sense, a convert to his wire-drawn
argumentation and unphilosophical sentimentality.
The world, in general, will judge of things as it finds
them ; and, if evil be on the face of the production,
it will be to little purpose to say that it is mere froth
from the milk of human kindness, as Coleridge would
have his readers suppose with respect to this metrical
and truly Satanic composition, yclept a " War
Eclogue. "t
* This very Epitaph has likewise, I am sorry to say, been since published,
by Coleridge himself, in the last edition of his poetical works, and under
shelter too of the same lame apology as that prefixed to his " Fire — Famine
— and Slaughter."
i It is true that Coleridge has prefixed to his " Apologetic Preface" the
following quotations : —
" Me dolor ineautum, me lubrica duxerit EEtas,
Me tumor impulerit, me devius egerit ardor ;
Te tamen haud decuit paribus concurrere telis,
En adsum : veniam, confessus crimina, posco."
Claud. Epist. ad Sad.
" There is one that slippeth in his speech, but not from his heart ; and who
is he that hath not offended with his tongue?" — Ecclesiasticus, xix. 16.
But the "Apology" is throughout defensive, and his " Veniam, confessus
erimina, posco," noways applicable to it.

71
I am sorry to feel obliged to press this point home
more closely ; but the attempt which has lately been
made by some of Coleridge's intemperate eulogists, to
uphold him, even in that metaphysical sophistry with
which he has dared at times to invade the borders of
plain sense, requires to be met by proofs from his own
writings, that the state of mind in which he invoked
the muses to aid him in his fierce Philippic against
Pitt, must really have been what the impassioned
words imply, and not the mere abstraction of a poetical
and powerful, but playful genius, elaborating innoxious
venom, as he would fain have it supposed, out of the
milk of human kindness itself.
At the very moment of my revising my notes, a little
book, published at Bristol in 1795, and entitled " Con
ciones ad Populum," or " Addresses to the People, by
S. T. Coleridge," was put into my hand. Copies of
this little book are, I presume, scarce, for I find it
alluded to in one only* of the numerous biographical
notices of Coleridge ; nor does he, as far as I know,
allude to it in any of his own subsequent writings ; but
murder will out, and in bringing it here to light for
the purpose of illustration, I only do society that jus
tice to which it has a right.
Coleridge, in after life, showed, by the part he took,
that his opinions, relative to the character of the French
• Gent. Mag. Nov. 1834.

72

Revolutionary war, had undergone a complete change ;
and it could not have failed to occur to him, that he
had done infinite injustice to " the Pilot who wea
thered the storm," by imputing to him motives of
conduct worthy of none but the fiend, to whom he
therefore likened him. It need not be said how much
more he would have consulted his own future fame,
had he pleaded guilty to this foul offence committed
in his day of political frenzy, instead of attempting to
fritter away its atrocity by mental fallacies and a
sort of psychological special pleading, which essayed
to set up the pretensions of ill-defined motives, and a
licentious imagination, in opposition to the plainest
letters of the law. He admits that " Poems calcu
lated to give offence to good men, cannot well be
justified ;" and that " their moral deformity is aggra
vated in proportion to the pleasure which they are
capable of affording to vindictive, turbulent, and
unprincipled readers." Yet so far is he from express
ing due contrition, that he discharges his heart of
all guilt, and after contending stoutly for the anoma
lous absurdity that we are not, in his case, to judge of
the tree by the fruit, as if determined to try to what
extent he might trifle with the common sense of man
kind, he closes his defence by assuring us, that " if he
knew his own heart, there was never a moment in his
existence in which he would have been more ready,
had Mr. Pitt's person been in hazard, to interpose his

73
own body, and defend that minister's life at the risk
of his own," than that in which he wrote the cele
brated " War Eclogue."*
Now even if we had nothing but the evidence of the
poem itself to guide us, we might deem this contempt
ible equivocation ; but so far were the lines in ques
tion from being " neither more nor less than a sport
of fancy," that we have the most conclusive proof in
his " Addresses to the People" at that time, that
the heart itself must have been the very fountain
from whence the bitter waters flowed.
In the last of his " Conciones ad Populum," in allu
sion to the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, he
exclaims, "It is an insult to tell us that we cannot
suffer death at the pleasure of a minister, as is the
case under arbitrary governments. Suffer death ! we
can be torn from the bleeding breast of domestic
affection ; we can be thrown into foul and damp
dungeons ; we can hear of the death of a dearly-loved
wife, heart-broken by our imprisonment, till, over
powered by disease and wounded sensibilities, we sink
into the grave ; or if we live, live only to wish, in bit
terness of soul, that the ' Almighty had not placed
his canon against self-murder.' And what if the
Habeas Corpus Act be restored ? O degenerate
people, aud -bloated with the emptiness of recollected
* Sibylline Leaves, p. 97.
H

74

liberty ! Sylla may resign the dictatorship, but alas !
he will have given a tempting proof to Caesar, how
much ye can endure.
" Who is this minister, to whom we have thus im
plicitly trusted every blessing? Are his qualities
commensurate with the giant evils which he has
occasioned ? My mind may be jaundiced by my
abhorrence of the man's actions ; but whether truth or
prejudice be the source of my failure, I must acknow
ledge that having investigated attentively the speeches
and measures of William Pitt, I am as little able to
discover genius in the one, as virtue in the other. I
think of Edmund Burke's declamatory invectives with
emotion ; yet while I shudder at the excesses, I must
admire the strength of this Hercules Furens of oratory.
But our premier's harangues ! — Mystery concealing
meanness, as steam-clouds envelope a dunghill. To
rouse the fears of the wealthy, and the prejudices of
the ignorant, is an easy task for one who possesses
the privilege of manufacturing royal eloquence and
sticking up royal hand-bills. In the outset of his
political career he did indeed utter some sentences
which a man and a citizen might acknowledge ; and
that his present conduct might not lose the advan
tages of contrast, he ably supported Mr. Fox's motion
to facilitate a peace with America. "The war," he
said, " was conceived in injustice and nurtured in
folly ; it was pregnant with every kind of mischief,

75
and with every thing that constituted moral depravity
and human turpitude. While in black revenge it
meditated the destruction of others, the mischief re
coiled upon the unhappy and deluded people of this
country." William Pitt observed, that " by this
iniquitous and unjust war, the nation was drained of
its vital resources of men and money." William Pitt
exclaimed, that " our expenses were enormous, while
our victories were indecisive, and our defeats fatal —
victories, celebrated with short-lived triumphs, over
men struggling in the holy cause of freedom, and
defeats which filled the land with mourning. All
this — O calumniated Judas Iscariot ! — all this William
Pitt said."*
And all this— O calumniated W. Pitt— did S. T. C.
say of the man whose life he would have defended at
the risk of his own ! ! !
" In opposing the Address to his Majesty, on the
Speech delivered from the Throne after the capture of
Lord Cornwallis, William Pitt observed, that ' in the
better days of Parliament, the attempt to entrap the
House into a countenance of assertions wholly unex
plained and unexamined, on the mere authority of a
minister, would have been treated with the indigna
tion and severity it deserves.' ' The fact was,' he
said, ' that the war was an appendage to the First

« Conciones ad Populum, p. 54.
H 2

76
Lord of the Treasury, too dear to be parted with ; it
was the grand pillar raised on the ruins of the con
stitution, by which he held his situation.'
" This man, William Pitt, did not then know that
he should be a minister, compared with whom Lord
North might be canonized ; and that with unheard-of
artifices, and oppressions that may not be named, he
should carry on a causeless war against a patriot
people, more fertile in horrors even than the Ameri
cans." In conclusion, after summing up in long
array the shocking excesses of that most frightful
period of the Revolution, when Robespierre presided
over the guillotine, he asks " Who, my brethren !
was the cause of this guilt, if not He, who supplied
the occasion and the motive ? Heaven hath bestowed
on that man a portion of its ubiquity, and given him
an actual presence in the sacraments of hell, whenever
administered, in all the bread of bitterness, in all the
cups of blood." — Con. ad Pop. p. 67.
If the above is not to be taken as decisive evidence
of the animus of the poet, when he wrote his War
Eclogue, yclept Fire — Famine — and Slaughter, I
know not what stronger evidence could be ad
duced ; but the gravamen of the charge against Cole
ridge, after all, is not so much that he entertained
sentiments which so many political visionaries enter
tained in common with him at the breaking out of the
French Revolution, or that, in common with them, he

77

hated the mighty genius whom it pleased Providence
to raise up in defence of our civil and religious insti
tutions at that awful crisis ; but that subsequently,
when he saw his error, and repudiated the tenets and
projects of his earlier years, he never appears to have
made the amende honorable with that becoming con
trition which would have been the best pledge of his
sincerity, and which truth and wisdom, and the best
interests of society, alike required of him. Even if
it were true that he had merely said bitter things in
sport — yet they were things bitter enough — and I need
not repeat that it was a great aggravation of his offence,
that he should have attempted to palliate them by
dint of sophistry, and have even presumed to affront
by such a compound of metaphysical jargon and ficti
tious philanthropy, a company of whom no less
men than Scott and Davy formed part.
There is no reason to fear (even judging from the
tone of the scattered fragments which have already
appeared respecting him) that ample justice will not
be done to his memory ; and it surely is of importance
that a portrait, which will be contemplated with so
much admiration, should be rendered as faithful as
possible. As a gift to posterity, it would be comparatively
worthless without the spots observable on the living
counterpart. H 3

78

So much are these iny impressions, that I even think
it should be known that he, who became the strenuous
defender of the Protestant Church generally, and of
the Church of England in particular, was at one period
of his life its most virulent detractor. Yes, he who in
1817 could write as follows : — " We can say, that our
church, apostolical in its faith, primitive in its cere
monies, unequalled in its liturgical forms ; that our
church, which has kindled and displayed more bright
and burning lights of genius and learning, than all
other Protestant Churches since the Reformation, was
(with the single exception of the times of Laud and
Sheldon) least intolerant, when all Christians unhap
pily deemed a species of intolerance their religious
duty ; that bishops of our church were among the
first that contended against this error ; and finally,
that since the Reformation, when tolerance became a
fashion, the Church of England, in a tolerating age,
has shown herself eminently tolerant, and far more so,
both in spirit and in fact, than many of her most
bitter opponents, who profess to deem toleration
itself an insult on the rights of mankind ? As to my
self, who not only know the Church Establishment to
be tolerant, but who see in it the greatest, if not the
sole safe bulwark of toleration, I feel no necessity of
defending or palliating oppressions under the two
Charleses, in order to exclaim with a full and fervent
heart, Esto perpetua /"

79
Yes, he who in 1817 could thus write, and as we
verily believe " with a full and fervent heart," in 1795
expressed himself as follows : —
" It is recorded in the shuddering hearts of Christ
ians, that while Europe is reeking with blood, and
smoking with unextinguished fires, in a contest of
unexampled crimes and unexampled calamities, every
bishop but one voted for the continuance of the war.
They deemed the fate of their religion to be involved
in the contest ! Not the religion of peace, my brethren,
not the religion of the meek and lowly Jesus, which
forbids to his disciples all alliance with the powers of
this world — but the religion of mitres and mysteries,
the religion of pluralities and persecution, the eighteen-
thousand-pound-a-year religion of episcopacy. Instead
of the ministers of the gospel, a Roman might recog
nize in these dignitaries the high-priests of Mars — ¦
with this diflFerence, that the ancients fatted their
victims for the altar, we prepare ours for sacrifice by
leanness  Wherever men's temporal interests de
pend on the general belief of disputed tenets, we must
expect to find hypocrisy and a persecuting spirit, a
jealousy of investigation, and an endeavour to hold the
minds of the people in submissive ignorance. That
pattern of Christian meekness. Bishop Horsley, has
declared it to be the vice of the age and government
that it has suft'ered a free and general investigation of
the most solemn truths that regard society — and there

80
is a remark in the last charge of the disinterested
Bishop Pretyman, that the same busy spirit which
inclines men to be Unitarians in religion, drives them
into republicanism in politics. And truly, the most
exalted forms of society are cemented and preserved
by the purest notions of religion. But whatever I may
deem of the justice of their lordships' observations,
the prudence aud policy of them have gained my im
mediate assent. Alas ! what room would there be for
bishops or priests in a religion where Deity is the only
object of reverence, and our immortality the only
article of faith — immortality made probable to
us by the light of nature, and proved to us by
the resurrection of Jesus. Him the high priests
crucified ; but he has left us a religion, which
shall prove fatal to every high priest ; a religion,
of which every true Christian is the priest, his
own heart the altar, the universe its temple, and
errors and vices its only sacrifices. Ride on, mighty
Jesus ! because of thy words of truth, of love, and
equality ! The age of priesthood will soon be no
more — that of philosophers and of Christians will
succeed, and the torch of superstition be extinguished
for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that
generous loyalty to rank, which is prodigal of its own
virtue and its own happiness to invest a few with
unholy splendours ; that subordination of the heart,
which keeps alive the spirit of servitude amid the

81
empty forms of boasted liberty ! This dear-bought
grace of cathedrals, this costly defence of despotism,
this nurse of grovelling sentiment and cold-hearted
lip-worship, will be gone ; it will be gone, that sensi
bility to interest, that jealous tenacity of honors,
which suspects in every argument a mortal wound ;
which inspires oppression while it prompts servility ;
which stains indelibly whatever it touches ; and under
which supple dulness loses half its shame by wearing
a mitre where reason would have placed a foolscap !
The age of priesthood will be no more. Peace to its
departing spirit ! With delighted ears should I
listen to some fierce orator from St. Omers' or from
Bedlam, who would weep over its pageantries rent
and faded, and pour forth eloquent nonsense on a
funeral oration."* — Tb. p. 88.
Prolific as the age in which we live is in examples of
political inconsistency — where shall we meet with one
equally glaring with this ?
Coleridge, it is true, has left us affecting evidence
that towards the close of his life he felt considerable

* It was not without some hesitation that I decided on printing these
extraordinary exemplifications of the effect of times and circumstances upon
even the strongest minds. The friends of Coleridge will forgive my doing
80, in consideration of the important lesson they contribute to the volume of
human history, and of the striking illustration they afford of the distraction
of the moral and political elements of society, at that fearful period when
the hurricane of the French Revolution burst upon the world.

82
self-abasement, and looked forward to a blissful eter
nity through the sole merits of his Redeemer. Yet
extreme sorrow for the aberrations of his early life
is nowhere a prominent item in his inventory of him
self ; insomuch that with whatever candour, or even
partiality, we contemplate him, it is hardly possible to
escape from the observation that he regarded with too
little compunction the egregious follies of his youth.
And may we not make it a useful comment on the
difficult chapter of Christian humility, that he who,
with so much confidence and such extraordinary pene
tration, set himself up for an expositor of the things
hard to be understood, of an inspired apostle, was
himself at so great a distance from that favoured indi
vidual, in the grace so conspicuously displaced by him
when contrasting his latter with his former course of
life— the triumph of the persecuted Christian with the
loathings of the persecuting Jew.
The vicious and bitter effusions of genius are relished,
because there is in human nature, unsubdued by the
Christian religion, a tendency to evil, which it is the
part and the bounden duty of the genuine philosopher
to correct, and not to abet. But if we are at issue on
this account, with a man possessed of so many re
deeming qualities as Coleridge ; what shall we say of
his poetical congeners Byron and Shelley, whose bril
liant talents were in subservience to the most unbri-

83
died waywardness of genius.* With what avidity, and
danger of irretrievable perdition, will not libertines,
throughout all succeeding ages, under the shelter of
ininiitable poetry, imbibe the sentiments which they
delight to pour forth from the poisoned fountains
of their impassioned imaginations ! How has the
former, in particular, in the wanton iuxuriancy of a
depraved heart and reckless fancy, sported with the
victims of his sensitive temperament ! Yet we have
abundant evidence that these are the sort of men who,
of all others, feel most acutely the stings and arrows

* 1 ought, perhaps, to apologize for associating these men together, since,
however superior Byron may be considered to Coleridge as a poet (and even
this is a matter of taste), to compare Coleridge as a moral being either with
Byron or Shelley, would be doing him the greatest injustice.
In 1S29, there was an elegant edition of the poetical works of Coleridge,
Shelley, and Keats, published by Messrs. Galignani, at Paris, in one large
8vo. volume, with the following '* Notice to the Public: — "
" Messrs. Galignani beg leave to intimate, that the present edition of the
works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats, is infinitely more perfect than any of
those published in London ; as they have been favoured, from private
sources, with many original productions of these esteemed writers, which are
now for the first time given to the public ; in addition to which, all tlieir
contributions have been carefully selected from the numerous miscellaneous
publications in which they have from time to time appeared."
The biographical memoirs prefixed to the respective works of each are re
markably well written, and the facts recorded appear to have been drawn
from tolerably authentic sources; but my chief object in this note is to ex
hibit no insignificant evidence of the opinion of the literary community
abroad as to the congeniality of these poets. Alas poor Coleridge ! The
works of Byron have not only been honoured with an independent existence
from the same celebrated press— but have made their appearance, complete or
separate, to an extent which claims for them considerably more than the
space of a single page in a very closely printed advertising list.

84
of criticism, and are most ready to run into the far
thest regions of their besetting metaphysics for an
antidote to the tinyest drop of critical or rival venom
that may have passed upon their ytfounded pride.
" Nothing,'' said Burke, " can be considered more
hard than the heart of a thorough-bred metaphysician.
It comes nearer to the cold malignity of a wicked
spirit, than to the frailty and passion of a man." What
he here says of political is still more applicable to
poetical metaphysicians such as Byron, whose malignity
may indeed be likened to " the principle of Evil him
self, incorporeal, pure, unmixed, dephlegmated, defe
cated evil."
A quotation from his preface to cantos six, seven,
and eight of Don Juan will illustrate this.
" In the course of these cantos," he observes, " a
stanza or two will be found relative to the late Mar
quis of Londonderry. Of the manner of that person's
death little need be said, except that if a poor radical,
such as Waddington or Watson, had cut his throat,
he would have been buried in a cross-road, with the
usual appurtenances of a stake and mallet. But
the minister was an elegant lunatic — a sentimental
suicide — he merely cut the carotid artery (blessings
on their learning), and lo ! the pageant and the
abbey ! and the syllables of dolour yelled forth by the
newspapers, and the harangue of the coroner in an
eulogy over the bleeding body of the deceased (an

85
Antony worthy of such a Caesar), and the nauseous
and atrocious cant of a degraded crew of conspirators,
against all that is sincere and honourable. In his
death he was necessarily one of two things by the law
— a felon or a madman — and in either case no great
subject for panegyric."
The above is very far from all the bitter invective he
vents upon Lord Londonderry, but enough to show the
colour of his own heart — a heart worthy of the senti
ments with which the preface in question concludes.
"With regard to the objections," he proceeds to say,
" which have been made, on another score, to the al
ready published cantos of this poem, I shall content
myself with two quotations from Voltaire : —
" La pudeur s'est enfuite des coeurs et s'es refugiee
sur les levres."
" Plus les moeurs sont depraves, plus les expressions
deviennent mesurees ; on croit regagner en langage ce
qu'on a perdu en vertu."
" This is the real fact, as applicable to the de
graded and hypocritical mass which leavens the pre
sent English generation, and is the only answer they
deserve. The hackneyed and lavished title of blas
phemer, which, with radical, liberal, jacobin, reformer,
&c., are the changes which the hirelings are daily
ringing in the ears of those who will listen — should be
welcome to all who recollect on whom it was originally
I

86
bestowed. Socrates and Jesus Christ were put to
death publicly as blasphemers, and so have been, and
may be, many who dare to oppose the most notorious
abuses of the name of God and the mind of man."
And this from the author of Cain and Don Juan !
The above quotations show clearly enough, that
Byron was an eleve of that impious school, at the head
of which sat, for so many years, Voltaire, whose deter
mined purpose it was to overturn the kingdom of our
Redeemer by " crushing the infamous one," as our
meek and blessed Saviour was pre-eminently desig
nated ; " Ecrasez I'infame," having been handed
down to us as the pass-word of him and his infidel
associates. Against such language vain would be the appeal to
indignant sarcasm. Those were times indeed when,
as finely pourtrayed by Coleridge : —
" Bold with joy,
Forth from his dark and lonely hiding place,
Portentous sight ! the owlet. Atheism,
SaiUng on obscure wings athwart the moon.
Drops his blue fringed lids, and holds them close,
And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven,
Cries out. Where is it ?"*
Yes, Coleridge, with all thy frailties, thou wast an
angel of light, compared with the author of Don Juan !
High as is your veneration of Socrates — to have put
'* Sybilline Leaves, p. G7.

87
him on a footing with the spotless Redeemer of man
kind — and God knows with whom besides — would have
been alike revolting to your feelings, and to your in
tellect, which would have disdained moreover to coun
tenance, for an instant, the glaring fallacy of confound
ing the maledictions of a tumultuous populace, with
the judgments of an enlightened world. ^

* It is my belief that no one has done more injury to the age in which he
lived, and to generations yet to come, than Lord Byron. His works are the
pocket-companions, or rather the manuals and bosom-counsellors of profli
gate men and women in Europe — Asia — and America. Yet so encased is his
licentious heart in the framework of his splendid imagery, that his desperate
votaries worship him as their idol, with reckless determination; whilst
the compunctious visitings of his more cautious devotees constitute but a
feeble resistance to the peril of occasionally luxuriating on his poisoned
banquets. Even some of the best and greatest of his poetic contemporaries were far
from escaping the spell of his enchantments, and, by bearing too flattering
testimony, qualified as it sometimes may have been, to his genius, con
tributed not a little to the extension of its baneful influence.
Sir Walter Scott may he said, on the authority of his own confessions, to
have retired before Byron as a poet.
" Sir H. Davy devoted the brightest etiorts of his salient muse to raise him
from a spirit of darkness to an angel of light." — Br. Davy's Life of Sir H.
Davy, vol. ii. p. 168.
Coleridge alone dared to treat him with the just measure of contempt to
wliich he was entitled.
" Is it not unnatural," he indignantly exclaims, " to be always connecting
very great intellectual powers with utter depravity ? Does such a combination,
after all, really exist in rerum natura ? It seems, to my ear, that there is a
sad want of harmony in Lord Byron's verses." — Table Talk, vol. i. p. 3.
But the question does not so much respect the harmony of Lord Byron's
versification, of which no one was a better judge than Coleridge, nor the
beauty of the plumage, nor the strength of the pinion which enabled him to
soar above the heads of other minstrels, as it does the seductive and immoral
character of their possessor. I 2

" When we hear persons," he exclaims in one of his
Lay Sermons, " the tyranny of whose will is the only
law in their families, denouncing all law as tyranny in
public ; persons whose hatred of power in others is in
exact proportion to their love of it for themselves ;
when we observe men of sunk and irretrievable cha
racter, to whom no man would entrust his wife, his
sister, or his purse, have the effrontery to propose
that we should entrust to them our religion and our
country ; when we meet the patriots who aim at an
enlargement of the rights and liberties of the peo
ple by inflaming the people to acts of madness that
necessitate fetters ; we will call to mind the words of
Solomon, ' There is no new thing under the sun.'
We have heard it with our ears, and it was declared
to our fathers, and in the old time before them, that
one of the main characteristics of demagogues in all
ages, is to practise hypocrisy."
Coleridge always spoke with disrespect of the cele
brated Dr. Darwin, His excessive vanity, he said,
betrayed itself on all occasions ; and he expressed
doubts of the truth of many of the facts brought
forward by him in support of his opinions. His
infidel philosophy he looked upon as most con
temptible. When Coleridge said, that
" Home sickness is no baby-pang,"

89
he was perfectly conscious of the fact himself.* I
remember his writing a long letter to Mrs. Coleridge,
during the latter part of our excursion, which, from
the tone of his feeling at the time he wrote it,
could not have been half so interesting to the lady to
whom it was addressed, on account of the pleasing
description it gave of our tour, part of which he read
to us, as for the warmth of conjugal and parental
feeling which it must have breathed throughout.!
I remember, with reference to some of the fine
scenery he had been depicting, my quoting the first
lines of Mason's Elfrida :
" How nobly does this venerable wood,
Gilt with the glories of the orient sun,
Embosom yon fair mansion ; I should guess —
If ere content deigned visit mortal clime,
This was her place of surest residence:"
when he asked me whose lines they were ; and, singu
larly enough, confessed that he was unacquainted
• He was probably under the influence of Nostalgia, and thinking of his
own little Hartley, &c. when he recited to us the following quaint lines of the
old poet Quarles, of the days of Charles I. : —
" Thy milk white limbs, unswaddled and undress'd.
To sec thee nuzzling in thy mother's breast.
And, when thy forward strength began to bloom,
To see thee diddle up and down the room."
t This very letter has lately been pubUshed in the New Monthly Magazine
for Oct. 1835, and ends thus: " My dear, dear love! and my Hartley! my
blessed Hartley ! by hill, and wood, and stream, I close my eyes and dream
of you.

1 3

' Your faithful Husband,
" S. T. COLERIDGE.'

90
with Mason's beautiful imitations of the ancient
drama. He often said, that the customary plan of teaching
boys Latin before Greek was faulty, and that he should
take care that his own sons should be instructed in
Greek first.
It will readily be believed, from the well-known cir
cumstance of his having christened one of his sons
Hartley and another Berkley, that he took opportu
nities of analysing and illustrating the philosophical
tenets of these great men. They were in fact the
frequent subjects of his conversation, not only during
our Alpine tour, but in our evening walks on the ram
parts of Gottingen, which, from the fine rows of trees
that adorn them, claim the honour, not merely of
being the walls, but the woods of Academus. They
were enlivened, moreover, by the frequent notes of the
nightingale, nowhere heard in greater perfection ; and
upon which Coleridge did not fail to descant most
poetically, maintaining, as he was wont to do, that they
were the reverse of melancholy.
" A melancholy bird ? Oh ! idle thought !
In nature there is nothing melancholy.
'Tis the merry nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
Of all its music."

91
He had a great wish to make us metaphysicians,
and the perseverance with which he would occasionally
re-word the same train of thought, for the edification
of his pupils, was quite extraordinary. It was in fact
far from an easy matter for any unpractised person to
keep pace with him in threading his metaphysical
labyrinths. The impressions made upon the minds of
his hearers often gave an abundant consciousness of
new light : but they were too like the impressions of a
seal upon wax, when the seal adheres ; there the im
pressions were, but where was the capacity of com
municating them to others 1
We frequently, however, trod on much safer ground
than the terra incognita of metaphysics. In the course
of one of our afternoons' walks, the conversation ran
almost exclusively on English Poetry. Coleridge was
more especially critical ; whilst Parry, who in belles
lettres and the arts was great authority, tempered our
severer lessons with numberless illustrative remarks
and recitations. He has not, I hope, forgotten
another rapid review of English poetiy with which he
and Mr. Poole entertained me, a few years after, on our
return to Paris from Versailles, where we had been
spending the day together; a day to be held in
remembrance by us ; but which I must not now suffer,
despite the charms associated with the sombre
recollections of " Petit Trianon,'' to draw me oflF from
the subject of my interesting rambles in the Harz,
and the matters more immediately thereunto apper-

92
taining. In the conversation to which I have just
alluded, Coleridge dwelt a good deal on the circum
stances which, in his opinion, must have largely con
tributed to the developement of Shakspeare's dramatic
powers, which, great as they were by nature, owed
their vast expansion, he maintained, to the cheering
breath of popular applause, or the enthusiastic gale,
rather, of admiration, to which there was no check in
the habits or literature of society at that period.
There were no writhings, moreover, he added, in those
days from the stings of a trafficking criticism, against
which he has elsewhere so feelingly inveighed ; and
I am not at all sure that it seemed to himself a thing
impossible to attain the same eminence with Shaks
peare, the same opportunity being afforded. But this
was indeed applying to himself flattering unction.
Coleridge was more or less a transcendentalist in
the greater part of what he said or wrote ; whereas the
string which vibrated from Shakspeare's heart was
in unison with that of every human being, and
therefore he was, and is, to all intelligible. He was
perhaps the most practical psychologist, even Homer
himself not excepted, that ever lived. Is there any
presumption in saying that the modern who comes
nearest to him, albeit longo intervallo, is Walter Scott?
Coleridge was certainly far from being, even at this
time, an enemy to revealed religion. It might be going
too far to aflirm that his faith was settled. Yet he

93
seemed duly to appreciate the subtle scepticism of the
German Universities, and, devoted as he was to meta
physical disquisitions, he was likewise fond of repeat
ing that " an old woman's grain of faith was worth
them all."
Upon one occasion, he expatiated with suitable
quotations, and no small display of note and comment,
on the style and matter of our old English divines,
from the dawn of the Reformation to the times of
South and Barrow. He gave us likewise a full and
very entertaining account of the various devices to
which, at one period of the English Church, the clergy
were compelled to have recourse to meet the capaci
ties of their unlettered flocks, that aera of darkness
visible when it was not deemed a profanation of our
churches to perform what were called " Miracle Plays"
within their walls. The Scriptures were dramatized ;
and the most grotesque representations even of the
sacred persons of the Godhead were introduced on
the stage, not only without offence, but, it would
almost seem, to the edification of a generation of men
who were destitute of the written word, and who were
incapable of reading the Scriptures had they been set
before them.
What would be thought, for instance, in the present
day, of a play of Hans Sachs, which Coleridge had
met with, in which Eve is represented as telling Cain
and Abel to take care to have their hair combed, and

94

their faces and hands well washed, for that the
Almighty was about to pay them a visit ? Upon His
approach. Eve scolds Cain for not taking off his little
hat to Him, and for not giving Him his little hand to
shake. Cain is represented as making a very bad
hand of the Lord's Prayer ; upon which Eve apolo
gizes. In conclusion, God pays Abel the compliment
of hoping to see his descendants Kings and Bishops ;
but that, as for Cain's children, he foresees very
plainly that they will be nothing better than tinkers
and shoemakers. This was, to be sure, dramatizing
the Scriptures with a vengeance. But however un
couth the production of Hans Sachs may appear to
modern ears, it was adapted to the taste of those
for whom it was intended ; and the moral of the
play was not only unobjectionable, but as far superior
to the vicious sentimentality of nine-tenths of the plays
of Kotzebue and others of his school, as a coarse but
wholesome dish and a good appetite are preferable to
the pernicious delicacies with which vitiated palates
seek to be pampered, and by which healthy palates
are too often vitiated.
From " Miracle Plays" he proceeded to speak of
the transition to familiar stories, and allegories, and
quaint similes, and puns without end.
In order to illustrate, as was supposed, the in
scrutable nature of the Deity, His name " Abba" was
bandied through nil its changes, as, for instance,

95
A B— B A  A B — B A — backwards and forwards —
forwards and backwards AB — BA. Whilst, in allusion
to the degeneracy of the age, it was vociferated that
now-a-days " Paradise," was a pair-of-dice ; matri
mony a mere matter-of-money. Was it so in the days
even of Noah 1 Ah — No !
Jeremy Taylor was an author from whose works
Coleridge always professed to have derived the great
est possible delight ; and he more particularly referred
us to his " Ductor Dubitantium," and his '' Holy
Living and Dying." He illustrated what he said of
him, by quotations given with so much emphasis and
kindred feeling, as bespoke a perfect brotherhood
between them. Butler's Sermons were commended
by him ; and, as not irrelevant to this discourse on
divinity, he spoke with general approbation of Bur
nett's "Theory of the Earth," and Brown's " Religio
Medici." From his having subsequently often reverted
to these works, I became desirous of being more inti
mately acquainted with them, and ^on my return to
England, I was so fortunate as to find the works of
Sir Thomas Brown, and Burnett's " Theory of the
Earth," for sale on a London book-stall.
Jeremy Taylor's works were, most of them, in our
family library, and I turned with eagerness to the fol
lowing passage which Coleridge much admired, and to
which it is not improbable that the author of " Brace-

96
bridge Hall " may have been indebted for one remark
able parallel : —
" The wild fellow in Petronius, that escaped upon
a broken table from the furies of a shipwreck,
espied a man rolled upon his floating bed of waves,
ballasted with sand in the folds of his garment,
and carried by his civil enemy, the sea, towards the
shore to find a grave ; and it cast him into some sad
thoughts ; that peradventure this man's wife, in some
part of the continent, safe and warm, looks next month
for the good man's return ; or it may be his son knows
nothing of the tempest ; or his father thinks of that
affectionate kiss which still is warm upon the good
old man's cheek, ever since he took a kind farewell,
and he weeps with joy to think how blessed he shall
be when his beloved boy returns into the circle of his
father's arms. These are the thoughts of mortals, this
is the end and sum of all their designs ; a dark night
and an ill guide, a boisterous sea and a broken cable, a
hard rock and a rough wind dashed in pieces the for
tune of a whole family, and they that weep loudest
for the accident are not yet entered into the storm,
and yet have suflFered shipwreck. Then looking upon
the carcass, he knew it, and found it to be the master
of the ship, who the day before cast up the accounts
of his patrimony and his trade, and named the day
when he thought to be at home. See how the man
swims who was so angry two days since ; his passions

97
are becalmed with the storm, his accounts cast up, his
cares at an end, his voyages done, and his gains are
the strange events of death ; which whether they be
good or evil, the men that are alive seldom trouble
themselves concerning the interests of the dead."*
"We one day," says W.Irving, "descried some
shapeless object drifting at a distance. At sea, every
thing that breaks the monotony of the surrounding
expanse attracts attention. It proved to be the mast
of a ship that must have been completely wrecked ;
for there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by which
some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar,
to prevent their being washed off by the waves. There
was no trace by which the name of the ship could be
ascertained. The wreck had evidently drifted about
for many months ; clusters of shell-fish had fastened
about it, and long sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But
where, thought I, is the crew? Their struggle has
long been over — they have gone down amidst the roar
of the tempest — their bones lie whitening among the
caverns of the deep. Silence — oblivion like the waves,
have closed over them, and no one can tell the story
of their end. What sighs have been wafted after that
ship ! what prayers offered up at the deserted fireside
of home ! How often has the mistress, the wife, the
mother, pored over the daily news to catch some casual
• General Considerations Preparatory to Death.
K

08
intelligence of this rover of the deep ! How has ex
pectation darkened into anxiety — anxiety into dread —
and dread into despair ! Alas ! not one memento
shall ever return for love to cherish. All that shall
ever be known is, that she sailed from her port, and
was never heard of more." *
The Fables of Lessing were among my earliest lessons
in the German language ; and as I knew Coleridge to
be a great admirer of Lessing, and deep in the study
of his life and writings, I ventured to show him the fol
lowing translation into English pentameters, of his
admirable fable of Jupiter and the Horse : —
" Father of beasts and men ! (with reverence due
Exclaimed the horse, as near Jove's throne he drew,)
It may be said, perhaps with truth, that I
With the most beautiful of beasts may vie —
Yet still, I think you cannot fail to own,
A little farther might your skill be shown.
Jove smiled, and asked. What have you to propose ?
I 'm open to advice — ^your mind disclose.
Why then, no doubt it will increase my speed.
If to my present higher legs succeed,
Higher and thinner ! Does it not appear.
That if the swan's long bend of neck were here,
It would not misbecome me ? Don't you see.
Were my chest broader, I should stronger be ?
And, since you mean your favourite, man, to ride,
Would not a saddle, naturally supplied.
Save him much trouble ? As it is, you know,
I to his labour must the saddle owe.
Well, replied Jove, be patient but a wliile.
Now from his face discarded was the smile ;
• The Sketch Book.

99

All stem his aspect. The Creator spoke !
Forth from the dust the living creature broke.
The ugly camel ! Horror and affright
Seized on the horse; he shuddered at the sight!
Here, Jove exclaimed, the swan's long neck is here.
And here the legs, the higher legs appear.
Higher and thinner. See the broader chest ;
See here the saddle in the form exprest.
Horse ! let me know ; is this what you would be ?
The horse still trembled. Hence ! begone from me !
Continued Jove. This once instruction gain,
From punishment exempt. But to retain.
From time to time, in thy repentant breast.
The recollection of thy rashness. — Rest
E'en as thou art, new creature ! Ever see,
The horse will shudder when he looks at thee ! *
My censor, upon this occasion, was no flatterer.
The inimitable point and terseness of the original are
wanting ; so that, with the exception of a single half-
line, he had not a word to say in favour of my trans
lation. Here it is, however, for the benefit of those
who have no acquaintance with the original, to which
I claim, at least, the merit of adhering more closely
than some more recent translator, as I have had an
opportunity of knowing, by the perusal of a very pretty
collection of what the author terms " Flowers of
Fable," lately published.
* There exists a tradition, upon which Lessing founded the above fable,
that a horse never sees a camel without trembling; and a friend in
forms me that he has himself seen a horse affected with considerable qualms
at the sight of a camel.
K 2

100
The moral of Lessing's fable is similar to that of
^sop*s " Jupiter and the Husbandman," and finely
illustrates the effect of inconsiderate presumption.
Fond as Coleridge was of raising our views to the
sublimest truths, he never, to my knowledge, either by
example or precept, made any effort to check the
abominable neglect of religious worship which pre
vailed among the English, equally with the German
students, at Gottingen. No one ever thought of going
to church.* And yet as a proof that he did not hke
« I am much indebted to my friend Parry for the following long and appo
site extract, from a letter written by him to some member of his family in
England, and bearing date " Gbttingen, May 25, 1799.
" My mother has frequently inquired whether we go to church. This I
am sorry to confess, we seldom do. The Greatheeds were no friends to the
religion or service of the German churches, and told us we should get more
good by staying at home, than by frequenting them. They are all Catholic
or Lutheran, either full of the superstition of the former, or the enthusiastic
rant which has too much crept into the latter religion. Pure Christianity is,
unhappily, at a very low ebb on the Continent. Putter (Professor of History)
is the only person of consideration here who openly professes it, and he has
fiiTaness to despise the ridicule which attaches to him on that accoimt. It is
an agreeable anecdote, as regards both parties, that when Coleridge, who was
acquainted with this part of his character, accidentaUy met him for the first
time, on the ramparts, he pulled oif his hat, and made him a respectful bow ;
the only mark of esteem which he had it in his power to show. Eichorn, one
of the principal theologists in Germany, and a lecturer here, seems, from all
accounts, to be doing his utmost to destroy the evidences on which we
ground our belief. He is a good man and extremely charitable, but this
attempt speaks neither for his head nor for his heart. Coleridge, an able
vindicator of these important truths, is well acquainted with Eichorn, but
this latter is a coward, who dreads liis arguments and his presence. Even
atheism is not altogether unfashionable here, in the higher, and sometimes
among the lower classes of society. The priests are 'generally weak dnd igno
rant men, who pay little attention to their flocks, at least out of the pulpit.

