CHAPTER II.

COLERIDGE'S FIRST ENTRY AT JESUS' COLLEGE.--HIS SIMPLICITY AND WANT OF

WORLDLY TACT.--ANECDOTES AND DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS OF HIM DURING HIS

RESIDENCE AT COLLEGE INTIMACY WITH MIDDLETON--WITH SOUTHEY.--QUITS

COLLEGE FOR BRISTOL.

At Cambridge, whither his reputation had travelled before him, high

hopes and fair promises of success were entertained by his young friends

and relations. He was considered by the "Blues," as they are familiarly

termed, one from whom they were to derive great immediate honour, which

for a short period, however, was deferred. Individual genius has a cycle

of its own, and moves only in that path, or by the powers influencing

it. Genius has been properly defined 'prospective', talent on the

contrary 'retrospective': genius is creative, and lives much in the

future, and in its passage or progress may make use of the labours of

talent.

"I have been in the habit," says Coleridge, "of considering the

qualities of intellect, the comparative eminence in which

characterizes individuals and even countries, under four

kinds,--genius, talent, sense, and cleverness. The first I use in the

sense of most general acceptance, as the faculty which adds to the

existing stock of power and knowledge by new views, new combinations,

by discoveries not accidental, but anticipated, or resulting from

anticipation."

'Friend', vol. iii. p. 85, edit. 1818. [1]

Coleridge left school with great anticipation of success from all who

knew him, for his character for scholarship, and extraordinary accounts

of his genius had preceded him. He carried with him too the same

childlike simplicity which he had from a boy, and which he retained even

to his latest hours. His first step was to involve himself in much

misery, and which followed him in after life, as the sequel will

evidence. On his arrival at College he was accosted by a polite

upholsterer, requesting to be permitted to furnish his rooms. The next

question was, "How would you like to have them furnished?" The answer

was prompt and innocent enough, "Just as you please, Sir!"--thinking the

individual employed by the College. The rooms were therefore furnished

according to the taste of the artizan, and the bill presented to the

astonished Coleridge. Debt was to him at all times a thing he most

dreaded, and he never had the courage to face it. I once, and once only,

witnessed a painful scene of this kind, which occurred from mistaking a

letter on ordinary business for an application for money. [2] Thirty

years afterwards, I heard that these College debts were about one

hundred pounds! Under one hundred pounds I believe to have been the

amount of his sinnings; but report exceeded this to something which

might have taxed his character beyond imprudence, or mere want of

thought. Had he, in addition to his father's simplicity, possessed the

worldly circumspection of his mother, he might have avoided these and

many other vexations; but he went to the University wholly unprepared

for a College life, having hitherto chiefly existed in his own 'inward'

being, and in his poetical imagination, on which he had fed.

But to proceed. Coleridge's own account is, that while Middleton,

afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, remained at Pembroke, he "worked with him

and was industrious, read hard, and obtained the prize for the Greek

Ode," [3] &c. It has been stated, that he was locked up in his room to

write this Ode; but this is not the fact. Many stories were afloat, and

many exaggerations were circulated and believed, of his great want of

attention to College discipline, and of perseverance in his studies, and

every failure, or apparent failure, was attributed to these causes.

Often has he repeated the following story of Middleton, and perhaps this

story gave birth to the report.

They had agreed to read together in the evening, and were not to hold

any conversation. Coleridge went to Pembroke and found Middleton intent

on his book, having on a long pair of boots reaching to the knees, and

beside him, on a chair, next to the one he was sitting on, a pistol.

Coleridge had scarcely sat down before he was startled by the report of

the pistol. "Did you see that?" said Middleton. "See what?" said

Coleridge. "That rat I just sent into its hole again--did you feel the

shot? It was to defend my legs," continued Middleton, "I put on these

boots. I am fighting with these rats for my books, which, without some

prevention, I shall have devoured."

There is an anecdote related of Coleridge while at College, and which I

have heard him frequently repeat, when called upon to vouch for its

truth. His fellow students had amused themselves, when he was in

attendance at Lecture, by stealing a portion of the tail of his gown,

and which they had repeated so frequently, as to shorten it to the

length of a spencer. Crossing the quadrangle one day with these remains

at his back, and his appearance not being in collegiate trim, the Master

of Jesus' College, who was ever kind to him, and overlooked all little

inattentions to appearances, accosted him smartly on this occasion--"Mr.

Coleridge! Mr. Coleridge! when will you get rid of that shameful gown?"

Coleridge, turning his head, and casting his eyes over his shoulders, as

if observing its length, or rather want of length, replied in as

courteous a manner as words of such a character would permit, "Why, Sir,

I think I've got rid of the greatest part of it already!"

Such were Coleridge's peculiarities, which were sometimes construed into

irregularities; but through his whole life, attracting notice by his

splendid genius, he fell too often under the observation of men who

busied themselves in magnifying small things, and minifying large ones.

About this period, that Volcano, in which all the worst passions of men

were collected, and which had been for some time emitting its black

smoke, at length exploded and rent society asunder. The shock was felt

throughout Europe; each party was over-excited, and their minds

enthralled by a new slavery--the one shouting out the blessings of

liberty and equality--the other execrating them, and prophesying the

consequences that were to follow:--

"There's no philosopher but sees

That rage and fear are one disease;

_Tho' that may burn, and this may freeze_,

They're both alike tho ague."

'Mad Ox'.

Combustibles composed of such ardent and evil spirits soon blaze out;

yet the evil does not stop when the blaze has ceased; it leaves an

excitement which is constantly disclosing itself in a restless morbid

vanity, a craving for distinction, and a love of applause, in its way as

dangerous as the thirst of gain, and the worship of the mammon of

unrighteousness.

Alas! the circulation of such anecdotes as have been here related of

Coleridge when at College, and his inattention to some of the minor

forms of discipline, were sufficient for illnatured persons to transform

into serious offences, particularly when coupled with the disappointed

hopes of zealous friends. At this period, in which all men who were not

senseless, or so indifferent as nearly to be senseless, particularly the

young men of our Universities, all embraced a party, and arranged

themselves under their different banners. When I now look around me, and

see men who have risen to the highest offices of the different

professions, in the church, the law, or in physic, formerly only known

by the name of Citizen John, &c. &c., _now_ my Lord so and so, or your

Grace the----, it seems like a dream, or at least a world of fleeting

shadows. Sir James Mackintosh, in a letter to Mr. Sharp, states what he

conceived to be the errors of both parties, so far as they arose from

errors of judgment:

"The opposition mistook the moral character of the revolution; the

ministers mistook its force: and both parties, from pique, resentment,

pride, habit, and obstinacy, persisted in acting on these mistakes

after they were disabused by experience. Mr. Burke alone avoided both

these fatal mistakes. He saw both the malignity and the strength of

the revolution. But where there was wisdom to discover the truth,

there was not power, and perhaps there was not practical skill, to

make that wisdom available for the salvation of Europe.--'Diis aliter

visum!' My fortune has been in some respects very singular. I have

lately read the lives and private correspondence of some of the most

memorable men in different countries of Europe, who are lately dead.