101
the Lord's Day to be desecrated, I must tell a tale
against myself. It happened that my friend 
and I were on a rambling visit at Keswick, in the summer
of 1801, during the time that Coleridge resided there
with his family. He came to dine with us at the inn
on a Sunday afternoon, and expressed his disappro
bation very strongly of a breach of the Sabbath, which
we had that day committed, in spending the forenoon
in perch-fishing, from a boat, on the lake of Derwent

They are, however y paid badly. I have twice mentioned Coleridge, and much
wish you were acquainted with him. It is very delightful to hear him some
times discourse on religious topics for an hour together. His fervour is par
ticularly agreeable when contrasted with the chilling speculations of the
German philosophers. I have had occasion to see these successively abandon
all their strong holds when he brought to the attack his arguments and his
philosophy. Coleridge is much liked, notwithstanding many peculiarities.
He is very liberal towards all doctrines and opinions, and cannot be put out
of temper. These circumstances give him the advantage of his opponents
here, who are always bigotted, and often irascible. Coleridge is an enthusiast
on many subjects, and must, therefore, appear to many to possess faults— and
no doubt he has faults—but he has a good heart, and a large mass of informa
tion, with superior talents. The great fault which his friends may lament,
is the variety of subjects which he adopts, and the too abstruse nature of his
ordinary speculations, extra homines positas. They can easily excuse his
devoted attachment to his country, and his reasoning as to the means of pro
ducing the greatest sum of human happiness ; but they do not universally
approve the mysticism of his metaphysics, nor the remoteness of his topics
from human affairs and human comprehension. As a poet, he severely
criticizes his own productions. His best poems have, perhaps, not yet ap
peared in print. He is, at present, engaged on a woik, which will be no less
interesting in Germany than in England— a History of German Poetry,
from the earliest times to the present day, including a particular review of
Lessing's Works. . It will probably extend to two quarto volumes. Coleridge
was twenty-six last October. I think Mr. Losch, and some of his acquaint
ance in England, will confirm what I have said of him. Coleridge tells m^e
that Southey has published his Madoc, and a second volume of poems."
K 3

102
Water. It was my first and last offence of this kind,
and the stamp of Coleridge's disapprobation will never
be eff"aced from my recollection. And yet I do not
believe that he had been at church himself that day ;
or that he was, at any time, much in the habit of
going to church. A gentleman who lived near him at
Highgate, informed me, that during his long residence
there, he did not recollect having seen him at church
more than once, and that upon some, I forget what,
public occasion, which he mentioned. An unfortunate
peculiarity this, which his bodily infirmities, many and
great as they were in the latter part of his life, will
scarcely serve to explain ; nor is the resemblance be
tween Milton and him in any thing more remarkable
than in this circumstance, of absenting themselves
from the public worship of their Maker. They both
appear to have looked intently to the end of religion —
none could more strenuously maintain the authority of
the Bible — yet they seem to have acted as if they
thought themselves privileged individuals, who might
dispense with a public participation in the appointed
ordinances of our most Holy Faith !
There is a notion very commonly propagated by
foreigners, and too readily adopted by our own coun
trymen who have travelled on the Continent, that
Sunday must necessarily be a dull day when spent
religiously. But who is to be the judge of this ? Not
the mere man of pleasure, surely, who has had no

103
experience in the courts of the Lord's House, and who
hears not of the delights and consolations of religion,
if at all, until " the evil days come and the years
draw nigh" that he can have no part in them. Rather
let the individual be consulted who for a series of
years had kept the Sabbath-day holy, and then,
from the force of some unresisted temptation, neg
lected to do so, and let him say which period of his
life was the happiest. In the words of the Psalmist
he will exclaim, " How amiable are thy tabernacles,
O Lord of Hosts!"
" A day in thy courts is better than a thousand.
I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God
than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." — Ps. Ixxxiv.
In the words of Lord Clarendon, the pious and
faithful historian of " The Rebellion," " there cannot
be a greater resemblance to the joys of heaven in any
pleasure or happiness that we can enjoy in this world,
than in that tranquillity of mind and conscience which
naturally attends and accompanies our fervent devo
tions to Almighty God ; when we have deposited all
our wishes with Him, and submitted and resigned all
our desires to Him. Nor can there be a more lively
representation upon earth of the court and company
of heaven, than in the assemblies and congregations
of religious and pious men pouring out their prayers,
and celebrating the praises of their Creator and
Redeemer." In fact, the very existence of religion may

104
be said to be included in the observance of the Lord's-
day — the Christian Sabbath — that blessed day which
affords a respite from the toils and cares and pleasures
of this world ; and thus, and thus only, can become a
fit season for making preparation for a better. Show
me the family that never goes to a place of public
worship, even on Sundays, and I will show you one
where there is no real happiness. And when I reflect
that for nearly two years of my life I scarcely once,
for the purpose of divine worship, entered a church,
I am almost weak enough to hope that my memory
may be playing false with me. Yet so it cannot he ;
for there are too many witnesses of the fact, and joint
partakers in its disgrace, to admit of its being doubt
ful. But connected with this sad omission of a posi
tive duty, there is another which, if possible, strikes
me with still more astonishment, and that is the almost
total neglect of private devotion during the same
period ; yet this, I conclude, is commonly the case
with habitual Sabbath-breakers.
From the very bottom of my heart, I believe with
that learned and pious divine, the Rev. John Henry
Rose,* that " if there be one curse more bitter than
another to man, it is, to be the offspring of an irre
ligious home, of a home where the voice of prayer
and praise ascends not to God, and where the
* Author of the Hulsean Lectures for 1S33.

105
ties of human affection are not purified and ele
vated by the refining influence of religious feeling — of
a home to which, if the cares or the sorrows of life
shall bring religion to the heart in after days, that
heart cannot turn without bitterness of feeling, without
anguish and vexation of spirit. If there be a curse to
any country, where the truths of religion are known,
the deepest and bitterest curse which can be inflicted on
it is a multitude of homes like that which I have sup
posed ! Such homes send forth their sons unchecked in
evil thoughts, unhallowed in their habits, and untaught
in love to God — the name and cross perhaps of Jesus
Christ stamped upon their foreheads, but not written
in their hearts — and they send them forth to prey
upon the land, and to become its curse and its de
struction. But on the other hand, there is a blessing
to the religious home, which no tongue can speak, no
language can describe ! The home where, in early
years, the heart is trained to a love of God, and to
take pleasure in his worship and service, interweaves
with the existence of man's holy affections, which die
not with the circumstances which gave them birth,
which last long even though they may for a season be
forgotten and neglected, and which exercise at least
some check upon the evil of the human heart, and
often, nay commonly, recall it to hear again the voice
of God, and to return to the paths of holiness and
peace!" * » Lect. vi. p. 141.

106
It is generally, 1 believe, supposed in England, that
Sunday is, for the most part, a day of pleasure iu
Roman Catholic countries only ; but such is far from
being the case. In a Protestant University I have been
seriously asked whether it was really true that, with
us, people abstained, with a view to the religious ob
servance of the Sabbath, from public amusements on
that holy day. Such an answer as I was happy in
being able to give, consistently with truth, excited the
utmost surprise !*
Since the above period, much more attention has,
I am convinced, been paid to the religious observ
ance of Sunday in England ; and when we consider
how strong the sanctions of Scripture are, and the
suggestions consequently of the consciences of all
who believe in Scripture must be upon this point,
how can it be otherwise ? How is it possible to
suppose that, with the progress of sound learning and
religious education, and of philosophy, no longer
infidel, the observance of the Christian Sabbath will
not both spread and be more in conformity with the
ends — merciful and gracious — for which it was
» Yet ahout this very time, Cowper was bewailing the general desecration
of the Sabbath in England, and predicting its ultimate abolition.
" Oh, Italy ! thy Sabbaths will be soon
Our Sabbaths, closed with mummery and buifoon.
Preaching and pranks will share the motley scene.
Ours parcell'd out, as thine have ever been,
God's worship, and the mountebank between."
The Progress of Error.— Dl. H.

107
divinely appointed ^ * I say advisedly appointed, for
surely the injunction {Exodus, xx. 2.) is not peculiar
to the Israelites, We find from Exodus xvi. that they
were acquainted with the Sabbath, however much it
may have fallen into neglect, before Moses received
the Table of the Law at Sinai ; and the very terms in
which the reason of the ordinance is expressed by
him, plainly describe it as of primeval origin, and of
perpetual and universal obligation.
" The seventh commandment," says Archbishop
Wake, " is as obligatory upon us as it ever was
upon the Jews, though not exactly after the same
manner. We worship, as they did, the God, who
' in six days created the heaven and the earth, the
sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh
day;' and in acknowledgment thereof, we stand
obliged with them, to keep a seventh day of rest after
six of labour. But then, as they worshipped this God
under the peculiar character of ' the God, who brought
them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage,' so were they directed to take that particular
day, the seventh of the week, for their Sabbath, upon
which he completed their deliverance ; and strictly
to abstain from all bodily labour upon it. Now in
this respect we differ from them. We worship God,

• Bishop Horsley's admirable sermon on the Text " The Sabbath was made
for man and not man for the Sabbath," should be read by every one.

108
the Creator of the world, under a much higher and
more divine character ; as He is our Father and Deli
verer by Jesus Christ our Lord ; who, on the first day
of the week, rose from the dead, and thereby put an
end to the Jewish dispensation. And in testimony of
this, we keep the first day of the week for our Sab
bath, according to the practice of the Apostles ; and
so profess ourselves to be the servants of the true God,
through the covenant, which He has been pleased to
make with mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord."*
But let us, for a moment, suppose that, under the
Christian dispensation, a seventh day of rest after six
of labour were merely a matter of conventual arrange
ment, as the Quakers will have it to be ; what, let me
ask, is to prevent other societies from fixing on a
different day of the week, or month, for their day of
rest, or from declining to set apart any day, as hap
pened during the reign of infidelity in France 1 To
what caprice, to say no worse of it, must not such a
state of things lead ?
And here I cannot help expressing my surprise that
in this enlightened age, with the advantage of so many
learned and judicious comments on both the Old and
New Testament, the peculiar religious tenets of the
"Society of Friends" should continue to maintain the
hold they appear to do on their minds. In their inter
course with the world, this does but occasion a little
* Mant's Bible.

109
inconvenience, and, sometimes, a little offence ; but if
I am right in my view of the nature and extent of their
delusion, I cannot but dread its dangerous tendency
in as far as they are themselves concerned.
Wherever there is great error, there will be sure to
be inconsistency. Quakers deny the divine appoint
ment of the Sabbath, but they approve of a day of rest
once a week for the purpose of religious improve
ment, and they wisely adopt our Sunday. Now what
objection can there be, on the same principle, to set
ting apart an additional day occasionally — such as
" Christmas-day," to meditate on the birth of Christ —
"Good Friday," to meditate on his Crucifixion — or
any day appointed by government to deprecate im
pending wrath, or to offer up thanksgivings for escape
from it. There is nothing, in so doing, that savours
of carnal ordinances ; nothing that can fairly be ob
jected to by the most spiritual worshippers of Christ.
Common courtesy to their neighbours, and to the con
stituted authorities to whom they are indebted for pro
tection, seems at least to require that they should
assist, by closing their shops, in preserving the so
lemnity of such days. And yet I have known them
hesitate, nay refuse, to do so !
But I must, for a while at least, quit these graver
themes, and not lose sight of the subordinate person
ages of our party, nor of the minor occurrences and
topics of conversation. L

110
I shall pass over our visit on the fourth day to the
Bielman's Hohle, a celebrated stalactitic cavern near
Elbingerode, to make mention of a waltzing party,*
which, soon after our leaving the above cavern,
attracted our notice. The principal belle of the party,
over a petticoat of four colours, wore an apron with
red and white stripes, the body of her dress was black,
red, and white, her neck-kerchief black and yellow,
whilst her very high-heeled shoes were ornamented
with buckles of the largest dimensions. Her partner
was dressed in a bluejacket lined with white, culottes
de cuir, white stockings, and shoes with likewise
enormous buckles ; his head-dress consisted of curls
still retaining their papers and sticking out an inch or
two from his ears, with a tail two or three feet long,
depending from behind ; the whole being surmounted
by a red and white nightcap.
The couples were turning, each round its own centre,
and all, with characteristic gesticulation, round a
decorated May- pole, to the music of a venerable
fiddle, and were nothing disconcerted by our stopping
to look at them, as we did for nearly half an hour.
Waltzing, in England, is often little more than whirl
ing round and round, till all heads are giddy ; but in

* A very amusing description of this party, from the pen of Coleridge, ap
peared in a pretty Annual, " The Amulet," for the year 1829. And I find it
again in his interesting " Letters from Gennany," inserted in the New
Monthly Magazine for October 1835, already alluded to.

Ill
Germany, particularly the north of Germany, from
the court ball-room, to the humblest hamlet, the first
movements are exceedingly measured and formal,
quickening gradually as the tune proceeds, but seldom
running into very rapid rotation.
Some of the gentlemen of the above party danced
with pipes in their mouths, which they took no pains
to keep at a distance from their partners' faces, and
their whole deportment was phlegmatic, or, as my
journal has it, Germanic, in the extreme.
The ladies, on the contrary, had cheerful and happy
countenances, and made altogether a far better appear
ance than the men.
This was much too good a particular case not to
lead Coleridge into general inferences. He had re
marked, he said, that the German women (he had
only been in the north of Germany at that time) were
very superior to the men in their looks and manners ;
and he believed it to be the concurrent opinion of
most travellers, that such was the case in all imperfectly
civifized, and still more, all uncivilized countries.
Whereas, in highly-civilized states, the men are supe
rior to the women. Of whatever modification these
remarks may admit, one thing is certain, that the
nearer we approach to savage life, the worse the ladies
fare ; whilst in polished societies, they very frequently
— who will dare deny it? — have the upper hand.
We arrived this evening. May 14th, in good season,
L 2

112
at Blankenburg,* a town in the territory of Brunswick,
with a capacious old castle. Here Louis XVIII., then
Monsieur, resided twenty-one months. The surround
ing country is extremely beautiful, but Louis is said
to have lived in great seclusion, although attended by
a numerous retinue of nobility of the highest order.
So apprehensive was he of being assassinated, that he
never went beyond his own garden-walls ; and he was
at all times prepared for escape, by means of a secret
passage, in case of any forcible attempt to seize his
person. He was nevertheless visited by vast numbers
of emigres from all parts, whither they had been
dispersed, and lived at very considerable expence.
Twice a week, so we were told, in order to invigorate
himself, he indulged in the luxury of a warm bath of
broth, in the preparation of which eighty pounds of
beef were supposed to have been consumed. We asked
the landlord of our inn, who was inclined to give us
many more anecdotes of his ma,jesty than it would be
delicate to repeat, whether he was reputed upon the
whole a wise man ; but he contented himself by re-
* " Interesting in the highest degree is it to have seen in the course of two
or three days so many different climates, with all their different phenomena !
In the back ground the snowy summit of the Brocken, with the black mineral
green of pine groves intervening — wintry, endlessly wintry. The beech, and
the birch, and the wild ash, all leafless. Before us lay a vast plain — rocks on
the right hand— huge walls of rocks on the left, and curving round to the
front view hills of beeches — soft surges of woody hiUs. At the foot of the
hill lay the castle and town of Blankenburg with all its orchards of blossom
ing fruit trees." — Coleridge's Letters from Germany.

113
plying " That he believed the head had little to do
with pofitical events."* Louis left this place for Livo
nia in February, 1799.
Our longest day's march, the fifth of our tour, was
from Blankenburg to Goslar, not less than forty
English miles as we went, for our course was more
devious than it ought to have been, in consequence of
our having taken a wrong path through a wood, a mis
take which we set about correcting, as soon as it was
discovered, by the aid of a pocket compass, which we
consulted not without some philosophic importance,
but without much advantage, as we were indebted after
all to some peasants for the direction we needed. We
stopped to dine at Wernegerode, the residence of the
Graff Von Stolberg ; and on leaving that beautifully
romantic spot, after dinner, we saw the prince himself
with some of his family of eight children, shooting at
a sham-bird, raised on a pole fifty or sixty feet high,
and surrounded by a crowd of admiring spectators,
chiefly peasants.
j^ It was a saying, I believe, of the Swedish statesman, Oxenstiern, to his
son— "Nescis, mifili, quamparva sapiSntia regitur mundus." — Coleridge's
Table Talk.
Very lately (June 9th, 1836) I heard a member in the House of Commons,
Mr. Grove Price, make the following application of the above, addressing him
self to Lord John Russell :— " The Noble Lord," he said, " was an historian,
and his remarks that night brought to his recollection an anecdote in history,
not of the middle but of later ages. The Chancellor of Sweden, of the day to
which he referred, proposed to send his son to the Congress of Westphalia.
His son, a modest youth, pleaded his inexperience ; but the Chancellor said,
' Go, my son, and see with how little wisdom the world is governed !' "
L 3

114
At this time, we had fifteen miles farther to travel
before we could get to Goslar. Coleridge, as usual,
did his best to beguile the way, which was, moreover,
finely diversified with mountains, woods, and water ;
but we became, notwithstanding, so excessively tired
towards the end of the day, that, on our arrival at
Goslar about ten o'clock, I was obliged, in ascending
the hill on which the town is built, to sit down more
than once on the rough stones of a dirty pavement
before I could reach the inn. Here we were so for
tunate as to meet with, for once, comfortable quarters ;
and either from choice or necessity, as the supper
hour was long past, we limited our refection to coffee.
This sufficiently refreshed us, without making our
night's rest feverish, which, in our exhausted state,
would have been the eflfect of a full meal with the
accompaniment of wine or sheathed brandy. In the
morning we felt, in spite of the blistered feet of some
of the party, like giants refreshed, albeit not with
wine, and, whilst making a hearty breakfast, con
gratulated ourselves on having dragged our weary
limbs on to Goslar the preceding evening, instead of
remaining, as in our despair we had nearly resolved
on doing, at a miserable little pot-house by the way
side, a few miles short of our journey's end.
In the church of Goslar, one of the most venerable
in Germany, we saw a very large but uncouth picture
of St. Christopher leaning on a huge staff and crossing

115
a river, with a boy (meant to represent our Saviour)
on his shoulders ; in the boy's hands there is a
globe. St. Christopher must have been a very fa
vourite saint in these parts, from the frequency with
which he makes his appearance in the churches —
we were informed respecting him, that he first
attached himself to Tiberius Caesar ; then to the
devil ; and that he died at last in our Saviour's
service.* Goslar is what is called in Germany a free city,' and
was once an imperial residence. At the time of the
treaty of Augsburg, it was so divided in its religious
opinions, that it was agreed, by way of compromise,
that the church should be at the service of the
Lutherans on Sundays, and of the Roman Catholics on
all other days. Among other relics we were shown an
iron chest which was brought from Rome, full of abso
lutions, by the celebrated Tetzel. It was in this
secluded and sombre old city, that Wordsworth spent
* " The Dome Church at Goslar, is a real curiosity ; it is one of the oldest,
if not the oldest in Germany. The first thing that strikes you on entering it
is a picture of St. Christopher, wading through the river with Jesus Christ
(a boy with a globe in his hand) on his shoulders ; this is universal in all the
churches that I have seen, but noticeable here for the enormous size of the
picture, and for the conceit of putting in the hand of the giant saint a fir-tree
' with which the mast of some tall amiral hewii on Norwegian hills were
but a wand,' and giving this huge fir-tree a crack in the middle, the face of
the holy giant, with a horrid grin of toil and efibrt, corresponding with the
said crack in proof of the huge weight of the disguised Deity." — Coderidge's
Letters from Germany.

116
the winter of 1798-9, together with his sister, a lady
whose talents and sprightly amiability of mind have
rendered her worthy of the attachment which, I
believe, has never ceased to subsist between her and her
brother. I have already mentioned my having been at the
Lakes in the summer of 1801, when I had the plea
sure of spending a day in rambling over the mountains
of Cumberland in company with them, Coleridge,
 — , and a clergyman residing at Keswick, of the
name of Wilkinson, who has published some beautiful
views of the scenery in that neighbourhood. We
visited most of the romantic scenes within a walk of
Grassmere ; and, being in her neighbourhood, were
careful not to pass by unnoticed the celebrated Mary
of Buttermere, whose lovely sparkling eyes, and care
fully braided auburn locks, we had a favourable op
portunity of admiring.
It was a day to be remembered, although, at one
part of it, somewhat, it may be, between the hours of
one and two, there was danger of its becoming rather
too exclusively intellectual, considering the invi
gorating effect, upon body as well as mind, of
the mountain breezes. We left Keswick in the
morning, after an early breakfast, and almost imme
diately after alighting from our carriage at the door
of Mr. Wordsworth's cottage, set out on our pedes-

117
trian ramble — Miss Wordsworth being the Diana of
our party.
The party from Keswick fully understood from
Coleridge, who, as well as ourselves, was supposed
to be Wordsworth's visiter for that day, that it
was intended we should return to his cottage at Grass-
mere to dinner. So we continued walking, and talking,
and admiring every thing, which was no idle task
where there was so much to be admired, till, I con
fess, the thought at length began to obtrude itself
upon me, whether we ought not to be turning our
faces homewards. Still there was no sign of any in
tention of this sort on the part of our host and hostess.
At last Coleridge, whether instinctively or not I can
not say, began to make some allusion to the effect of
the bracing mountain breeze upon the appetite, upon
which hint Wordsworth spoke, and proposed that we
should try the hospitality of a farm-house which very
opportunely greeted us. Here we luckily found ample
means of staying our hunger in an abundant supply
of eggs and bacon ; and, thus set up, we again pro
ceeded to scale rocks and cross mountain streams,
and listen to the tales, and wonders, and appropriate
observations of the master spiritsof the party, until after
a ramble of nine or ten hours we found ourselves again
in sight of Wordsworth's cottage, where, without for
getting some intervening obligations to eggs and bacon.

118
" the song of the kettle"* soon made amends for the
deficiency of the less refined music of the jack.
It is somewhat remarkable, that two such devoted
friends and kindred philosophers as Coleridge and
Wordsworth, after meeting by appointment in London,
travelling together to Yarmouth, and from thence pro
ceeding in the same ship to Hamburg, should have
separated almost immediately after their arrival on
the Continent. Coleridge establishing himself at first,
en pension, with the pastor at Ratzeburg, where he
remained from September until the middle of January,
and then removed to Gottingen ; and Wordsworth
retiring to Goslar. Wordsworth accompanied by his
affectionate sister, and Coleridge by his friend Chester,
who set off with him from Stowey, and never quitted him
until after their return to England. This information
will not fail of being interesting to those who may have
read Coleridge's first letter from Germany, in No. XIV.
of the first edition of " The Friend," as it brings to
light three of his fellow-passengers who left Yarmouth
* ** A fig for your languages, German and Norse,
Give me but the song of the kettle.
And the poker and tongs, instead of the horse,*
That gallops away with such fury and force
On yon dull dreary plate of black metal." Wordsworth.

* 111 allusioTi to the arms of Hanover on the closed stoves used, instead
of our open and cheerful fire-places, to heat the apartments in the bouses of
that couiitrv.

119
together with him on Sunday morning, September 16th,
1798, who do not appear in his description of the
party on board.
Among the passengers on board who do make a
figure in his grotesque account, besides a little tailor
and his wife, of whom he gives a most amusing descrip
tion, there happened to be another very conspicuous
personage, a ridiculously-purse-proud Dane. Now I do
not believe that Coleridge was ever led — not even during
the reign of partisocracy — to take a decided part in
conversation against revealed religion ; on the con
trary, we find him in his most unguarded moments,
still ready to sting the infidel, or turn from him with
contempt. But as, at the period of his life in question,
he was capable of being as much in character with
Fielding or Smollett, as with Spinoza or Berkeley, or
those holier and wiser men with whom he eventually
coincided in his religious creed ; and as, in all his
humours, " whether grave or mellow,'' te knew how
to suit himself to his party and the occasion ; it is far
from surprising that the Dane should have taken a
great liking to him. Although frivolous in the extreme,
yet, from having amassed riches rapidly in the West
Indies, he fancied himself a clever fellow ; and, in
congruously enough, a great philanthropist and
grammarian ; the very man in short to be deluded into
the vain conceit that he and Coleridge were dis-

120
coursing together — " dantes petentesque vicissim."
It would seem, however, that he did concede the
palm of superiority to Coleridge, and in conformity
therewith, after canvassing his various pretensions to
some distinguished appellation, dubbed him " Doctor
Teology," which the latter modestly ascribes to the
cut and colour of his coat, and his corresponding
black worsted stockings and large shoes.* Be this as
it may, the Dane saw no reason why " Doctor Teology"
should not partake of a bottle of generous wine, of
which he had an ample supply on board, with himself
and friends. To this the Doctor made no objection,
and they soon got very merry together. " Certes,"
Coleridge says, " we were not of the Stoic school, for
we drank, and talked, and sung, till we talked and
sung altogether ; and then we rose and danced on the
deck a set of dances, which, in one sense of the word
at least, were very intelligibly and appropriately
entitled reels. The passengers, who lay in the cabin
* On referring to the original letter, I perceive that this is not quite cor
rectly stated. What Coleridge there really says is, " The Danes had christ
ened me ' Docteur Teology,' and dressed as 1 was all in black, with large
shoes and black worsted stocldngs, I might certainly have passed very well
for a raethodist missionary. However, I disclaimed my title. What then
may you be ? A man of fortune ? No ! A merchant ! No ! A merchant's
traveller? No! A clerk? No! Un Phitosophe, ^esha.'^&l It was that time
in my life, in which of all possible names and characters I had the greatest
disgust to that of ' un Philosophe.' But I was weary of being questioned
and rather than be nothing, or at best only the abstract idea of a man, I sub
mitted, by a bow, even to the aspersion implied in the word ' un Philosophe. ' "

121
below, must have found our Bacchanalian merri
ment ' A tune.
Harsh and of dissonant mood for their complaint.'
I thought so at the time ; and (by way I suppose of
supporting my newly-assumed character), I thought
too how closely the greater number of our virtues are
connected with the fear of death, and how little
sympathy we bestow on pain where there is no
danger." Such companionship very naturally led to great
familiarity, and the Dane, taking it for granted that
his friend's faith was purely philosophical, and in
keeping with his actions, thought of nothing less than
a rebuff, when, on the very evening after their de
bauch, the fumes of their wine having been partially
dissipated, he was preparing to share with him in
the contempt which he felt for the silly w orshippers
of our Holy Redeemer.
" After a great deal of as errant trash as was ever
uttered by a weak man, he began, Coleridge tells us,
to talk of Deity in a declamatory style, very much
resembling the devotional rants of that rude blunderer,
Mr. Thomas Payne, in his ' Age of Reason,' and
whispered in my ear, what d — d hypocrism the whole
business of Christianity was. I dare aver, that few
men have less reason to charge themselves with in-
M

122
dulging in persiflage than myself ; I should hate it if
it were only that it is a Frenchman's vice, and feel a
pride in avoiding it because our own language is too
honest to have a word to express it by." (How
absurd !) " But in this instance the temptation had
been too powerful, and I have placed it in the list of
my offences. Pericles answered one of his dearest
friends who had soficited him on a case of life and
death, to take an equivocal oath for his preservation,
Debeo amicis opitulari, sed usque ad Deos. Friendship
herself must place her last and boldest step on this
side the altar. What Pericles would not do to save
a friend's life, you may be assured I would not hazard
merely to mill the chocolate-pot of a drunken fool's
vanity till it frothed over. Assuming a serious look,
I professed myself a believer, and sunk at once aa
hundred fathoms in his good graces. He retired to
his cabin, and I wrapped myself up in my great coat
and looked at the water. A beautiful white cloud of
foam, at momently intervals, coursed by the side of
the vessel with a roar, and little stars of flame danced
and sparkled and went out in it ; and every now and
then light detachments of this white cloud, like foam,
darted off from the vessel's side, each with its own
small constellation, over the sea, and scoured out of
sight like a Tartar troop over a wilderness."
There is something very unique, to say no more of
it, in such a transition as this, from the lowest depths

123
of drunken revelry. No one who has ever ploughed
the trackless deep, can fail of perceiving the exquisite
beauty of the concluding imagery, or of deriving
increased gratification from the Tartar troops, that
will not fail, in future, to present themselves to his
imagination, when, sailing over the abyss of waters,
he watches from the ship's stern their ever-varying
surface. But the whole letter requires to be read in
order to form a due estimate of the scene described,
the characters delineated, and the thoughts inter
woven with the narrative ; they are such as no human
being in his cups, except Coleridge, could have
imagined, and, when out of them, have recollected
and expressed.
In another letter, in the eighteenth number of
" The Friend," written likewise from Ratzeburg, soon
after getting there, he says, " No little fish thrown
back again into the water, no fly unimprisoned from a
child's hand, could more buoyantly enjoy its element,
than I this clean and peaceful house ; with this lovely
view of the town, groves, and lakes of Ratzeburg,
from the window at which I am writing. My spirits
certainly, and my health, I fancied, were beginning to
sink under the noise, dirt, and unwholesome air of
our Hamburg hotel. I left it on Sunday, September
23d, 1798, with a letter of introduction from the
poet Klopstock to the Amptman of Ratzeburg. The
Aniptman received me with kindness, and introduced
M 2

124
me to the worthy pastor, who agreed to board and
lodge me (it should have been us, for Mr. Chester was
with him) for any length of time not less than a month.
The vehicle in which I took my place, was considerably
larger than an English stage-coach, to which it bore
much the same proportion and rude resemblance that
an elephant's ear does to the human. Its top was
composed of naked boards of different colours, and
seeming to have been parts of different wainscots.
Instead of windows there were leathern curtains, with a
little eye of glass in each ; they perfectly answered the
purpose of keeping out the prospect, and letting in the
cold. I could observe little, therefore, but the inns
and farm-houses at which we stopped ; they were all
alike except in size ; one great room, like a barn, with
a hay-loft over it, the straw and hay dangling in
tufts through the boards which formed the ceiling of
the room and the floor of the loft. From this room,
which is paved like a street, sometimes two smaller
ones are inclosed at one end. These are commonly
floored. In the large room, the cattle, pigs, poultry,
men, women, and children, live in amicable commu
nity ; yet there was an appearance* of cleanliness and
rustic comfort.
One of these houses I measured — it was an hundred
feet in length. The apartments were taken oflF from
* I cannot say that my own recollection of similar domiciles enables me
to confirm this.

125
one corner ; between these and the stalls there was a
small interspace, and here the breadth was forty-eight
feet, but thirty-two where the stalls were ; of course
the stalls were, on each side, eight feet in depth.
The faces of the cows, &c. were turned towards the
room ; indeed they were in it, so that they had at least
the comfort of seeing each others' faces. Stall-feeding
is universal in this part of Germany, a practice
concerning which the agriculturalist and the poet are
likely to entertain opposite opinions, or at least to
have very different feelings. The wood-work of these
buildings on the outside is left unplaistered, as in old
houses among us, and, being painted red and green, it
cuts and tesselates the buildings very gaily. From
within three miles of Hamburg almost to MoUn, which
is thirty miles from it, the country, as far as I could
see it, was a dead flat, only varied by woods. At
Molln it became more beautiful. I observed a small
lake nearly surrounded with groves, and a palace in
view belonging to the King of Great Britain, and inha
bited by the inspector of the forests. We were nearly
the same time in travelling the thirty-five miles from
Hamburg to Ratzeburg, as we had been in going from
London to Yarmouth one hundred and twenty-six
miles." The above extract is so truly graphic, so descriptive
of what it is intended to pourtray (as all travellers in
I lanover, whether in a post-waggon or not, will allow),
M 3

126
that its introduction can require no apology. Coleridge
appears to have passed his time very much to his
satisfaction at the Herr Pastor's, with whom he spoke,
or began to speak, German, and smoked a pipe occa
sionally, and partook of the good things of a well-
served board. One of the old gentleman's maxims
was to eat slowly. " Eat slowly," he used to say,
" and you will be able,'' — to do what ? Why, "to
eat the more."
Coleridge principally studied the German language
with a gentleman who happened to be residing at the
Amptman's as tutor to his sons ; and, about the
middle of January, deeming, I suppose, his proficiency
equal to the Academic arena, he started for Gottingen;
but before I commune with him again there, I have
to say a few words more on the subject of our tour to
the Brocken.
Blumenbach supplied us with the statistics of the
interesting district through which we passed ; and at
Clausthall, situated in the centre of the Harz, where
we spent the greater part of Friday the 17th of May,
he introduced us to the superintendant of the mines,
which were visited by all the party except Coleridge,
who had no wish to descend with us into the bowels
of the earth, but was better pleased with occupying
himself, during our absence, with letter-writing.*
* See page 64.

127
We returned to the inn from our subterranean visit,
just in time for the table d'hote at the usual dinner
hour of half-past twelve ; and notwithstanding the
manner in which the morning had been spent, it so
happened that our conversation, both during dinner and
after, was chiefly political, owing, not improbably, to
an extra glass of good Medoc with which our host had
tempted us. The Pittites of our party, from having
Coleridge opposed to them, got decidedly worst off,
and we were content to leave him thenceforward in
undisputed possession of the field of politics, with which
I must say he never showed any desire to meddle, as
far as our intercourse with him went. And although,
upon the above occasion, consistently with his early
associations, he stoutly defended Fox against Pitt,
there is abundant evidence, in much of his subsequent
writings, to show that no one was better able than
himself to depict the difficulties of the appalling crisis
with which that great minister had to contendf, when
* still I have never been so fortunate as to meet with a single compliment
to Pitt, personally, in any of Coleridge's writings — the nearest approach to it
is the following — which, it will be seen, is only praise at second hand ; —
" 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 ex
pressed great fears of the effect of any severe review in the then state of his
feelings. I wrote," Coleridge says, " to Jeffrey, and expressed to him my
opinion of the cruelty of any censure being passed upon the work as a com
position. 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

128
he stood forth as the guardian, not only of his country,
but of the whole civilized world, against the fast-
spreading desolation of that moral pestilence, under
which infuriated France was labouring.
What can be more in concert with the feelings of
thousands on the subject of the French Revolution,
than the following extract from No. HI. of " The
Friend":— " The teeth of the old serpent planted by the
Cadmuses of French literature, under Louis XV.,
produced a plenteous crop of philosophers and truth-
trumpeters of this kind, in the reign of his successor.
They taught many truths, historical, political, physio
logical, and ecclesiastical, and diffused their notions
so widely, that the very ladies and hair-dressers of
Paris became fluent encyclopaedists ; and the sole price
which their scholars paid for these treasures of new
information, was to believe Christianity an imposture,
the Scriptures a forgery, the worship (if not the belief)
of God superstition, hell a fable, heaven a dream, our
life without Providence, and our death without hope.

authority (in fact they were from Tom Clarkson himself), was substituted
some abuse and detraction." — Letters, %c. vol. ii. p. 112.
In the very same " Letters" we find him speaking of Pitt as " a man utterly
unfitted for the conduct of a war ; all his plans being based upon, so called,
expediency, and pernicious short-sightedness, which would never allow him
to take into his calculation the future." — Ibid. vol. i. p. 134.