[4] Klopstock, Kant, Lavater, Alfieri, they were all filled with joy

and hope by the French revolution--they clung to it for a longer or a

shorter time--they were compelled to relinquish their illusions. The

disappointment of all was bitter, but it showed itself in various

modes, according to the variety of their characters. The series of

passions growing out of that disappointment, was the not very remote

cause of the death of Lavater. In the midst of society, Alfieri buried

himself in misanthropic solitude; and the shock, which awakened him

from the dreams of enthusiasm, darkened and shortened his days. In the

mean time the multitude, comprehending not only those who have neither

ardour of sensibility, nor compass of understanding to give weight to

their suffrage, but those also whom accident had not brought into

close and perpetual contact with the events, were insensibly detached

from the revolution; and, before they were well aware that they had

quitted their old 'position', they found themselves at the antipodes."

The excitement which this state of things produced might have been

highly advantageous to some, and even quickened their intellectual

powers, particularly those destined either for the bar or the senate,

but certainly not those intended for the church.

The revolution [5] and its consequences engrossed the thoughts of all

men too much for the calmer pursuits of life; and the minds of the young

especially were so absorbed by passing temporal events, as to leave but

little time for the contemplation of the deeper and more serious affairs

of futurity. However, Coleridge appears in his political opinions to

have leaned too much to the side of democracy; but this was so prevalent

and so much a fashion, particularly in those filled with enthusiasm,

that it seemed a natural consequence in any young man possessing even

ordinary intellect. Middleton, his friend, passed on without attaching

himself to either party. His manners (as I have before noticed) were

austere and sedate. He steadily persevered, without deviation, in his

studies, though chance did not always favour him, nor crown him with the

success he merited. He was a good and amiable man, and an affectionate

friend; but early want of success in his academical exertions rendering

him melancholy, this by sympathy was soon imparted to his friend. After

Middleton's departure, the keen desire which Coleridge previously felt

for the possession of honours abated, and he became indifferent to

them--he might at this time have been idle, but never vicious. The men

who often appear to be the gayest and lightest of heart, are too

frequently melancholic; and it is a well-known fact, that the best comic

actors are the greatest sufferers from this malady, as if it seemed an

essential qualification for that department of histrionic excellence, in

which the greatest animal spirits are personated and successfully

imitated. Coleridge, at this period, delighted in boyish tricks, which

others were to execute. I remember a fellow-collegiate recalling to his

memory an exploit of which he was the planner, and a late Lord

Chancellor the executor. It was this: a train of gunpowder was to be

laid on two of the neatly shaven lawns of St. John's and Trinity

Colleges, in such a manner, that, when set on fire, the singed grass

would exhibit the ominous words, Liberty and Equality, which, with able

ladlike dexterity, was duly performed.

The writer of the College Reminiscences in the Gentleman's Magazine,

December, 1834, a first-form boy with Coleridge at Christ's Hospital,

was well acquainted with his habits, and speaks of his having gained the

gold medal in his freshman's year for the Greek Ode, but does not notice

his having been locked up in his room for that purpose.

"In his second year he stood for the Craven scholarship--a university

scholarship, for which under-graduates of any standing are entitled to

become candidates. This was in the winter of 1792. Out of sixteen or

eighteen competitors, a selection of four were to contend for the

prize, and these four were Dr. Butler, late head-master of Shrewsbury,

Dr. Keate, the late head-master of Eton, [6] Dr. Bethell, the present

Bishop of Bangor, and Coleridge. Dr. Butler was the successful

candidate."

Coleridge always spoke of this decision as having been in every way

just, and due to Butler's merit as a clever and industrious scholar.

"But pause a moment," says this writer, "in Coleridge's History, and

think of him at this period! Butler! Keate Bethell! and Coleridge! How

different the career of each in future life! O Coleridge, through what

strange paths did the meteor of genius lead thee! Pause a moment, ye

distinguished men! and deem it not the least bright spot in your

happier career, that you and Coleridge were once rivals, and for a

moment running abreast in the pursuit of honour. I believe that his

disappointment at this crisis damped his ardour. Unfortunately, at

that period, there was no classical tripos; so that, if a person did

not obtain the classical medal, he was thrown back among the totally

undistinguished; and it was not allowable to become a candidate for

the classical medal, unless you had taken a respectable degree in

mathematics. Coleridge had not the least taste for these, and here his

case was hopeless; so that he despaired of a Fellowship, and gave up

what in his heart he coveted--college honours and a college life. He

had seen Middleton (late Bishop of Calcutta) quit Pembroke under

similar circumstances. Not _quite_ similar, because Middleton had

studied mathematics so as to take a respectable degree, and to enable

him to try for the medal; but he failed, and therefore all hopes

failed of a Fellowship--most fortunately, as it proved in after-life,

for Middleton, though he mourned at the time most deeply, and

exclaimed--'I am Middleton, which is another name for misfortune!'

'There is a Providence which shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.'

That which Middleton deemed a misfortune drew him from the cobwebs of

a college library to the active energies of a useful and honoured

life."

If, as Shakespeare observes, "there be a providence which shapes our

ends," such words as "fortunate" or "unfortunate," in their customary

use, will be found, on closer attention, and deeper thought, worthless

and full of error. We have each our part allotted to us in the great

drama of life.

But to return to Coleridge.

"When he quitted college, which he did before he had taken a degree,

in a moment of mad-cap caprice, and in an inauspicious hour!

'When,' as Coleridge says, 'I left the friendly cloisters, and the

happy grove of quiet, ever-honoured Jesus' College, Cambridge.'

Short, but deep and heartfelt reminiscence! In a Literary Life of

himself, this short memorial is all that Coleridge gives of his happy

days at college. Say not that he did not obtain, and did not wish to

obtain, classical honours! He did obtain them, and was eagerly

ambitious of them; [7] but he did not bend to that discipline which

was to qualify him for the whole course. He was very studious, but his

reading was desultory and capricious. He took little exercise merely

for the sake of exercise; but he was ready at any time to unbend his

mind in conversation; and, for the sake of this, his room (the

ground-floor room on the right hand of the staircase facing the great

gate,) was a constant rendezvous of conversation-loving friends; I

will not call them loungers, for they did not call to kill time, but

to enjoy it. What evenings have I spent in those rooms! What little

suppers, or 'sizings', as they were called, have I enjoyed; when

Æschylus, and Plato, and Thucydides were pushed aside, with a pile of

lexicons, &c. to discuss the pamphlets of the day. Ever and anon, a

pamphlet issued from the pen of Burke. There was no need of having the

book before us. Coleridge had read it in the morning, and in the

evening he would repeat whole pages verbatim."

Then came another disturbing cause, which altered the course of his path

in life, and this was Frend's trial. [8]

"During it," to resume the quotation, "pamphlets swarmed from the

press. Coleridge had read them all; and in the evening, with our

negus, we had them 'vivâ voce' gloriously."

Coleridge has recorded that he was a Socinian till twenty-five. Be not

startled, courteous reader! nor ye who knew him only in his later life,

if the impetuous zeal and ardour of his mind in early youth led him

somewhat wide of those fixed principles which he adopted in riper years.

To quote his own words, written soon after he left college, and

addressed to the late Rev. George Coleridge,

"If aught of error or intemperate truth

Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age

Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it!"

There is one incident very characteristic of him, which took place

during this trial. The trial was observed by Coleridge, to be going

against Frend, when some observation or speech was made in his favour; a

dying hope thrown out as it appeared to Coleridge who, in the midst of

the Senate, whilst sitting on one of the benches, extended his hands and

clapped them. The Proctor in a loud voice demanded who had committed

this indecorum. Silence ensued. The Proctor in an elevated tone, said to

a young man sitting near Coleridge, "'Twas you, sir!" The reply was as

prompt as the accusation; for, immediately holding out the stump of his

right arm, it appeared that he had lost his hand,--"I would, sir," said

he, "that I had the power."--That no innocent person should incur blame,

Coleridge went directly afterwards to the Proctor, who told him that he

saw him clap his hands, but fixed on this person who he knew had not the

power. "You have had," said he, "a narrow escape."

The opinions of youth are often treated too seriously. The matter of

most importance to ascertain when they need correction, is, whether in

these opinions they are 'sincere'; at all events, the outbursts of youth

are not to be visited as veteran decisions; and when they differ from

'received' opinions, the advice offered should be tempered with

kindliness of feeling and sympathy even with their failings.

Unfortunately for Coleridge, however, he was to be exempted from those

allowances made for others, and was most painfully neglected by those

who ought to have sympathized with, and supported him; he was left "to

chase chance-started friendships."

Coleridge possessed a mind remarkably sensitive, so much so, as at times

to divest him of that mental courage so necessary in a world full of

vicissitude and painful trial; and this deficiency, though of short

duration, was occasionally observed in early life. At the departure of

Middleton, [9] to whom he had always looked up, whose success he had

considered morally certain, and whose unexpected failure was therefore

the more painful to his feelings, he became desponding, and, in

addition, vexed and fretted by the college debts, he was overtaken by

that inward grief, the product of fear, which he, in after life, so

painfully described in his Ode to Dejection:--

"A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,

A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,

Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,

In word, or sigh, or tear."

Such "viper thoughts" did at this time coil around his mind, and were

for him "Reality's dark Dream." In this state of mind he suddenly left

Cambridge for London, and strolled about the streets till night came on,

and then rested himself on the steps of a house in Chancery Lane, in a

reverie of tumultuous feelings, speculating on the future. In this

situation, overwhelmed with his own painful thoughts, and in misery

himself, he had now to contend with the misery of others--for he was

accosted by various kinds of beggars importuning him for money, and

forcing on him their real or pretended sorrows. To these applicants he

emptied his pockets of his remaining cash. Walking along Chancery Lane

in the morning, he noticed a bill posted on the wall, "Wanted a few

smart lads for the 15th, Elliot's Light Dragoons;"--he paused a moment,

and said to himself,

"Well, I have had all my life a violent antipathy to soldiers and

horses, the sooner I can cure myself of these absurd prejudices the

better, and I will enlist in this regiment."

Forthwith he went as directed to the place of enlistment. On his

arrival, he was accosted by an old sergeant, with a remarkably

benevolent countenance, to whom he stated his wish. The old man looking

at him attentively, asked him if he had been in bed? On being answered

in the negative, he desired him to take his, made him breakfast, and

bade him rest himself awhile, which he did. This feeling sergeant

finding him refreshed in his body, but still suffering apparently from

melancholy, in kind words begged him to be of good cheer, and consider

well the step he was about to take; gave him half a guinea, which he was

to repay at his convenience, with a desire at the same time that he

would go to the play, and shake off his melancholy, and not return to

him. The first part of the advice Coleridge attended to, but returned

after the play to the quarters he had left. At the sight of him, this

kind-hearted man burst into tears--"Then it must be so," said he. This

sudden and unexpected sympathy from an entire stranger deeply affected

Coleridge, and nearly shook his resolution; still considering the die

was cast, and that he could not in honour even to the sergeant, without

implicating him, retreat, he preserved his secret, and after a short

chat, they retired to rest.

In the morning, the sergeant, not unmindful of his duty to his

sovereign, mustered his recruits, and Coleridge, with his new comrades,

was marched to Reading. On his arrival at the quarters of the regiment,

the general of the district inspected the recruits, and looking hard at

Coleridge with a military air, enquired, "What's your name, sir?"

"Comberbach," (the name he had assumed.) "What do you come here for,

sir?" as if doubting whether he had any business there. "Sir," said

Coleridge, "for what most other persons come, to be made a soldier." "Do

you think," said the general, "you can run a Frenchman through the

body?" "I do not know," replied Coleridge, "as I never tried, but I'll

let a Frenchman run me through the body before I'll run away." "That

will do," said the general; and Coleridge was turned into the ranks.

The same amiable and benevolent conduct which was so interwoven in his

nature, soon made him friends, and his new comrades vied with each other

in their endeavours to be useful to him; and being, as before described,

rather helpless, he required the assistance of his fellow-soldiers. They

cleaned his horse, attended particularly to its heels, and to the

accoutrements. At this time he frequently complained of a pain at the

pit of his stomach, accompanied with sickness, which totally prevented

his stooping, and in consequence he could never arrive at the power of

bending his body to rub the heels of his horse, which alone was

sufficient to make him dependent on his comrades; but it should be

observed that he on his part was ever willing to assist them by being

their amanuensis when one was required, and wrote all their letters to

their sweethearts and wives. [10]

It appears that he never advanced beyond the awkward squad, and that the

drill-sergeant had little hope of his progress from the necessary

warnings he gave to the rest of the troop, even to this same squad to

which he belonged; and, though his awkward manoeuvres were well

understood, the sergeant would vociferously exclaim, "Take care of that

Comberbach, [11] take care of him, for he will ride over you," and other

such complimentary warnings. From the notice that one of his officers

took of him, he excited, for a short time, the jealousy of some of his

companions. When in the street, he walked behind this officer as an

orderly, but when out of town they walked abreast, and his comrades not

understanding how a soldier in the awkward squad merited this

distinction, thought it a neglect of themselves, which, for the time,

produced some additional discomfort to Coleridge.