129
They became as gods as soon as the fruit of their
Upas tree of knowledge and liberty had opened their
eyes to perceive that they were no more than brutes,
somewhat more cunning perhaps, and abundantly
more mischievous. What can be more natural than
the result, that self-acknowledged brutes should first
act and next suffer themselves to be treated as brutes.
The disbelief of essential wisdom and goodness
necessarily prepares the imagination for the supremacy
of cunning with malignity. Folly and vice have their
appropriate religions, as well as virtue and true
knowledge ; and in some way or other, fools will
dance round the golden calf, and wicked men beat
their timbrels and kettle drums
' To Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parent's tears.' "
Coleridge is well known to have possessed what I
remember to have heard a droll-looking little German
music-master, expressing his own dislike of the
French, denominate " ein art von antipathic gegen
den Franzozen" (a sort of antipathy to the French) ;
and this may account for his not being particularly
ready to fall in with any complimentary allusion even
to their most eloquent divines.
Speaking, one day, of the progressive nature of an
unchecked course of vice, and its gradual, perhaps, but
sure termination in the abyss of perdition, a passage

130
was quoted from a sermon of the celebrated Bishop of
Clermont, where, alluding to this melancholy truth,
he says " thus though the sun be already withdrawn
from our hemisphere, yet certain rays of his light still
continue to tinge the sky, and form as it were an
imperfect day ; it is only in proportion as he sinks
that gloom gains, and the darkness of night at last
prevails." He said he thought such beautiful imagery
was in bad keeping with the gloomy subject it was
intended to illustrate, and that consequently Massillon
had exhibited a specimen of bad taste. He may have
been right for the matter of taste, but I was inclined
to think at the time, that the remark partook
somewhat of the little music-master's " antipathy to
the French."
He never appeared to tire of mental exercise ; talk
seemed to him a perennial pastime; and his endeavours
to inform and amuse us ended only with the cravings
of hunger or the fatigue of a long march, from which
neither his conversational powers, nor his stoicism,
could protect himself or us. In proportion as hunger
and aches were gaining ascendancy over us, conver
sation usually began to flag, and at such times,
particularly when we had no reason to expect good
quarters and a comfortable meal at our journey's end,
our thoughts were very provokingly apt to turn upon
the good things of Old England ; and a vivid recital of
the dishes spread over a Cambridge supper table,

131
made our mouths water, and terminated in no very
complimentary allusion to German cookery, and the
fare that seemed to follow us every where in our
present tour, such as metwurst (German sausage),
sauer-brod (sour bread), kalbfleisch (veal), and potato-
salad rendered execrable by rancid oil.
At such times too, sentences, like the winding up of
a peal of bells, became broken, and words dropt almost
singly from us ; or we were ready to welcome any
trifling incident that was capable of kindling momentary
emotion. Now and then, Chester, whose honest good -
nature made him a favourite with us all, would come
opportunely to our aid, and amuse us with the result
of his passing thoughts and observations. We had
a very friendly contest with him, upon one of these
occasions, about some sticks which we had seen, here
and there, stuck up in the fields with straw on the tops
of them. He asked us if we could tell why they were
put there ; and when none of us could hit upon the
right solution, he informed us that they were set up
for the owls to light upon. He said he knew it to be
so, not only on the authority of the Amptman at
Ratzeburg, but from having himself seen the dropping
of the owls around the sticks.
We always took care to keep close to our " nation
ality," never forgetting for a whole day together the
land we came from. If by good fortune we fell in
with a better supper and a more generous glass than

132
usual, the vocalists of the party were sure to be in
requisition.* " God save the King" and " Rule Britannia'' were
standing favourites ; and if Blumenbach, the only
German of our party, may not have been quite at home
in the latter, he was sufficiently prepared by his
knowledge of the English language, and fully entitled
as an Hanoverian subject, to do homage to the King
of Great Britain by joining heartily in the chorus of
the former. But besides these approved national
anthems, every familiar song from " Cease, rude
Boreas, blustering railer," down to "Sallyof our Alley,"
and sometimes the well-known medley of all together
were taken into our service. We certainly carried the
maxim " Desipere in loco" to its full extent upon
more occasions than one. Coleridge, I need not say.

* If Coleridge joined in these songs, said a friend to me, one should like to
know what manner of performer he was.
His performance, like iny own, was merely confined to the choral parts, in
which he failed not to join with all his heart and voice. I believe he may
have taken a part occasionally in what is commonly called a Dutch-concert,
in which, as is well known, each performer sings his own song to liis own
tune, or to no tune at all, as must have happened on the occasions here
alluded to ; for the fact is, that, with the exception of the two Parry's, not
one of our party had much knowledge of a tune, or the slightest pretensions
to vocal powers.
It was, therefore, not without considerable astonishment, that in the first
of his letters from Germany, published in the New Monthly Magazine, I
found Coleridge had set us all down not only as " thorough Englishmen,"
which I hope we were, but as " singing very sweetly," " All of my com
panions sing very sweetly, and are thorough Englishmen." To some of us,
and to our friends, this was news indeed !

133
was always a very noticeable personage among us,
and having moreover no objection to be noticed,
whoever the noticers might happen to be, he conceived
the ludicrous idea of making a plenary sacrifice of
common sense to the experiment of filling the natives,
at fitting times and places, with the utmost possible
astonishment. Accordingly, after conning over the
respective merits of several nonsensical stories which he
had in some corner of his brain — such as the tragical
ballad of " Titty mouse brim," " where the youngest
(sister) pushed the eldest in ;" the story of Dr.
Daniel Dodds,* and his horse Knobs — who drank the
wine-dregs at the Dapple Dog, in Doncaster, &c. &c.
He concluded by giving the preference to a narrative
connected with the traditions of his own native parish.
By mutual arrangement, therefore, and after some
preparatory rehearsals, when sitting at the end of a
table in the long and perhaps only room of a village
hotel — a room appropriated to all purposes, and
common to all travellers, and not without a proper
halo of tobacco-smoke to increase the effect — huddled
together apparently in earnest conversation, so that
the eyes of the assembled rustics were fixed upon us,
there ensued a momentary pause. Taking advantage
of this, and assuming a phiz of more than usual
• Dr. Daniel Dodds, of Doncaster.
Dr. Daniel Dove ! A discovery ! The authorship of " The Doctor," is no
longer a mystery. — Dr. H. N

134
importance, whilst we all were looking at him with
mute attention, Coleridge would begin to relate how
that " Once upon a time there lived an old maiden
lady of the name of Mary Row — Mrs. Mary Row.
The place of her residence was Ottery St. Mary,
which is situated in the county of Devon, about
twelve miles from Exeter and four from Tiverton. To
get at it you must leave the great road from Bath to
Exeter at an inn near the late seat of Sir G. Y. Sir
George got into Parliament, ruined his fortune, and
sold his beautiful estate to an East Indian Nabob ; in
short there are many anecdotes that might be related
of Sir G. Y. But to return to Mrs. Mary Row.
This Mrs. Mary Row had the reputation of being a
witch. She had always near her an old black cat.
This old black cat was thought to be her familiar —
and, on the death of Mrs. Mary Row, the opinion of
her having been a witch was confirmed in the following
extraordinary manner. The old black cat got on the
top of the house of its late old maiden mistress, and
audibly thrice exclaimed, as numbers were ready to
testify, Moll Ro— 0— ow— Moll Ro— 0— ow
Moll Ro — 0 — ow is dead !"
Here we all joined in chorus — imitating the cat-call
like a well-trained band of tom-cats — to the amazement
of all present.

135
That we fully succeeded in making tom-foots of
ourselves no one can doubt ; yet I can never recall the
scene to my recollection without a smile, for nothing
could surpass the ludicrous effect of this farce upon
the faces of our auditory ; which was not a little
increased by the serious contour into which our own
instantly subsided, leaving ample room for conjecture
as to the meaning of the singular performance enacted
by us.
There is, in truth, something so perfectly absurd
and ridiculous in the above relation, that, if it were
not inscribed in letters of ink in my journal, I should
almost have suspected that my memory, after the
lapse of thirty years and more, was tricking me ; but
there are likewise, I am happy to say, at least three
of my fellow performers alive at the present day, who
can attest that I have only related what is perfectly
true. Let, therefore, whoever will laugh at our
expense, 1 deny the right of any one to say, " Credat
JudcBus." I have now but a few words more to add, before I
conclude my account of our little tour to the Harz,
if indeed that can properly be said to be the " account
of a tour'' which is merely an imperfect record of a
few interesting days passed in the morning of life
(under circumstances, and in the midst of scenes,
calculated to make a deep impression), with a few
of my countrymen, for whom I have continued to
N 2

136
preserve a high esteem, and to whom I cannot but
regret my inability to offer a more worthy tribute.
The last town through which we passed, in our way
back to Gottingen, was Osterode ; built of brick, and
one of the largest in the Harz. Here Blumenbach left
us, in order to pay his respects to an Amptman in the
neighbourhood ; and no sooner had he turned his back
upon us, than we began to express our opinion, that
to spare himself the trouble and delay of revisiting a
spot already familiar to him, he had purposely avoided
taking us to see a very remarkable rock not far from
Osterode, of which we happened to have read a
splendid description in some almanack. It was fully
admitted by us all, that we were under much obligation
to him for what he had shown us, but the Hiibichen-
Stein was a great omission, and we continued to pay
him compliments respecting it, which it was quite
as well for him not to overhear ; although on his
rejoining us, by dint of fast walking, he probably
discovered that the said Stein had been no very
pleasant topic of conversation in his absence.
We contrived, however, to arrive, good friends and
in good season, at Gottingen, Saturday, May 18th,
1799 ; and, after drinking tea with Coleridge, a very
unusual honour — for he usually drank tea with some of
us — we retired early to our beds, and cancelled, by a
long night's rest, our arrears with Morpheus.

137
Whether we dreamt about the Hiibichen-Stein, I
do not know ; but we were so provoked at not having
seen it, that, a few days after our return from the Harz,
Coleridge,  , the two Parrys, and myself,
determined to pay it a visit ; and were well rewarded
for our trouble in so doing. We found it to be an
isolated coral rock, of a singularly striking character,
smaller at the base than at the summit, of a white
colour, except where covered with moss, and towering
far above the lofty fir woods with which it stands
surrounded. Of these woods, we were informed, that
in 1783, not less than 472,000 firs were supposed to
have been destroyed by the Dermestes Typographus,
an insect of about the size of a bug, which confines
its ravages to the white fir (pinus abies). It is said
that the ravages of these insects were greatly increased
by an unfortunate mistake made in offering a reward
for the destruction of the wood-peckers, which their
presence had attracted in vast numbers, and who
were busily employed in their destruction. A useful
lesson for the destroyers of rooks in our own country !
The view which we commanded from the Hiibichen-
Stein delighted us, and whilst we were contemplating
its beauty and grandeur,  observed, " that
the charms of nature were relished by man alone; no
other animal, however great its sagacity, appearing
to feel any pleasure from lakes, or forests, or moun
tains. True, replied Coleridge, and yet how short-
N 3

138
lived is man, for whose pleasure and benefit these, as
far as we see, are in great measure formed ! Eighty-
four years is almost his farthest limit, whilst the
rocks and mountains are, many of them, undoubtedly
pre-Adamitical. Hence he drew an argument for the
immortality of the soul ; since, that being admitted,
the means will be no more than adequate to the end.
Coleridge was in good spirits, very amusing, and
as talkative as ever, throughout this little excursion.
He frequently recited his own poetry, and not
unfrequently led us rather farther into the labyrinth
of his metaphysical elucidations, either of particular
passages, or of the original conception of any of his
productions, than we were able to follow him.
" 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock.
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock ;
Tu whit !— Tu whoo !
And hark again ! The crowing cock.
How drowsily it crew."
At the conclusion of this, the first stanza of Christ
abel, he would perhaps comment at full length upon
such a line as Tu whit !— Tu whoo !
that we might not fall into the mistake of supposing
originality to be its sole merit. In fact, he very
seldom went right on to the end of any piece of
poetry — to pause and analyze was his delight.

139
What he told his fellow travellers respecting
Christabel, he has since repeated in print, in words
which, if not the very same, are equally Cole-
ridgian.* " In my very first conception of the tale,*' he says,
** I had the whole present to my mind, with the whole
ness no less than the loveliness of a vision," all of
which he trusted he should some day be able to
*' embody in verse ;" but this day, I believe, came not,
for it does not appear that he got beyond two, out of
the four parts which he contemplated.
The poem of " Christabel" was composed, he has
somewhere recorded, '* in consequence of an agree
ment with Wordsworth, that they should mutually
* In a late publication, "Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of
S. T. Coleridge," anonymous, but evidently genuine, we find him in one place
expressing a hope that he might some day complete "Christabel;" for that
if he were hut easy in mind, he had no doubt of the re-awakening power or
of the kindling inclination. In another place he says, " Of my poetic works,
I would fain finish the Christabel ;" '* If I should finish Christabel (he
further adds), 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 picturesquenesg.
" 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 continuation
in Blackwood, which 1 have been told is by Maginn ; it is in appearance, and
in appearance only, a good imitation ; I do not doubt that it gave more
pleasure, and to a greater number, than a continuation by myself in the spirit
of the first two cantos.
" The ' Ancient Mariner' cannot be imitated, nor the poem ' Love*.
They may be excelled; they are not imitable."

140
produce specimens of poetry," which should contain
the power of exciting the sympathy of the readers,
by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and
the power of giving the interest of novelty by the
modifying colours of imagination. The sudden charm
which accidents of light and shade, which moon-light
or sun-set, diflfused over a known and familiar
landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of
combining both ; and that a series of poems might
be composed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents
and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural ;
and the excellence to be aimed at was to consist in
the interesting of the aflFections by the dramatic truth
of such emotions as would naturally accompany such
situations, supposing them real, &c. For the second
class, " subjects were to be chosen from real life."
Thus, it appears, originated the poems of "Cristabel,"
and the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," of Coleridge,
and the " Lyrical Ballads" of Wordsworth. I must
candidly confess, that in discussing the merits of the
" Rime of the Ancient Mariner," it did happen that
" There pass'd a weary time,''
or something very like it, for I was unable to follow
him to my certain satisfaction either in the verse or
the accompanying colloquy, and yet
" Day after day — Day after day,''

141
he was at one time fond of returning to it, but either
my mind was not " in the right temper," or from
some defect or other, I could not fully appreciate the
mysteries of the Albatross.
I have often read it since, and I think I may
venture to say, that the pleasure with which its
re-perusals have been attended, was not the less
from my being able to enter, unattended by the
author and his bewildering metaphysics,
" Into that silent sea."
I do not remember that he ever dwelt upon his
" Religious Musings," which he has termed " A
desultory Poem," and which, exceedingly fine as many
of its parts are, is so indicative of the tempestuous
current of his thoughts, at the time he wrote it — the
thoughts of a mind essentially poetical, but distracted
by vague religious feelings, and unsettled political
opinions, that he may have been glad to let these
" Musings" rest, and so find rest himself.
His " Fears in Solitude," written in 1798, only four
years after the former, were often upon his lips. He
not only recited this beautiful poem to us, but gave
us copies of it ; and rauch as I admired it then, it has
lost nothing in my estimation since. When he wrote
it, the trammels of pantisocracy were falling from him,
and he was struggling to devise an outlet from the

142
storm, which had already gathered around the nations,
and was overwhelming, with still increasing darkness,
the visions of Utopian felicity with which the drama
of the French revolution opened, and of which he had
himself drunk so deeply. Still his fluctuations at
this period appear to have been pretty considerable ;
and it was not until the year 1809, that, speaking of
the horrors of systematic wickedness, " when all the
natural and artificial powers of a populous and wicked
nation are directed to evil by a single villain, such as
then deviled it over France," he asks how its career is
to be checked, " if giant and united vices are opposed
only by mixed and scattered virtues? Even in the
present hour of peril, do we not," he continues,
" too often hear even good men declaiming on the
horrors and crimes of war, and softening or staggering
the minds of their brethren by details of individual
wretchedness? Thus, under pretence of avoiding
blood, withdrawing the will from the defence of the
very source of those blessings, without which the
blood would flow idly in our veins ! Thus, lest a few
should fall on the bulwarks in glory, preparing to
give up the whole state to baseness, and the children
of free ancestors to become slaves and the fathers of
slaves !" What will the Society of Friends say to
this? A few years prior to his going to Germany, Coleridge
was engaged by Sheridan to write a tragedy for the

143
stage, to which he gave the name of Osorio ; but
before the task was completed, he got weary of it,
insomuch that it became, I have heard him say, a
work of pain and grief to him, and proved, in the end,
a sort of " enfant perdu," for which he nevertheless
felt a strong paternal affection. He had "Osorio" with
him at Gottingen, and I have in my possession a copy
from his own manuscript, but as 1 have not yet had
an opportunity of comparing it with " Remorse," a
tragedy of his which was brought out in 1813, I am
unable to say whether this is the same play, mutato
nomine ; or to what alterations the original play may
have been subjected, with a view to its better adapta
tion to the stage.
In this manuscript preface to Osorio, he says, " In
this sketch of a tragedy, all is imperfect, and much
obscure. Among other equally great defects (millstones
round the slender neck of its merits) it presupposes a
long story ; and this long story, which yet is necessary
to the complete understanding of the play, is not half
told. Albert had sent a letter informing his family
that he should arrive about such a time by ship ; he
was shipwrecked ; and wrote a private letter to Osorio,
informing him alone of this accident, that he might
not shock Maria. Osorio destroyed the letter, and sent
assassins to meet Albert  Worse than all,
the growth of Osorio's character is nowhere explained
— and yet I had most clear and psychologically accurate

144
ideas of the whole of it  A man who, from
constitutional calmness of appetites, is seduced into
pride and the loveof power, by these into misanthropism,
or rather a contempt for mankind ; and from thence,
by the co-operation of envy, and a curiously modified
love for a beautiful female (which is nowhere
developed in the play), into a most atrocious guilt.
A man who is in truth a weak man, yet always duping
himself into the belief that he has a soul of iron.
Such were some of my leading ideas.
" In short, the thing is but an embryo, and whilst
it remains in manuscript, which it is destined to do,
the critic would judge unjustly who should call it a
miscarriage. It furnished me with a most important
lesson, namely, that to have conceived strongly, does
not always imply the power of successful execution. —
S.T.C." The time of the tragedy is in the reign of Philip II.,
shortly after the Moorish rebellion, and during the
persecution of the Moors.
He seldom recited any of the beautiful passages
with which Osorio abounds, without a visible inter
ruption of the usual perfect composure of his mind ;
he contrasted the pleasure which attended his
original conception of the plot, with the throes that
accompanied its progress, and particularly the con
clusion of the work, such as it was ; and he mentioned
with great emotion, Sheridan's inexcusable treatment

145
of him. He had written the play for him, an dat his
request, and placed the manuscript in his hands.
But after having been kept in suspense day after
day, and month after month, as to whether it was to
be brought forward on the stage or not, he discovered
that it had been bandied about from one hand to
another, and was not a little surprised at hearing Miss
De Camp, in some party where they chanced to meet,
recite a passage from it, with much commendation
from the company. Still he was himself aware that
it stood in need of considerable alteration to fit it for
the stage ; and so it appears thought Sheridan,
who, amidst a profusion of compliments on its general
merits, gave him to understand at last, that with the
exception of the first two acts, which were admirably
adapted to theatrical representation, it was fitter for
the closet than the stage ; and thus ended the nego-
ciation between them.
Coleridge was too conversant with the workings of
the human heart, not to perceive the strings which
are usually drawn in the production of duels ; but I
am unable to say, whether the following anecdote,
which he related to us, was invented by him for the
purpose of illustration, or was founded on fact : —
" Colonel A. was playing at chess with Captain B.
They had been friends from their earliest years, and
were sincerely attached to each other. Captain B.,
o

146
long divested of all restraint towards his friend, said
accidentally to him, in the course of the game, ' That
was a d — d lie you told then ;' which Colonel A.
merely contented himself with denying, and continued
to play on. Soon, however, he perceived the whisper
creeping round among some ' men of honour,' who
had been observing their play. ' What !' he heard
one of them say, • can he really submit to that !'
' I should think it impossible,' said another. Till, at
last, worked up to a pitch of madness, and forgetful
of every tie of more than fraternal affection, he sprang
up, and flinging a pawn in his friend's face, exclaimed,
'You have given me the lie, but it shall not be with
impunity; — draw and defend yourself!'
"Captain B., happily remaining unruffled, rose
from his seat ; but, instead of preparing to shed his
friend's blood, clasped him in his arms, and then
turning to the bystanders, exclaimed, ' No ! gen
tlemen ! never will I put on the savage at your
suggestion. My friend will forgive me an offence
which you alone have made such; and I for
give him the heat which you have kindled in his
bosom. But let me discover that one of you dares
harbour a sentiment derogatory to my honour, and
he will, I trust, quickly perceive that my sword is not
unable to discharge its office.' All were silent. The
friends renewed their embraces, and confirmed, with
tears, their perfect reconciliation."

147
I am unable, I have said, to vouch for the matter
of fact of the above story ; but I can attest the truth
of what once happened to myself, in going in the mail-
coach from Yarmouth to London.
A sailor, from the fleet then lying in Yarmouth
Roads, was my sole companion. He appeared
to be between twenty and twenty-five years of
age, with a disagreeable physiognomy, and alto
gether of no very gentlemanly appearance. Still,
looking at his dress, which indicated that he bore
some commission, I was willing to divest myself of
prejudice, and entered freely into conversation with
him about naval affairs in general, and the fleet in the
roads in particular. This did very well for some time,
our tete-a-tete seeming to proceed with equal pro
priety on both sides. But, unfortunately, my com
panion, in addition to his other side-arms, was pro
vided with that variety of pistol which is peculiar to
the pocket ; and to this he frequently applied his own
lips, as frequently begging that I would also take a sip.
This I invariably declined doing ; so that he had the
whole contents of the bottle to himself; the effect of
which, after a while, began to show itself in various
disgusting ways, insomuch that at the end of the
second or third stage, thinking that he might possibly
belong, of right, to an outside seat, I made inquiries,
and, finding such to be the case, desired the guard to
give him notice to quit the interior of the coach, which
o 2

148
he did accordingly, to my immediate very great relief,
and to the no very remote danger of my life.
I think it was at Thetford, about the middle of the
night, when, as I was warming myself by the parlour
fire, whilst the horses were changing, my gentleman of
a sudden presented himself with a pistol in each
hand, 9,nd demanded instant satisfaction. " Here,"
he said, " are two loaded pistols ; and in this room
that satisfaction which, as a gentleman whose feelings
you have outraged, I have a right to demand, shall be
made me forthwith." He was still fierce from what
he had been drinking, and looked like a demon. But
being myself tolerably composed, and at least in my
sober senses, I was fortunately able to hold him in
parley till a respite arrived. I suggested that, upon
occasions of this sort, it was usual for gentlemen to be
provided with seconds, and that, immediately on
getting to town, I would set about making the cus
tomary arrangements to that effect, &c. But all this
he was disposed to treat as mere moonshine. London,
he said, is a d — d large place ; so take this pistol
instantly, which he was in the act of forcing upon me,
when, " Gracias Dio," the guard opened the parlour-
door, and summoned us to the coach. At this his
arm dropped, and, after some explanatory conversa
tion between the guard and myself, essential, as I con
ceived, to my protection, he was led back to his place
on the outside ; whilst I took care to keep aloof from

149
parlour-fires during the remainder of our journey.
On our arrival in town, I procured a hackney-coach
as soon as I was able, and so escaped unhurt from my
formidable and enraged fellow traveller (whom I m6t
in the street a few days after, but we passed each
other as perfect strangers), and I was therefore saved
the trouble of a visit to a police-office, for which, in
case of emergency, I was fully prepared.
Before I quit a subject in which, it will be seen from
the foregoing adventure, I have some reason for taking
a personal interest, it may not be uninteresting to
others to record a fatal duel, said to have occurred at
Paris, at a period when human life was certainly at a
low estimate there. The story of the duel was brought
to Gottingen in the winter of 1799, by Doctor Boutatz,
of Moscow, who had just then come from the scene of
action. The circumstances, as narrated by him, were
as nearly as possible the following, which I have gingled
into rhyme. Of old, when Clovis ruled the land.
Or good King Pippin had command.
The Errant Knights, in armour bright,
Were ever ready for the fight
Which injured virtue bad them wage.
('Tis written in the historic page.)
Yes ! every Knight was pledged to espouse
The gallant cause of broken vows.
And Nations, with admiring eye,
Referred to France for courtesy.
o 3

150
But Chivalry, as Burke has said,
May now be numbered with the dead.
Still would you know her hopeful heir.
Honour yclep'd, to France repair.
Two men of honour, t'other day,
In Paris met at one Cafe,
Where each took supper to his mind.
Or as his pocket, perhaps, was lined.
But one of them, in jeering mood.
Laughed at the other for his food :
" Your supper, Sir, was wondrous bad ;
" A worse, I think, could scarce be had.
" Duke Humphrey and his friends to-night
" Have made as good a supper quite.''
And pray, Sir, what is it to you
Whatever I may choose to do ?
" Nay, Sir, be cool ; I merely say
" T would have throvsm such trash away."
Sir ! I can't tell what you call feeding ;
But I know, Sir, what I call breeding ;
And if you spare not your advice,
You shall be made to, in a trice.
" Aye, Aye, the matter's clear enough,
" You sup upon such wretched stuff,
" That now you can't with patience bear
" Tlie truth, and nothing more, to hear."
Sir ! you are too-too-bad — I vow,
Nor will I your remarks allow ;
But if you like the smell of powder,
Straight he exclaim'd in accents louder.
Meet me to-morrow, and prepare
Your stomach for some other fare.
And here let h suffice to say
In that same wood they m.et next day,

151
Where the usurping Corse decreed
Bourbon's heroic son should bleed.*
They met ; and soon redress was had
Of him that called the supper bad ;
And as he lay and bit the ground,
Sinking beneath a fatal wound.
With faultering accent still he cried
" 'Twas a bad supper," and so died.
In the interval between our tour to the Harz and
the departure of Coleridge and his friend Chester
from Gottingen, there occurred a very enlivening
little episode at Hesse-Cassel. The king and queen
of Prussia, who were met by many of the minor
sovereign princes of Germany, paid a visit to the
Landgrave, who did honour to his august visitors, by
displaying at a review the assembled militia of his
realm. His splendid capital, yet so extremely dull in
general, was changed into a scene of bustle and festi
vity. But prior to our going thither, we had a glimpse
of the queen at Hardenburg-house, situate a few
miles from Gottingen. Here she put up for a night,
and, on her arrival, was greeted by the loud acclama
tions of a vast multitude, among whom were the
English-Gottingensers, one and all.
These were the queen's halcyon days. Misfortunes
had not yet sullied the lustre of this lovely object of

• This is not topographically correct. The Duke D'Enghien fell, not at
the Bois de Boulogne, where the duel was fought, but in the court of the
prison of Vincennes.

152
Prussian idolatry ; and no one seemed to think that
too much homage could be done to her beauty and her
virtues. All, it is true, that we saw of her Majesty at
Hardenburg-house was seen through the windows of
the parlour in which she supped ; but this sufficed to
send us back to Gottingen fully impressed with the
justice of her fame, which assigned to her — in addition
to sparkling eyes and auburn hair, and a sweet
expression of countenance — a form as elegant as could
give interest to manners the most unaffected and
pleasing ; which was pretty good allowance, consider
ing that our inferences were derived from nothing
more precise than a few peeps through the windows.
Frequent opportunities, however, of further obser
vation, which afterwards occurred, served but to
confirm the correctness of our first impressions, and
to enhance the depth of that eventftil tragedy in which
she was destined, no long time afterwards, to be so
prominent a character. And all this, whilst her
husband's sceptre lay prostrate in the dust, until (after
afflictions the most humiliating, in atonement for too
selfish a line of policy, and a misplaced confidence in
his own strength) he was enabled to reclaim it, by
taking advantage of a course of events which no
human foresight could have predicted, nor any merely
human agency have brought about.
But I am rather getting before my narrative. At
the early hour of three in the morning we set oflF — the

153
two Pan'ys,  , and myself, for Hesse-Cassel ; and,
on the following Monday, were present at the review of
upwards of 15,000 Hessian troops. The day was fine
as ever was day in June ; but so excessively hot, that
the men, who were under arms from an early hour in
the morning until after mid-day, must have. had quite
enough of it ; and so in fact we all had ; but we were
nevertheless much gratified by so excellent an oppor
tunity of witnessing a well-contested, but bloodless
battle, on a scale of no inconsiderable magnitude, and
with all the splendour of a courtly retinue. I do not
think I should succeed, if I were to attempt to enter
into military details ; but I may truly and safely say,
that the havoc made, by this merely playing at the
game of war, on some crops of growing corn, which
happened to be within the ambit of the manoeuvring
battalions, gave us no unintelligible hint of the fearful
ravages of actual warfare.
In the course of the day, his Prussian majesty took
repeated opportunities of riding up to the carriages
in which the queen and other ladies of high degree
were seated, in order to give them, as we supposed,
.some piece of information that might make the scene
more interesting to them, by making it more intelligible.
Coleridge came on foot from Gottingen, and joined
our party at the review ; but the Landgrave was far
from being a favourite with him, and he appeared,
owing perhaps to the fatigue of his walk, to be by no

154
means in a right mood for enjoying the noise of arms,
and the pageantry with which we were surrounded.
On the evening of the following day, which, I believe,
was the only entire day he spent at Cassel, I took a
walk with him in the magnificent gardens which adorn
this really princely residence ; and which, at night-fall,
were illumined by a very grand display of fire-works.
But from his continuing still in some measure out of
spirits, eyen these were scarcely able to engage his
attention, ¦ and rather than bestow on them his entire
approbation, he was feign to contrast them with the
stars which spangled the vault of heaven, up which
the moon was likewise then ascending in unrivalled
brightness. Being, however, myself, more bent on
sublunary pursuits than sydereal contemplations, I
made some excuse, as soon as I conveniently could,
for leaving him, to rejoin a merrier party, who were
busy in making preparations for a court masquerade,
to which we had been so fortunate as to gain admis
sion tickets. Coleridge returned to Gottingen before
we did, so that we saw little more of him during the
remainder of the Cassel festivities.
It must have been at this time that the accidental
conversation " with an old peasant, in a central part
of Germany," took place, which he has related in
No. XV. of "The Friend," purposely omitting names,
he says, because the day of retribution has come
and gone by ; but this was really an excess of delicacy.

155
as it is known to every one that the German mer
cenaries, employed by England in the American war,
were chiefly procured from the Hessian market.
Neither did any one, either then or since, in England
or in Germany, if secure from the petty tyrant's grasp,
disguise their abhorrence of his venal conduct.
" I was looking," he informs us, "at a strong fortress
in the distance, which formed a highly interesting
object in g, rich and varied landscape, and asked an
old man, who had stopped to gaze at me, its name,
&c., adding, ' How beautiful it looks !' ' It may be well
enough to look at,' answered he, ' but God keep all
Christians from being taken thither !' He then pro
ceeded to gratify the curiosity which he had thus
excited, by informing me, that the Baron  had
been taken out of his bed at midnight, and carried to
that fortress ; that he was not heard of for nearly two
years, when a soldier, who had fled over the boundaries,
sent information to his family of the place and mode
of his imprisonment. Had not the language and
countenance of my informant precluded such a sus
picion, I might have supposed that he had been
repeating, in the shocking detail that followed, some
tale of horror from a romance of the dark ages.
What was his crime ? I asked. ' The report is,' said the
old man, ' that, in his capacity as minister, he remon
strated with the  concerning the extravagance
of his mistress, an outlandish countess, and that she

156
in revenge persuaded the sovereign, that it was the
Baron who had communicated to a professor at
Gottingen the particulars of the infamous sale of
some thousands of his subjects as soldiers. On the
same day, I discovered, in the landlord of a small
public-house, one of the men who had been thus sold.'
He seemed highly delighted in entertaining an Engfish
gentleman, and in once more talking English, after a
lapse of so many years. He was far from regretting
this incident in his life ; but his account of the manner
in which they were forced away, accorded in so many
particulars with Schiller's impassioned description of
the same, or a similar scene, in his tragedy of ' Cabal
and Love,' as to leave a perfect conviction on my
mind, that the dramatic pathos of that description
was not greater than its historic fidelity."*
We, in fact, fell in every now and then with Anglo -
Hessians, who retained enough of our language to
make them fond of relating to us in their broken
English some trans-atlantic adventure. Whether this

* Coleridge's abhorrence of the mercenary conduct of the German petty
princes, originating with the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel's transfer of his troops
to the service of Great Britain in the American War, was forcibly and bitterly
expressed by him, so far back as the year 1794, in his " Religious Musings,"
where, in summing up the confederate powers against France, under the false
pretence, as he considered it, of defending the cause of religion, he says —
" And leagued with these
" Each petty German princeling, nursed iu gore !
" Soul-hardened barterers of human blood !
" Death's prime slave-merchants ! Scorpion-whips of fate!"

157
arose from the mere pleasure of talking of hardships
endured and dangers past, or from the remembrance
of having been well fed in America, instead of staying
at home to be half starved upon their small pittance
of pay,.may admit of a doubt. The old gentlemen
were at aU events inclined to throw a roseate tint over
their tales.
But what old soldier is not ready to
" Shoulder his crutch, and show how fields are won ?"
It is, I fear, to the feelings of our common nature,
and to the fate of the many who never lived to return
to their native land, that we must appeal for the real
character of this unhallowed transaction. To the
dead themselves we must appeal, who, in the present
instance, will at least furnish matter for a tale, which,
trusting to my memory, as I believe I may in this
instance, for its correctness, I will relate : —
In some book of " Travels in North America,"
whose author's name I do not recollect, but which
wore every appearance of being perfectly veracious, I
met with the following singular statement : —
It happened during a long and severe North
American winter, that a regiment of Hessian infantry
was stationed in a lonely barrack with little or nothing
to occupy their minds, save the thoughts of their far-
distant homes, and the friends and kindred they had
left behind them. Melancholy soon brooded over

158
them, and at last, settling upon them like an epidemic,
they began to drop oflF one by one. Still the survivors
determined that they and their lifeless comrades
should keep together as long as they could, and
perhaps, in the extraordinary method they adopted
of effecting this, found occupation, which, even
such as it was, sufficed to keep the spark of
life from going entirely out in themselves. They
fitted up a spacious apartment with the decorations
of a convivial hall, where, round a large table, the
inanimate remains of their fellow-exiles were placed
in living attitudes, with pipes in their mouths, and
any other accompaniment that could help to give them
a semblance of life.
The severity of the weather prevented decom
position, and this masquerade of death continued to
be kept up until apprehensions of a thaw, from the
approach of a warmer season, compelled the survivors
of the party to consign to the grave the yet unaltered
remains of their companions.
There may be diflFerences of opinion, as to the taste
displayed in the above grotesque method, adopted by
this fraternity of Germans, of expeUing heim-weg
(home-sickness) ; but the tale, if matter-of-fact, as I
believe it to be, will serve, at any rate, to illustrate,
what is undoubtedly true, that home-sickness is not
confined to the mountaineers of Switzerland, nor to
any country, but is common to all the sous and
daughters of Adam, with whom the word home, be it

159
ever so homely, has been once familiar. All will be
ready to proclaim with Coleridge, that
" Home-sickness is no baby-pang ;''
or to chant in plaintive accents, in some far distant
land : — " When in one day shall I see
All again that's dear to me 't
Our village cots.
Our garden plots.
Our mountain tops,
Our mountain's fairest flower?
There underneath the shady pine
Does lovely Isabel recline.
Ah ! when on the bewitching ground
Shall I to the tabor's sound
Trip it again, nor heed the giddy hour ?
When in one day shall I see
All again that's dear to me 't
My Father,
My Mother,
My Sister,
My Brother,
My Shepherdess, and all together.
When in one day shall I see
All again that's dear to me ? " *
* " Properly to appreciate' God save the King,' you should be at a distance
from our dear merry England, for it is only the poor exiles from their native
land that can feel a national melody. From my own sensations, I can fully
believe in the existence of the maladie du pays, and the melancholy which
was wont to seize the Swiss troops on hearing the wild but simple air of the
• Ranez des vaches.' It is not the beauty of the music, but the scenes of our
childhood, our home, and our paternal residence, associated and connected
therewith, which render certain tones so touching and so exquisitely, though
almost painfully, delightful." — Mrs. Elwood's India.
P 2

160
But whither am I again running from my journal?
Our masqued ball at the palace was crowded to excess.
Both their Prussian majesties, whom court etiquette
required to be without even dominos, danced.
" The queen was dressed in muslin embroidered
with gold ; necklace and ear-rings of pearl ; and on her
head a beautiful diadem of jewels."
The heat of the room was so great, that her majesty
became faint in the middle of a dance, and was obliged
for a while to retire ; a circumstance which, notwith
standing the compassion due to a queen of so much
amiability and beauty, was, I fear, not undervalued
by us as an interesting incident for our journals.
There were several Englishmen, besides our Got
tingen party, present at the Cassel gala ; so that we
made a pretty good show, when assembled at the
table d'hote.
Having, one day, sat out all the company, with the
exception of a few Hessian officers, we found no diflS-
culty, by dint of the usual argument, in prevailing with
the musicians, who had been enlivening us duringdinner
by their performances, to remain and favour us with a
little more music. The consequence, on our parts, was
a great deal of boisterous merriment, the Hessians
joining us in all our loyal toasts and national choruses.
We had, indeed, good reason to be proud of our
country, for, without England then, what would the
state of Europe, in all human probability, have been
now ?