I believe this officer to have been Capt. Ogle, [12] who I think visited

him in after life at Highgate. It seems that his attention had been

drawn to Coleridge in consequence of discovering the following sentence

in the stables, written in pencil, "Eheu! quam infortunii miserrimum est

fuisse felicem!" but his more immediate discovery arose from a young man

who had left Cambridge for the army, and in his road through Reading to

join his regiment, met Coleridge in the street in his Dragoon's dress,

who was about to pass him, but, said he,

"No, Coleridge, this will not do, we have been seeking you these six

months; I must and will converse with you, and have no hesitation in

declaring that I shall immediately inform your friends that I have

found you."

This led to Coleridge's return to Cambridge. The same story is also

related and made the ground work of some scene in a novel, without the

names, by his early friend, Charles Lloyd--he who was included by

Canning in the Anti-jacobin with Coleridge, Mr. Southey, and Lamb. He

returned to Cambridge, but did not long remain there; and quitted it

without taking a degree.

It has been observed, that men of genius move in orbits of their own;

and seem deprived of that free will which permits the mere man of talent

steadily to pursue the beaten path. Coleridge had very early pictured to

himself many of the advantages of mechanical employment, its immunities

and exemptions from the sufferings consequent on the laborious exercise

of 'thought'; but yet he never shrank from the task apparently allotted

to him; he was made to soar and not to creep; even as a young man, his

acquirements were far beyond the age in which he lived. With his amiable

qualities, and early love of domestic life, he would have been well

content to tread an humbler path, but it was otherwise ordained!

However excellent for the many, the system adopted by our universities

was ill suited for a mind like Coleridge's, and there were some who felt

that a College routine was not the kind of education which would best

evolve, cultivate, and bring into training powers so 'unique'. It has

been repeated, 'ad nauseam', that great minds will not descend to the

industrious accumulation of those acquirements best suited to fit them

for independence. To say that Coleridge would not 'condescend' would be

a calumny,--nay, when his health permitted, he would drudge and work

more laboriously at some of the mechanical parts of literature, than any

man I ever knew. To speak detractingly of great and good men is

frequently the result of malice combined with egotism. Though it would

be injustice not to admit that he has had warm admirers and deeply

affectionate friends, it is much to be regretted that there have been

persons who have strangely maligned Coleridge, and who have attributed

to him vices of which he was innocent. Had these vices existed, they

would not have found any unfair extenuation in this memoir, nor would

they have been passed over without notice. In answer to calumnies at

that time in circulation, (and with sorrow and just indignation it is

added that these reports originated with some who called themselves his

friends; but, alas! most false and hypocritical!) the following minute

from his notes is quoted:

"My academic adventures and indiscretions must have seemed

unpardonable sins," that is, as they were related by the tale-bearers

and gossips of the day. "I mention these," adds he, "because the only

immoralities that can without the grossest slander be laid to my

charge, were all comprised within the space of the last two years of

my College life. As I went to Cambridge innocent, so I dare affirm,

from the first week of my acquaintance with Robert Southey to this

hour, Southey himself cannot stand more clear of all intention at

violations of the moral law: but, in fact, even during my career at

Jesus, the heaviest of my offences consisted in the folly of assuming

the show of vices, from which I was all but free, and which in the

comparatively few exceptions left loathing and self-disgust on my

mind. Were I, indeed, to fix on that week of my existence, in which my

moral being would have presented to a pitying guardian angel the most

interesting spectacle, it would be that very week [13] in London, in

which I was believed by my family to have abandoned myself to

debauchery of all kinds, and 'thus' to have involved myself in

disreputable pecuniary embarrassments. God knows, so intense was my

mental anguish, that during the whole time I was physically incapable

even of a 'desire'. My whole body seemed stunned and insensate, from

excess of inward suffering--my debts were the 'cause', not the effect;

but that I know there can be no substitute for a father, I should

say,--surely, surely, the innocence of my whole 'pre' and 'post'

academic life, my early distinction, and even the fact, that my

Cambridge extravagations did not lose me, nor cool for me, the esteem

and regard of a single fellow collegiate, might have obtained an

amnesty from worse transgressions."

Coleridge, who had desponded at the fate of Middleton, after the

unsuccessful attempts he made to obtain a fellowship, lost all hope of

procuring an income from the college, and as, through the

instrumentality of Frend, with whom an intimacy had now taken place, he

had been converted to what in these days is called Unitarianism, he was

too conscientious to take orders and enter the Established Church. These

circumstances opened to him new views, and effected a complete change in

his course of life, and thus his former objects and plans were set

aside. The friendship between Coleridge and Southey having greatly

increased, and still continuing to increase, and Coleridge being easily

led by the affection of those he loved, for which he had a constant

yearning, determined to follow literature in future life as a

profession, that appearing to him the only source of obtaining an

honourable livelihood.

Here there was no "mad caprice," but he calmly decided to leave

Cambridge and join Southey in his plans for the future, and commence the

profession on which they had mutually agreed. He went to Oxford to visit

Mr. Southey, and thence to Wales, and thence to Bristol (Mr. Southey's

native place), at which city they conjointly commenced their career in

authorship, and for the first few months shared the same room.

The times were still tumultuous; for although the great hurricane of the

revolution ceased abroad, yet, like mighty waters that had been once

agitated by a storm, tranquillity was not restored, nor was there any

prospect of an immediate calm. The 'Habeas Corpus' act was at this time

suspended, and the minister of that day, Mr. Pitt, had struck the panic

of property among the wealthy and affluent. During the time of danger,

when surrounded by government emissaries, these youthful poets gave

lectures on politics, and that with impunity, to crowded audiences.