161
On our return to Gottingen, we found Coleridge
there, and himself again. That he had not neglected,
in his walk by himself, to and from Cassel, to take
advantage of any opportunity that might occur, of
gathering materials for reflection, is evident from the
foregoing anecdote extracted from " The Friend ;" and
he spun, I have no doubt, many a subtle thread of
learned disquisition, in the course of his soliloquies on
the road — if indeed those communings with himself
ought to be called soliloquies — which I can imagine to
have been carried on very much in the manner of
conversations, between himself and the man I have so
often seen him look at with admiration, when standing
opposite to a mirror.
Monday, the 24th of June, having been fixed
for his final departure from Gottingen, I had the
pleasure of spending a most entertaining take-leave
evening with him at Professor Blumenbach's. Our
party, at supper, consisted, in addition to the pro-,
lessor's own family, of young Blumenbach's fellow
tourists only ; and the conversation, which was chiefly
in German, was particularly sprightly and amusing
on the part of the professor and Coleridge, who even
then, after nine months' residence in Germany, thought
it no undue precaution to carry with him a pocket
dictionary, to which he hesitated not to apply, if he
happened to be at a loss for a word ; but this was
seldom the case ; and there was something inexpress-
p 3

162

ibly comic in the manner in which he dashed on, with
fluent diction, but with the very worst German accent
imaginable, through the thick and thin of his subject.
Mrs. and Miss Blumenbach, the ladies of the party,
were as much astonished as they were highly defighted
with him ; and I do not think that their enjoyment
was once interrupted, by any allusion whatever to
Miss Matilda Pottingen ; for it was well understood
by us, that " Sweet Matilda," false or true, and all
the rest about the " U — niversity of Gottingen," was
far from being a favourite topic of conversation with
the Gottingen ladies.
I am not sure whether it was upon this occasion, or
some other, that Coleridge was much amused by a
young lady's expressing her surprise that he, not
being a German, could possibly understand Kant's
philosophical writings, which were not even intelligible
to her ! And here (after having above alluded to a
lady whose name cannot be so familiar at the present
day as it once was) it may not be amiss to mention,
before I proceed with Coleridge on his road to
England, that full thirty-eight years have elapsed since
Miss Matilda Pottingen first attracted great attention
by making her debut before a British public in the
" Anti-Jacobin" or " Weekly Examiner," the most
successful periodical, perhaps, ever published. It
proved, in fact, such a powerful engine on the side of
loyalty and religion, that a briUiant run of eight

163
months sufficed so effectually to cripple the monster to
which it was opposed, that it was constrained to hide
its diminished head by withdrawing from the shores of
Great Britain, with its pedlary of lies, blasphemies,
and treason, into its original fastnesses of Gallic
demonism. But jacobinism had long before spread
from France into Germany, and was there hard at
work in undermining the foundations of religion and
all established governments. Of course, the stage
was not lost sight of by it ; and so insidious were its
operations, that the very operatives themselves,
enfeebled by the poison of this upas tree, seem scarcely
to have been aware of the seductive tendency of their
own writings.
I do not say this unadvisedly ; for, during my
residence in Germany, I saw abundant cause to
suppose that there existed an almost judicial torpor
in the minds of men upon the subject of revealed
religion, under the influence of which the human will
seemed in a manner to succumb, and to become a
passive rather than an active faculty. In due time,
England was in danger of being inundated with
imitations and translations of the works of German
poets, novelists, and play-wrights ; and although it
be but fair to admit that much information and
amusement, unalloyed with mischief, came from the
same quarter, yet the tendency to debase the tone of
English morality was upon the whole considerable.

164
and served essentially to promote the scheme of sub
jugation, which the ambitious Corsican was about
to prepare for us in common with the rest of Europe.
We are accordingly presented in the " Anti-Jacobin"
of June 4th, 1798, with the first act of a supposed
German play, entitled " The Rovers," or, " The
Double Arrangement," as an average specimen of the
German theatre as then constituted.
The opening scene is laid at an inn in the town of
Weimar, where there arrive in succession, Matilda,
the mistress of Casimere, by whom she has several
children — Cecilia, Casimere's wife — and soon after,
unexpectedly as it would seem, Casimere himself.
The ladies, who are unknown to each other, are
allowed an opportunity, previously to his arrival, of
unbosoming their griefs mutually in a fine strain of
German sentimentality.
Cecilia. — " The way was dusty. Madam, but the
weather was delightful. It recalled to me those
blissful moments when the rays of desire first vibrated
through my soul."
Matilda. — "Thank heaven! I have at last
found a heart which is in unison with my own ! yes, I
understand you, the first pulsation of sentiment, the
silver tones upon the yet unsounded harp 
Cecilia. — " The dawn of life — when this blossom
{putting her hand upon her heart) first expanded its
petals to the penetrating dart of love !

165
Matilda. — "Yes — the time — the golden time,
when the first beams of the morning meet and embrace
one another ! The blooming blue upon the yet un-
plucked plum ! 
Cecilia. — "Your countenance grows animated,
my dear Madam.
Matilda. — " And yours too is glowing with illu
mination. Cecilia. — "I had long been looking out for a
congenial spirit ! my heart was withered ; but the
beams of yours have re-kindled it.
Matilda. — " A sudden thought strikes me. Let
us swear an eternal friendship.
Cecilia. — " Let us agree to live together !
Matilda. — " Willingly {with rapidity and
earnestness). Cecilia. — " Let us embrace. {They embrace.)
Matilda.—" Yes ; I too have loved ! You too,
like me, have been forsaken {doubtingly, and as if
with a desire to be informed).
Cecilia  " Too true !
Both.—" Ah, these men ! These men !
Matilda.—" Oh Casimere !
Cecilia. — (ilsirfe.) "Casimere! That name!
Oh my heart, how it is distracted with anxiety !
Matilda.—" Heavens ! Madam, you turn pale.
Cecilia. — " Nothing— a slight megrim— with your
leave, I will retire.

166
Matilda. — " I will attend you." [Exeunt, i^c.
Post horn blows — Enter Casimere, in a travelling
dress.
Casimere. — " Here, waiter, pull off my boots,
and bring me a pair of slippers.
Waiter. — " Yes, sir.
Casimere. — " Well, landlady, what company are
we to have ?
Landlady. — " Only two gentlewomen, sir. They
are just stept into the next room ; they will be back
again in a minute.
Casimere. — " Where do they come from ?
Landlady. — " There is one of them, I think,
comes from Nuremburgh.
Casimere. — {Aside.) " From Nuremburgh.' {With
eagerness.) Her name ?
Landlady.-—" Matilda.
Casimere. — {Aside.) " How does this idiot
woman torment me .' What else ?
Landlady. — " I can't recollect.
Casimere. — " Oh, agony ! {In a paroxysm of
agitation.) Waiter. — " See here, her name upon the travel
ling trunk, MATILDA POTTINGEN.
Casimere. — " Ecstacy ! Ecstacy ! {Embracing the
waiter.)

167
Landlady. — " You seem to be acquainted with
the lady. Shall I call her ?
Casimere. — "Instantly — instantly. Tell her —
her lov'd, her long lost. Tell her. . . .
Landlady. — " Shall I tell her her dinner is ready?
Casimere. ^ — " Do so ; and in the mean while I
will look after my portmanteau."
[Scene changes to a subterranean vault in the
Abbey of Quedlinburgh ; Rogero, Matilda's
original lover, appears in chains, Sfc. He rises,
and comes slowly forward, with his arms folded.
Rogero. — " Eleven years ! It is now eleven years
since I was first immured in this living sepulchre. The
cruelty of a minister, the perfidy of a monk. Yes,
Matilda ! for thy sake, alive amidst the dead. Eleven
years and fifteen days ! Hah ! the twenty-eighth of
August ! How does the recollection of it vibrate on my
heart ! It was on this day that I took my last leave of
my Matilda. It was a summer evening ; her melting
hand seemed to dissolve in mine, as I pressed it to my
bosom, &c. &c 
Yes, here in the depths of an eternal dungeon. In
a nest of demons, where Despair in vain sits brooding
over the putrid eggs of Hope ; where Agony woos the
entrance of Death ; where Patience, beside the bottom
less pool of Despondency, sits angling for impossibili-

168
ties. Yet even here, to behold her, to embrace her —
Yes, Matilda, whether in this dark abode, amidst
toads and spiders, or in a royal palace, amidst the
more loathsome reptiles of a court, would be indif
ferent to me. Angels would shower down their hymns
of gratulation upon our heads, while fiends would
envy the eternity of suflFering love  Soft, what air
was that? it seemed a sound of more than human
warblings ! Again — ah ! it is only the wind. It is
well, however ; it reminds me of that melancholy air
which has so often solaced the hours of my captivity.
Let me see whether the damps of this dungeon have
not yet injured my Guitar :
[ Takes his Guitar, tunes it, and begins the follow
ing air with a full accompaniment of violins from
the orchestra.
SONG, BY ROGERO.

Whene'er with haggard eyes I view
This dungeon, that I'm rotting in,
I think of those companions true
Who studied with me at die U
NIVERSITY of Gottingen !
KivERSiTY of Gottingen I
[ Weeps, and pulls out a hamJkercldef, with
which he wipes his eyes ; gazing tenderly
at it, he proceeds.

169

Sweet kerchief, check'd with heavenly blue,
Which once my love sat knotting in !
Alas ! Matilda then was true !
At least I thought so at the U
NIVERSITY of Gottingen !
NIVERSITY of Gottingen !
[At the repetition of this line, Rogeiv clanks
his chains in cadence.

Barbs ! barbs ! alas ! how swift you flew
Her neat post-waggon trotting in !
Ye bore Matilda from my view.
Forlorn I languished at the U
NIVERSITY of Gottingen !
NIVERSITY of Gottingen !

This faded form I this pallid hue !
This blood my veins is clotting in ;
My years are many — they were few
When first I entered at the U
NIVERSITY of Gottingen !
NIVERSITY of Gottingen !
5.
Then first for thee my passion grew.
Sweet ! sweet MATILDA POTTINGEN !
Thou wast the daughter of my TU
TOR, Law-professor at the U
NIVERSITY of Gottingen !
NIVERSITY of Gottingen !
[Rogero throws himself on the floor in an
agony, and (he curtain drops,
Q

170
With this air, in conclusion of the first act, the story
of Miss Matilda breaks off ; but in conformity with
the usage of the German stage at this time, we are
at liberty to imagine that we should find, in the last
act, Rogero released from prison and happily united
with Matilda, and a perfect reconciliation between
Casimere and Cecilia ; in short, all so affectingly
right, that the audience become choked with sobs and
gratulatory ejaculations.
It occurred to  and myself, that we would
pay Coleridge the compliment of accompanying him
and Chester as far as Brunswick ; and a carriage
that would hold four persons having been engaged
accordingly to take us to Clausthall, we left the
\J. — niversity at noon, on Midsummer-day, 1799, and
with great difficulty, owing to the badness of the
roads, arrived at the end of our journey at eleven
o'clock at night, when we were glad to get a cup of
coflFee and retire to rest as soon as we could.
The following morning we procured a guide, who
was likewise the bearer of our portmanteau, and set
oflF on foot for a second visit to the Brocken, that we
might have one chance more of getting a sight of the
spectre. Before we began to ascend the mountain,
we were fortunate enough to procure some refresh
ment at a little inn at the foot, kept by a civil and

171
talkative jager (huntsman), at whose quarters we had
likewise baited on our former tour.
Thus invigorated, we were enabled to reach the
summit at eight in the evening, in ample time for as
glorious a sunset as could be witnessed. But the
evening was so extremely cold, that we were glad to
be able to raise a fire by means of embers, that had
been left in a little shed, by some workmen employed
in building a better inn for the accommodation of
future spectre-hunters. As soon as we had indulged
sufiiciently, under the shelter of our shed, in the
contemplation of the magnificent scene, and found a
purple light succeeding to the golden and more
splendid tints of the departing day, and gradually
diflFusing itself over the distant hills ; we thought it
time to repair to the wretched little wirthshaus (small
inn), which was our only place of refuge for the night.
Here, in an apartment which might, not unaptly,
be likened to the black-hole at Calcutta, we were
destined to encounter eight other visiters, " cichter
Burschen" — genuine students — which made up the
number of twelve, assembled in a space little more
than as many feet square.* Eight of us lay on the
* It appears from Mrs. TroUope's interesting visit to the Brocken, in 1833,
that spectre-hunters of the present day meet with far better accommodations
on the Brocken, for which they are bound in gratitude to pray for his majesty
the king of Prussia, to whom, Mrs. T. tells us, they are indebted for them.
She does indeed say something about a cavern-like passage, almost as inac
cessible to the light as any dungeon ; but, upon the whole, how great the
Q 2

172
floor on straw, and we all, fortunately, survived the
night, which we took care should be as short as
possible, by hastening to exchange our wretched
dormitory, at break of day, for the glorious canopy
of heaven ; never more glorious than when, after due
preparations in the chambers of the east, the orb of
day, in all its splendour, is beheld, from the summit
of a lofty mountain, rising majestically above the
horizon, and overwhelming, at length, the spectator
by its effulgence.
Such a sunrise did we witness on the morning of
the 26th of June, from the summit of the Brocken.
But such a morning did not suit the spectral exhi
bition. The vallies and sides of the hills were
enveloped in no fogs ; the pools of water near us were
covered with ice ; and the air was so excessively cold,
that, having accomplished all that was in our power,
we proceeded without loss of time, and with but little
within to warm us, to descend the mountain, and
arrived at Elbingerode about ten o'clock in the fore-

change ! — from the miserable hut in which we took refuge from the mountain
night-air to "a building substantially and scientifically erected, where,
during the summer, a person is appointed to keep the house open for all
comers, and to furnish good but simple viands, wine, and spirits, at regulated
prices ; which appeared to be rather less than are generally met with in the
world below." "The soup, boulli, potatoes and bread, were all, she assures
us, excellent ; and of these the dinner consisted, with the addition of an
admirable bottle of Steinberger ! " An admirable bottle of Steinberger on the
summit of tlie Brocken ! Spirit of Coleridge, think of this !

173
noon. Our walk was one of great diflSculty to  ,
who suflFered severely from the effects of the alternate
cold and heat to which he had been exposed the
preceding night. On our arrival at Elbingerode, he
immediately retired to a bed-room, and getting between
two immense feather-beds, according to the custom of
the country, first shivered for a certain time, then fell
into a burning fever, and, lastly, into profuse per
spiration, which relieved him, but it took him several
days thoroughly to recover.
On the following morning, he thought it necessary
to apologize for having taken possession, sans cere-
rnonie, of the best bed ; whereupon an amusing
argumentation arose between him and Coleridge, upon
the question whether his conduct, in so doing, did
not fairly subject him to the charge of great selfish
ness. He thought, himself, that it did. On the other
hand, Coleridge contended, that so far was this from
being the case, that he would really have manifested
selfishness if, instead of going quietly to bed, he had
made a sputter, in order to excite compassion and in
duce one of us to remain and watch by him. Chester
and I sided with Coleridge, and the argument ended, in
giving our scrupulous convalescent an unanimous verdict
of acquittal. We could do no less, for poor 
had scarcely been a free agent in the business, but
repaired for relief, in a manner instinctively, to the
Q 3

174
largest feather beds he could see, they being, as the
event proved, the vei-y sudorific he required. But like
other potent medicaments, they do not suit all patients,
nor every case. And with respect to persons in
health, especially after a hearty supper, it is quite
impossible to imagine a fitter habitation for night
mare, than two such immense packs of feathers. In
his second letter from Ratzeburg, Coleridge has given
the following account of his first acquaintance with
this peculiar species of German incubus, from which
English travellers usually find means, after a little
experience, of escaping, by throwing themselves upon
the uppermost hill of feathers, trusting to the chapter
of accidents for a coverlid.
" Neither our hotel, ' Der Wilde Man,' nor its
landlord, who was no bad likeness of his sign, was of
the genteelest class ; but it has one great advantage
for a stranger, by being in the market-place, and the
next neighbour of the huge church of St. Nicholas ;
a church with shops and houses built up against it,
out of which loens and warts its high massive steeple
rises, necklaced near the top with a round of large
gilt balls. A better pole star could scarcely be
desired. Long shall I retain the impression made on
my mind by the awful echo, so loud and long and
tremulous, which awoke me at two in the morning
from a distressful dream, occasioned, I believe, by the
feather-bed which is used here instead of bed-clothes.

175
I will rather carry my blanket about with me like a
wild Indian, than submit to this abominable custom."*
After breakfast, June 27th, we proceeded to
Blankenburg, where we dined, and in the afternoon
paid a visit to the Ross-trab, a romantic glen well
worth visiting, with which several superstitious stories
are connected.
Coleridge, in the course of our walk, illustrated
some allusions to the sensitiveness of authorship, by
relating an anecdote of Mrs. R., whose poetry, upon
some occasion, he thought he had been abusing more
than it deserved. He therefore, by way of making
some amends to her, wrote a sonnet in her praise,
and inserted it in a newspaper.
In a few days, he received a highly complimentary
letter from the lady, with a splendidly bound edition
of her works.
Coleridge's opinion was asked respecting the
genuineness of Chatterton's works. He mentioned
Milles' argument as conclusive ; namely, that in
Chatterton's glossary many words are so explained as
to make sense of the text, but not so much sense as
Chatterton might have been enabled to point out had
he been better versed in the ancient poets.
On leaving Blankenburg, June 28th, we availed
ourselves of a return carriage to get to Wolfenbuttel,
' "The Friend, "p. 246.

176
where we arrived at five in the afternoon, having
dined and taken a glass of schnapps at a little inn on
the road. After enjoying a refreshing cup of coffee,
finding that we could all be accommodated with beds
in the same room, we took possession of them at the
early hour of eight for the sake of a conversazione in
the recumbent posture. How long we were in talking
ourselves to sleep, or rather in being talked to sleep
by Coleridge, my journal does not mention.
We decided on remaining at Wolfenbuttel the
whole of the following day, partly that we might have
sufficient time for visiting the celebrated library, and
making inquiries respecting Lessing, and partly on
 's account, as he still continued languid,
and not in good order for travelling, particularly on
foot. The Wolfenbuttel library, which is singularly rich
in manuscripts, is, in its interior appearance and
arrangements, not unlike Lackington's. Here we saw
an original portrait of Hans Sachs ; and, in answer
to Coleridge's inquiries about Lessing, who had been
attached for many years to the library as secretary,
we were informed that he made great use of the
opportunity which this situation aflForded him, to
consult and arrange the manuscripts, and that, if his
life had been further prolonged, he would, it is sup
posed, have made himself acquainted with the contents
of all of them. We were told that, in addition to his

177
great learning, he was a most disinterested and bene
volent man. Coleridge has informed us, in one of
the letters he wrote from Ratzeburg, that at the house
of the celebrated Klopstock's brother, near Hamburg,
he had seen a very fine portrait of Lessing. He
describes the impression this portrait made upon him,
which, we may suppose, was not the less vivid from
the circumstance that the eyes were, he says, uncom
monly like his own ; if any thing, rather larger and
more prominent. There were likewise strong indica
tions of talent for metaphysics.
In the Wolfenbuttel library, we were shown a Bible
in which the word " not" was omitted in the seventh
commandment. We dined at a very inexpensive table d'hote, where,
as well as in our walks on the ramparts of the town,
we fell into conversation with a number of French
emigres, who were in high spirits at having received
accounts of fresh disturbances which had just then
broken out at Paris. Except the library, there was
nothing very attractive at Wolfenbuttel, which we
accordingly voted to be a dull place — neither town
nor country ; but a lifeless combination of both.
June the 30th, we walked leisurely, through a
charming country, to Brunswick, and making rather
a queer appearance on our arrival there at the chief
inn, we were more amused than mortified by the atten
tive survey which the landlord took of us before he

178
ventured to inform the Garden to what apartment we
were to be conducted by him ;* but discovering that
we were Englishmen, we had good quarters allotted
to us, of which we had scarcely possession when the
door of the room in which we were sitting was sud
denly opened, and in burst the two Parrys and Turk.
It had happened a short time after our return to
Gottingen from the Harz, when we were spending an
evening with the Parrys, that Coleridge proposed to
* Almost every one is acquainted with Shenstone's lines —
" He that has travelled life's dull round,
Whate'er his varied course has been,
Must sigh, to think he oft has found
His warmest welcome at an inn."
But many years ago I read on a pane of glass at the first and last inn in
England (viz. at the Land's-end, Cornwall), the following parody :—
" He that has travelled much about
Must very often sigh to think
That every inn would tum him out,
Unless he 's furnished with the chink."
Which embodies quite as just a sentiment as the former; if indeed it be
not the very same sentiment differently expressed. For if the warm reception
of an inn may at all be dignified with the name of hospitality, it can derive
its claim to that distinction from no higher source than the sociability of self-
love (or self-interest), a principle which, to say the best of it, is fraught, as
most of Pope's paradoxical truisms are, whatever learned commentators may
have said to tlie contrary, with very ambiguous morality.
'* For forms of faith let erring mortals fight,
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right."
But is not his life most likely to be right whose form of faith is most pure ?
" For forms of government let fools contest,
The one that's best administer'd is best."
But what government is most likely to be well-administered: one founded
on justice and equity, or one left to the caprice of many or of one ?

179
us to make a pedestrian tour together through parts
of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway ; to which we so
far acceded as to give Parry three weeks for consult
ing his father, upon whose answer the tour was to
depend. But, no letter arriving within the stipulated
period, the thoughts of the tour were given up ; and
Coleridge had in the meantime lost all inclination for
such an excursion. Home sickness was, in fact,
gaining fast upon him, and he declared it to be no
longer possible for him to accompany us. He pro
mised, however, to return and make the projected
northern tour with us the ensuing spring. This
afforded some consolation to the Parrys, who, after
hastening, immediately on the receipt of their father's
answer, from Gottingen to overtake us, were naturally
not a little disappointed at the thought of returning
thither with  and myself — their object unac
complished. Coleridge never rejoined us ; but, the
following summer, my friend, Charles Parry, and myself
made the tour of a great part of Scandinavia, and
had abundant reason for being convinced that our
pedestrian project would have turned out a complete
failure. In our saunter from Wolfenbuttel to Brunswick,
there was again some conversation respecting Cole
ridge's unfortunate tragedy, Osorio. He told us,
with more particularity, that prior to the evening

180
when he heard Miss De Camp recite one of the scenes
in a public company, he had ascertained that after
Sheridan had received the manuscript from Linley, in
whose hands it was first placed, it had been passed
on, to use C.'s own familiar nomenclature, to Grey —
from him to Whitbread — from Whitbread to Sir F.
Burdett, &c. during all which transition period he
could get no audience, nor even an answer from
Sheridan. From this, which was by no means an agreeable
subject, our conversation took a more congenial turn,
and he discoursed, with considerable animation, on
the endearments of virtuous love. He had expe
rienced, he said, no happiness at all to be compared
with his state of mind during the blissful period which
intervened between consent and marriage.
" In tender accents, faint and low,
Well pleased I hear the wliisper'd No.
The whisper'd No, how little meant !
'Twas coyness that endears consent."
Nor did it by any means appear that, as some have
asserted, love had been driven out of the window
shortly after his wedding-day ; for never, during our
intercourse of many months, did I hear him drop an
expression which would have led me to suppose that
he was not most aftectionately attached to the lady to
whom he was wedded, of whom, and of his children.

181
he always spoke with the most aflfectionate regard and
warmth of feeling. I recollect his saying, that there
was no reward so gratifying to him as the approving
smiles of his wife. Such, therefore, at least, was the
estimable quality of our poet's imagination in his
character of a husband at the time in question, when
I believe he was the father of not fewer than three
children. No one could express a stronger abhorrence of
seduction and seducers, than he was wont to do ; and
in perfect accordance with this feeling, was his fond
ness for the chivalrous compositions of the Minnesinge,
or Troubadours.
He disliked to see the arm of a German peasant,
as often happened, locked in that of the woman who
was walking with him. Where pure aflfection, he
remarked, predominates in the lover's breast, the fair
lady's arm is allowed to be gently intertwined with
his, thus seeming to claim the support due from him
to her sex.
There were other suspicious tokens, which, as seve
ral of his beautiful sonnets bear testimony, he failed
not to notice : —
" Soft the glances of the youth.
Soft his speech, and soft his sigh ;
But no sound like simple truth.
But no true love in his eye."*
* It is the recorded testimony of no less a judge than Professor Wilson,
that " If there be any man of great and original genius alive at this moment,
R

182
We had an opportunity, whilst at Brunswick, of
conversing with several learned Germans. The first
upon whom we called was Professor Roose, who was
in no very good humour with his country. The Ger
man empire, he said, was so divided and subdivided,
that there was no vaterland (no common country),
and consequently no such thing as patriotism to be
met with, which, however, does not exactly tally with
an anecdote recorded by Archenholz in his Seven
Years' War. — " A German, in the act of sabreing a
Frenchman, was on the point of losing his victim,
and, by fair play, bis own life, by the interruption of
another German (an auxiliary on the side of the

in Europe, it is Coleridge ; nothing can surpass the melodious richness of
words which he heaps around his images — images which are not glaring in
themselves, but which are always affecting to the very verge of tears, because
they have all been formed and nourished in the recesses of one of the most
deeply musing spirits that ever breathed forth its inspirations in the majestic
language of England. Who, that ever read *' Genevieve," can doubt this?
That poem is known to all readers of poetry, although comparatively few of
them are aware that it is the work of Coleridge. His love-poetry is, through
out, the finest that has been produced in England since the days of Shakspeare
and the old dramatists. The old dramatists, and Coleridge, regard women
with far higher reverence — far deeper insight into the true grandeur of their
gentleness. I do not think there is any poet in the world who ever touched
so truly the mystery of the passion as be has done in " Genevieve," and in
that other exquisite poem where he speaks of
" Her voice —
Her voice, that, even in its mirthful mood.
Hath made me wish to steal away and weep "
Letters, 8fc. vol. i. p. 9i).
Where the above is given in a note, said to be extracted from " Peter's
Letters to his Kinsfolk," which Coleridge, fl-om some accompanying remarks,
does not seem to have been aware were written by Mr. Lockhart.

183
French !), but, upon his exclaiming. Brother German !
pray leave the Frenchman to me ! Aye ! aye ! he
replied, and took himself off." By Professor Roose, we
were introduced to the venerable Zimmermann, whose
great erudition, gentlemanly manners, and communi
cativeness, highly gratified us. He said it was the
fashion on the Continent to hold English schools and
universities cheap ; but that, for his part, he thought
very favourably of our plan of education ; consider
ing, as he did, the classics and mathematics to be
admirably calculated to enrich and invigorate the
youthful mind, and, at the same time, to keep its dis
cursiveness within due bounds.
He had taken a great fancy to the Emperor Paul
of Russia, who had not yet exhibited himself in the
decided character of a madman. On the contrary,
very many believed that he was destined to be the
champion who was to deliver Europe from the iron
grasp of France. I have now in my possession a very
pretty and curious little book, " Schloezer's Miniature
History of Russia," given me in the spring of 1800,
by a French emigrfe, then residing at Gottingen, with
the following inscription written on the cover : .^
" Ciel, rend-nous les Russes et combats centre nous !"
an inscription equally commemorative of the hopes and
feelings of himself and fellow exiles, and of the times
that then were. R 2

184
The little present was addressed " A Monsieur
Carlyon," with this additional pledge of reminiscence.
" Monsieur,
" Recevez, je vous prie, ce petit livre, comme un gage de
mon amitife pour vous.
" Puisse-t-il vous rappeler, par fois, mon souvenir.
" Giittingue, " le 4 Avril, 1800. " Bevij,
"Gentilh. de Bourgogne
" nfe a Dijon."
Zimmerman gave us his opinion freely of Kant's
philosophy, and no one could have more cordially
reprobated its general tendency. After maintaining,
as Kant has done, that the existence of a God can
never be proved ; * to what purpose, asked Zimmer
mann, is it to tell the world that the best argument
which can be adduced in its favour is this very im
possibility of proving it ? The generality of mankind,
he said, would recollect the impossibility, but forget the
inference. Kant, moreover, was unable,he added, toex-
* With reference to this point, the reader will do well to consult the fifth
section of Professor Turton's " Natural Theology," where he enters upon the
consideration of what Lord Brougham has written on the " Argument
A priori." How can the learned professor have supposed that the unpublished mate
rials, which, he says, he has by him, for an " Historical and Critical Account
of the modern (so called) Argument S priori, with remarks upon its proper
use," would not, when set in order, prove attractive to above half-a-score
persons in the kingdom ?
His bookseller, if his opinion were taken, would soon help him to correct
this mistake.

185
plain his own system ; so that it was not to be wondered
at, that his worshippers branched off into almost as
many ramifications as the human arteries ; but with
out returning to a common centre. Is it not extra
ordinary, he concluded by exclaiming, to see such
herds of commentators groping after and guessing at
the meaning of a living author ? Coleridge attended
to what Zimmermann said, without showing any desire
to defend the Philosopher of Konigsburg on this
occasion. Zimmermann informed us, that the greater part of
the German literati were Spinozists ; their secluded
habits were calculated, he thought, to promote this
doctrine ; besides, added he, people have their vanity
gratified, in supposing themselves equal with God ;
not considering that their doctrine puts them, at the
same time, on a footing with frogs and spiders.
We next went to pay our respects to Professor
Wiedeman, a great anatomist, chemist, and mi
neralogist. He showed us his museum, and after
wards took us to see, and be introduced to his friend.
Professor Eschenburg. They were both great friends
of the learned traveller, Mr. Hawkins, of whom they
seemed to think they could not speak too highly.
Which was the case likewise with Professor Blumen
bach, whose attentions to me, during my residence
at Gottingen, I owed in great measure to his having
R 3

186
been informed that I was a distant relation of
Mr. Hawkins — a Cornish cousin.
In the year 1794, Wiedeman and Eschenburg were
in England, and they could both speak English fluently ;
but they were not very ready to converse with us in
our own language, as it was right, they told us, that
we should speak German with them ; adding, that
they had a proverb which said, " Among wolves you
must howl." That were easy enough, rejoined Cole
ridge, but " how shall we sing with nightingales?"
In the evening, we drank teawith Professor Wiedeman,
and, after taking a walk with him in his garden,
accompanied him to a literary club, where we expected
to have fallen in again with his friend Professor
Eschenburg, but were disappointed.
The following day we took leave of Coleridge and
Chester, who bent their course homewards ; whilst the
two Parrys,  , and myself, returned to Got
tingen. No one, apparently, could have led a more studious
and regular life than Coleridge, during his residence
of nearly six months in that university. The only
lectures which I attended with him, were those of
Blumenbach on natural history.
There was a very numerous class of German stu
dents, who occupied the benches in front of the

187
lecturer, whilst seats were allotted to us (the English)
on a bench by the side of his desk, so that, from our
being near him, he could turn his head occasionally
towards us, and drop an English word or two, in
order to make any observation, which we might not
otherwise have understood, intelligible to us.
Whoever has met with the admirably arranged and
useful Manuals of Professor Blumenbach's Lectures
on Natural History, Physiology, and Comparative
Anatomy, of all which there have been good trans
lations into our own language, will be able to appre
ciate the value of the complete courses, of which they
do not profess to give more than a brief outline.
His style of lecturing was clear, and somewhat
familiar ; his sole object appearing to be to commu
nicate information, which he enlivened by appropriate
anecdote, and very often rendered still more inter
esting by a peculiar tone of voice, and expression of
countenance, and even sometimes by suitable action.
He was, in fact, admirably adapted for a lecturer
on natural history, and especially the department of
zoology ; since there were not many animals, one or
more of whose peculiarities he had not the art, in
some way or other, by tone or by gesture, of bringing
before us, in a more lively manner than mere verbal
description would have done. Yet he never lowered
himself in the opinion of his pupils, by any real
departure from his professional dignity.

188
As a specimen of his characteristic manner of
lecturing, I may mention the following occurrence at
one of his lectures. After giving a general account
of domestic fowls, he concluded with a number of
extraordinary anecdotes of the game-breed ; when,
having explained the different methods of arming
cocks for fight, he turned suddenly round, and held up
to our view an enormous pair of steel spurs, saying in
effect, to the no small amusement of the German
portion of his auditory, " perhaps even our friends
the English here are hardly prepared for such an
exhibition as this !" It must have been a noble game
cock indeed to have worn spurs of the size exhibited !
No one could have been more easy of access than
he invariably was, nor more ready to give a fuller
explanation in private of any part of his lecture that
might not have been well understood ; he appeared
to think that there was a peculiar debt of gratitude
owing to the English on account of the liberal
contributions of their countrymen to his different
cabinets, and particularly of the late Sir Joseph
Banks, to whom he was indebted for numberless very
valuable presents. He sent him, at the time I was
at Gottingen, one of the first specimens which
arrived in Europe of the Ornithorynchus Paradoxus,*
? It was to be expected that so novel a spectacle as the Ornithorynchus Para
doxus would fix the attention, and set at work all the ingenuity of Professor
Blumenbach. It in tact delighted him, it excited his utmost curiosity, and

189
ail account of which extraordinary animal he soon
after published. But there should have been an
accompanying sketch of Blumenbach himself, with
the specimen in his hands held up for the admiration
of his class! Sir Joseph might then have thought
himself well repaid for his present.
It may not be irrelevant here to remark, as a
Gottingen peculiarity, that, however affable Professor
Blumenbach may have been with his pupils at home,
he strictly adhered to a rule, common to him with the
other Professors of the university, of not taking the
slightest notice of them iu the public streets, or even

he could not speak of it without expressing wonder and admiration, as indeed
he did at other discoveries connected with the natural history of New Holland.
I have pleasure in noticing here an interesting paper read at a general
meeting of the Royal Cornwall Institution, which contains " Observations on
the Ornithorynchus Paradoxus," by Mr. Spry, an eminent surgeon of Truro,
to whom I am indebted for a copy of the original print, from which the great
likeness of Professor Blumenbach, prefixed to this volume, has been taken.
The controversy, it appears, respecting this paradoxical animal, this creature
between bird and beast, turned chiefly on the question, whether it was
viviparous or oviparous. Blumenbach, determined probably by Professor
Mechel'a discovery of a mammary gland, supposed it to be the former,
and classed it accordingly in his " Manual of Natural History." But while
different naturalists took different sides with equal pertinacity, neither
party seemed prepared for the fact, since established, of its partaking of the
nature both of viviparous and oviparous animals.
Ova were said to have been seen, but their existence required further
confirmation, when a specimen, in the possession of Dr. Weatherhead, was
found to contain them, and thus set the matter at rest, by demonstrating,
beyond doubt, that " the extraordinary animal which combines the bird and
quadruped in its outward form, lays eggs and hatches them like the one,
and rears and suckles them like the other."

190
when walking, where we occasionally met him, on
the ramparts. He did not even return the compli
ment of a bow, but passed by, as if he did not
see us ; a peculiarity the more remarkable, from
occurring in a place where this species of politeness is
thought a great deal of. Upon no occasion vdll you
see two citizens of Gottingen pass each other without
a full and very formal exposure of the head, which is
often so long a ceremony, that before the re-ad
justment of the fine old three-cornered hat has taken
place, the performers will have receded from each
other a considerable distance.
Blumenbach has a most curious and extensive col
lection of skulls, comprising those of individuals of
almost every nation and people upon the face of the
earth. But from having long ago adopted the facial
line of Camper, and taken great pains to illustrate it,
he seems determined that neither Gall nor Spurtzheim
shall throw him off his own hobby. Just as in
Harvey's day, all above the age of fifty are said to
have resisted the evidence in favour of the circulation
of the blood.
Walking one day with Coleridge, we chanced to
meet a remarkably broad-faced rosy lass, who imme
diately reminded him of Chaucer's damsel,
" With her broad countenance, like a goodly banner,
Spread in defiance of all enemies :"

191
when he took occasion to explain to us that a chuckle-
headed fellow was one whose face was large, and
the rest of his head small ; and that chuckle-head
meant nothing less than " der grosser kopf" (great
head) of the Germans, which they, and all other
enlightened nations, consider as indicating prgpor-
tionably great mental powers. They usually, however,
say, when alluding to a person of more than ordinary
talents, not that he has, but that he is " ein grosser
kopf," or what we should call, a long-headed fellow.
When Blumenbach exhibits his collection of skulls,
he is in the habit of asking his visiters to point out
the skull of a Jew, which they seldom fail of doing.
Coleridge either attended Professor Eichhorn's
lectures on divinity, or had access, which I rather
believe to have been the case, to the notes of some
other student. I collected from him, that it was a
part of Eichhorn's method of lecturing, to assume a
disbelief of any religious point, and then to consider
the grounds of such disbelief. For instance, after
asserting that arguers against the truth of prophecy,
aim chiefly at proving, what are called prophecies, to
have been written subsequently to the events which
they profess to predict, he would proceed to examine
how far their attempts had been successful ; and, in
this way, he might, it is evident, have done great
service to the cause of truth. But, on the other
hand, nothing was easier, than for a sceptical lecturer

192
so to garble facts, and favour falsehoods, as to turn
the scale his own way.*
The conclusion, with respect to our Saviour, to
which his investigation was calculated to lead his
hearers, was, that such a person as Jesus Christ lived
at the time we are told he did, and with great
ingenuity foisted his doctrines on the world ; that the
party of Christians was much stronger at the time
of the crucifixion, than has generally been supposed ;
and that, by their contrivance, Christ did not really die
upon the cross, but was taken down alive, and placed
alive in the sepulchre, from whence he rose again — ¦
but not from the dead-^a thorough Dr. Dodd story !
the very discussion of which, from the chair of a
Divinity Professor, implies such a depraved perver
sion of intellect — such more than Stygian darkness,
upon the subject of Christianity, brooding over the
Continental seats of learning at this epoch, as it is
in the last degree appalling to contemplate. Our
Saviour's miracles were set aside as being founded
in credulity and originating in successful appeals to
the imagination of the multitude ; and thus were put
on the same footing with the contemptible fabrica
tions of a corrupt church.
When no other way presented itself of getting over
a difliculty, it was set down as, in all probability,
* Vide Parry's Letter, p. 100.