Coleridge met with one interruption only, and that from a hired partizan

who had assayed a disturbance at one of these lectures, in order to

implicate him and his party, and by this means to effect, if possible,

their incarceration. The gentleman who mentioned this in the presence of

Coleridge (when with me at Highgate) said--He (Coleridge) had commenced

his lecture when this intended disturber of the peace was heard uttering

noisy words at the foot of the stairs, where the fee of admission into

the room was to be paid. The receiver of the money on the alert ascended

the stairs and informed Coleridge of the man's insolence and his

determination not to pay for his admission. In the midst of the lecture

Coleridge stopped, and said loud enough to be heard by the individual,

that before the intruder "kicked up a dust, he would surely down with

the dust," and desired the man to admit him. The individual had not long

been in the room before he began hissing, this was succeeded by loud

claps from Coleridge's party, which continued for a few minutes, but at

last they grew so warm that they began to vociferate, "Turn him

out!"--"Turn him out!"--"Put him out of the window!" Fearing the

consequences of this increasing clamour, the lecturer was compelled to

request silence, and addressed them as follows: "Gentlemen, ours is the

cause of liberty! that gentleman has as much right to hiss as you to

clap, and you to clap as he to hiss; but what is to be expected,

gentlemen, when the cool waters of reason come in contact with red hot

aristocracy but a hiss?" When the loud laugh ended, silence ensued, and

the rebuke was treasured and related. [14]

The terms aristocrat, democrat, and jacobin, were the fashionable

opprobrious epithets of the day; and well do I remember, the man who had

earned by his politics the prefix of jacobin to his name, was completely

shunned in society, whatever might be his moral character: but, as might

be expected, this was merely ephemeral, when parties ran high, and were

guided and governed more by impulses and passion than by principle.

"Truth I pursued, as Fancy sketch'd the way,

And wiser men than I went worse astray."

Men of the greatest sense and judgment possessing good hearts are, on

the review of the past, more disposed to think 'well' of the young men

of that day, who, from not exercising their reason, were carried into

the vortex of the revolution. Much has been written on the proposed

scheme of settling in the wilds of America;--the spot chosen was

Susquehannah,--this spot Coleridge has often said was selected, on

account of the name being pretty and metrical, indeed he could never

forbear a smile when relating the story. This day-dream, as he termed

it, (for such it really was) the detail of which as related by him

always gave it rather a sportive than a serious character, was a subject

on which it is doubtful whether he or Mr. Southey were really in earnest

at the time it was planned. The dream was, as is stated in the "Friend,"

that the little society to be formed was, in its second generation, to

have combined the innocence of the patriarchal age with the knowledge

and general refinements of European culture, and "I dreamt," says he,

"that in the sober evening of my life I should behold colonies of

independence in the undivided dale of industry." Strange fancies! 'and

as vain as strange'! This scheme, sportive, however, as it might be, had

its admirers; and there are persons now to be found, who are desirous of

realizing these visions, the past-time in thought and fancy of these

young poets--then about 23 years of age. During this dream, and about

this time, Southey and Coleridge married two sisters of the name of

Fricker, and a third sister was married to an Utopian poet as he has

been called, of the name of Lovel, whose poems were published with Mr.

Southey's. They were, however, too wise to leave Bristol for America,

for the purpose of establishing a genuine system of property--a

Pantisocracy, which was to be their form of government--and under which

they were to realize all their new dreams of happiness. Marriage, at all

events, seems to have sobered them down, and the vision vanished.

Chimerical as it appeared, the purveyors of amusement for the reading

public were thus furnished with occupation, and some small pecuniary

gain, while it exercised the wit of certain anti-Jacobin writers of the

day, and raised them into notice. Canning had the faculty of satire to

an extraordinary degree, and also that common sense tact, which made his

services at times so very useful to his country; his powers seemed in

their full meridian of splendour when an argument or new doctrine

permitted him rapidly to run down into its consequence, and then

brilliantly and wittily to skew its defects. In this he eminently

excelled. The beauties of the anti-Jacobin are replete with his satire.

He never attempted a display of depth, but his dry sarcasm left a sting

which those he intended to wound carried off 'in pain and mortfication'.

This scheme of Pantisocracy excited a smile among the kind-hearted and

thinking part of mankind; but, among the vain and restless ignorant

would-be-political economists, it met with more attention; and they,

with their microscopic eyes, fancied they beheld in it what was not

quite so visible to the common observer. Though the plan was soon

abandoned, it was thought sufficient for the subject of a lecture, and

afforded some mirth when the minds of the parties concerned in it

arrived at manhood. Coleridge saw, soon after it was broached, that no

scheme of colonizing that was not based on religion could be

permanent.--Left to the disturbing forces of the human passions to which

it would be exposed, it would soon perish; for all government to be

permanent should be influenced by reason, and guided by religion.

In the year 1795 Coleridge, residing then at Clevedon, a short distance

from Bristol, published his first prose work, with some additions by Mr.

Southey, the "Conciones ad Populum." In a short preface he observes,

"The two following addresses were delivered in the month of February,

1795, and were followed by six others in defence of natural and

revealed religion. 'There is a time to keep silence,' saith King

Solomon;--but when I proceeded to the first verse of the fourth

chapter of the Ecclesiastes, 'and considered all the oppressions that

are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were

oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their

oppressors there was power,' I concluded this was _not_ the 'time to

keep silence;' for truth should be spoken at all times, but more

especially at those times when to speak truth is dangerous."

In these addresses he showed that the example of France was a warning to

Great Britain; but, because he did not hold opinions equally violent

with the Jacobin party of that day, he was put down as an anti-Jacobin;

for, he says, "the annals of the French revolution have been recorded in

letters of blood, that the knowledge of the few cannot counteract the

ignorance of the many; that the light of philosophy, when it is confined

to a small minority, points out its possessors as the victims, rather

than the illuminators of the multitude. The patriots of France either

hastened into the dangerous and gigantic error of making certain evils

the means of contingent good, or were sacrificed by the mob, with whose

prejudices and ferocity their unbending virtue forbade them to

assimilate. Like Samson, the people were strong, like Samson, they were

also blind:" and he admonishes them at the end of the third lecture to

do all things in the spirit of love.

"It is worthy of remark," says he, in a MS. note, "that we may possess

a thing in such fulness as to prevent its possession from being an

object of distinct consciousness. Only as it lessens or dims, we

reflect on it, and learn to value it. This is one main cause why young

men of high and ardent minds find nothing repulsive in the doctrines

of necessity, which, in after years, they (as I have) recoil from.

Thus, too, the faces of friends dearly beloved become distinct in

memory or dream only after long absence." Of the work itself he says,

"Except the two or three pages involving the doctrine of philosophical

necessity and Unitarianism, I see little or nothing in these

'outbursts' of my 'youthful' zeal to 'retract', and with the exception

of some flame-coloured epithets applied to persons, as to Mr. Pitt and

others, or rather to personifications (for such they really were to

'me') as little to regret. Qualis ab initio [Greek: estaesae] S.T.C.

[15] When a rifacimento of the 'Friend' took place, [1818] at vol. ii.

p. 240, he states his reasons for reprinting the lecture referred to,

one of the series delivered at Bristol in the year 1794-95, because,

says he, "This very lecture, vide p. 10, has been referred to in an

infamous libel in proof of the author's Jacobinism."