193
a fiction ; thus cutting any knot that did not admit
of being untied.
There was no objection to allow that our Saviour
was an inspired person ; but not more so than Sir
Isaac Newton, or any other great natural or moral
philosopher. Alas ! When, or will ever again, the
day spring from on high break in upon this darkness
of death, and the descendants of Luther once more
emulate the spirit of that great Reformer?*
My tutor, Beneke — himself a very learned man —
used to say, " in England you have better lawyers —
better physicians — better merchants, than we have;
but your divines are altogether inferior to ours !"
I have already said, that the doctrines of Spinoza
were asserted by Zimmermann to prevail, almost gene
rally, among the literati of the North of Germany, at
the time to which I am referring. Coleridge used
frequently to make them the subject of our conver
sation, and took pains to explain them to us.
His concentrated definition of Spinozism was,
" Each thing has a life of its own, and we are all
one life ;" but the expanded doctrine amounts to
this, " That there is but one substance in nature ;

• " It is known to all who know any thing of modem divinity, that the
theological writings of Eichhorn, especially his Introductions, concentrate
in the highest degree all that is peculiar and most obnoxious in the German
school of biblical criticism— of which, in fact, he was, while living, the genuine
representative and distinguished ieniei."— Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1834.

194
that this one substance is endued with an infinite
number of attributes, among which are extension and
cogitation ; that all the bodies in the universe are
modifications of the former, and all the souls of the
latter ; that God is a self-existent and infinitely
perfect Being, the cause of all things which exist, but
yet not a different Being from them, since there is but
one Being and one Nature, which Nature produces
within itself, by an immanent act, all those which we
call creatures, and which Being is at the same time
both agent and patient, efiicient cause and subject,
yet producing nothing but modifications of Himself."
According to another version : —
" The great principle of Spinozism is, that there
is nothing properly and absolutely existing but matter,
and the modifications of matter; among which are
even comprehended thought, abstract and general
ideas, comparisons, relations, combinations of re
lations, &c.
" Or it has been defined to be ' A species of
Naturalism, or Pantheism, or Hylotheism,' as it is
sometimes called, that is, the dogma which allows of
no other God but Nature or the Universe, and there
fore makes matter to be God.

• Estne Dei sedes nisi terra et pontus et aer
Et coelum et virtus ? Superos quid quarimus ultra ?
Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quodcunque videris.' "

195
Such notions of the Deity might be tolerated from
a rank heathen (for enlightened heathens had purer
notions of the Maker of the Universe than these), or
excuses might be found, in the corruptions connected
with that exclusion of the full light of the Bible which
papal tyranny enjoined, for the unfathomable but
splendid meditations ** Jordani Bruni Nolani de
Monade, numero et Jigura ;" but that men should
voluntarily turn from the light of the Bible to such
trash as the above, is, to sober reason, utterly incom
prehensible.*

• Bruno was a great favourite with Coleridge ; he often spoke of him ener
getically, and always, apparently, with the wish to give a favourable inter
pretation to his metaphysics. He gave me, in manuscript, what maybe con
sidered as the exposition of his creed, extracted from some work of his (as
appears by my manuscript), '¦'¦De Monade, Numero et Figura" — and inserted
by Coleridge as a note to page SO of" The Friend" (original edition), together
with his translation ; both of which I subjoin, as closely appertaining to him
at one period of his life : —
" Anima sapiens (says Giordano Bruno, and let the sublime piety of the
passage excuse some intermixture of error, or rather let the words, as they
well may, be interpreted in a safe sense) non timet mortem, immo interdum
illam ultro appetit, illi ultro occurrit. Manet quippe substantiam omnem
pro Duratione Etemitas, pro Loco Immensitas, pro Actu Omniformitas.
Non levem igitur ac futilem, atqui gravissimam perfectoque Homine dignis-
simam contemplationis partem persequimur, ubi divinitatis, naturseque
aplendorem, fusionem, et communicationem, non in Cibo, Potu, et iguobi-
liore quadam materia, cum attonitorum seculo perquirimus ; sed in augusta
Oranipotentis Regia, in immenso cetheris spatio, in infinita naturae geminse
omnia fientis et omnia facientis potentia, unde tot astrorum, mundorum
inquam et nurainum, uni altissimo concinentium atque saltantiura absque
numero atcjue fine juxta piopositos ubique fines atque ordines, con-
templamur. Sic ex visibilium eetemo, immenso et innumerabili efifectu
sempiterna immensa ilia Majestaa atque bonitas intellecta conspicitur,
proque sua dignitate innumerabilium Deonira (mundorum dico) adsis-
S 2

196
Soon after Coleridge's arrival at Gottingen,
Mr. Wordsworth and his sister came from Goslar to

tentia, concinentia, et gloriee ipsius enarratione, immo ad oculos expressa
concione glorificatur. Cui immenso mensum non quadrabit Domicilium
atque Templum— ad cujus Majestatis plenitudinem agnoscendam atque per-
colendam, numeiabilium ministrorum nullus asset ordo, Eia igitur ad
omniformia Dei omniformem Imaginem conjectemus oculos, vivum et
magnum illius admiramur simulacrum ! Hinc miraculum magnum a Tris-
megisto appellabatur Homo, qui in Deum transeat quasi ipse sit Deus, qui
conatur omnia fieri sicut Deua est omnia ; ad objectum sine fine, ubique
tamen finiendo, contendit, sicut infinitus est Deus, immensus, ubique totus."
Translation. — A wise spirit does not fear death, nay, sometimes [as in
cases of voluntary martyrdom) seeks and goes forth to meet it, of its own
accord. For there awaits all actual beings, for duration an eternity, for place
immensity, for action omniformity. We pursue, therefore, a species of con
templation not light or futile, but the weightiest and most worthy of an ac
complished man, while we examine and seek for the splendor, the interfusion,
and communication of the Divinity and of nature, not in meats or drink, or
any yet ignobler matter, with the race of the thunder-stricken ; (i. e. minds
stunned and stupified by superstitious fears. Bruno here alludes, doubtless, to
tJie gross absurdities of iransubstantialion ;) hut in the august palace of the
Omnipotent, in the illimitable eetherial space, in the infinite power, that
creates all things, and is the abiding Being of all things.
There we may contemplate the host of stars, of worlds, and their guardian
deities {i. c. presiding angels), numbers without number, each in its appointed
sphere, singing together, and dancing in adoration of the One Most High.
Thus from the perpetual, immense, and innumerable goings on of the visible
world, that sempiternal and absolutely infinite Majesty is intellectually
beheld, and is glorified according to his glory, by the attendance, and choral
symphonies, of innumerable gods, who utter forth the glory of their inefiable
Creator in the expressive language of Vision ! To HIM illimitable, a limited
temple will not correspond — to the acknowledgment and due worship of the
plenitude of his majesty there would be no proportion in any numerable
army of ministrant spirits. Let us then cast our eyes upon the oraniform
image of the attributes of the all-creating Supreme, nor admit any repre
sentation of his Excellency but the living Universe, which he has created!
Thence was man entitled by Trismegistus, "the great Miracle," inasmuch
as he has been made capable of entering into Union with God, as if he were
himself a divine nature; tries to become all things, even as in God all things

197
pay him a visit, and I have been informed by one,
well acquainted with the fact, that the two philoso
phers rambled away together for a day or two (leaving
Miss Wordsworth at Gottingen), for the better
enjoyment of an entire intercommunion of thought,
thereby becoming the whole world to each other,
and not this world only, which in their metaphysical
excursions was probably but a secondary consideration.
I am not aware whether they allowed themselves any
intermission either for bodily or mental repose ; 1
should almost have doubted it, if it had not been
so well known that they entertained for each other the
sincerest friendship, and if I had not heard Coleridge
promulgate as a maxim, that " you ought not to
consider a man your friend, until you could be quite
at your ease and comfortable when alone with him,
without saying a word, or being scarcely sensible of
his presence,'' which is making friendship to transcend
the passion of love itself; for even lovers, when their
tongues are silent, continue to commune with each

are; and in limitless progression of limited states of heing, urges onward to
the ultimate aim, even as God is simultaneously Infinite, and every where
All! I purpose, Coleridge adds, to give an account of the Life of Giordano Bruno,
the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and who was hurnt under pretence of atheism,
at Rome, in the year 1600 ; and of his works, which are perhaps the scarcest
bojks ever printed. Tiiey are singularly interesting as portraits of a vigor
ous mind struggling after truth, amid many prejudices, which from the
state of the Roman Church, in which he was born, have a claim to much
indulgence.
s 3

198
other with their eyes, at least so it would seem from
the words of the old song —
" Drink to me only with thine eyes," &c.
Nothing, in fact, could appear to exceed Coleridge's
admiration of his friend Wordsworth. When we have
sometimes spoken complimentarily to Coleridge of
himself, he has said that he was nothing in com
parison with him.
He likewise thought very highly of the metaphysical
powers of Sir H. Davy, to whom he was introduced
by his friend Mr. Cottle, at Bristol, after his return
from Germany.* I have heard him in particular
speak in terms of the greatest commendation of his
poetical composition, " The Spinozist," hereafter to
be noticed.
In the autumn of 1803, he met Sir Humphry at
dinner at my lodgings in London, together with my

* Some years afterwards Mr. Cottle expressed his hopes to Coleridge that
Davy, since his removal from Bristol to London, was not tinctured with
the then prevailing scepticism. He assured him that he was not ; that his
heart and understanding were not the soil for infidelity. Upon remarking to
Coleridge that he doubtless saw, during his residence in London, a great many
of what are called " the cleverest men," and asking how he estimated Davy in
comparison with them, *' Wliy," said he, " Davy could eat them all ! there is
an energy, an elasticity in his mind, which enables him to seize on, and
analyze all questions, pushing them to theix legitimate consequences. Every
subject in Davy's mind has the principle of vitality. Living thoughts spring
up like the turf under his feet." — Appendix to " The Predictions," &c. By
a Layman (Mr. Cottle).

199
friends  , Mr. Poole, and the late Dr. Reeve,
of Norwich. The conversation throughout the even
ing, a winter's evening, was extremely animated and
interesting. Coleridge and Davy put forth all their
strength, and it is not a little gratifying to me to be
able to trace in my recollections of the conversation
upon that occasion, some rudiments of those " Con
solations in Travel," which the latter committed to
the press so many years after.
The phenomena of dreams were freely discussed,
and whoever is conversant with Coleridge's writings
will be at no loss to imagine with what animation he
would converse upon this subject. He has taken
some trouble to show, in one of his numbers of " The
Friend," how, when we are in certain abstract moods,
even without the intervention of sleep, properly so
called, the reason may be so led astray from her
propriety, as to make a strange medley of the realities
of life with the reflex operations of the mind, and the
visions of fancy ; and in this state of dreaming, with
the eyes open, he supposes Luther to have been when
he had his celebrated tussel with the Evil One.
The story to which I here allude, as related by
himself, only abridged, is as follows : —
" When Luther was confined in the Warteburg, a
castle near Eisenach, he is said, upon some occasion,
when deep in the writings which contributed so essen
tially to the Reformation, to have hurled his inkstand

200
at the devil who came to assail him, the black spot
from which is still shown to visiters on the stone wall
of the room in which he studied."
The fact Coleridge leaves it to others to settle,
although, he adds, many circumstances incline him to
give credit to it. " Some night, when sitting iu his
chamber in the Warteburg, with his midnight lamp
before him, methinks, he says, I see him with the
Hebrew Bible open, on which he gazes, his brow
pressing on his palm, brooding over some obscure text,
which he desires to make plain to the simple boor and
to the humble artizan. And he himself does not
understand it ! Thick darkness lies on the original
text ; he counts the letters — calls up the roots of each
separate word, and questions them as the familiar
spirits of an oracle — in vain — thick darkness continues
to cover it. He submits to the humiliation of con
sulting the Vulgate — his old and sworn enemy, the
treacherous confederate of the Rom an- Antichrist —
and finds some plausible interpretation in favour of
the doctrine of purgatory, the intercession of saints,
or the efficacy of prayers for the dead !
" Still there remains one auxiliary in reserve — the
Septuagint. Here again his hopes are baflSed. Dis
appointed, despondent, enraged, ceasing to think,
yet continuing his brain on the stretch in solicitation
of a thought, and gradually resigning himself to angry
fancies, to recollections of past persecutions, to uneasy

201
fears, and inward defiances, and floating images of
the Evil Being, their supposed personal author ; he
sinks, imperceptibly, into a trance, or slumber, during
which his brain retains its waking energies, excepting
that what would have been mere thoughts before, now
(the action and counterweight of his outward senses
and their impressions being withdrawn) shape and
condense themselves into things, into realities ! Re
peatedly half wakening, and his eyelids as often
reclosing, the objects which really surround him form
the place and scenery of his dream. All at once he
sees the arch-fiend coming forth on the wall of the
room, from the very spot perhaps on which his eyes
had been fixed vacantly during the perplexed moments
of his former meditation ; the ink-stand, which he
had at the same time been using, becomes associated
with it ; and in that struggle of rage, which, in these
distempered dreams, almost constantly precedes the
helpless terror by the pain of which we are finally
awakened, he imagines that he hurls it at the intruder,
or, not improbably, in the first instant of awakening,
while yet both his imagination and his eyes are pos
sessed by the dream, he actually hurls it ! Some
weeks after, perhaps, during which interval he may
have often mused on the incident, undetermined
whether to deem it a visitation of Satan to him in the
body or out of the body, he discovers, for the first
time, the dark spot on the wall, and receives it as a

202
sign and pledge vouchsafed to him of the event having
actually taken place."*
Sir Humphry very ingeniously suggested, in pur
suance of what Coleridge had been saying, that a
certain class of ghost stories might very naturally
derive their verisimilitude from dreams. We have
only to suppose that the scene, in which the dream
occurs, corresponds with the circumstances of it, and
there is at once a foundation laid for a ghost-story.
Usually we are carried in our dreams to places
remote from our bed-chamber, and engaged in scenes,
and conversant with events, which are dissipated, by
their incongruity, the moment we become fully awake.
But suppose we dreamt that some departed friend
came to the bottom of our bed, and there held con
versation with us suitable to so momentous an occur
rence, by the aid of what incongruity is the delusion
to be dissipated on our awaking? Far more easy is
it to decide against the reality of those spectral appear
ances to which, under certain disordered conditions
of the brain, individuals are known, when broad awake,
and at noon-day, to have been liable ; because they
make their approach when the reason is on her
guard, and not, as in dreams, at least half asleep.
And here I shall be excused for again alluding to the
" Consolations in Travel" of Sir H. Davy. The follow-
• " Friend," p. 125.

203
ing sketch, illustrative of my present subject, is
extracted from his third Dialogue, entitled " The
Unknown." " I was walking," says one of the persons of the
dialogue, distinguished by the appellation of 'The
Stranger,' " along that deserted shore which contains
the ruins of Ptolemais, one of the most ancient ports
of Judaea. It was evening ; the sun was sinking into
the sea; I seated myself on a rock, lost in melancholy
contemplations on the destinies of a spot once so
famous in the history of man. The calm Mediterra
nean, bright in the glowing light of the west, was the
only object before me. ' These waves,' I said to
myself, ' once bore the ships of the Monarch of Jeru
salem, which were freighted with the riches of the
East, to adorn and honour the sanctuary of Jehovah ;
here are now no remains of greatness, or of com
merce ; a few red stones and broken bricks only mark
what might have been once a flourishing port, and the
citadel above, raised by the Saracens, is filled with
Turkish soldiers.' The janissary who was my guide,
and my servant, were preparing some food for me in a
tent which had been raised for the purpose ; and
whilst waiting for their summons to my repast, I con
tinued my reveries, which must gradually have ended
in slumber. I saw a man approaching towards me,
whom, at first, I took for ray janissary, but as I came
nearer I found a very diff'erent figure ; he was a very

204
old man with a beard as white as snow ; his counte
nance was dark, but paler than that of an Arab, and
his features stern, wild, and with a peculiarly savage
expression ; his form was gigantic, but his arms were
withered ; and there was a large scar on the left side of
his face, which seemed to have deprived him of an
eye. He wore a black turban and black flowing-
robes, and there was a large chain round his waist,
which clanked as he moved. It occurred to me that
he was one of the Santons, or sacred madmen, so
common in the East, and I retired as he approached
towards me. He called out, ' Fly not, stranger ; fear
me not ; I will not harm you ; you shall hear my story;
it may be useful to you.' He spoke in Arabic, but in
a peculiar dialect, and to me new, yet I understood
every word. ' You see before you,' he said, ' a man
who was educated a Christian, but who renounced
the worship of the one Supreme God for the supersti
tions of the pagans. I became an apostate in the
reign of the Emperor Julian, and I was employed by
that sovereign to superintend the re-erection of the
temple of Jerusalem, by which it was intended to belie
the prophecies and give the death-blow to the holy
religion. History has informed you of the result;
my assistants were most of them destroyed in a tre
mendous storm ; I was blasted by lightning from
heaven (he raised his withered hand to his face and
eye), but suflFered to live, and expiate my crime in the

205
flesh. My life has been spent in constant and severe
penance, and in that suffering of the spirit produced
by guilt, and is to be continued as long as any part of
the temple of Jupiter, in which I renounced my faith,
remains in this place. I have lived through ^fifteen
tedious centuries, but I trust in the mercies of Omni
potence, and I hope my sentence is completed. I now
stand in the dust of the pagan temple. You have
just thrown the last fragment of it over the rock.
My time has arrived, I come !' As he spake the last
words, he rushed towards the sea, threw himself from
the rock, and disappeared. I heard no struggling,
and saw nothing but a gleam of light from the wave
that closed above him. I was now roused by the cries
of my servant and of the janissary, who were shaking
my arm, and who informed me that my sleep was so
sound that they were alarmed for me. When I looked
on the sea, there was the same light, and I seemed to
see the very spot in the wave where the old man had
sunk. I was so struck by the vision, that I asked if
they had not seen something dash into the wave, and
if they had not heard somebody speaking to me as
they arrived. Of course their answers were negative.
In passing through Jerusalem, and in coasting the
Dead Sea, I had been exceedingly struck by the
present state of Judeea, and the conformity of the
fate of the Jewish nation to the predictions of our
Saviour. I had likewise been reading Gibbon's eulogy
T

206
of Julian, and his account of the attempts made by
that emperor to rebuild the temple ; so that the dream
at such a time and in such a place was not an un
natural occurrence, yet it was so vivid, and the image
of the subject of it so peculiar, that it long affected
my imagination, and, whenever I recurred to it,
strengthened my faith."
The reply of Onuphrio (another of the persons of
the dialogue) contains the very opinion which I have
just mentioned my having heard Sir Humphry
express in conversation many years before.
" I believe (Onuphrio is made to say) all the
narratives of apparitions and ghost stories are founded
upon dreams of the same kind as that which occurred
to you, an ideal representation of events in the local
situation in which the person is at the moment, and
when the imaginary picture of the place in sleep
exactly coincides with its reality when waking."
The Stranger. — " I agree with you in your
opinion. If my servant had not been with me, and
my dream had been a little less improbable, it would
have been difficult to have persuaded me that I had
not been visited by an apparition."
With reference, in like manner, to the well-known
dream of Brutus, " his supposed evil genius," continued
the stranger, " appeared in his tent; had the philo
sophical hero dreamt that his genius had appeared to
him in Rome, there could have been no delusion."

207
" A similar vision is recorded of Dion, before his
death, by Plutarch, namely, that a gigantic female,
one of the fates or furies, was supposed to have been
seen by him, when reposing in the portico of his
palace." Ambrosio. — " In confirmation of Onuphrio's
opinion, I can mention many instances. I once dreamt
that my door had been forced, that there were robbers
in my room, and that one of them was actually putting
his hand before my mouth to ascertain if I was
sleeping naturally ; I awoke at this moment, and was
some minutes before I could be sure whether it was
a dream or a reality ; I felt the pressure of the bed
clothes on my lips, and still in the fear of being
murdered, continued to keep my eyes closed and to
breathe slowly, till hearing nothing, and finding no
motion, I ventured to open my eyes — but even then,
when I saw nothing, I was not sure that my impression
was a dream till I had risen from my bed and
ascertained that the door was still locked."*
Here ought perhaps to have ended my story about
spectre dreams ; but I feel so much gratification in the
illustrations which Davy has himself supplied of his
own early opinion on a subject not more visionary
than it is generally interesting, that I shall not be
satisfied without referring to a vision, which, under
• " Consolations in Travel," 1st edit. p. 159.
T 2

208
the assumed name .of Philalethes, he relates in his
second dialogue, as having occurred to himself.
" Almost a quarter of a century ago," he says, " t
contracted that terrible form of typhus fever, known
by the name of jail fever, whilst engaged in putting
into execution a plan for ventilating one of the great
prisons of the metropolis. My illness was severe and
dangerous ; as long as the fever continued, my dreams
or deliriums were most painful and oppressive; but
when the weakness consequent on exhaustion came
on, and when the probability of death seemed to my
physicians greater than that of life, there was an
entire change in all my ideal combinations. I re
mained in an apparently senseless or lethargic state ;
but in fact, my mind was peculiarly active ; there was
always before me the form of a beautiful woman with
whom I was engaged in the most interesting and
intellectual conversation."
Amb. — " The figure of a lady with whom you
were in love."
Phil. — " No such thing ; I was passionately in
love at the time ; but the object of my admiration was
a lady with black hair, dark eyes, and pale com
plexion ; this spirit of my vision, on the contrary, had
brown hair, blue eyes, and a bright rosy complexion,
and was, as far as I can recollect, unlike any of the
amatory forms which in early \outh had so often
haunted my imagination. Her fiaure for many days

209
was so distinct in my mind, as to form almost a visual
image ; as I gained strength, the visits of my good
angel, for so I called it, became less frequent ; and
when I was restored to health, they were dis
continued. " Ten years after I had recovered from the fever,
and when I had almost lost the recollection of the
vision, it was recalled to my memory by a very
blooming and graceful maiden fourteen or fifteen
years old, that I accidentally met during my travels
in Illyria, but I cannot say that the impression made
upon my mind by this female was very strong. Now
comes the extraordinary part of the narrative ; ten
years after, twenty years after my first illness, at a
time when I was exceedingly weak from a severe and
dangerous malady, which for many weeks threatened
my life, and when my mind was almost in a desponding
state, being in a course of travels ordered by my
medical advisers, I again met the person who was the
representative of my visionary female, and to her kind
nesses and care I believe I owe what remains to me of
existence. My despondency gradually disappeared,
and though my health still continued weak, life began
to possess charms for me which I had thought were
for ever gone, and I could not help identifying the
living angel with the vision which appeared as my
guardian genius during the illness of my youth."*
* " Consolations in Travel," p. 72.
T 3

210
After the above relation, it is but fair to state, that
Sir H. Davy has declared his conviction that dreams
are always representations of the state of the mind
modified by organic diseases or by associations, and
that there are certainly no absolutely new ideas
produced in sleep. But whoever wishes to enter philo
sophically upon this subject, will find a great deal of
valuable information in the Zoonomia of Darwin ; in
the writings of Phrenologists generally, and particularly
in Coombe's " System of Phrenology ;" in Dr. ElUot-
son's notes to the Section on Sleep of his very elegant
and accurate translation of " Blumenbach's Physi
ology ;" in the " Inquiries concerning the Intellectual
Powers" of that very excellent medical and mental
philosopher. Dr. John Abercrombie ; and lastly, in the
recent " Discourse of Lord Brougham on Natural
Theology."* Among all these and many other writers on the
same subject, there is a general agreement as to the
fact that the dreams which are most distinctly remem
bered are those which occur during imperfect sleep,
or when we are approaching to the waking state, as

* The definition of a dream will vary, it is evident, with the theory of each
particular writer on the subject. The best general definition at wliich I have
been able to arrive is the following :
" The consciousness of some involuntary impression during sleep."
When, with the departure of sleep, reason resumes her seat, she has ordi
narily no difficulty in balancing her sleeping and waking accounts.
It will have been seen in the text under what combination of circum
stances dreams may happen to pass upon us fdr realities.

211
¦ well as that we have no notion of the duration of time
in our dreams. The most varied occurrences, aud
the transactions of years, are crowded, without any
consciousness of incongruity, into a period too brief
for calculation ; accordingly, we are informed by
Dr. Abercrombie, that " A gentleman dreamt that he
had enlisted as a soldier, joined his regiment,
deserted, was apprehended, carried back, tried,
condemned to be shot, and at last, led out for
execution. After the usual preparations a gun was
fired ; he awoke with the report, and found that a
noise in an adjoining room had both produced the
dream and awakened him. The same want of the
notion of time is observed in dreams from other
causes. Dr. Gregory mentions a gentleman, who,
after sleeping in a damp place, was for a long time
liable to a feeling of suffocation whenever he slept in
a lying posture, and this was always accompanied by
a dream of a skeleton which grasped him violently by
the throat. He could sleep in a sitting posture
without any uneasy feeling ; and after trying various
expedients, he at last had a sentinel placed beside
him, with orders to awake him whenever he sunk
down. On one occasion he was attacked by the
skeleton, and a severe and long struggle ensued before
he awoke. On finding fault with his attendant for
allowing him to lie so long in such a state of suffering,
he was assured that he had not lain an instant, but

212
had been awakened the moment he began to sink.
The gentleman, after a considerable time, recovered
from the affection."
" A friend of mine," adds Abercrombie, " dreamt
that he crossed the Atlantic, and spent a fortnight in
America. In embarking on his return he fell into the
sea, and having awaked with the fright, discovered
that he had not been asleep above ten minutes."
" The rapidity," Darwin remarks, " of the succession
of transactions in our dreams is almost inconceivable,
insomuch that, when we are accidentally awakened by
the jarring of a door which is opened into our bed
chamber, we sometimes dream a whole history of
thieves or fire in the very instant of awaking."
Lord Brougham's characteristic illustration of the
same fact, is as follows : —
" Let any one who is extremely overpowered with
drowsiness, as after sitting up all night and sleeping
none the next day, lie down and begin to dictate, he
will find himself falling asleep after uttering a few
words, and he will be awakened by the person who
writes repeating the last word, to show he has written
the whole ; not above five or six seconds may elapse,
and the sleeper will find it at first quite impossible to
believe that he has not been asleep for hours, and will
chide the amanuensis for having fallen asleep over
his work, so great apparently will be the length of the
dream which he has dreamt, extending through half

213
a life-time. This experiment is easily tried ; again
and again the sleeper will find his endless dream
renewed, and he will always be able to tell in how
short a time he must have performed it. For suppose
eight or ten seconds required to write the four or five
words dictated, sleep could hardly begin in less than
four or five seconds after the eff'ort of pronouncing
the sentence, so that at the utmost, not more than
four or five seconds can have been spent in sleep.
But indeed the greater probability is, that not above
a single second can have been so passed, for a writer
will easily finish two words in a second, and suppose
he has to write four, and half the time is consumed
in falling asleep, one second only is the duration of
the dream, which yet seems to last for years, so
numerous are the images that compose it."
From all which it appears that, as volition ceases,
the reflex powers of the mind, about to be released for
a while from the controul of the body, and in a manner
taking leave of this our mortal state of existence,
almost realize the period when time shall be no more.*
* What is Time ? The measure we are told of duration — whether in
volving the consideration of days or years — or the period of all created
existence. To me it seems that Time bears the same reference to events that space
does to matter ; and that time and space are with relation to the works of
Creation, what eternity and infinity are with relation to the Creator. Accord
ingly, with the same correctness with which it is enunciated of the Supreme
Being that to Him a thousand years are as one day, it may be said that a
thousand miles are as a single point. When we speak of infinity in con-

214
1 have lately seen a well-written and, apparently,
authentic account of a gentleman, who had been
restored to life after suspended animation. It informs
us that, far from having any recollection of sufferings
in connection with his loss of consciousness, the only
mental impression, retained by him, of his dying
moments was, that all the events of his past life
seemed to have been set in simultaneous array before
him — thus evincing a close analogy between the death
we die daily and that which it is appointed unto all
men once to die, and, proceeding with the analogy to
its legitimate extent, between the awakening to life in

nection with any of the works of creation, we speak with reference to man's
limited capacity. It has indeed pleased the Creator to defy his intelligent
creatures reaching the utmost limits of creation either in the ascending or
descending scale; for if we are lost in the contemplation of the heavenly bodies,
we are no less so when we meditate on the iniinitesimal mj-riads of animated
beings with which all nature teems. Not only have our eyes been accustomed
of late to witness the wonders of the microscope, under the magic influence
of an almost miraculous gas, but we are informed, by that most philosophic
traveller. Baron Humboldt, that he once had his ears accosted with the hum of
insects when reposing on the banks of a South American river, when there
was not the least perceptible vestige of vegetable or animal-existence near
him. And who has not, in fact, when sauntering in summer under lofty
trees, been greeted with the hum of an invisible insect choir ?
Real Infinity — the infinity not of mathematicians but of metaphysicians,
is an attribute of the Creator only, and, like all His other attributes, to us
incomprehensible. Speaking of the infinite divisibility of matter, Coleridge once amused us
with tlie following illustration :
" Fleas that bite little dogs
Have little fleas that bite 'em,
Thus less fleas bite little fleas,
On  ad injimtum."

215
time and in eternity. And what an appalling hint do
not such facts supply, to the reflecting mind, of that
eventful day when, as we know from unerring autho
rity, all who are in their graves shall arise and appear
before the judgment seat of Christ ! Time will then
be no longer ; and may we not collect even from the
few instances (among ten thousand) above related, if
the voice of Scripture were not decisive, that the pro
ceedings of that stupendous tribunal will be as dis
tinct and circumstantial as they must be just and con
clusive ; and yet that the whole scene may take place
in the very instant of transition from the recesses of
the tomb to the possession of those spiritual bodies
over which death will have no more power ?
I may be excused for inserting here a dream of the
celebrated Dr. Doddridge, remarkably illustrative of
this extraordinary capacity of the soul in its transition
state, as it were, between life and death ; between
waking and sleeping ; between in the body and out of
the body — for, in deep sleep, as in death, what becomes
of the immaterial and conscious spirit, who can tell I
In this dream, he thought that his soul had left the
body ; and after various adventures preparatory to a
final state of happiness, he was conducted to a room
hung round with pictures, which were found, upon
examination, to contain the history of his whole life.
The most remarkable incidents were represented in
the most lively manner. The many temptations and

216
trials to which he had been exposed, together with the
signal instances of Divine goodness towards him at
such periods, excited the strongest emotions of grati
tude, especially when he reflected that he was now
out of the reach of any future distress, and that all the
purposes of Divine love and mercy towards him were
happily accomplished.
The ecstacy of joy and thankfulness into which
these reflections threw him was so great, that it awoke
him. But the impressions remained so vivid for a
considerable time after awaking, that tears of joy
flowed down his cheeks ; and he said that on no other
occasion did he remember to have felt sentiments of
devotion, love, and gratitude, equally strong.'
If, as Sir H. Davy has asserted, there are no abso
lutely new ideas produced in sleep, it must be
admitted that something very like it occasionally
occurs, such as new combinations at least. I remem
ber having been told by a senior wrangler at Cam
bridge, that he had solved a difiicult problem in his
sleep, of w'hich he could make nothing when awake. f

« Abridged from the " Armiuian Magazine," vol. xvii. p. 159.
+ It is said also of Avicenna, that he sometimes solved problems in his
dreams, which were too difiicalt for him in his waking hours. And St. Augus
tine informs us, that his friend and disciple, Favonius Eulogius, obtainedin a
dream the true meaning of an obscure passage in Cicero, which had occurred to
him the preceding day, in preparing for his own pupils. B. August, de Cum
Gt'). proMoiiuis, cap.xl. apud Aug. Maur. in Civ. de Republ. 17. 3. Some
thing of this kind once happened within my own knowledge. One of my
school-fellows had advanced in ariliimctic as far as the multiplication-table.

217
And to the same point is the following anecdote, which,
Abercrombie tells us, has been preserved in a family of
rank in Scotland, the descendants of a distinguished
lawyer of the last age. This eminent person had been
consulted respecting a case of great importance and
much difliculty ; and he had been studying it with
intense anxiety and attention. After several ^^¦ys
had been occupied in this manner, he was observed
by his wife to rise from his bed in the night, and go
to a writing-desk, which stood in the bed-room. He
then sat down and wrote a long paper, which he put
carefully by in the desk, and returned to bed. The
following morning he told his wife that he had had a
most interesting dream ; that he had dreamt of deli
vering a clear and luminous opinion respecting a case
which had exceedingly perplexed him ; and he would
give anything to recover the train of thought which
had passed before him in his dream. She then
directed him to the writing-desk, where he found the
opinion clearly and fully written out, and which was
afterwards found to be perfectly correct."
It is certain, as Abercrombie says, from the fact
that persons are seldom, if ever, conscious of having

and there he stuck fast. After many days spent in endeavouring to learn it,
and when the thing seemed almost hopeless, his father found him one night
talking in his sleep, and on standing quietly by his bedside, heard him
rehearse the whole table correctly for the first time. The next morning he
went to school, and repeated it with ease ; and I never heard that he encoun
tered any similar difliculty afterwards.— Dr. H.
U

218
talked in their sleep, that dreams often take place
without being remembered by us. This may, now
and then, lead to very awkward discoveries.
I was, at one time of my professional life, in frequent
attendance upon a gentleman, subject to attacks of
gout, who talked a great deal in his sleep ; and his
man-servant who often sat up by him at night, gave
me such accounts of his master's talk as would have
led to any thing but pleasant results, if the secrets of
the pillow had been allowed further to transpire.
There are few physicians who could not unfold tales
of this kind ; but they are not confined to the gouty.
Let the love-sick damsel beware who occupies a bed
in the same room with her. I once heard a lady
boast, as I thought with very bad taste, of having
discovered a female friend's secret in the following
way. They lay in the same room, and in the course
of the night, her friend divulged in her sleep the name
of a lover respecting whom no suspicion had previously
existed. Good feeling, doubtless, required that no
allusion should have been made directly or indirectly
to such a circumstance. But on the contrary, a
favourable opportunity was ungenerously taken to put
the poor dreamer to dire confusion, by an unexpected
allusion to what she previously believed to have been
confined to her own breast.
One dream-story more, a puzzler it must be owned,
and I will have done.

219
The dream in question occurred in Cornwall, and
the gentleman to whom it occurred was Mr. Williams,
late of Scorrier House, from whose own lips I have
more than once heard the relation ; but I prefer giving
the particulars in the words of Dr. Abercrombie, who
says he received them, through the kindness of a
friend, firom Mr. Williams himself.
" Eighfj'days before the murder of the late Mr, Per-
cival" (of whom he had no personal knowledge
whatever), " Mr. Williams dreamt that he was in
the lobby of the House of Commons, and saw a small
man enter dressed in a blue coat and white waistcoat.
Immediately after, he saw a man dressed in a brown
coat with yellow basket metal buttons, draw a pistol
from under his coat, and discharge it at the former,
who instantly fell, the blood issuing from a wound
a little below the left breast. He saw the murderer
seized by some gentlemen who were present, and
observed his countenance ; and on asking who the
gentleman was who had been shot, he was told that it
was the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He then awoke,
and mentioned the dream to his wife, who made light
of it ; but in the course of the night, the dream
occurred three times without the least variation. He
was now so much impressed by it, that he felt much
inclined to give notice to Mr. Percival, but was
dissuaded by some friends whom he consulted, who
told him he would only get himself treated as a
U 2

220
fanatic. On the evening of the eighth day after, he
received the account of the murder, the murder having
occurred two days previously. Being in London a
short time subsequently, he found in the print-shops
a representation of the scene, and recognised in it
the countenances and dress of the parties, the blood
on Mr. Percival's waistcoat, and the peculiar yellow
basket fbuttons on Bellingham's coat, precisely as he
had seen in his dream."*
All this, I beg to repeat, I have myself heard more
than once circumstantially related by Mr. Williams,
who is still alive (February 1836), and residing at
Calstock, Devon, and who, I am sure, from his obliging
disposition, would be most ready to corroborate the
wonderful history to its full extent.
I know not what to say of that much-talked-of
phenomenon, termed second sight ; yet I do not
shrink from the admission, that I have myself, in the
* 1 have compared this account of Dr. Abercombie's with a manuscript
which Mr. Hill, a barrister, and grandson of Mr. Williams, was lately kind
enough to give me ; and which records the particulars of this most strange
dream in the words of which he heard them related by his grandfather.
There is very little and no material variation. Mr. Hill states, that Mr. Wil
liams "heard the report of the pistol, saw the blood fly and stain the waist
coat, and saw the colour of the face change."
He likewise mentions, that " on the day following the dream, he went to
Godolphin, with Messrs. Robert W. Fox and his brother Mr. Wm. Williams,
and on his return home informed them of the dream, aud of the uneasiness
of his mind on the subject ; uneasiness in great measure arising from his
doubts about the propriety of announcing a dream, which had made so great
an impression upon himself, to the friends of Mr. Percival ; but he allowed
himself to be laughed out of aii} such intention.