When the mind of Coleridge was more matured he did not omit this truth,

which has never been refuted, that the aristocratic system "had its

golden side, for the noblest minds; but I

"should," continues he, "act the part of a coward if I disguised my

conviction that the errors of the aristocratic party were as gross,

and far less excusable than those of the Jacobin. Instead of

contenting themselves with opposing the real blessing of English law

to the 'splendid promises of untried theory', too large a part of

those who called themselves 'anti-Jacobins', did all in their power to

suspend those blessings; and they furnished 'new arguments to the

advocates of innovation', when they should have been answering 'the

old ones!'"

But, whatever were his opinions, they were founded on 'principle', and

with the exception of the two above alluded to, he ought never to be

accused of changing. Some years since, the late Charles Matthews, the

comedian, (or rather, as Coleridge used to observe, "the comic poet

acting his own poems,") showed me an autograph letter from Mr.

Wordsworth to Matthews' brother, (who was at that time educating for the

bar) and with whom he corresponded. In this letter he made the following

observation, "To-morrow I am going to Bristol to see those two

extraordinary young men, Southey and Coleridge," Mr. Wordsworth then

residing at Allfoxden. They soon afterwards formed an intimacy, which

continued (though not without some little interruption) during his life,

as his "Biographia Literaria" and his will attest.

Mr. Coleridge's next work was the "Watchman" in numbers--a miscellany to

be published every eighth day. The first number appeared on the 5th of

February, 1796. This work was a report of the state of the political

atmosphere, to be interspersed with sketches of character and verse. It

reached the 10th number, and was then dropped; the editor taking leave

of his readers in the following address:

"This is the last number of the Watchman. Henceforward I shall cease

to cry the state of the political atmosphere. While I express my

gratitude to those friends who exerted themselves so liberally in the

establishment of this miscellany, I may reasonably be expected to

assign some reason for relinquishing it thus abruptly. The reason is

short and satisfactory. The work does not pay its expences. Part of my

subscribers have relinquished it because it did not contain sufficient

original composition, and a still larger because it contained too

much. I have endeavoured to do well; and it must be attributed to

defect of ability, not of inclination or effort, if the words of the

prophet be altogether applicable to me, 'O watchman! thou hast watched

in vain!'"

Mr. Coleridge has given us in the "Biographia Literaria" a very lively

account of his opinions, adventures, and state of feeling during this

canvass in quest of subscribers.

"Towards the close of the first year, that inauspicious hour," (it was,

indeed, and for several reasons an "inauspicious hour" for him,) "when I

left the friendly cloisters, and the happy grove of quiet, ever-honoured

Jesus' College, Cambridge, to set on foot a periodical, entitled the

'Watchman,' that (according to the motto of the work) 'all might know

the truth, and that truth might make us free!'

"With a flaming prospectus 'Knowledge is power,' &c. and to cry the

state of the political atmosphere and so forth, I set off on a tour to

the north, from Bristol to Sheffield, for the purpose of procuring

customers, preaching by the way in most great towns, as a hireless

volunteer, in a blue coat and white waistcoat, that not a rag of the

woman of Babylon might be seen on me; for I was at that time, though a

Trinitarian (i.e. ad normam Platonis) in philosophy, yet a zealous

Unitarian in religion; more accurately, I was a psilanthropist, one of

those who believe our Lord to have been the real son of Joseph, and

who lay the main stress on the resurrection rather than on the

crucifixion. Oh! never can I remember those days with either shame or

regret, for I was most sincere! most disinterested! My opinions were,

indeed, in many and most important points erroneous, but my heart was

single! Wealth, rank, life itself then seemed cheap to me, compared

with the interests of (what I believe to be) the truth and the will of

my Maker. I cannot even accuse myself of having been actuated by

vanity; for, in the expansion of my enthusiasm, I did not think of

myself at all.

My campaign commenced at Birmingham, and my first attack was on a

rigid Calvinist, a tallow-chandler by trade. He was a tall dingy man,

in whom length was so predominant over breadth, that he might almost

have been borrowed for a foundry poker. O that face! a face, [Greek:

kat' emphasin!] I have it before me at this moment. The lank, black

twine-like hair, pingui-nitescent, cut in a straight line, along the

black stubble of his thin gunpowder eyebrows, that looked like a

scorched aftermath from a last week's shaving. His coat collar behind

in perfect unison, both of colour and lustre, with the coarse, yet

glib cordage that I suppose he called his hair, and which with a

'bend' inward at the nape of the neck, (the only approach to flexure

in his whole figure) slunk in behind his waistcoat; while the

countenance lank, dark, very 'hard', and with strong perpendicular

furrows, gave me a dim notion of some one looking at me through a

'used' gridiron, all soot, grease, and iron! A person to whom one of

my letters of recommendation had been addressed, was my introducer.

It was a 'new event' in my life, my first 'stroke' in the new business

I had undertaken of an author; yes, and of an author on his own

account. I would address," says Coleridge, "an affectionate

exhortation to the youthful literati on my own experience. It will be

but short; for the beginning, middle, and end converge to one charge.

NEVER PURSUE LITERATURE AS A TRADE. [16] My companion," says he,

"after some imperfect sentences, and a multitude of hums and hahs,

abandoned the cause to his client; and I commenced an harangue of half

an hour to Phileleutheros, the tallow-chandler, varying my notes

through the whole gamut of eloquence, from the ratiocinative to the

declamatory, and, in the latter, from the pathetic to the indignant.

My taper man of lights listened with perseverant and praiseworthy

patience, though (as I was afterwards told, in complaining of certain

gales that were not altogether ambrosial,) it was a melting day with

him. And what, sir! (he said, after a short pause,) might the cost be?

only FOURPENCE, (O! how I felt the anti-climax, the abysmal bathos of

that FOURPENCE!) 'only fourpence, sir, each number, to be published on

every eighth day'. That comes to a deal of money at the end of a year;

and how much did you say there was to be for the money? Thirty-two

pages, sir! large octavo, closely printed. Thirty and two pages? Bless

me, why except what I does in a family way on the sabbath, that's more

than I ever reads, sir! all the year round. I am as great a one as any

man in Brummagem, sir! for liberty and truth, and all them sort of

things, but as to this, (no offence, I hope, sir!) I must beg to be

excused. So ended my first canvass."

Much the same indifference was shewn him at Manchester, &c., but he

adds:--"From this rememberable tour, I returned nearly a thousand

names on the subscription list of the 'Watchman;' yet more than half

convinced that prudence dictated the abandonment of the scheme; but

for this very reason I persevered in it; for I was at that period of

my life so completely hagridden by the fear of being influenced by

selfish motives, that to know a mode of conduct to be the dictate of

'prudence', was a sort of presumptive proof to my feelings, that the

contrary was the dictate of 'duty'. Accordingly, I commenced the work,

which was announced in London by long bills in letters larger than had

ever been seen before, and which (I have been informed, for I did not

see them myself) eclipsed the glories even of the lottery puffs; but,

alas! the publication of the very first number was delayed beyond the

day announced for its appearance. In the second number, an essay

against fast days, with a most censurable application of a text from

Isaiah, for its motto, lost me near five hundred of my subscribers at

one blow.

In the two following numbers, I made enemies of all my Jacobin and

democratic patrons; for, disgusted by their infidelity and their

adoption of French morals, and French philosophy, and, perhaps,

thinking that charity ought to begin nearest home, instead of abusing

the government and the aristocrats chiefly or entirely, as had been

expected of me, I levelled my attacks at ''modern patriotism',' and

even ventured to declare my belief, that whatever the motives of

ministers might have been for the sedition (or as it was then the

fashion to call them) the gagging bills, yet the bills themselves

would produce an effect to be desired by all the true friends of

freedom, as far they should contribute to deter men from openly

declaiming on subjects, the 'principles of which they had never

bottomed', and from 'pleading 'to' the 'poor and ignorant', instead of

pleading for them.'

At the same time I avowed my conviction, that national education, and

a concurring spread of the gospel were the indispensable condition of

any true political amelioration. Thus, by the time the seventh number

was published, I had the mortification (but why should I say this,

when, in truth, I cared too little for any thing that concerned my

worldly interests, to be at all mortified about it?) of seeing the

preceding numbers exposed in sundry old iron shops for a penny a

piece. At the ninth number I dropped the work." He never recovered the

money of his London publisher, and but little from his subscribers,

and as he goes on to say:--"Must have been thrown into jail by my

printer, for a sum between eighty and ninety pounds, if the money had

not been paid for me by a man, by no means affluent, a dear friend who

attached himself to me from my first arrival at Bristol, who continued

my friend with a fidelity unconquered by time, or even by my own

apparent neglect; a friend from whom I never received an advice that

was not gentle and affectionate." (p. 177.)

Coleridge's reputation from boyhood quietly increased, not through the

favor, but the censure of reviewers. It was this which, contrary to

their wishes, diffused his name as poet and philosopher. So long as

there are readers to be gratified by calumny, there will always be found

writers eager to furnish a supply; and he had other enemies,

unacquainted with the critical profession, yet morbidly vain, and

because disappointed in their literary hopes, no less malignant.

Alas! how painful it is to witness at times the operation of some of the

human passions.--Should envy take the lead, her twin sisters, hatred and

malice, follow as auxiliaries in her train,--and, in the struggles for

ascendancy and extension of her power, she subverts those principles

which might impede her path, and then speedily effects the destruction

of all the kindly feelings most honourable to man.

Coleridge was conscientiously an opponent of the first revolutionary

war, because he abhorred the principles; and it was part of his

political creed, that whoever ceased

"to act as an 'individual' by making himself a member of any society

not sanctioned by his government, forfeited the rights of a citizen."

He was at that time "a vehement anti-ministerialist," but, after the

invasion of Switzerland, a more vehement anti-Gallican, and still more

intensely an anti-Jacobin:

"I retired," said he, "to a cottage at Stowey, and provided for my

scanty maintenance by writing verses for a London Morning Paper. I saw

plainly, that literature was not a profession by which I could expect

to live; for 'I could not disguise from myself', that whatever my

talents might or might not be in other respects, yet they were not of

that 'sort' that 'could enable me to become a popular writer'; and

that whatever my opinions might be in themselves, they were almost

equi-distant from all the three opposite parties, the Pittites, the

Foxites, and the democrats. Of the unsaleable nature of my writings I

had an amusing memento one morning from our servant girl. For

happening to rise at an earlier hour than usual, I observed her

putting an extravagant quantity of paper into the grate in order to

light the fire, and mildly checked her for her wastefulness; La, Sir!

(replied poor Nanny) why, it is only WATCHMEN."

There was at last a pause, as each party seemed worn out; for, "the

hand of Providence had disciplined 'all' Europe into sobriety, as men

tame wild elephants by alternate blows and caresses: now, that

Englishmen of all classes are restored to their old English notions

and feelings, it will with difficulty be credited, how great an

influence was at that time possessed and exerted by the spirit of

secret defamation (the too constant attendant on party zeal!) during

the restless interim, from 1793 to the commencement of the Addington

administration, or the year before the truce of Amiens."

In short, the exhaustion which had followed the great stimulus, disposed

individuals to reconciliation. Both parties found themselves in the

wrong, the one had mistaken the moral character of the revolution, and

the other had miscalculated its physical resources. The experiment was

made at the price of great, we may say, of almost humiliating

sacrifices; and wise men foresaw that it would fail, at least, in its

direct and ostensible object. Yet it was purchased cheaply, and realized

an object of equal value, and, if possible, of more vital importance;

for it brought about a national unanimity, unexampled in our history

since the reign of Elizabeth; and Providence, never failing to do his

part when men have done theirs, soon provided a common focus in the

cause of Spain, which made us all once more Englishmen, by gratifying

and correcting the predilections of each party. The sincere reverers of

the throne felt the cause of loyalty ennobled by its alliance with that

of freedom while the 'honest' zealots of the people could not but admit

that freedom itself assumed a more winning form, humanized by loyalty,

and 'consecrated' by 'religious principle'.

During this calm and rest, and while the political fever was subsiding,

Coleridge retired, as he informs us, "to a cottage in Somersetshire, at

the foot of Quantock," to devote himself to poetry, and to the study of

ethics and psychology, to direct his thoughts and studies to the

foundations of religion and morals.

"During my residence here," he says, "I found myself all afloat;

doubts rushed in; broke upon me 'from the fountains of the great

deep',' and ''fell from the windows of Heaven'.' The fontal truths of

natural religion and the books of Revelation alike contributed to the

flood; and it was long ere my ark touched on an Ararat, and rested.

The idea (viz. the law evolved in the mind) of the Supreme Being

appeared to me to be as necessarily implied in all particular modes of

being, as the idea, of infinite space in all the geometrical figures

by which space is limited." He goes on to state at this period, about

the latter end of the year 1796, "For a very long time I could not

reconcile personality with infinity; and my head was with Spinosa,

though my whole heart remained with Paul and John. Yet there had

dawned upon me, even before I had met with the Critique of Pure

Reason, a certain guiding light. If 'the mere intellect' could make no

certain discovery of a holy and intelligent first cause, it might yet

supply a demonstration that no legitimate argument could be drawn from

the mere intellect 'against' its truth. 'And what is this' more than

St. Paul's assertion, that by wisdom (more properly translated by the

powers of reasoning) no man ever arrived at the knowledge of God? Man

asks what is wisdom? and whence comes it? In Job, chap. 28th, it is

stated, 'But to man he said, the fear of the Lord is wisdom for THEE!