221
delirium of fever, experienced impressions which, to
say the least of them, had a marvellous correspondence
with subsequent occurrences, yet occurrences of such
trivial importance, that this sensorial anticipation of
them served but to show, if any legitimate influence
could be drawn from it, that it must have appertained
to some property of our intellectual nature, which,
under circumstances pleasing to the Almighty, admits
of being exalted even to prophetic vision, and of thus
becoming the medium of those revelations which the
inspired penmen have handed down to us.
Since writing the above, I have perused with great
pleasure and attention Coleridge's " Table Talk," for
which we are indebted to his son-in-law, Mr. H.N.
Coleridge, as well as for an admirable lithographic
portrait, after a painting by Phillips. These two
little volumes contain very valuable reminiscences of
Coleridge, and among many other passages relating
to dreams and apparitions, I find the following, which
I shall here subjoin, from its being so apposite to my
present purpose.
" 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 is 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
u 3

222
association, yet it is impossible to say whether an
inner sense does not really exist in the mind, seldom
developed indeed, but which may have a power of
presentiment. All the external senses have their
correspondents 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 dormant faculty. Hence you will
observe that the Hebrew seers sometimes seem to
have required music.
" 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 — convulsion, idiotcy, madness, or
even death, on the spot. Consider the awful de
scriptions 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 a
head-ache, but that is the outside of the effect
produced.* * 1 was lately walking near a spot, where some houses were building con
trary to the wishes of persons in the neighbourhood. Tlie consequence was.

223
» It was I think in the University of Cambridge,
near Boston, in America, that a certain youth took
it into his wise head to endeavour to convert a Tom-
Painish companion 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. A, who was to be frightened,
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, 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, 1*11
shoot you.' He waited the time, deliberately levelled

that the progress of the work was much obstructed : and the mischief, which
was done wantonly, was placed to the account of a ghost that had been seen
about the premises. This report I mentioned to a poor, but intelligent -look
ing man who chanced to be passing by. He said he had heard the story, but
that, for his own part, he did not believe a word of it ; and yet, he imme
diately added, there is nothing impossible in such occurrences, as he knew
from what had happened to himself a few mornings previously; when, at the
very moment of waking, he distinctly saw his sister dressed in white, between
the window of the bed-room and his bed. He felt so little alarm that he left
the bed in order to approach the apparition, but, in so doing, it glided away
and disappeared. He then concluded that his sister, whose house was at
some distance, must be dead ; but this did not prove to be the case ; and the
occurrence seemed, therefore, to him only the more unaccountable. I endea
voured to explain to him that his apparition was of the nature of a dream,
which he scarcely comprehended. It was really a good illustration of Cole
ridge's remark, that there is ordinarily little or no combination of terror with
these spectral impressions of the sensorium.

224
the pistol, fired, and with a scream at the immobility
of the figure, became convulsed, and afterwards died.
The very instant he believed it to be a ghost, his
human nature fell before it."*
Afterwards he observes, " 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." This remark he illustrates, by introducing
the story of the phantom portrait, which may be thus
briefly related.
An Italian painter having had his feelings severely
wounded by a nobleman of that country, with whom
he had been permitted to be on terms of intimacy,
assassinated him, and fled from arrest. Going from
one distant city to another, he employed himself,
when he could, in the practice of his art, tUl one day,
in a crowded street of Hamburg, he heard his name
called by a voice familiar to him, and turning short
round, saw the face of his victim gazing at him.
From that moment he had no peace ; at all hours, in
all places, and amidst all companies, he heard the
voice, and could never help looking round, and always
encountered the same face staring close upon him.
At last he thought of the experiment of transferring
the features of his murdered friend to canvass, and
• " Table Talk," vol. i. p. 39,

225
fixing himself face to face, and eye to eye, deliberately
drew the phantom visage as it glared upon him.
The similitude was complete, but the portrait had an
unearthly appearance, a visible spirit rather than a
portrait. And still finding no relief, ccelum non
animum mutans, he returned to Italy, and giving
himself up to justice, sought rest where alone it was
to be found, on a scaffold.
There is, in fact, nothing more absurd or incredible
in ghost stories, rightly apprehended, than in dreams.*
* Without borrowing particular illustrations from the discoveries of
phrenologists, there will be no difficulty in gaining assent to the indisputable
fact that the association of the mind with the brain is most intimate ; inso
much that not only are its sound and voluntary operations dependent on the
brain for their manifestation, but the whole train likewise of its involuntary
ideas, and of its morbid impressions and hallucinations. In proof of this
liavinglong been the received opinion, it may be worth mentioningthat the late
celebrated John Kemble is well known to have banished the visible ghost, in
tlie play of Hamlet, from the stage, thereby confining the spectre of the Royal
Dane to the disordered imagination of Hamlet. But that this is not in con
formity with Shakspeare's notion of the matter, is evident from his having
made the ghost visible to others besides Hamlet. Nor do I know how this
difhculty was got over by Kemble. t As far as Hamlet himself is concerned,
the vision of his father's ghost may be considered perfectly in accordance
with the cases of spectral illusions recorded by Ferriar, Alderson, and so
many others ; but how came the ghost to be visible to the by-standers like
wise? Either this was a case " tali vindice dignus," and admitting therefore
of the supposition that there was a miraculous re-assemblage, or resurrec
tion, of the real materials of the body, and so visible, as Shakspeare makes

¦[¦ Kemble must have meant it to be supposed that the spectral impression
was excited simultaneously in all present. Such a miraculous effect is
possible, as we know from Scripture. It is clear, however, that Shakspeare
proceeded more in conformity with the popular notion of a ghost, which, in
truth, is rather that of a resurrection, than a mere apparition. In the famous
scene between Hamlet and his mother, in the third act, the apparition is, in
fact, confined to the prince.

226
If we have faculties connected with certain mental
operations, which act, for the most part, in unison

them, to all present ; or else the impression was mental, and exclusively con
fined to the disordered prince. And here I cannot help adverting to a note
which no less a. critic than Johnson has put forth upon the following
passage — "Tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death.
Have burst their cearments 1"
" Hamlet," he says, "amazed at an apparition, which, though in all ages
credited, has in all ages been considered as the most wonderful and most
dreadful operation of supernatural agency,* inquires of the spectre, in the
most emphatic terms, why he breaks the order of nature, by returning from
the dead;" this, he asks in a very confused circumlocution, confounding in
his fright the soul and body. " Why," says he, "have they bones, which, with
due ceremonies, have been entombed in death, in the common state of de
parted mortals, burst the folds in which they were embalmed ? Why has the
tomb, in which we saw thee quietly laid, opened his mouth, that mouth
which, by its weight and stability, seemed closed for ever V
What would Johnson have said to any one, in his time, who should have
ventured to tell him that Shakspeare was less in error than himself; owing
to his not being acquainted with the correct explanation of those spectral
appearances whose reality he could never be brought to deny?
In the play of Macbeth, there is the same evidence of Shakspeare's supe
rior sagacity; for there the spectral exhibitions are confined to the perception
of the guilt-stricken visionary. We read not of bodies that have burst their
cearments and so become visible to a whole company at once ; but all is
represented as being the effect of witchery and a disordered imagination.
Macbeth. — " Pr'ythee, see there ! behold ! look ! lo ! how say you ?
Why, what care 1 2 If thou can'st nod, speak too."
Lady Macbeth. — " What quite unmann'd in folly?"
Macbeth.—*' If I stand here— I saw him."
Ladv Macbeth.—" Fye, for shame !"
Macbeth.— " I do forget ;
Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends,
I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing
To those that know me."
* Dr. Johnson's notion of a ghost, as defined by himself, was that of its
being a visible spirit !

227
with, yet without being dependent upon, the communi
cations of the external senses, faculties often dormant,

Nothing can be more correctly in keeping with mental pathology, as at pre
sent understood and explained, than this.
Well might Stevens venture to declare, with reference to Dr. Johnson's
apprehensions that the fame of Shakspeare's magic might be endangered by
modern ridicule, that " he did not hesitate to predict its security, till our
national taste is wholly corrupted, and we no longer deserve the first of all
dramatic enjoyments; such as, in his opinion, is the tragedy of Macbeth."
Among Shenstone's Essays, there is one on the subject of ghosts, from
which, much to his credit, it appears that he entertained very nearly the
same opinions respecting them, that are now generally admitted to be correct.
He alludes, in particular, to the circumstance of spectres never being seen
by more than one person at a time. On the other hand, the Rev. George
Strahan, D.D., in his preface to the fourth edition of the "Prayers and
Meditations" of his friend Dr. Johnson, first published from his manu
scripts in the year 1785, has entered upon a defence of Johnson's notions
respecting ghosts. He first refers to the well-known passage in Rasselas,
where Imlac is made to say, " That the dead are seen no more, I will not
undertake to maintain against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all
ages and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom
apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which per
haps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only
by its truth ; those that never heard of one another, would not have agreed in
a tale, which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted
by single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evidence, and some
who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears."
He then proceeds to expand the argument, and contends that, however
many may have been the tales of apparitions which have originated in
imposture or delusion, yet that others have been weU authenticated. " The
improbability," he says, " arising from rarity of occurrence, or singularity of
nature, amounts to no disproof; it is a presumptive reason of doubt, too
feeble to withstand the conviction induced by positive credible testimony ;
such as that which has been 'borne to shadowy re- appearances of the dead.
These, as Dr. Johnson intimates, have been uniformly attested in every age
and country, by persons who had no communication or knowledge of each
other, and whose concurrence of testimony in this case can be accounted for
only by a supposition of its truth." " Nor can it, on reflection, appear more
surprising or incomprehensible, that a spirit should assume a visible shape,

223
yet ready to respond to the mandates of the will, and
capable, in a manner inconceivable to 4is, of receiving,

than that it should animate and move a material body. But even the evidence
of our own senses is disputed by some reasoners, who pronounce every believed
view of these unsubstantial forms to be a mere illusion of the fancy, engen
dered by disease, indigestion, and other bodily affections. Others, perceiving
that few, if any, apparitions have been authenticated in the present day,
are thence induced to infer too hastily, that none were ever seen."
" These visible departed shades, apparently, are issues of Providence, exhi
bited at no observably fixed intervals. Nor can it generally reflect discredit
on averred appearances of the dead, that they are observed to abound most
in ignorant and dark ages. At such junctures, a fabulous increase of these,
and other strange casualties, we may expect, will be supplied by the reveries
of superstition, or the interested impositions of craft upon credulity ; but the
utmost abundance of counterfeits, in this or in any case, does not disprove
the existence of genuine originals. One true report that a spirit has been seen,
may give occasion and birth to many false reports of similar incidents; but
universal and unconcerted testimony to a supernatural casualty, cannot
always be untrue. A71 appearing spirit is a prodigy too singular in its nature
to become a subject of general invention; wherefore that this prodigy has
been every where counterfeited, proves only that it has every where, in
reality, occurred to view. The fable bears witness to the fact of its exist
ence ; and to a mind not influenced by popular prejudice, it will be scarcely
possible to believe, that apparitions would have been vouched in all countries,
had they never been seen in any. Lastly, he alludes to the appearances of
' departed spirits,' occasionally recorded in Scripture; and, referring to
1 Sara, xxviii. 14, and Matt. xvii. 3, he remarks, that " as all indiscriminate
objections against the reality of such appearances evidently impeach the
testimony of Scripture ;" his "notice of the fallacy of some currently urged
objections of this sort, was not unreasonable, and may not be altogether
useless. It was the superstition of the dark ages, to believe in many false
miracles and apparitions ; whence it seems often the insinuated wisdom of
our enlightened times, to accept none, however authenticated in any age,
for true; as if the folly of baseless unbelief were less than that of credulity;
and it were not the province of instructed judgment to decide in no case
capriciously, or blindly resist prejudice, and be determined by evidence."
Now, however generally correct the foregoing observations may be, they
are inai)pHcable to the present case ; since, as will already have been per
ceived, insiiucled judgment has, in the present day, been enabled to form

229
upon fitting occasions, the supernatural influences of
spiritual communications ; how near does this bring
us to the solution of the much disputed problem
about innate ideas ! and how does such a view as this
of our intellectual and material microcosm almost
enable us to apprehend the mystery of our being, by
bringing as it were into view the connecting link

a more correct notion of the nature of spectral phenomena ; and in this, as
in every other instance. Scripture will be found to have nothing to fear from
the elucidations of a just philosophy. In the case of the witch of Endor,
above referred to, we may either suppose the appearance of Samuel to both
the parties concerned, to have been the result of his miraculous resurrection,
or, what is more probable, because more in conformity with Divine usage,
of a simultaneous and equally miraculous impression on the sensorium of
Saul, as well as on that of the sorceress herself, who appears, ty her excla
mation, to have been unprepared for such a visitation. So may we consider
this a parallel case to that of Balaam, where the angel of the Lord was per
ceived first by the ass, and afterwards by himself likewise. And such an
interpretation illustrates, not merely the possibility of visions, but their
certainty ; and completely bears us out in our belief respecting ordinary
apparitions, namely, that individuals have fairly and conscientiously stated
such appearances, and have only deemed them ghosts, from not being aware
of the internal operation of their own minds, under a particular state of the
sensorium. The difiTerence between the philosophical and popular notion being
this, that according to the latter visibility is associated with some shadowy
reappearance of the dead; whereas, thevisionis internal, and in strict analogy
not only with dreams, and prophecies, and visions of the night, but equally
so with waking spectral phenomena.
In the second case to which Dr. Strahan has adverted, which is that of
the Transfiguration, the circumstances altogether so far transcend human
comprehension, that it might welt suffice to say that they are, in no respect,
at variance with the preceding remarks. It may be suggested, however,
without irreverence, that it is most probable, that Moses and Elias were per
sonally present in their glorified bodies, seeing that this supposition har
monizes with the reality of Clirist's own presence after his transfiguration,
when he stood before Peter, James, and John, " His face shining as the sun,
and his raiment white as the light," X

230
between this world and the next ! We learn from
Scripture, that there are two distinct ways in which it
has pleased the Almighty to hold intercourse with the
human race, namely, by spiritual impressions and
revelations on the one hand — and on the other, by the
testimony of our outward senses. Instances of an
appeal to the outward senses by the miraculous re-
assemblage of the material elements of the body, have
probably been confined to the period of the Crucifixion,
to that stupendous epoch of the Christian scheme
when it was appointed, in the councils of the Most
High, for the Redeemer of mankind to be brought as
a lamb to the slaughter, that, by the sacrifice of
Himself once slain. He might make atonement for the
sins of the whole world. It was moreover appointed
that He should not be holden of the grave, but by His
resurrection on the third day, predicted by Himself,
and prefigured in the oracles of the Old Testament,
establish on a sure foundation the fact of a general
resurrection. This too was an occasion worthy of the
extraordinary examples of the resurrection of other
bodies from the tomb, besides that of our blessed
Redeemer.* But the fact of the resurrection of the
body having been once established, any further repe
tition of such instances would only tend to lessen the
impression of their awful importance at the time in
» Matt, xxvii. 52, 53.

231
question. We find, accordingly, that supernatural
communications of the will of God to man were more
commonly made by means of spiritual impressions and
revelations, without the intervention of the external
senses. The minds of the inspired prophets and
apostles, and of the holy men and women of whom we
read in the Bible, were kindled into energy by the
Holy Spirit for especial purposes ; and the evidence
upon which we rely, of their minds having been so lit
up, arises out of the corresponding accidents or
circumstances of each particular case, f n the Psalms,
and in the writings of the Prophets generally, this
spiritual influence is every where discernible. Every
where we have the undeniable assurance that
" prophecy came not in old time by the will of man,
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost,"* and that " we have not followed
cunningly devised fables."
When St. Paul " comes to visions and revelations
of the Lord,"-!" he says, " I knew a man in Christ about
fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I cannot tell ;
or whether out of the body, I cannot tell ; God
knoweth), such an one caught up to the third heaven
 " and " how he was caught up into paradise,
and heard unspeakable words," &c. ; and that they
might try him whether the spirit of which he spake
•• 2 Peter, i. 21. t 2 Cor. xii. 1, &c.
X 2

232
was of God or not, he points out to the Corinthians
that the signs of his apostleship was wrought among
them, " in all patience, in signs and wonders and
mighty deeds."
That dreams and visions, and the spirit of
prophecy (to which may be added — the confusion
of languages at the dispersion of mankind after
the flood, and the gift of tongues on the day of
Pentecost), were all dependent upon the same con
trolling and imparting influence, is evident from the
various texts-^thus we read in the prophet Joel,*
" I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your
sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men
shall dream dreams, your young men shall see
visions." But the subject admits of endless illustration
from Scripture ; and if I may be allowed to found
expectations on the sketch of an essay which I have
seen of Dr. Hingston's, I venture to look forward to
his favouring us some day with his more extended
views, knowing, as I well do, with what judgment he
has entered upon this interesting inquiry, and with
what further stores of learning he is capable of
enriching and adorning it.
With respect to the ordinary influences of the Holy
Spirit, a doctrine so essentially interwoven with the
Christian faith, let it for the present suffice to advert
. Joel ii. 2S; with ^vhich compare Acts ii. 17.

233
merely to the light which the preceding observations
are calculated to throw upon it. From them we may
collect that, although the mannerin which its operations
proceed be ever so mysterious, there is not only nothing
revolting to our reason, in the supposition that our
intellectual faculties are no less sustained by spiritual
agency, than animal life by the air we breathe ; but that
such a supposition is in perfect consistency with the
best conceptions we are capable of forming of the
twofold nature of man.
That this is the doctrine of our most holy faith, no
one will for a moment doubt who has read his Bible
with humility and attention. Of such, it is the daily
and constant prayer, that the sanctifying influence of
the Holy Spirit may be shed more and more abun
dantly upon his heart ; and, that no delusion of Satan
may prevail against him, he will make the written
word his rule of life, well knowing that then only he
can be safe, in believing that " the Spirit" (of God)
" worketh with his spirit," when his thoughts and
actions correspond with that written word.
I cannot refrain from introducing, in this place, an
extract from Coleridge's first Lay Sermon, being
equally admirable, as it seems to me, for its ingenuity,
justness, and piety,
" For myself," he says, " I would far rather see the
English people at large believe somewhat too much,
than merely just enough; if the latter is to be pro-
X3

234
duced, or must be accompanied, by a contempt or
neglect of the faith and intellect of their forefathers.
For not to say, what is yet most certain, that a people
cannot believe ^wsf enough, and that there are errors
which no wise man will treat with rudeness, while
there is a probability that they may be the refraction
of some great truth as yet below the horizon; it
remains most worthy of our serious consideration,
whether a fancied superiority to their ancestors' intel
lect, must not be speedily followed in the popular
mind by disrespect for their ancestors' institutions.
Yet are we never to grow wiser "i Are we to be
credulous by birth-right, and take ghosts, omens,
visions, and witchcraft, as an heir-loom 1 God forbid !
A distinction must be made, and such an one as shall
be equally availing and profitable to men of all ranks.
Is this practicable 1 Yes ! it exists. It is found iu
the study of the Old and New Testament, if only
it be combined with a spiritual partaking of the
Redeemer's blood, of which, mysterious as the symbol
may be, the sacramental wine is no mere, or arbitrary,
memento. This is the only certain, and this is the
universal preventive of all debasing superstitions;
this is the true Hsemony (ai/x-a, blood, oivof, wine)
which our Milton has beautifully allegorized, in a
passage strangely overlooked by all his commentators.
Bear in mind, reader, the character of a militant
Christian ; and so peruse the passage !

235
" ' Amongst the rest a small unsightly root,
But of divine effect, he culled me out :
The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it.
But in another country, as he said.
Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this soil !
Unknown and like esteemed, and the dull swain
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon ;
And yet more medicinal is it than that moly
That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave.
He called it Haemony, and gave it me.
And bade me keep it as of sov'ran use
'Gainst all enchantments, mildew, blast, or damp,
Or ghastly furies' apparition.' Milton's Comus.

" These lines might be employed as an amulet
against delusions ; for the man who is indeed a
Christian, will as little think of informing himself
concerning the future by dreams or presentiments, as
of looking for a distant object at broad noon-day with
a lighted taper in his hand."
After having rambled so far away into the region of
dreams, and visions, and matters of spiritual import,
it might well be supposed that I lost sight entirely
of the circle of friends, and the fire-side from whence
I started ; but, literm scriptce manent ; — and on refer
ring to my notes, I find that Davy favoured us, in
the course of the evening, at the request of Coleridge,
with his poetic effusion, entitled " Spinosism." His

236
professed object, in this highly-wrought composition,
was to exhibit in its proper light a system of infidel
philosophy, which, however adorned by the skill of the
poet, and enriched by the fascinating embellishments
of natural images and natural religion, brings its
votaries at last to despair, amidst the horrors of
annihilation. The subjoined copy, which Sir Humphry gave me,
differs very materially from that published by Dr.
Paris in " His Life," which appears to have undergone
alterations, rather to suit the fertile imagination of
the poet than the purpose of the original production.

SPINOSISM.
" Lo ! o'er the earth the kindhng spirits pour
The seeds of life that bounteous nature gives.
The liquid dew becomes the rosy flower.
The sordid dust awakes and moves and lives.
All, all is change ; the renovated forms
Of ancient things arise and live again.
The light of suns, the angry breath of storms,
The everlasting motions of the main
Are but the engines of that powerful will,
The eternal link of thoughts ; whose firm resolves
Have ever acted, and are acting still,
Whilst age round age and world round worid
revolves.

237

l<

No sameness and no deep identity.
Linked to the whole, the human mind displays ;
Impressible as is the moving sky.
And changeful as the surface of the seas.
Being of aggregate, the power of love
Gives it the joy of moments, bids it rise
In the wild forms of mortal things to move.
Fixed to the earth, beneath the eternal skies ;

To breathe the ether ; and to feel the form
Of orbid beauty through its organs thrill ;
To press the limbs of life with rapture warm.
And drink of transport from a Uving rill.
To view the heavens, with morning radiance bright.
Majestic mingUng with the ocean blue.
To view the forests green, the mountains white.
The peopled plains of rich and varied hue.
To catch thy notes, sweet Philomel, at eve,
Blithe skylark ! thine, at earliest dawn of day ;
Regaled by perfumes beauteous blossoms breathe,
Autumnal heaths, or gayer flowers of May.*
To feel the social flame ; to give to man
Ten thousand signs of biuning energy ;
The nothingness of human words to scan.
The nothingness of human things to fly.

o« oil

To live in forests, mingled with the whole
Of nature's forms/ to feel the breezes play
O'er his parched brow ; to see the planets roll
O'er his grey head, their joy diffiising ray.

• The stanza in italics was not in the original, and has heen added to
make the series of gratifications, connected with the senses, more complete.

238
To die in agony. In many days
To give to nature all her borrowed powers ;
Ethereal fire to feed the solar rays,
Ethereal dew to glad the earth in showers.''
Three or four of the additional stanzas in Dr. Paris's
copy, which corresponds with that lately published by
Dr. Davy, are here subjoined.
" Without whose power, the whole of mortal things
Were dull, inert, an unharmonious band ;
Silent as are the harp's untuned strings
Without the touches of the poet's hand.
A sacred spark, created by His breath
The immortal mind of man His image bears ;
A spirit living midst the forms of death,
Oppress'd but not subdued by mortal cares.
A germ, preparing in the winter's fi'ost.
To rise, and bud, and blossom in the spring ;
An unfledged eagle by the tempest tost.
Unconscious of his future strength of wing.
To govern others by an influence strong
As that high law, which moves the murm'ring main ;
Raising and carrying all its waves along.
Beneath the fuU-orb'd moon's meridian reign ;
To scan, how transient is the breath of praise ;
A winter's zephyr trembling on the snow,
Chill'd as it moves ; or as the northern rays,
First fading in the centre, whence they flow."

239
With respect to this poem, his brother. Dr. Davy,
informs us that he amused himself with finishing it
during his convalescence from a long aud dangerous
illness in 1807. The fact, as I have stated, rather
appears to be that he re-constructed the original
poem, and adapted it to diflFerent views of religion.
The last stanza but one is conceived as much at
least in the spirit of Christianity as of Spinozism.
" Then, as awakening from a dream of pain,
With joy its mortal feelings to resign ;
Yet all its living essence to retain,
The undying energy of strength divine."
The last stanza is very nearly the same as that in
my copy.
In return for the favour conferred on us by Davy,
Coleridge gave us an animated recitation of "The
Devil's Walk," as the joint production of himself and
Southey. It is doubtless a great curiosity ; but the curious
are already well acquainted with it ; and I am the less
inclined to insert here the copy which Coleridge gave
me, from my knowing that the somewhat too great
familiarity, with which the Devil is introduced to our
notice, has been deemed by many to be scarcely com
pensated by the melodramatic guise and biting satire
appended to this beau ideal of Satan.

240
SuflSce it therefore to say, with reference to its con
tents, that Coleridge predicts, as he was often heard
to do, the approaching ruin of the country from the
increasing thirst after riches every where apparent.
We were living, he used to say, in an age of gold, but
were receding from the golden age. Among the
sights, accordingly, on which the evil eye of the Devil
is made to dwell with peculiar satisfaction in his
terrestrial walk, is a pig swimming with wind and
tide, and yet, in the manner of that animal when
swimming, cutting its own throat by too great eager
ness to get on ; thus adumbrating the downfall of our
commercial prosperity, and, with it, of our national
greatness, from a similar impatience to gather riches
even beyond the speed of the fast-flowing tide of
commerce. And when we consider with what ruinous
precipitancy immense sums have since been squan
dered in foreign speculations, we shall not be inclined
to withhold from him the credit of no inconsiderable
prescience. Neither is the moral the less instructive
because the pig may have happened for once to
escape drowning.*
I might proceed to descant at much greater length
on what passed in that evening circle of friends,
whence I have drawn so largely ; but I have other

« The gambling mania is again (1836) as rife as ever. Specnlators in
mines and railways, beware of the warning voice of Coleridge !

241
things to say of Davy and Coleridge, with which I
must now proceed.
It must have been, I think, the year following that
in which Davy entered upon the arduous task of a
lecturer on chemistry, at the Royal Institution, that
a friend and myself happened to fall in with him at
Penzance, and had the pleasure of a long stroll with
him on the sea-shore. He spoke without reserve,
and with the warmth of conscious genius, of the pro
spect which was then opening upon him, and which
long continued to become brighter and brighter as he
proceeded onward in his philosophic career.* He
said that there were, in his opinion, but two paths
left to eminence in philosophy — those of metaphysics
and chemistry ; the latter of which he fortunately
chose. I asked him, whether he thought it likely that the
practice of physic would undergo an important change
in consequence of the electro- chemical discoveries ;
and, to the credit of his sagacity, I must say that
he gave me no encouragement to expect that any
substitute could be found for that combination of
* " In speaking of Davy's Lectures as mere specimens of jhappy oratory,
we do injustice to the philosopher; had he merely added the Corinthian
foliage to a temple built hy other hands, we might have commended his taste,
and admired his talent of adaptation ; and there our eulogium must have
ended ; but the ediUce itself was his own ; he dug the materials from the
quarry, formed them into a regular pile, and then with his masterly touch
added to its strength beauty, and to its utility grace." — Paris's Life of Sir
H. Davy. Y

242
sound sense, with attentive observation and expe
rience, which must ever constitute the sterling value
of medical practice. He said, at the same time, that
the discoveries of Dr. Beddoes afforded very reasonable
grounds for hoping that some hitherto intractable
diseases, connected especially with respiration, might
be brought more under the controul of the physician.
In fact, he spoke upon the subject like a philosopher,
and not like an empiric ; and I had no difficulty in
coming to the conclusion, that there was no royal
road as yet discovered to the temple of .Ssculapius,
whither I was then bending my way.
It is worthy of remark, that Davy, as well as
Coleridge, had offers of admission into holy orders,
the latter by BuUer, Bishop of Exeter — the former by
Barrington, Bishop of Durham, with whom he appears
to have been upon terms of very remarkable intimacy.
He was at all times a welcome inmate of the palace,
and the bishop was even fond of employing him to
read prayers to the domestic circle. This was indeed
doing him great honour, and so far won Davy for
the church, that he put his name on the boards of
Jesus College, Cambridge, where he kept I don't know
how many terms, but I believe not many.
In Dr. Davy's Life of his brother, this statement is
confirmed so far as relates to his having been invited
to enter the church ; but without the admission, that
he ever had himself entertained the thought of doing

243
so. Still, I cannot help repeating, that my authority
for what I have stated was such as appeared to leave
no doubt of its correctness ; but be this as it may,
nothing can be more gratifying than some anecdotes
recorded by his brother, which bear upon this subject.
I cannot refrain from inserting one in this place : —
He tells us, for instance, on the authority of Lady
Brownrigg, who was of the party, that once, when on
a tour in Ireland, Sir Humphry met, at Dr. Richard
son's, " an unfortunate gentleman, who thought to
show his wit and wisdom in being a professed sceptic.
There were two clergymen, one of them the Bishop of
Raphoe, present ; but making sure of having Davy
on his side, he anticipated nothing less than the
achievement of a complete triumph. At first, he was
elated by the silent and deep attention with which the
philosopher listened to him ; and when at last, having
exhausted his stock of ridicule, he paused, full of
exulting expectation, Davy commenced a defence of
Christianity, to his utter dismay, iii so fine a tone of
eloquence, that the bishop said, the effect upon him
was such that he stood up, feeling a similar impulse
to that which made the congregation all rise at some
splendid burst of religious fervour, in a sermon of
Bourdaloue or Massillon. This occurred late in the
evening. On the following morning. Dr. Richardson's
deistical guest failed to appear at the breakfast table.
y2

244
He had actually skulked off to his home, some forty
Irish miles from the memorable scene.
"His letter to Sir Thomas Bernard on the importance
and duty of showing, upon all fitting occasions, the
connection of pure religion with philosophical truths,
and of thereby awakening devotional feelings, could
not fail of being particularly gratifying to me, coming
so directly as it does in support of an allusion which
I have made to his intimacy with Davy, and the
effect that might naturally be expected to flow
from it."*
We have already seen, in Dr. Parry's letter from
Gottingen, that the learned but free-thinking Professor
Eichhorn quailed before Coleridge. And I cannot but
regard what follows with particular interest, in con
nection especially with the foregoing anecdote
respecting Davy.
An intimate friendf of Coleridge relates that he once
met him in company with a zealous Socinian minister,
when the subject of Socinianism having been intro
duced by a third party, Coleridge advanced to the
charge, declaring " Sir, you give up so much, that
the little you retain of Christianity is not worth
keeping." The thunder was expected to follow the

:i^ " Memoirs of Sir H. Davy," vol. i. p. 272.
+ To this friend I have reason to believe, that the public will soon be
indebted for much valuable information with regard to Coleridge, at that part
of his life least generally known, but perhaps the most interesting.

245
flash ; but after a manifest internal conflict, the
disciple of Socinus very prudently allowed the gauntlet
to remain undisturbed. Speaking upon some occasion
to the same friend of the demoralizing nature of
infidelity, Coleridge said that he had met accidentally
in a public office in London the atheist Holcroft, when
Holcroft, stranger as he was to him, began to enforce
some of his diabolical sentiments! Indignant at a
conduct so infamous, Coleridge closed with the
atheist at once, and a sharp encounter ensued.
Holcroft then abruptly addressed his formidable
antagonist, and said " I perceive you have mind, and
know what you are talking about. It will be worth
while to make a convert of you. I am engaged at
present ; but if you will call on me to-morrow morning
(giving him his card), I will engage in half an hour,
to convince you there is no God !" Coleridge called
accordingly, and the discussion was renewed, but
none being present except the disputants, no account
is preserved of this important conversation ; but
Coleridge affirmed that " he beat all his arguments to
atoms," a result that none who knew him could doubt.
He also stated, that instead of his being converted to
atheism, the atheist himself (after his manner) was
converted ; for the same day he sent to Coleridge a
letter, saying, his reasoning was so clear and satis
factory, that he had changed his views, and was now
o theist. Y 3

246
Soon after the foregoing incident, Coleridge, in a
large party at the house of a man of letters, found, to
his surprise, amongst the company, Mr. and Mrs. Hol
croft, when, in order to provoke a renewal of their late
dispute before witnesses, in the full consciousness of
strength, he enforced the propriety of teaching
children, as soon as they could articulate, to lisp the
praises of their Maker ; " for," said he, " though they
can form no correct idea of God, yet they entertain a
high opinion of their father, and it is an easy intro
duction to the truth, to tell them their Heavenly
Father is stronger, and wiser, and better, than their
earthly father." The whole company looked at
Mr. Holcroft, implying that now was the time for him
to meet a competent opponent, and justify sentiments
which he had often so triumphantly advanced. They
looked in vain. Mr. Holcroft maintained a total
silence, well remembering the severe castigation he
had so recently received. But a very different effect
was produced on Mrs. Holcroft. Having listened to
Coleridge with indignation, she gave vent to her
passion, and in tears exclaimed, " She was quite
surprised at Mr. Coleridge talking in that way before
her, when he knew that both herself and Mr. Holcroft
were atheists."
Coleridge spoke of the unutterable horror he felt
when Holcroft's son, a boy eight years of age, came
up to him and said, " There is no God !" He also

247
stated, and actions are often the best illustrations of
principles, the following circumstance (notorious at the
time), as evidence of the disastrous effects of atheism.
Holcroft's tyrannical conduct towards his children
was proverbial. An elder son (with a mind embued
with his father's sentiments), from extreme severity
of treatment, had run away from his paternal roof,
and had entered on board a ship. Holcroft pursued
him ; and when the fugitive youth saw his father in
a boat rowing toward the vessel, rather than endure
his frown and his chastisement, he seized a knife, and
plunged it to his heart! The father's remark on the
occasion was " There 's an end of him ! a fine high-
spirited fellow !"*
To return to Davy. He seems to have reconsidered
the step he had been tempted to take, in connection
with his placing his name on the boards of Jesus
College, and probably thought of his obligations to
the plough to which his hand had been applied
so long, and with so much honour to himself and
benefit to science.
It has been likewise recorded of another Cornish-
man, Mr. Samuel Drew, a metaphysician little inferior
to Coleridge himself, but without the same advantages
of education, that he was solicited by the Chancellor

' Appendix to a Treatise on " The Predictions and Miracles of Jesus
Christ," &c. by a Layman.

248
of the diocese of Exeter, to become a clergyman of
the church of England. These are facts to which it
is impossible to advert, without recurring to that
languid period of our church, when men of eminence
were thus courted to enter it, in order to maintain
its living energies. Still we know, what the preceding
facts serve but to confirm, that, in the church of
England, even during the period of its greatest luke
warmness, so far was the salt from having altogether
lost its savour, that there were numberless pious and
learned men, zealous prelates and humble pastors, who
persevered in " casting their bread upon the waters,"
in full confidence, no doubt, of " finding it," as it has
happily been found, " after many days."*
Nevertheless, that Davy was a man of versatile ambi
tion, as well as preeminent genius, there can be no doubt.
He was likewise, through an inconsiderable portion of
his scientific life, a man of pleasure to an extent quite
extraordinary for a person of such profound philo
sophic attainments. But so conscious was he of his
own mental superiority, that I am fully persuaded he
never did condescend, as some would have us suppose,
to pay court to any one. He was petted, he was
feasted, he was himself courted by distinguished
* Hody, in his preface to his valuable " History of English Councils and
Convocations," says, in 1701, " I have treated (I hope) of that valuable body,
the Convocation, and the Clergy of England, with all that reverence that is
due to those who deserve the liighest praise, even that which was given the
British Clergy by one of the last age— Stupor Mundi Clerus Britannicus."

249
individuals in the highest walks of society and of both
sexes. Rank, fashion, and beauty, all conspired to
rear a pedestal for their favourite philosopher, to
such a height that the wonder is, that, when placed
upon it, he could stand so firmly as he did. He may
have exhibited symptoms of slight giddiness at times,
but his head never turned so as to admit of his falling
from the philosophic eminence which he had so rapidly
attained. At one time of his life, he had thoughts,
as has been already stated, of entering the church,
or, if not so, of resuming the profession of physic,
and I had myself a correspondence with him upon
the subject of his entering the senate. His wish was
to have procured a seat in parliament for one of our
Cornish boroughs, not under a patron, but on what
he deemed an independent footing — the payment,
namely, of the market price ; and it is pretty certain,
that had the late Sir Christopher Hawkins not been
hampered by a wholesale engagement with Lord
Grenville, at the time of the application to him, he
would have succeeded.
That aspirations such as these afford evidence of
a temporary inflation, rather than a steady exaltation
of character, may be readily allowed. But who shall
presume to trace the subtle thread of ambition in its
seductive windings through the human heart ? Or
who, in the case before us, would deal uncharitably
with the aberrations of a philosopher who took such

250
good care not to pursue a devious path far enough
to lose his way ?
Having been Davy's school-fellow, under Dr.
Cardew, at Truro, and equally with himself a lover
of the angle, my claim to his acquaintance was natural ;
and I do but justice to him in saying, that during
my residence in London, preparatory to entering upon
my profession, he was accessible and friendly in the
extreme. I remember a laughable circumstance, which oc
curred at a dinner which he gave to a few friends at
his rooms in Albemarle-street. Three fine-looking
woodcocks were put on the table as a remove — and
the great philosophers present. Dr. Young, Dr. Bab-
ington, and one or two others, as well as the humble
individual who records this anecdote, evidently anti
cipated a treat, in assisting to eat up our host's
Cornish delicacies. With a little assistance in the
carving department, the guests were all served, in no
long time, and the attack commenced — but proceed
we could not ; all tasted, we knew not what ; all
looked, we knew not how ; and almost simul
taneously exclaimed, " Why, what in the world have
we here, Davy, in the shape of woodcocks'?" In short,
these dainties were totally uneatable ; and the con
fession frankly made by our friend was, that desirous
of keeping the woodcocks, which he had received out
of Cornwall three weeks previously, for our dinner-

251
party, he had placed them in the exhausted receiver
of an air-pump, which had previously been employed
by him in making some experiments with ether. Hinc
nostra lachrymce ! Tears, certainly of merriment,
more than of disappointment, for the laugh against
poor Davy (who protested that he could not have
conceived the possibility of a more perfect vacuum
than was effected by him, prior to depositing the birds
in the receiver,) went far to compensate us for our
epicurean mishap.
On the occasion of his marriage with Miss Ap-
preece, the present dowager Lady Davy, with whom
he was known to have had a large fortune, a friend
in London, who just then happened to be writing to
me, accompanied his notice of the event with the fol
lowing epigrammatic jeu d'esprit, which, playful and
unobjectionable as it is, has never, as far as I know,
appeared till now in print.
" Though many a clever man has seen
His talents underrated,
Davy must own that his have been
Richly Ap-pree-ce-ated."
My last correspondence with Sir Humphry related
to a proposal of Sir Thomas Bernard's, to procure
gravel from the Swan-pool near Falmouth, of a small,
round, and beautifully white description, for the

252
purpose of rough-casting the fronts of ornamental
cottages, upon which occasion I had likewise the honour
of receiving a letter from that good man. Sir Thomas
Bernard. In the Memoirs of the Life of Sir H. Davy,
by his brother, which has lately appeared, and to
which I have already alluded, we have many interesting
particulars of the intimacy known to have subsisted
between Sir Thomas and him. It cannot be doubted
that, from a friendship so honourable to both, much
good to themselves and to the public must have
resulted. And when we know on what an intimate
footing Davy stood with such men as Sir T. Bernard
and Bishop Barrington, we can feel no surprize at
the religious fervour which glows throughout many of
his highly-wrought productions, or at the evidence
they afford of that genuine wisdom, from whence
alone " Consolations" at the close of life can flow.
After this just and honourable testimony to Davy's
Christian character, I may well be excused for express
ing my astonishment and regret at the following
passage in the last letter which, his brother tells us,
he ever wrote to his friend Poole : —
" I have this conviction full on my mind, that
intellectual beings spring from the same breath of
Infinite Intelligence, and return to it again, but by
different courses. Like rivers born amidst the clouds
of heaven, and lost in the deep and eternal ocean—

253
some in youth, rapid aud short-lived torrents ; some
in manhood, powerful and copious rivers ; and some
in age, by a winding and slow course, half lost in
their career, and making their exit by many sandy
and shallow mouths."*
It is true that we have the authority of Holy Writ
for believing that in some sense, " the spirit returns
to God who gave it ;" — yet how much better does it
become the Christian philosopher to exclaim with
pious Job, " I know that my Redeemer liveth, and
that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth ;
and though after my skin worms destroy this body,
yet in my flesh shall I see God. Whom I shall see
for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not
another ; though my reins be consumed within me;"
than by indulging in vague and poetic generalities,
to which even Spinoza himself would have assented,
to lose sight of the clear and satisfactory recognition
of personal identity so inseparable from the Christian
doctrine of the resurrection. " Scholars," says Bishop
Sherlock,! "may reason of the nature of the soul,
and the condition of it when separated from the body ;
but the common hopes of nature receive no support
from such inquiries ; but yet something further seems

• " Memoirs of the Life of Sir H. Davy," vol. ii. p. 311.
t Discourse II. of "Several Discourses," preached at the Temple Church,
by Thomas Sherlock, D.D., late Master of the Temple, and late Lord Bishop
of London, 3d ed. 1764.

254
necessary, to give ease to nature in this painful search
after life and happiness. The numberless instances
of mortality which we hear and see ; the remains of
those who left the world ages before we came into it,
and are still mouldering in their tombs, is undeniable
evidence that death destroys this compound being
which we call man. How to revive this union, nature
knows not ; and as for those who make the spirits of
men in the divided state to be perfect men, they seem
to have got a conclusion without consulting the
premises. "Look now into the Gospel; there you will find
every reasonable hope of nature, nay, every reasonable
suspicion of nature, cleared up and confirmed ; every
difficulty answered and removed. Do the present
circumstances of the world lead you to suspect that
God could never be the author of such corrupt and
wretched creatures as men now are? Your suspicions
are just and well founded ; God made man upright ;
but through the temptation of the devil, sin entered,
and death and destruction followed after.
"Do you suspect, from the success of virtue and
vice in this world, that the providence of God
does not interpose to protect the righteous from
violence, or to punish the wicked ? The suspicion is
not without ground. God leaves his best servants
here to be tried oftentimes with affliction and sorrow,
and permits the wicked to flourish and abound. The

255
call of the Gospel is not to honour and riches here ;
but to take up our cross and follow Christ.
" Do you judge from comparing the present state of
the world with the natural notion you have of God,
and of justice and goodness, that there must needs
be another state in which justice shall take place ?
You reason right, and the Gospel confirms the judg
ment. " Have you sometimes misgivings of mind ? Are
you tempted to mistrust this judgment, when you see
the difficulties which surround it on every side ; some
which affect the soul in its separate state, some which
affect the body in its state of corruption and disso
lution ? Look to the Gospel ; there these difficulties
are accounted for ; and you need no longer puzzle
yourself with dark questions concerning the state,
condition, and nature of separate spirits, concerning
the body, however to appearance lost and destroyed ;
for the body and soul shall once more meet to part no
more, but to be happy for ever. In this case the
learned cannot doubt, and the ignoraut may be sure
that it is the man, the very man himself, who shall
rise again ; for an union of the same soul and body
is as certainly the restoration of the man, as the
dividing them was the destruction.
" Would you know who it is that gives this assur
ance ? It is One who is able to make good his word ;
One who loved you so well as to die for you ; yet One
z 2

256
too great to be held a prisoner in the grave ; no, he
rose with triumph and glory, the first-born from the
dead, and will in like manner call from the dust of
the earth all those who put their trust and confidence
in him. " He it was who formed this world and all things in
it, and for the sake of man was content to become
man, and to taste death for all, that all through him
may live.
" Had the Gospel required of us to expect from
Christ the redemption of our souls and bodies, and
given us no reason to think that he was endued
with power equal to the work, we might justly have
complained. But to expect redemption from the Son
of God, the resurrection of our bodies from the same
hand which at first created and formed them, are
rational and well-founded acts of faith ; and it is the
Christian's glory, that he knows in whom he has
believed. He knows that the power of our blessed
Lord is equal to his love, and that he is able to subdue
all things to himself."
In Dr. Paris's Life of Davy, we have frequent
reference to Coleridge.
Writing to his friend, Mr. Poole, as far back as
May 1st, 1803, Sir Humphry says, " Coleridge has left
London for Keswick ; during his stay in town I saw
him seldomer than usual ; when I did see him, it was
generally in the midst of large companies, where he

257
is the image of power and activity. His, eloquence
is unimpaired ; perhaps it is softer and stronger.
His will is probably less than ever commensurate with
his ability. Brilliant images of greatness float upon
his mind, like the images of the morning clouds upon
the waters — their forms are changed by the motion of
the waves, they are agitated by every breeze, and
modified by every sunbeam. He talked in the course
of an hour, of beginning three works, and he recited
the poem of Christabel unfinished, and as I had
before heard it. What talent does he not waste in
forming visions, sublime, but unconnected with the
real world ! I have looked to his efforts, as to the
efforts of a creating being ; but as yet, he has not
even laid the foundation for the new world of intel
lectual forms."
In October, 1804, he writes to the same friend as
follows : —
" I have received a letter from Coleridge within the
last three weeks ; he writes from Malta in good spirits,
and, as usual, from the depth of his being. God
bless him ! He was intended for a great man ; I hope
and trust he will, at some period, appear as such."
In 1807, we find Sir H. eager to engage him as a
lecturer at the Royal Institution.
" If C  is still with you (Mr. Poole), will you
be kind enough to say to him, that I wrote nearly a
week ago two letters about lectures, and not knowing
z 3

258
where he was, I addressed them to him at different
places. I wish very much he would determine on this
point. The managers of the Royal Institution are
very anxious to engage him ; and I think he might be
of material service to the public, and of benefit to
his own mind, to say nothing of the benefit his purse
might also receive. In the present condition of
society, his opinions in matters of taste, literature,
and metaphysics, must have a healthy influence ; and
unless he soon become an actual member of the living
world, he must expect to be hereafter brought to
judgment ' for hiding his light.' "
It is well known that Coleridge did comply with
the request of the managers above alluded to, and
gave a very attractive and successful course of
lectures at the Royal Institution,* but not, as it would
appear from the following extract from another letter
to Mr. Poole, in March, 1808, without interruption
from sickness.
" C  , after disappointing his audience twice
from illness, is announced to lecture again this week.
He has suffered greatly from excessive sensibility, the
disease of genius. His mind is as a wilderness, in
which the cedar and the oak, which might aspire to the

* A very interesting account of these lectures (eighteen lectures on Shak
speare), may be found in the obituary of the " Gentleman's Magazine," for
November, 1834, as well as of his method and manner of lecturing upon this
and other occasions. — See Article, S. T. Coleridge, Esq.

259
skies, are stunted in their growth by underwood,
thorns, briars, and parasitical plants. With the most
exalted genius, enlarged views, sensitive heart, and
enlightened mind, he will be the victim of want of
order, precision, and regularity. I cannot think of
him without experiencing the mingled feelings of
admiration, regard, and pity."
Sir Humphry's next and last notice of Coleridge
(after an interval of seventeen years from the period
of the above lectures), with which Dr. Paris has
presented us, is still from a letter to Mr. Poole, when
he must have been residing with Mr. Gillman, at
Highgate. The letter from which the extract is taken
bears the date of February, 1826.
" I had a letter a few days ago from C  , who
writes in good spirits, and who, being within a few
miles of London, might, as far as his friends are
concerned, be at John o' Groat's house. He writes
with all his ancient power. I had hoped that, as his
mind became subdued, and' his imagination less vivid,
he might have been able to apply himself to persevere,
and to give to the world some of those trains of
thought, so original, so impressive, and at which we
have so often wondered."
What a volume of inference might there not be
drawn from such extracts as the foregoing ! Cole
ridge's whole life seems to have been a continual

260
struggle between the volitions of the spirit, and the
infirmities of his mortal coil.
Driven by his own excesses from the society of
gentlemen, we find him at one time a private soldier,
invoking the muses most felicitously, and upon a
sacred theme, in the tap-room of a common inn.*
Having escaped, by the buoyancy of his temperament,
and the talisman of his erudition, from this lowest
state of subjection and degradation of body and mind,
we soon after fall in with him at Bristol, where, as we
have seen, he occupied himself in addressing the
people in the most inflammatory language, and with an
eloquence that has seldom been surpassed, kindling in
their bosoms thoughts calculated to drive them head
long into rebellion, yet embodying, at the same time,
principles of morality and maxims of political regimen
so theoretically sound and excellent, that it is difficult
to say whether his words are the words of a dema
gogue who would overturn the British Constitution,
or not rather those of a patriot who would sacrifice
his life in its defence.
Tired at length with his fruitless attempts to bring
the minds of men to his own standard in Europe, he
* His memorialist in the *• Gentleman's Magazine," in allusion to this cir
cumstance, says, " It should be mentioned that by far the most correct,
sublime, chaste, and beautiful of his poems, meo judicio, his ' Religious
Musings,' was written, non inter sytvas academi, but in the tap-room at
Reading. A fine subject for a painting by Wilkie." — Gentleman's Maga-
ziiie, October 1834, p. 545.

261
next meditated repairing, from the polluted scenes of
the old world, to the purer theatre of the new — a
visionary conception which withered in the birth — or
served only to entangle him in the bands of matrimony
with the fair partner who was to have accompanied
him to the banks of the Susquehanna, if his project
of emigration had taken effect. But it is by no
means my intention to attempt to follow him through
the whole of his eventful and eccentric course, which
would be far from an easy task, although nothing
would be easier than to extend this record to a
much greater length, by mere quotations from others ;
but by so doing, I might fairly lay myself open
to the charge of too much trifling with so extraordi
nary a character. Nor should I have presumed to
deal with him so freely as I have, if it were not evi
dent, as I have stated in my preface, how great an
interest there is abroad respecting him, and that con
sequently whatever relates to him, will probably be
acceptable to the public. He has already received
posthumous honours out of number — some of them
from the highest literary quarters — and we are led to
expect that his memory will be embalmed in a manner
still more worthy of his fame. Yet " His System,"
under whatever denomination it may hereafter appear,
can only be expected to exhibit anew, perhaps with
greater precision, the principles which he never ceased
to diffuse through the medium of his various publica-

262
tions, terminating with his " Aids to Reflection"—
publications so characteristic of their author, that no
one who may have spent a day, I had almost said
an hour, in his company, or who has read any essay
of his on any subject, would hesitate to declare of
them — these are the writings of Coleridge. But in
his most sustained efforts he is often so profound,
that few readers are capable of accompanying him to
the full extent of his argument ; and in his brighest
moments, when he is exhibiting the richest pictures of
his imagination, he is apt to flash upon us like a
revolving light, which we admire and lose sight of by
turns. As a politician, amidst the changing phases
of the political world, he professed to maintain a
perfect independence and rectitude of principle ; but
how to render this compatible with a stipendiary
engagement with the editor of a newspaper, or with
the views of any considerable number of subscribers
to a weekly or monthly periodical, was an affair of no
small difficulty. Accordingly we find, from his own
account, that he frequently disappointed the hopes
and expectations of friends, who withdrew from him
their subscriptions on finding that he was not exactlv
doing their work.*
* At the very time when Coleridge was engaged in inculcating principles,
in defence of what would now be called the Conservative cause, against the
abettors of French ascendancy in this kingdom, who would suppose it possible
that to a paper in "The Friend," the avowed object of which was to put
Englishmen in good humour with themselves and with the land they live in.

263
He wished it to be supposed that, like his political
idol, Burke, he knew how to interpret the signs of the
times, and that, in endeavouring to make them intel
ligible to others, he had only the general good at
heart. In his " Lay Sermon," designated the " States
man's Manual ;" or, " the Bible the best Guide to
Political Skill and Foresight ;" he manfully asserts the
supremacy of the inspired volume, and declares that
it contains the only safe rule of conduct for individuals
or states. This he illustrates with great learning and
variety of argument ; but if, passing over some non
sense, contained in a note about the " Reading Fly,"
of which even Joe Miller might be ashamed, it were
required to produce an example of the manner in
which a metaphysician is capable of soaring on the
wings of the Gospel, into the regions of transcendental

he could have annexed two such epigrams as the following, of which the
obvious tendency— and they are perfectly gratuitous— is to bring the aristo
cracy into contempt? " An excellent adage commands that we should
Relate of the dead that alone which is good ;
But of the great lord, who here lies in lead,
We know nothing good but that he is dead."
" Here lies the Devil— ask no other name.
Well ! but you mean Lord — Hush ! we mean the same."
No. xii., November 9, 1809.
The following is inserted here, not more for its real wit, than for its cha
racteristic anti-gallicism :
" For a French house-dog's collar.
" When thieves come, I bark ; wlien gallants, I am still ;
So perform both my master's and mistress's will."
All signed S. T. C.

264
incomprehensibility, there could scarcely be found one
more in point than the following, from this very
sermon, where, after some just remarks on that cha
racteristic distinction of the Bible from all other books
pretending to inspiration, which arises out of its
strong and frequent recommendation of truth, in its
highest acceptation of knowledge, he concludes with
saying, that " to know God is (by a vital and spiritual
act, in which to know and to possess, are one and
indivisible) to acknowledge him as the infinite clear
ness in the incomprehensible fulness, and fulness
incomprehensible with infinite clearness."
Nevertheless, after all due abatement shall have
been made for much transcendentalism, which, to say
the least of it, is utterly incomprehensible to ordinary
capacities, it will be found that there is scarcely a
doctrine of our Holy Religion which he has not
investigated and illumined.
His " Aids to Reflection," and various other ex
positions of his religious system, can scarcely fail to
be of service to individuals in the educated classes,
who may be led by them to reflect, possibly for the
first time, on religious subjects, and thence to perceive
their infinite importance. They may learn from
him, not only that there is in religion something
worth attending to, but that there is, in fact, nothing
that will bear comparison with it in point of worth.
Only let us not, in doing him this justice, run into

265
the extreme of consideriag him, as some appear to do,
an iofallible guide in spiritual matters, since there
must doubtless be great insecurity connected with
every attempt to bring pure reason into conjunction,
as it were, with the enunciations of inspiration itself.
However lofty may be the imaginings to which the
soul of man is capable of attaining, pure reason is,
of itself, inadequate to solve the problem of our
immortality.* This Omnipotence alone can do ; this

• It must not be forgotten in the solution of this problem, that man con-
liists of a body as well as of a soul. The living soul in him is combined with
a material fabric, in connection with which all its operations, as far as they
are known to us, proceed, and on which our very individuality seems to
depend. The dead shall rise again I Nothing can be more beautiful than
Coleridge's allusion, in his " Aids to Reflection," to the fleeting forms of the
material creation. With reference to our mortal frames, he observes, " The
particles that constitute the size, the visibility of an organic structure, are
in perpetual flux. They are to the cnmbining and constitutive power as the
pulses of air to the voice of a discourser, or of one who sings a roundelay.
The same words may be repeated, but in each second of time the articulated
ah hath passed away, and each act of articulation appropriates and gives
momentary form to a new and other portion. As is the column of blue
smoke from a cottage chimney in the breathless summer noon, or the sted-
fast-seeming cloud on the edge-point of a hill in the driving air-current,
which momently condensed and recomposed, is the common phantom of a
thousand successors; such is the flesh, which our bodily eyes transmit to
us; which our ^a/aie5 taste; which oui hands touch." — Aids to Reflection,
p.392, 2d edition.
The perpetual absorption and restitution of the particles of the human
&ame haye fixed the attention of some very distinguished writers of the
present day, among others of Lord Brougham, and prior to him, of
Dr. Abercrombie, as constituting an irrefragable proof of the distinct and
independent nature of the human soul. But there is some danger of
carrying the inference from this important physiological fact too far. Our
bodies, it is true, are always changing, yet nevertheless they do not lose their
identity. And we do but expose ourselves unnecessarily, to the shafts of the
A A

266
it has done ; and through faith alone are our minds
capable of entertaining what has been so compas
sionately revealed to us. But, whilst we acknowledge
the magnitude of our obligation to the gospel, for
having brought " life and immortality to light," I

materialist, when we attempt to consider man otherwise than as a compound
being. We have no cognizance of incorporeal spirit; and that great and
good man, Bishop Butler, laid his argument open to fair objection, in pre
suming, what is contrary to correct observation, that the human mind has
been known to exhibit its powers amidst every injury to which the body is
liable, short of the total destruction of this our earthly tabernacle. No sound
physiologist or pathologist will admit this, it being his well-founded
conviction, that when the mind is clear under any partial destruction of the
body, or as often happens, at the hour of death, its organ, the brain, or that
portion of it subservient to the intellectual faculties, has sustained no injury.
And since the Scriptures have declared man to be a compound of body and
soul, 1 do not see why we should be so anxious to inquire to what extent
either may be independent of the other. We read of the spirits of just men
made perfect, and we have some intimations of an intermediate state between
the grave and the resurrection, but no precise information whatever has been
afforded us upon this mysterious subject. Even the favoured apostle,
St. Paul, tells us, respecting one of his visions, that he knew not whether he
was in the body or out of the body ; and our blessed Saviour himself, during
his re-appearance on earth, thought it fit, and therefore we must presume
necessary, to resume his robe of flesh. Have not the inspired apostles, one
and all, whilst they assert the soul's immortality, spoken of death as sleep,
and of the resurrection of the body from the grave as no other than its
awakening from the sleep of death? I am aware that this view of the sub
ject, strictly scriptural as it is, has appeared to some revolting and gloomy,
from their connecting the sleep of death with absolute annihilation. But
surely, when we contemplate the nothingness of time in comparison with
eternity, and as a necessary inference, the inappreciable difference between
the oblivion of a single night's rest, and that of this world's duration,
we shall see no reason for despondency; knowing, as we do from revelation,
the only certain source of such knowledge, that the period must arrive when
our souls and bodies shall be re-united, when " this mortal shall put on
immortality," and when the righteous, who shall awake up after their
Redeemer's likeness, shall be satisfied with it.

267
agree most entirely with Coleridge, that the charac
teristic feature of the Christian dispensation is the
doctrine of the atonement. This it is that gives to the
whole Bible its inestimable value and perfect con
sistency, pervading, as this stupendous mystery does,
its every page, and becoming brighter and brighter,
till we arrive at the completion of all the types and
prophecies of the Old Testament, in the all-sufficient
sacrifice of our blessed Redeemer on the cross at
Calvary. " Most readily do I admit," Coleridge exclaims,
" most fervently do I contend, that the miracles worked
by Christ, both as miracles and as fulfilments of
prophecy, both as signs and as wonders, made plain
discovery, and gave unquestionable proof, of his
divine character and authority ; that they were to the
whole Jewish nation true and appropriate evidences,
that He was indeed come, who had promised and
declared to their forefathers, ' Behold, your God will
come with vengeance, even God with a recompence ! he
will come and save you !' (Isaiah, xxxv. 4. compared
with Matthew, x. 34. and Luke, xii. 49.) I receive
them as proofs, therefore, of the truth of every word
which he taught, who was himself The Word ;
and as sure evidences of the final victory over death,
and of the life to come, in that they were mani
festations of Him who said, * I am the resurrection
and the life !' " But he is severely opposed to writers,
A A 2

268
who make the doctrine of the soul's immortality, and
of the resurrection of the dead, the main objects of the
Christian revelation.
" Such a belief," he says, " may be perfectly in
character for those who, while Socinianism and ultra-
Socinianism are spreading like the roots of an elm, on
and just below the surface, through the whole land,
and here and there at least have even dipped under
the garden-fence of the church, and blunt the edge of
the labourer's spade in the gayest parterres of our
Baal-hamon (Sol. Song, viii. 11.), who, while heresies,
to which the framers and compilers of our liturgy,
homilies, and articles, would have refused the very
name of Christianity, meet their eyes on the list of
religious denominations for every city and large town
throughout the kingdom — can yet congratulate them
selves with Dr. Paley (in his ' Evidences,') that ' the
rent has not reached the foundation, i. e. that the cor
ruption of man's will, that the responsibility of man in
any sense in which it is not equally predicable of dogs
and horses — that the divinity of our Lord, and even
his pre-existence — that sin and redemption through
the merits of Christ, and grace, and the especial aids of
the Spirit, and the efldcacy of prayer, and the subsis-
tency of the Holy Ghost, may all be extruded without
breach or rent in the essentials of Christian faith ! —
that a man may deny and renounce them all, and
remain a fundamental Christian notwithstanding!'

269
And, ' taking refuge,' as he terms it, ' under the
ample shield of Bishop Jeremy Taylor,' he contends
for the universality of the persuasion in a life to come.*
" But, besides that our Saviour himself appeals to
Scripture for the truth of the doctrine, when, in con
futation of the Sadducees, he asks them ' as touching
the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that
which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob ? God is not the God of the
dead, but of the Uving' (Matt. xxii. 32.) ; it is certain,
that even the most enlightened heathens, not excepting
Socrates himself, wanted further light on this subject.
" Cicero may have had good reason for concluding,
* The public have lately heen favoured with a prodigious deal of discussion
relative to the point in question— the universality, namely, of the persuasion
in a life to come — and, as inseparably connected therewith, the obligations of
natural rehgion. But, asfar as I am able to judge, they only tendfurtherto show
that, however busy conjecture may have been, the future and higher destinies
of mankind were involved in considerable doubt until the " Day-spring from
on high" arose upon the world j and that however grateful we ought to be for
every light reflected from the book of nature on the revealed word (and the
more accurate our acquaintance is with the former, the more ready shall we
be to how with humility to the latter), yet that, in matters connected with
our eternal interests, the moment we quit the guidance of revelation, we
plunge into a sea of difficulties.
Experience moreover shows, that conscienee is a faculty of the soul, and not
an instinct, and that its decisions are under the direction of reason, which
itself is but another faculty of each individual soul of man, having no other
test of the security of its decisions than that which is derived from feelings
and conduct corresponding with the written commandments of God.
Whatever therefore may have been, or now may be, the law of the heathen
world, we, as Christians, have reason to exelaim with fervour " Thanks be to
God who hath given us the victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord 1"
A A 3

270
that there is a time and place after this life, wherein
the wicked shall be punished, and the virtuous
rewarded ; when he considered that Orpheus and
Socrates, and how many others, just men and bene
factors of mankind, were either slain or oppressed to
death by evil men (compare Heb. xi. 36-39.) ; ' And
all these received not the promise.' ' But, when
virtue,' Jeremy Taylor proceeds to say, ' made men
poor ; and free-speaking of brave truths made the
wise to lose their liberty ; when an excellent life has
tened an opprobrious death, and the obeying reason
and our conscience lost us our lives, or at least all the
means and conditions of enjoying them ; it was but
time to look' about iox another state of things, where
justice should rule, and virtue find her own portion.
And, therefore, men cast out every line, and turned
every stone, and tried every argument, and sometimes
proved it well, and when they did not, yet they
believed strongly ;' and then he adds, what to me
appears to be pure hyperbole, ' They were sure of
the thing, even token they were not sure of the
argument,'" — (Sermon at the funeral of Sir George
Dalston, 28th September, 1657). But admitting, as
we must, that " Christ was the first fruits of them
that slept," and that through Him alone were " life
and immortality brought to light," satisfactorily to the
inquiring mind ; yet the knowledge of an hereafter
can only be considered as an essential article of the

271
Christian faith, when taken in connection with the
doctrine of the atonement.
, Without, therefore, fully agreeing with Coleridge in
all he says or seems to say (for he sometimes is very
obscure) upon these points of supreme importance,
the consummate wisdom and truth of the following
peroration appear to me irresistible : —
" The death to which the law sentenced all sinners
(and which even the Gentiles, without the revealed
law, had announced to them by their consciences,*
'the judgment of God having been made known even
to them') must be the same death, from which they
were saved by the faith of the Son of God ; or the
apostle's reasoning would be senseless, his antithesis
a mere equivoque. Christ ' redeemed mankind from
the curse of the law,' and we all know that it was
not from temporal death, or the penalties and afllic-
tions of the present life, that believers have been
redeemed. " The law, of which the inspired sage of Tarsus is
speaking, from which no man can plead excuse ; the
law miraculously delivered in thunders from Mount
Sinai, which was inscribed on tables of stone for the
Jews, and written in the hearts of all men — the law
' holy and spiritual !' what was the great point, of
* The accountability of the heathen so plainly intimated by St. Paul, is a
difficulty, nevertheless, which he is far from having made clear to our ap
prehension.

272
which this law, in its own name, offered no solution ?
the mystery, which is left behind the veil, or in the
cloudy tabernacle of types and figurative sacrifices ?,
Whether there was a judgment to come, and souls to
suffer the dread sentence ? Or was it not far rather
— what are the means of escape 1 Where may grace
be found, and redemption ? St. Paul says, the latter.
The law brings condemnation ; but the conscience-
sentenced transgressor's question. What shall I do to
to be saved ? Who will intercede for me ? she dis
misses as beyond the jurisdiction of her court, and
takes no cognizance thereof, save in the prophetic
murmurs or mute outshadowings of mystic ordinances
and sacrificial types. Not, therefore, that there is a
life to come, and a future state ; but what each indi
vidual may hope for itself therein ; and on what
grounds ; and that this state has been rendered an
object of aspiration and fervent desire, and a source
of thanksgiving and exceeding great joy ; and by
whom, and through whom, and for whom, and by
what means and under what conditions — these are the
peculiar and distinguishing fundamentals of the Chris
tian Faith ! These are the revealed lights and ob
tained privileges of the Christian dispensation ! Not
alone the knowledge of the boon, but the precious
inestimable boon itself, is the ' Grace and Truth that
came by Jesus Christ !' ' I believe Moses, I believe
Paul ; but I believe in Christ.' "

273
With respect to the distinction between pure reason
and the understanding which occupies so conspicuous a
part in Coleridge's mental philosophy, is it not, I would
ask, one of degree rather than of kind ? The human soul
has, we believe, powers and faculties peculiar to itself ;
itpossessesfreedomof will, and a correspondingsenseof
moral responsibility ; and it seems capable of under
standing a vast many more things than the mind of
the most elevated brute ; but these are powers and
faculties of which the soul itself takes cognizance no
otherwise than it does of any knowledge derived from
the senses — by reflection, namely, and its own internal
consciousness. We feel that in the inmost recesses of
the human mind there exists a light capable of re
sponding to the brightest rays of nature and of revela
tion ; but it was not, let me repeat, a light to lighten
even the wisest of the gentiles further than the portals
of those heavenly mansions which they confessed their
inability to pass without a key from heaven. I cannot
help thinking, therefore, that the distinction about
which Coleridge is so anxious, is rather calculated to
impugn the integrity of the soul than to exalt it by
giving, as it were, an independent existence to one,
however prominent, of its faculties.
If the phrenologists are, as I believe, correct, to the
extent at least of allotting to the superior mental facul
ties their appropriate organs, such a discovery will go

274
far to put the present question at rest ; for what, as
Abernethy has sagaciously remarked, can more satis
factorily prove the unity and integrity of the soul than
the doctrine of a plurality of faculties ¦?*
Surely if pure reason mean any thing, it can be no
other than the reasoning faculty of the human soul in
its highest state of exertion, and, as such, in a manner,
the exclusive privilege of gifted individuals like Cole
ridge himself, elicited too by years of study and reflec
tion, and almost emulating the province of inspira
tion, for even inspiration pre-supposes the reasoning
faculty, and is only the immediate influence of the
Holy Spirit acting upon it. Whereas the doctrines of
our holy religion are, to all the purposes of our salva
tion, simple and easily apprehended, under the ordi
nary influences of the Spirit of God, and depend more
* Nothing can be more unfounded than the apprehensions which some
have expressed of the supposed tendency of phrenology to materialism ; for
what is this science, after all, but a new and improved reading of a particular
page of the natural history, or physiology, of man ? which reading is, to the
credit of its veracity, not a little in favour of the scriptural doctrine of the
unity of the sentient principle.
Phrenologists maintain that separate portions of the brain are the allotted
instruments, or organs, of particular mental faculties, instead of supposing,
in opposition to a thousand conflicting facts, that the whole brain is alike
concerned in every operation of the mind. Now, what can be more corro
borative of the unity and individuality of the sentient principle than such a
diversity of organs ? Give the utmost latitude to this doctrine, even that of
supposing matter itself endowed with perception, which, I confess, is what
I cannot comprehend, still the soul will be required to take the direction of
this multitudinous assemblage of sentient organs, which would otherwise be
very much in the same predicament with an assemblage of musical instru
ments without a presiding mind to bring them into concert.

275
upon the affections of the heart than upon the powers
of the head.
In like manner, when Coleridge affirms that " the
Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, are
merely didactic, but that St. John's Gospel is pure
reason," in contradistinction, as it would seem, to
inspiration, may it not be fairly asked why — if so —
need we Coleridge to point it out to us ? Why is it
not as readily apprehended as such by a Mahomedan,
a Hindoo, or a native of any island in the Pacific, as
by the most enlightened Christian ?
Experience clearly shows that the peculiar province
of human reason is to examine facts, draw conclu
sions, and separate truth from error ; and the very
utmost that it can be presumed to recognize in its
purest natural state, is the necessary existence of one
God ; a fact which may be said to lie at the foundation
alike of natural and revealed religion.
But the Gospel of St. John requires us to believe
that there is a plurality of persons in the Godhead, a
mysterious truth which pure reason would never have
made known to us. Such knowledge can only be
derived from the Bible.
To say, therefore, that the Gospel of St. John is
pure reason, is, according to my apprehension,, alto
gether equivocal ; but to say that its doctrines are the
educts of the inspired mind of the beloved apostle,
is to refer them to their right source, the Spirit of

276
God ; and the great privilege of a Christian is, that,
through faith, these doctrines are as comprehensible
to him, however humble, as to Coleridge, who, inde
pendently of faith, is no more than on a footing with
an enlightened heathen — a fact of which he shows
himself to be at times aware, yet he persists in
perplexing himself with the pursuit of an intel
lectual faculty, which is to set us above ourselves.*
In fact, Coleridge has himself remarked, that
" revelation would cease to be revelation, were its
mysteries within the reach of human capacity ;" and
that " nothing has tended more to atheism, than the
attempt to penetrate the inscrutable councils, or dis
cover the sacred essence, of the Eternal." And may
vfe not truly be said to have made considerable
advances towards the demolition 'of atheism, infidelity,
materialism, and the sceptical legion generally, when
reflecting minds become reconciled to the Scriptural
doctrine of incomprehensibility? A comprehensible
mystery is a palpable absurdity ! Yet what angry

* Veritas, id est arcanum summi Dei, qui fecit omnia, ingenio ac propriis
sensibus non potest comprehendi ; alioqui nihil inter Deum hominemque
distaret, si consilia, et dispositiones illius m^estatis setem£e cogitatio
assequeretijr humana. Quod quia fieri non potuit, nt homini per seipsum
ratio divina notesceret ; non est passus hominem Deus, lumen sapientijE
requirentem, diutius oberrare, ac sine uUo laboris effectu vagari per tenebras
inextricablies ; aperuit oculos ejus aliquando, et notionem veritatis munus
suum fecit, ut et humanam sapientiam nuUam esse monstraret, et erranti ac
vago viam consequendee immortalitatis ostenderet. — Laciant. Div. lust.
lib. i. s. 1.— Dr. H.

277
conflicts have gone on in the world, to bring matters
of faith under the dominion of reason. Whilst, on the
other hand, there has been an equally great and detri
mental impatience to give up reason and common sense
altogether, in the consideration of matters of faith,
which, however far above, can never be contrary to, right
reason. Some of Coleridge's expositions of particular
Scriptural doctrines are admirable ; but they are so
only when his enlightened mind exerts itself in strict
conformity with the enunciations of Holy Writ. If
there were nothing else to throw suspicion on the
doctrine of pure reason, as expounded by the meta
physicians, its total inapplicability to the world in
general, would be a sufficient bar to its adoption.
Not one person in a hundred is capable of entering
upon the disquisition at all, much less of coming to
any valid opinion upon it. As a rule of conduct,
therefore, it can be of no extensive benefit to mankind.
Whereas, the humblest Christian may learn, as I have
already said, by ever so simple a process of reasoning,
to appreciate the grounds of his faith, and thence
appropriate to himself the sublimest truths and lessons
of the Bible, with a confidence far beyond that which
the disciple of the pure rationalist can derive from
the most subtle exercise of his natural intellect, the
greatest achievement of which must ever be, that it
has arrived at the same point from which the Bible
starts. B B

278
No one was ever, perhaps, endowed by nature with
a more deeply contemplative mind than Coleridge ;
but he was constitutionally indolent, and indulged, at
times, there is no doubt, in the pernicious use of
alcohol and opium, under whatever excuse or pretence
he may have been induced at first to do so.* It is,
therefore, the less wonderful that his writings should
be far from exempt from glaring inconsistencies, or
that he should have been hurried at times, by an
impassioned imagination, beyond the terra firma of
sound sense and learning. But let us not too curi
ously persist in raking out faults from the ashes of
this great man, and, in heart, this truly Christian
philosopher. He seems to have become more and
more aware, as his life drew towards a close, that
metaphysics have no secure fulcrum in the mind of
man, no test of truth beyond theprecincts of revelation ;

* Praser, to whom we are indebted for so much interesting information
respecting Coleridge, informs us, on the authority of Coleridge himself, and I
have heard the same from his friend Chester, that " after his return from
Germany, he had an attack of acute-rheumatism ; on which occasion, he was
attended by a medical gentleman from whom he borrowed a load of medical
books, in one of which he found a case similar to his own, where a marvellous
cure had been performed by rubbing in laudanum, at the same time that a dose
was administered inwardly. He tried it, and finding it answer, was induced
to continue it medicinally from time to time, as he found occasion.
Wretched delusion !" he concludes, " but I owe it to myself to declare before
God, that this, the curse and slavery of my life, did not commence in any low
craving for sensation, in any desire or -wish to stimulate or exhilirate myself;
in fact, my nervous spirits and my mental activity were such as never
required it; but wholly in rashness, and delusion, and presumptuous
quackery, and afterwards in pure terror."

279
and, in earlier life, his motto was, as he has himself
told us, " Debeo amicis opitulari, sed usque ad Deos"
— "it behoves me to side with my friends, but only as
far as the Gods."*
This " rule of life," he often, it has been admitted,
put to its utmost stretch ; and it was with reference
to the inconsistencies into which he was occasionally
betrayed, and the frequent struggle which appears to
have arisen between the aspirations of his spiritual,
and the debasing influence of his animal, nature, that
I once wrote the following epigram : —
" Coleridge ! thy frailties and thy worth
Savour alike of heaven and earth ;
Thou hast so much of both about thee.
That neither seems quite right without thee."
Lines which, it behoves me to say, accord much better
with him at a time when he was capable of writing
such an epitaph as the following upon himself: —
* The celebrated saying, / can yield every thing to a friend but my religion,
in which Pericles demonstrated both his friendship and his piety, and whieh
Coleridge adopted as his motto, appears to have been very justly assumed as
the real declaration of his principles. There can be no doubt that in every
period of his life, his religious profession was sincere, however he might have
modified his opinions as he grew older and wiser ; and it does not seem that,
with the desire of benefitting himself or gratifying another, he ever compro
mised his faith or disguised his feelings.
The origin of the apophthegm is related by Aulus Gellius, who gives it in
these words: h{i fA irvfjCT^UTTiiv roTs i^lXm, a.>Xa. f/.ixi' ^^f^v But Plutarch
repeats it more succinctly, thus : /*£%§' rov ^oj/mu pi?.os u(/,i. It is strange that
Coleridge should have preferred a faulty and inadequate Latin version of
these words ; for if a translation was desirable, such ». maxim would have
looked well in brief and perspicuous English only.— Dr. H.
B B 2

280
" Here lies poor Cole — quite dead, and without seeming,
Who died, as he had always lived, a dreaming —
Shot, as with pistol, by the gout within —
Alone, and quite unknown — in Edinhro', at an inn :*
than with that truly pious state of mind in which we
find him, when the period of his earthly existence
really drew nigh.
Where shall we meet with a better letter from a
dying Christian to a young friend, than that with
which I shall close these remarks ?
"To Adam Steinmetz Kinnaird.
" My dear 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
* A month or two before his death, when in a very different state of mind
from that in which he composed the above epitaph, he wrote another on
himself, which is here given as transcribed from the obituary of the " Gentle
man's Magazine," where it is justly described as " humble and atfectionate."
" Stop, Christian passer by I Stop, child of God 1
And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seemed he, —
O, lift a thought in prayer for S. T. C. !
That he who many a year with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here find life in death !
Mercy for praise — to be forgiven for fame^
He asked, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same."
From the fourth line it would seem that he thought with Johnson, that
the prayers of the living might avail the dead somewhat ; a notion which,
however characteristic it may be of atfection and humility, is in violation of
the plainest declaration of Holy Writ.

281
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 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 righ
teousness ; even into the 'Lord our righteousness;'
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 in 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 even
as a son, the late Adam Steinmetz, whose fervent
aspirations, and 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 enjoyment and
advantages of this life are, and what the more refined
pleasures which learning and intellectual power can
give ; I now, on the eve of my departure, declare to
you (and earnestly pray that you may hereafter live
and act on the conviction), that health is a great
blessing; competence, obtained by honourable indus
try, a great blessing ; and a great blessing it is, to
have kind, faithful, and loving friends and relatives;
B B 3

282
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 affected
with bodily pains, languor, 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 recovery, yet without
prospect of a speedy removal. And I thus, on the
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 has promised ; and has reserved, under all
pains and infirmities, the peace that passeth all under
standing, with the supporting assurance of a recon
ciled God, who will not withdraw his Spirit from me
in the conflict, and in his own time will deliver me
from the evil one. O ! my dear godchild ! eminently
blessed are they 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. O, preserve
this as a legacy and bequest from your unseen god
father and friend,
" S. T. Coleridge.
"July 13th, 1834,
" Grove, Highgate."

APPENDIX.

' Mysteries are to be inquired into."
' But our inquiries must be with reverence and profound humility." Leslie.
' Whatever is against right reason, that no faith can oblige us to believe.
' If reason justly contradicts an article, it is not of the household of Faith.
' In no case can true reason and a right faith oppose each other."
Jeremy Taylor.

Coleridge is represented, in his " Table Talk," as
speaking in the following terms of the Athanasian
Creed :
"The author of the Athanasian Creed is unknown.
It is, in my judgment, heretical in the omission, or
implicit denial of the Filial subordination in the God
head, which is the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, and
for which Bull and Waterland have so fervently and
triumphantly contended ; and by not holding to which,
Sherlock staggered to and fro between Tritheism and
Sabellianism. This creed is also tautological, and, if
not persecuting, which I will not discuss, certainly
containing harsh and ill-conceived language."

284
In his " Aids to Reflection," he has entered upon
the doctrine of the Trinity, without exhibiting his
full view of it. But I believe that his conception of
this great mystery will be, ere long, before the public ;
and, as far as I can judge from a manuscript in the
possession of a, friend of his, it will give great satis
faction to many, and no offence to any orthodox
believer in the Trinity. I did not, however, collect
its full import, having only heard it read, and therefore
do not pledge myself for its entire substance. My
own belief in the Trinity is such, that I would lay my
life down rather than abandon it. Yet I cannot like
the plan of unfolding it in the Athanasiaii Creed.
Every Christian believes that there is no name
under heaven by which he can be saved, except that
of Christ, the co-equal Son of God, who, for our
sakes, took upon him the form of man, and suf
fered death upon the cross — the just for the unjust ;
but, in believing this, the Christian virtually, and by
consequence, professes the whole doctrine of theTriuity,
without the admission of which, therefore, he acknow
ledges no covenanted method of salvation. And our
church, in her sense of duty to her members, may well
be excused for striving with more than ordinary zeal
to impress a truth of such tremendous importance
upon their minds, a truth to which, however mys
terious, it behoves them to bow with pious gratitude
and the utmost humility. But in doing this, she

285
should rather, methinks, adorn it with the gracious
beams of mercy and justice, than array it in terrors
more calculated to alarm the good, than to overcome
the scruples of tender consciences. " Without doubt
he shall perish everlastingly," is an appalling sentence
to attach to a non-compliance with any creed, as
expounded in the clauses of a composition avowedly
human ; and there is an appearance of subtlety con
nected with every defence of them with which I am
acquainted, so at variance with the plain dealing that
ought to characterize the exposition of Christian
doctrines, as to render such defence quite unsatis
factory.* We are told that many of these clauses were framed
to meet specific heresies. But what have the
generality of believers in the orthodox doctrine of the
Trinity to do with specific heresies ? Sufficient for
the day, and for the Litigants themselves, was the evil
thereof. Thousands who believe correctly in the

• The proofs of the general doctrine of the " Trinity in Unity," says Arch
deacon Dodwell, " are plain, and short, and easy, open to every understand
ing. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are distinguished from each
other by peculiar acts and offices. Yet divine names, titles, attributes, and
offices, are ascribed to each of them ; and the Unity of the Deity is as unques
tionably established. To this general doctine alone belong the condemnatory
sentences."— ilf ami's Prayer Book.
Whether the supreme importance of the general doctrine of the Trinity,
justify or not the strong condemnatory clauses with which the creed begins
and ends, is, itself, a question of doubt with many good men, who firmly
believe that doctrine ; but the fact really is, that to the plain reader of the
Athanasian Creed, these sentences appear to apply to all the clauses.

286
Trinity, may be averse from pledging themselves as to
the final perdition of all who do not participate in
the feelings which may have been entertained by the
answerer of each controverted point. Why then per
petuate a chain of clauses addressed to particular
heresies in the formula of a Catholic creed ?
We believe in " one God," as a truth so clearly
revealed in Scripture, " that it is scarcely possible,"
Samuel Drew has well remarked, " to find a passage
from the first of Genesis to the last of the Apocalypse,
in which it is not either expressed, pre-supposed, or
implied." There are likewise three Persons revealed
to us in the Bible, to each of whom all the attributes
of God are assigned. Upon the same authority,
therefore, on which we believe that there is but one
God, we believe in the three Persons of the Godhead ;
a mystery far, it is true, beyond human comprehension,
but not, on that account, revolting to human reason.
The attributes and essential nature of a God, such
as the Scriptures unfold to our contemplation, must
of necessity be so far beyond the grasp of our limited
faculties, that we can only regard them with wonder
and amazement ; but when these same Scriptures
treat of the three Persons of the Godhead, and intro
duce them to us under the endearing names of our
Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sanctifier — heaven
in a manner opens to our view, and we seem to
approach the throne of an invisible Deity, in full

287
confidence of being welcomed by " Him whom every
eye shall see," as the children of a common Father.
On the authority of Holy Writ, then, we believe
that three Divine Persons, in some mysterious union,
constitute that one eternal, invisible, immortal Being,
whom we entertain in our thoughts as God, and who,
as to his essence, is alike undefined and undefinable.
To such a mystery faith implicitly assents, in the
spirit of humble adoration. Even to say that God is
a Person, appears to me not only to be travelling out
of the record of Revelation, but setting that which, as
a mystery, must be above reason, at variance with
reason ; thereby withdrawing from us the very
foundation on which the mystery itself rests its claim
to our assent.
God is revealed to us as a Tri-personal Being ; and
this appears to be set forth with sufficient clearness
and precision in the first four clauses of the Atha
nasian Creed, to which I humbly submit it should, as
a Catholic creed, have been confined.* What follows
• I am aware that the pious Hooker, in deprecating the tendency which pre
vailed in his time (and which at aU times cannot be too cautiously guarded
against) to exclude important parts of the Liturgy from the service of our
church, has strongly insisted upon the propriety of retaining the Athanasian
Creed. " The very Creed of Athanasius," he indignantly exclaims, " and
that sacred hymn of glory than which nothing doth sound more heavenly in
the ears of faithful men, are now reckoned as superfluities, which we must
in any case pare away, lest we clog God with too much semoe."—Eccl. Polity,
b. 5. p. 175, folio ed. 1723.
But great as is my respect for this judicious man, he has, in this instance,
failed of carrying me along with him.
The question is not whether we shall retain in our Liturg}' confessions of

288
not only fails to enhance the value of the mystery,
already complete, but, according to my apprehension,
begets confusion, from which we can with difficulty,
if at all, extricate ourselves by means of the context
in the preceding clauses. Let us take, for instance,
that clause which, after it has been declared, that
each of the Persons is eternal, pronounces that " there
are not three Eternals, but one Eternal."
In the first place it has always appeared to me,
that there is a disadvantageous neglect of due solem
nity, in the gingling repetition of epithets ; but this
is far from the main objection.
The orthodox belief is, that there are three co-
eternal and co-equal Persons ; the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost ; and that, notwithstanding
this, there is but one God. So that there are in fact
three Eternals (Persons) ; and it is only by such refer
ence to the context, as is scarcely to be expected
generally, that the clause is ascertained to mean
what the context assures us it does.
Again, when the Athanasian Creed asserts, that
" we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknow-

faith which recognise, with unHinching and uncompromising sincerity, that
doctrine, to its fullest extent, for which Athanasius contended — but whether
there are not clauses in the Athanasian Creed which tend rather to impugn,
than to establish the pure and scriptural doctrine of the Trinity — and whether
the Catholic Church, in her zeal to preserve her members in the sound faith,
ought not likewise to guard against connecting, as she does in appearance at
least, the terras of eternal death with clauses of human composition.

289
ledge every Person of the Trinity, by Himself, to be
God and Lord, our reason may well become alarmed ;
for the plain meaning which the words " by Himself,"
are calculated to convey, is, that each Person is God
and Lord, to the exclusion of the other two ; which
is certainly not the real intention of the creed.* How
much then is such ambiguity to be deprecated ! St.
John, it is true, says that "The Word is God;"
but so is the Father, and so is the Holy Ghost ; each
equally with the other, but not each by Himself.
God, as revealed to us in the Scriptures, is a Tri-per
sonal Being ; and I cannot but express my surprise
that many great and good men, from not affixing, it
may be, a sufficiently definite meaning to the word
Person, have fallen into the extraordinary error of
speaking of the Tri-Une God, as if he were one
Person. " Surely then," says no less an authority
than Professor Sedgwick, " we may conclude with
Paley, that the world around us proceeds from design
and intelligence— intelligence properly and strictly so
called, including under that name foresight, considera
tion, and reference to utility" — and that "after all
the schemes of a reluctant philosophy, the necessary
resort is to a Deity. The marks of design are too
strong to begotten over — design must have a designer —
• " There is but One only true God. But then you must not say of any of
the Persons, that he Only is this God, because the other Persons do partake
of the same nature, and so are the same Got."— Leslie.
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290
that designer must have been a person — that person
is God." *
Now the Tri-personality of the Deity is the very
corner-stone of our religion. Unless we bear this dis
tinctly in mind, we get involved, like the Socinians, in
interminable perplexities ; for if they can be admitted
to have any excuse whatever for refusing assent to the
doctrine of the Trinity, it can only arise from this con
fusion of unity of person with unity of essence. Nor
does the objection advanced by me depend on the
indefinite meaning of the word Person ; for whatever
meaning we might agree to affix to that word, it would
equally follow that the Deity cannot be three and one
in the same sense ; and as long, therefore, as we con
tinue to speak of the three Persons of the Godhead,
it must be inadmissible to speak of God as one Person.
If Paley had come to the conclusion, "that the
marks of design are too strong to be gotten over — that
design must have a designer — that that designer must
be an intelligent Being — and that being God" — he
would have escaped the dilemma into which he has
fallen. For even if we take the definition of the word
Person in its largest and most accredited sense, as
any being endowed with intellect,^ the error would
• Sedgwick's Discourse, Ed. 2. p. 116.
tin the popular acceptation of the word, visibility appears to be as much
associated with the idea of perso7i as intelligence ; but, besides that this is
jiot philosophically correct, it is evident that, throughout the Bible, invisi
bility is as much predicated of each of the Divine Persons as of the One God.

291
still remain of making that God one Person, whom the
Scriptures show to be three Persons. " Intelligent
acting substance (that is, intelligent agent), is not," as
Waterland says, " equivalent to Person, neither are
the phrases reciprocal.*
Wherever God is personally introduced in the sacred
writings, it is with reference to God the Father — God
the Son— or God the Holy Ghost. Thus we find,
Ephesians i. 3, that the reference is to the Father,
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ." John i. 2, the refer
ence is to the Son : "In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God." Acts V. 3, 4— to the Holy Ghost : " But Peter
said, Ananias, why bath Satan filled thine heart to lie
to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price
of the land ? Whilst it remained, was it not thine
own ? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own

To each of them the words of St. Paul, 1 Tim. vi. 16, may be applied,
"Whom no man hath seen, nor can see; to whom be honour and power
everlasting. Amen."
It is of the God-Man — of Christ in his mediatorial capacity, that we are
alone assured that the day is coming when *' every eye shall see him."
"Behold he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him; and they
also which pierced him." — ¦ Rev. i. 7. How awful the announcement !
How unlike any human fiction !
• Waterland's Works, vol. iii. p. 341.
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292
power ? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine
heart? thou hast not lied unto man, but unto God/'
If it were otherwise than this, we should have to
suppose three persons to be one person, which is im
possible ; and we are not yet bound to follow that
venerable father of the church who, in the ardour of
his faith, is said to have exclaimed " Credo quia im-
possibile est."*
Most persons are more or less acquainted with the
controversy respecting 1 John v, 7 ; and the learned
are well aware that, in St. Jerome's Latin version of
the Holy Scriptures, the words objected to as spurious,
are not met with. I had an opportunity very lately,
on payment of a shilling, of ascertaining this fact in

* It may, perhaps, he said, that Paley came to the conclusion that GKid is
a Person, on purely philosophical reasoning. 1 am ready to admit that such
might have been the case ; and if he had not been a Christian as well as a
philosopher, and if there were no such book as the Bible, this might be a
sufficient defence. But, in fact, on such an hypothesis, no defence could
have been required,
" Some defence of Paley may be attempted even on the authority of Scrip
ture. It may be argued that his design was to prove the existence of a
Creator, and that the ascription of personality to the Divine Being, who was
the subject of his argument, was in strict accordance with the orthodox faith ;
since the Creator is declared by God's own word to be the Second Person of
the Trinity. But few will be of opinion that Paley thought of this when he
wrote his book. The Sabellians believed that there was One God in three
Persons ; but in the sense attached to the word Person by the Catholic faith,
they regarded the Godhead as one Person only. " The fathers in general
acknowledged — One God, and not One Person;" but " to say the one God is
one Person only— is the essence of Sabellianism."— fro/er/anfT;! Works, vol.ii.
p. 31-423,— Dr. H.

293
London, where there was exhibited a magnificent
Bible, known by the name of the emperor Charle
magne's, since purchased, I believe, at a large price,
for the British Museum. It is described as being the
most ancient manuscript now in existence of the Latin
version of the Holy Scriptures, by St. Jerome ; and as
having been written for the emperor Charlemagne,
by Alcuine, one of the most distinguished of the
Anglo-Saxon scholars.*
On referring to 1 John v. 7, 8, I found that all the
disputed words were omitted, which would therefore
make the passage in our English translation run thus :
" For there are three that bear record, the spirit,
and the water, and the blood ; and these three agree
ill one."
For my own part, I should not require a stronger
proof of the spuriousuess of the suspected text than
the very words themselves afford, as they stand in our
version ; viz. " There are three that bear record in
heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,
• I remarked, respecting Coleridge's epitaph on himself, that he had very
humbly, but not very consistently with Scripture orthodoxy, begged the
reader to " lift a thought in prayer for S. T. C." In Alcuine's splendid
manuscript there was, to my great surprise, no vestige whatever perceptible
of Roman-Catholicism in the various paintings, seals, historical allusions,
and emblematical devices, with which he has illuminated and enriched the
labour of his hand ; and yet on the reverse of the last leaf of the New Testa
ment are the following verses, under some others, likewise written by him-
self:— " Pro me, quisque legas versus, orare memento,
Alcuine dicor ego, tu sine fine vale."
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294
and these three are one." But, on referring to the
original Greek, what do we find? Not that these
three (Persons) are one (Person) — the words are
Kai aroi ci rptiQ iv eiai — which, at least, relieves the
passage from the stamp of spuriousuess which
our translation presents ; and which we find trans
ferred, in efiect, to the version of the Athanasian
Creed, in our Prayer-books. It is likewise well worthy
notice, and strongly in favour of my own argument,
that, in the supposition that the disputed words really
have been interpolated, the interpolater must have
been well aware of the importance of the distinction
between ev and £»s, and therefore took care to avoid
the objection to which our translation, at all events,
leaves the passage obnoxious,*
The orthodox Trinitarian is bound in charity to
others who would willingly, perhaps, be of the same
family of faith with himself, to object to every clause
in any creed which by its ambiguity is likely to lead
to a misconception of a doctrine of such paramount
importance to our salvation as that of the Trinity.
This, I admit, is tender and holy ground. But
doubts respecting the propriety of a particular clause
in any of her creeds, will drive no sincere member of
the Church of England from her fellowship. Far from
making pretensions to infallibility, she bids us search
the Scriptures for ourselves, since they alone contain
* I am indebted to Dr. Kingston for the suggestion of this just criticism.

295
the whole counsel of God ; and we are bound to her
forms no further than they may be in accordance with
the written word.
" The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the
firmament sheweth His handy work ;" but the Bible
alone proclaims to fallen man that he is still the
"object of the Father's mercy — of the Redeemer's
love" — and of the sanctifying influences of the Holy
Spirit, the Comforter ; and these three are that One
God whose glory the natural world declares.
In one of the concluding clauses of the creed, we
find it enunciated that " as the reasonable soul and
flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ."*
Now, although we are told in Scripture, that " God
was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself," and
that " in Him" (that is, in Christ) " dwelleth all the
Godhead bodily," and must necessarily infer from
these, as from innumerable other texts, that He was
indeed " very God of very God ;" yet, with reference
to the particular doctrine of the Trinity, it is equally
clear that, unless we would set Scripture at variance
with itself, we are bound to believe that the Second
Person only of the Godhead took our nature upon
Him ; and surely in a creed, the express object of
which is to keep the Persons distinct, without dividing

• Are not such attempts at analogy altogether objectionable » They seem
to me to savour of nothing less than Infallibility. How dare we trust any
thing of the kind for which we have not the express warrant of Scripture!

296
the essence, the greatest care ought to have been
taken not to merge this distinction.
To what extent, or in what manner, the relation of
the Second Person of the Trinity was affected by His
taking our nature upon him, it is not possible for us
to know. That He was not severed, we learn from
various texts, which shew, both with respect to what
He did and what He said, that, if Christ had pleased,
He might, at any time, have wielded the sceptre of
Omnipotence. But He is likewise described as having
left His Father's bouse — as being accredited by the
Father, and by the Holy Spirit, at His baptism — -and
as having been subject to temptation, and patient
under agonies which He nevertheless prayed to His
Father to avert. I remember, some years since, being
in a company where the conversation turned upon the
subject of the Trinity, when a keen disputant spoke
with unbecoming levity of the absurdity of supposing
that God could be on earth, in the person of our
Saviour, and yet in heaven.
" Pray is that your creed?" he said to me. My reply
was — " Certainly." But I felt, upon reflection, that
such an answer required great qualification ; and much
subsequent reflection has served to confirm me in this
opinion. God is every where present. He is " about our bed,
and about our path, and He spieth out all our ways.''
But Christ, our passover, the Second Person of the

297
ever blessed Trinity, who took our nature upon Him,
was alone present in the flesh; and, after suffering
death upon the cross, ascended into heaven, and there
sitteth, in his mediatorial capacity, at the right hand
of His Father, and will continue there to sit until
time shall be no more.
" Without controversy," saith St, Paul, "great is the
mystery of godliness. God (in the Person of the Word)
was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen
of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in
the world, received up into glory." " This latter
circumstance," Bishop Hurd has piously remarked,
" was proper to shut up so stupendous a scene." It
opened with " God manifest in the flesh," degraded,
ecUpsed, obscured by this material vestment, yet
emerging out of its dark shade through the counte
nance of the Spirit and by the ministry of angels, then
shining out in the face of the Gentiles, and gradually
ascending to His meridian height in the conversion of
the whole world. Yet was this prize of glory to be
won by a long and painful conflict, with danger, suffer
ings, and death ; in regard to which last enemy the
apostle affirms that it was not possible for so divine
a person to be holden of it. It follows, therefore,
naturally and properly (to vindicate the Redeemer's
honour, and to replace Him in that celestial state
from which He had descended) that in His own Person
He triumphed over hell and the grave, and went up

298
visibly into heaven, there to sit down at the right
hand of the Father, till. His great mediatorial scheme
being accomplished, He himself shall voluntarily quit
the distinction of His name and place, and God shall
be all in all."
Many years have elapsed since I made a note in
my copy of Paley's Natural Theology, expressive of
my doubts of the correctness of his inferences,
respecting the personality of the Deity. It will be
seen, that subsequent reflection has not induced me
to take a different view of bis argument, to the more
attentive re-consideration of which I have been lately
led, from finding that the very passage to which my
doubts applied, had been quoted, not by Professor
Sedgwick only, but, apparently with approbation,
by no less a person than Professor Turton likewise,
who is not more at issue with Lord Brougham upon
any point, than upon what is called the argument
(i priori, the argument, namely, in favour of the
existence of God, which may be derived by us from
contemplating the operations of our own minds, and
thence deducing the necessary pre-existence of some
superior, self-existent, and creative Intelligence.
I shall not presume to decide between Lord
Brougham and Professor Turton, further than by
remarking that the passage in question, which the
learned professor, at a venture, as he says, has
adduced in vindication of Paley against his lordship's

299
charge of his having overlooked the d priori argument,
is the only one in Paley's great work which struck me
as objectionable, and that too on a point of the highest
importance. Professor Turton's quotation from the 23d chapter
of Paley's Natural Theology, on the " Personality of
the Deity," begins thus — " Contrivance, if established,
appears to me to prove every thing which we wisk to
prove ; amongst other things, it proves the Person
ality of the Deity, as distinguished from what is
sometimes called nature, sometimes called a principle ;
which terms, in the mouths of those who use them
philosophically, seem to be intended to admit and to
express an efficacy, but to exclude and to deny a
personal agent. Now, that which can contrive, which
can design, must be a person. These capacities con
stitute personality, for they imply consciousness and
thought. They require that which can perceive an
end or purpose, as well as the power of providing
means, and of directing them to their end. They
require a centre, in which perceptions unite, and from
which volitions flow ; which is mind. The acts of a
mind prove the existence of a mind ; and in what
ever a mind resides, is a person. The seat of intellect
is a person." *
• How different is Professor Turton's own perspicuous statement of this
matter !
** On an actual survey of external nature, we find things on all sides so
related to each other, that the idea of adaptation and contrivance irresistibly

300
In these expressions — " in whatever a mind
resides, is a person;" " the seat of intellect is a person;"
there is, for Paley, a very unusual want of clearness,
sufficient almost of itself to beget suspicion of their
accuracy. But I have already said enough on this
subject. " I am that I am," is the sublime enunciation of
the Almighty Being Himself of Himself. His Tri-
personality we learn from Revelation exclusively,
respecting which, all that our reason enables us to
determine is, that the three Persons of the Trinity
cannot be one Person. And as no attribute of either
of the Persons of the Trinity can be wanting in the
Godhead, so we find every title of God given in the
Bible to each of the divine Persons ; consequently
each must be equally God, not each by Himself, but
conjointly and equally with the other two.

forces itself upon the understanding. We feel that they could not exist in
their present relations, unless it had been previously intended that they
should so exist. Every object therefore, in the natural world, must have been
foreseen, contrived, formed to be exactly as it is. Moreover, it is contrary to
all our experience, that anything should foresee aud contrive, except mind —
that is, an intelligent being, exercising volition and possessing power. In
other words, we find ourselves surrounded by objects, none of which can we
conceive have begun to exist, otherwise than by the agency of some intel
ligent and powerful being. And yet more, the various instances of adapta
tion and contrivance have such a decided tendency to the completion of one
grand plan ; that we are led to the conclusion, that the entire scheme of
nature must have originated with One supremely wise and powerful Being —
whom we call GodL."—Titrton's Nat. Theol. sect. 1. p. 38.

301
The Liturgy of the Church of England is as ad
mirable for its general simplicity as for its truth ; and
in its references to the doctrine of the Trinity, there
is, above all, a Scriptural sublimity, which so tran
scends all attempts to unfold this stupendous mystery,
as to shew the true foundation of its own surpassing
excellence. What can be more eminently pious, or more fully
comprehend the whole doctrine of the Trinity, than
the confession of faith in that admirable hymn, in the
morning service, " Te Deum Laudamus ;'' than the
supplications contained in the first four petitions of
the Litany ; than the Gloria Patri at the conclusion
of each Psalm ; than the exhortation in the Com
munion service to give hearty thanks to God — the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; or, lastly, than
the affecting apostolic benedictions ?
God forgive me if I am wrong in thinking that the
Athanasian Creed is little in harmony with the delight
fully Scriptural tone of our Prayer Book generally,
and of its numerous collects in particular. If, on the
other hand, I am right, the importance of the obser
vations I have presumed to make, will be best
understood by such as can best appreciate the
hopeless condition of those unfortunate individuals
who, under whatever delusion, deny the God that
bought them ; and who, may be, are deterred from
entering the glorious temples of the Triune God,
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302
appropriated to our national church, on account of
the forbidding aspect which has been thrown over the
doctrine of the Trinity in one of her creeds.
1 take this opportunity of adverting to a prophetic
text which, perhaps more than any other in the Bible,
connects the Messiah with the Second Person in the
Trinity, " Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten
thee." — Ps. ii. 7.
Whether these words, in which we so distinctly
recognize the person and mediatorial character of
our Redeemer, apply, as some commentators have
supposed, to the Resurrection, or, as others have
thought, to the Ascension, or to both, our attention is
equally directed to the triumph of the cross, and to
the return of the Conqueror to His own and His
Father's kingdom. That the text does more especially
apply to the Ascension, I am the rather inclined to
think, from the judicious investigation of the meaning
of the word begotten, for which I am indebted to my
nephew, Mr. Philip Carlyon.*
The quotations from Leslie, prefixed to the foregoing

• The above gentleman was elected Senior Hebrew Scholar at the last
Cambridge examination, when Ue had the honour of being — facile princeps.
So that Cornwall, the residence and birth-place of Peters, the distinguished
author of " A Critical Dissertation on the book of Job," may well be proud of
possessing at the present day two first-rate Hebrew Scholars — Canon Rogers
having long since established his claim to a distinction, to which, I pre
sume to hope, Mr. P. Carlyon will likewise be considered entitled.

303
observations on the doctrine of the Trinity, were taken
from the beginning of his learned and ingenious essay,
or sermon, on the words, " There was war in Heaven"
(Revelations, xii. 7.), and he assigns, as his motive for
entering upon the consideration of so obscure a subject
as "The History of Sin and Heresy," the very objec
tionable liberties which had been taken with some
important passages of Holy Writ, particularly instanc
ing the 7th verse of Ps. ii.
" The gravity and seriousness," he observes in his
preface, " with which this subject ought to be treated,
has not been regarded in the adventurous flight of
poets, who have dressed angels in armour, and put
swords and guns into their hands, to form romantic
battles in the plains of Heaven — a scene of licentious
fancy ; but the truth has been greatly hurt thereby.
" This was one reason why I have endeavoured to
give a more serious representation of that war in
Heaven, and I hope I may say much better founded
than Milton's groundless supposition, who, in the
fifth book of his ' Paradise Lost,' makes the cause of
the revolt of Lucifer and his angels to have been, that
God upon a certain day in Heaven, before the creation
of this lower world, did summon all the angels to
attend, and then declared his Son to be their lord and
king ; and applies to that day the 7th verse of the
2nd Psalm, ' Thou art my Son, this day have I
begotten thee !'
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304
" The folly of this contrivance appears many ways :
to make the angels ignorant of the blessed Trinity,
and to take it ill to acknowledge him for their king,
whom they had always adored as their God ; or as if
the Son had not been their king, or had not been
begotten till that day ; this scheme of the angels'
revolt, cannot answer either to the eternal generation
of the Son, or to his temporal generation of the blessed
Virgin, that being long after the fall of the angels."
But, instead of proceeding further with Leslie in
his censures of the plan of Milton's great work, as
unscriptural, I will venture to give some extracts from
a letter of Mr. P. Carlyon's, respecting the import of
the word " begotten," and of the passage in the 2nd
Psalm to which it belongs.
" The whole Psalm," he writes, " is undoubtedly
prophetic of the Messiah, and its fulfilment (as far
as the text in question is concerned) is recorded
in three places in the New Testament, Acts xiii. 33,
Heb. i. 6, and Heb. v. 5. It is not quoted at the bap
tism of our Saviour, which must therefore be given up,
as having no connection with it. The Hebrew word
{ynlad) signifies, in its primary sense, to beget, or
bring forth ; in its secondary sense, to create, .or
appoint to an office. In the secondary sense we find
it used in Deut. xxxii. 18, ' Of the Rock that begat
thee thou art unmindful ;' and constantly in the New
Testament, as in 1 Cor. iv. 15, ' In Christ Jesus I

305
have begotten you through the Gospel.' Faber goes
so far as to doubt whether the terms ' begotten' and
' only begotten,' as applied to Christ, ever relate to
his generation or filiation, or ever have any other
reference than to his figurative birth into office. The
conclusion at which I have myself arrived, by a
comparison of Scripture with itself, is, that ' To-day
I have begotten thee,' is spoken in direct allusion to
Christ's ascension, when he resumed his throne in
Heaven, as our King and great High Priest.
" The prophecy was declared when Christ was
set as king upon the holy hill of Zion, and the heathen
should be given for his inheritance, and the uttermost
parts of the earth for his possession. This, it is to
me easier to understand of Christ's ascension, than of
his entrance into any other oflace or state. St. Paul
quotes the passage in Acts xiii. 33, as an argument
that Christ had been raised up. From this argument
alone, we should conclude that ' this day' means ' the
day of Christ's resurrection,' and such is Faber's
conclusion ; but as the idea of Christ's resurrection is
involved in that of his ascension, a proof of the latter
may be well employed to prove the former, which I
think St. Paul has here done. But, at any rate,
Faber's conclusion is not very wide of my own. To
go on with the reasons of my opinion : in Heb, i. 5,
our text is quoted by St. Paul to support the words
in the preceding verses, that Christ ' Sat down on
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306
the right hand of the Majesty on high, being made
so much better than the angels, as he hath by inhe
ritance obtained a more excellent name than they.'
The last quotation of the words is in Heb. v. 5, ' So
Christ glorified not himself to be made an High
Priest, but he that said to him. Thou art my Son,
this day have I begotten thee.' Hence my conclusion
is, that Christ was begotten of his Father, according
to the prophecy in the 2nd Psalm, on that day, when
' Christ being come an High Priest of good things to
come  neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood, he entered in once into the
holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for
us.' — Heb. ix. 11.
" From Acts xiii. ' this day' could not have been
before the resurrection of our Saviour — and as it is
difficult to assign any office into which Christ entered
at that exact time, it seems to agree best with this
passage, as it in my opinion decidedly does with the
remaining three in which the text is found, to suppose
that this famous prophecy was fulfilled on the day of
Christ's ascension. It is possible that the words in
Rev. i. 5, where Christ is said to be " the first begot
ten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the
earth," allude directly to the words in the 2d Psalm,
or the fulfilment of them.
" In the 2d vol. of Faber's Horae Mosaicse, there is
a short but excellent chapter ' On the Eternal Per-

307
sonality of the Word ;' the famous Jacob Bryant con
tended that the generation of the Son took place in
time and not from all eternity, and he placed the text
' Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee,' in
the front of his battle ; but Faber has admirably
answered his opinion, and shewn that the learned gen
tleman did not quite understand his text, on which he
so much trusted. Faber merely quotes Acts xiii,
29 — 33, and says, ' The present remarkable passage
requires no comment,' St. Paul declares, that this
day means the day of Christ's resurrection ; and
asserts, that the promise, made to the fathers in the
second Psalm, was accomplished when our Saviour
rose from the tomb. You have seen my reasons for
differing slightly from this opinion, and you are
aware that it has likewise been referred by others, of
far superior judgment to mine, to Christ's ascen
sion." The introduction of a comment, such as the pre
ceding, on so important a text, needs no apology, still
less would it become me to dwell on the credit it
reflects upon the writer. With respect to the words
themselves, " Thou art my Son, this day have I be
gotten thee," I cannot refrain from further remarking
that they are indeed important in more than one
sense. For of them, as of innumerable other de
tached prophecies throughout the Bible, it may safely

308
be assumed, that they could have found their way
into no other than the inspired volume. Invention is
out of the question. They could have originated with
no merely human intellect.
With respect to the Koran, on the contrary, I doubt
whether there is a single chapter in it which does not,
in some one or other of its passages, falsify its pre
tensions to inspiration, by its own internal evidence.
When speaking of Bishop Middleton,* I expressed
my regret at the loss of an interesting letter, written
by him to my brother, about the time of his departure
for India. Further search has equally failed to bring
this letter to light ; but another of his letters to my
brother, lately put into my hand, dated from the Vicar
age, Kentish Town, 22d of January 1812, is sufficiently
indicative of the cheerful tone of mind which I men
tioned, as characteristic of that good and amiable
prelate, in his unrestrained intercourse with his early
friends, to furnish me with an excuse for assigning to
it the only place which now remains for its insertion.
" Dear Carlyon,
" Your letter of the 14th did not
reach me till the evening of the 20th, and yesterday
my time was so fully occupied, that I did not find half
• Page IS.

309
an hour's leisure during the day. I feel sincere plea
sure in this renewal of our correspondence, and thank
you for your friendly congratulations on my prefer
ment, of the value of which you may have heard very
exaggerated statements. I think it probable, that St,
Mawgan is as profitable a saint as St. Pancras ; and
assuredly he is much less troublesome. My parish
ioners are at present about 47,000, and they increase
at the rate of 2,000 a-year ; so that in a few years this
will be a populous parish. It comprises a great part
of the northern side of London, Fitzroy Square, the
Foundling Hospital, &c., with Somers Town, Camden
Town, Kentish Town, and part of Highgate, My
Vicarage House is about two miles and a half from
Oxford Street, and is in the centre of the parish,
though not of the population, which is principally in
London, The house was built about ten years ago,
and is good as far as it goes, but is too small ; I have
no family but my books, and for them, I am afraid, I
must build a nursery ; they have not seen the light
since they left Northamptonshire. I find, however,
but little time for reading, being engaged in a continued
round of business, as you may easily imagine ; at present
I am assisted by only two curates ; but the revenues,
in their present condition, will not bear more. The
tithes are a mere trifle, being under a modus : so that
I have nothing but surplice fees and Easter offerings.

310
The hope that these will increase, was among the
temptations which brought me hither ; I gave up at
least an equivalent ; and some of my friends thought
me wrong — but the die is cast. For this and a small
living in Herts, I resigned both Tansor and Bytham ;
on the former I had expended a great deal of money,
and a charming spot it is ; but I found myself, after
a residence of two or three years, little suited to a
country life, and here, I suppose, I am fixed.
" I have now given you a circumstantial detail of my
situation ; and you may, if you please, in your next,
be as particular in your description of St. Mawgan.
How near are you to the sea ? By the map, I should
suppose within two miles. Have you any remarkable
scenery or antiquities ? I should like exceedingly to
explore Cornwall, and to take you in my way ; but of
that I see no probability at present, I shall, however,
look for you in the next volume of Lysons's Britannia,
which will be Cornwall : it is expected to come out
soon, and I shall read with great interest all that relates
to St. Mawgan. If any thing should bring you and
Mrs.C. to the metropolis, Mrs. M. and myself will have
great pleasure in making you welcome. Pray present
my respects to your brother, the Rector of Truro.
" I am, dear Carlyon,
" Yours very sincerely,
" T. F. MIDDLETON."

31]
I have lately read the very interesting Life of
Bishop Middleton, by the Rev. C. W, Le Bas, and I
am glad to find that the brief notice taken by me of
his academic career, is calculated to give some infor
mation relative to that precise period of his memoirs,
with which Mr, Le Bas does not seem to have been
so particularly well acquainted.

London :
Printed by J. Trnscott, Blackfriars Road.

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