And to avoid evil, that is 'thy' understanding.'"

Such were his philosophical opinions before his final conversion to the

whole truth in Christ. He was contending for principles, and diligently

in search of truth for its own sake;--the one thing only permanent, and

which carries with it its "own exceeding great reward." Such was the

state of his religious feelings and political opinions before his visit

to Germany.

There is a general observation or experience he has recorded, not only

so applicable to him at that time, but equally to each stage of his

career in life, as not to be lost sight of by his friends and admirers,

when assailed, as he was, by opposing party-spirits, which, like

opposite currents, were contending for the mastery.

To avoid one party lest he should run on Scylla, he excited and provoked

the jealousy and neglect of the other, who might have wrecked him on

Charybdis. These were well-known dangers; but, as all navigable seas

have their shoals often invisible; in order to avoid the effects of

these jealousies, he selected from each party, men of experience to give

him the soundings, and thus prevent him from wrecking his barque on

rocks and quicksands; for, without such information, there could be

little chance of escape.

In so doing, be lost his popularity with the many, though these were

evils he might perhaps have conquered (but still speaking figuratively);

his crew (his great inward aid) had differed too seriously among

themselves, and were under the influence of conflicting feelings.

His whole mind was bent on the search after those truths that alone can

determine fixed principles, and which not long after became to him an

unerring guide. They were for him what the needle is to the mariner.

The observation alluded to is as follows:

"All my experience, from my first entrance into life to the present

hour, is in favour of the warning maxim, that the man who opposes in

toto 'the political or religious zealots of his age, is safer from

their obloquy than he who differs from them but in one or two points

only' IN DEGREE."

This is a truth too important to pass lightly over, as in this consisted

much of that feeling which prevented his being popular, (for unless an

individual goes the whole length of the party who may choose to adopt

him, he is discarded, and it is well for him if he is not persecuted and

held up to public ridicule). [17]

Zealots are usually superficial, but in herds they are found to support

each other, and by their numbers assume an imposing air.--One weak man

cannot stand, but three may.--By this mode of congregating, they are

more easily managed by their leaders, whose impulses they obey, and to

whom they become willing slaves. Men who sacrifice the many to the few,

have been held out by almost every writer, where moral and political

subjects have been introduced, as warnings to those liable to fall into

their snares, but which have seemingly been put forth to little purpose.

The necessity, therefore, for a continuation of instruction on such

important moral truths, is still required; for, in the contending

currents, so much mischief is often produced, that to divert these

conflicting opinions, and to try to bring them into unity, Coleridge

thought it a duty to employ his strength of intellect; he hoped to

preserve a principle which he deemed so useful to mankind.

The foot of Quantock was to Coleridge a memorable spot; here his studies

were serious and deep; protected by one of the kindest of friends, and

stimulated by the society also of a brother poet, whose lays seemed to

have inspired his song, and also to have chimed in with it; for although

it has been shewn that his poetic genius first dawned in his 16th year,

yet after he left College, and during his residence at this place, [18]

it seemed suddenly to have arrived at poetic manhood, and to have

reached this developement as early as his 25th year. In his more serious

studies he had greatly advanced, and had already planned and stored up

much for his future life. It will often be repeated, but not too often

for a society so full of sciolists and disbelievers,--men who are so

self-satisfied as not to require teaching,--that Coleridge never was an

idle man; and that, if nothing else remained, the progress he made in

intellectual acquirements during his residence at Stowey and his short

stay in Germany, might be instanced. Before he quitted this country to

embark in fresh studies we have his own statement:

"I became convinced, that religion, as both the corner-stone and the

key-stone of morality, must have a 'moral' origin; so far, at least,

that the evidence of its doctrines could not, like the truths of

abstract science, be 'wholly' independent of the will.

It was therefore to be expected, that its 'fundamental' truth would be

such as MIGHT be denied, though only by the fool, and even by the fool

from madness of 'heart' alone!

The question then concerning our faith in the existence of a God, not

only as the ground of the universe by his essence, but by his wisdom

and holy will as its maker and judge, appeared to stand thus: the

sciential reason, the objects of wit are purely theoretical, remains

neutral, as long as its name and semblance are not usurped by the

opponents of the doctrine; but it 'then' becomes an effective ally by

exposing the false show of demonstration, or by evincing the equal

demonstrability of the contrary from premises equally logical. The

'understanding', meantime suggests, the analogy of 'experience'

facilitates, the belief. Nature excites and recalls it, as by a

perpetual revelation. Our feelings almost necessitate it; and the law

of conscience peremptorily commands it. The arguments that all apply

to, are in its favor; and there is nothing against it, but its own

sublimity.

It could not be intellectually more evident without becoming morally

less effective; without counteracting its own end by sacrificing the

'life' of faith to the cold mechanism of a worthless, because

compulsory assent. The belief of a God and a future state (if a

passive acquiescence may be flattered with the name of 'belief') does

not, indeed, always beget a good heart; but a good heart so naturally

begets the belief, that the very few exceptions must be regarded as

strange anomalies from strange and unfortunate circumstances.

From these premises I proceeded to draw the following

conclusions,--first, that having once fully admitted the existence of

an infinite yet self-conscious Creator, we are not allowed to ground

the irrationality of any other article of faith on arguments which

would equally prove 'that' to be irrational, which we had allowed to

be 'real'. Secondly, that whatever is deducible from the admission of

a 'self-comprehending' and 'creative' spirit, may be legitimately used

in proof of the 'possibility' of any further mystery concerning the

Divine Nature.

"Possibilitatem mysteriorum (Trinitatis, &c.) contra insultus

infidelium et hereticorum a contradictionibus vindico; haud quidem

veritatem, quæ revelatione sola stabiliri possit;" says Leibnitz, in a

letter to his duke. He then adds the following just and important

remark. "In vain will tradition or texts of Scripture be adduced in

support of a doctrine, 'donec clava impossibilitatis et

contradictionis e manibus horum Herculum extorta fuerit.' For the

heretic will still reply, that texts, the literal sense of which is

not so much above as directly against all reason, must be understood

figuratively, as Herod is a Fox, &c.

These principles," says he, "I held philosophically, while in respect

of revealed religion, I remained a zealous Unitarian. I considered the

idea of a Trinity a fair scholastic inference from the being of God,

as a creative intelligence; and that it was therefore entitled to the

rank of an esoteric doctrine of natural religion: but seeing in the

same no practical or moral bearing, I confined it to the schools of

philosophy. The admission of the Logos, as hypostasized (i.e. neither

a mere attribute nor a personification), in no respect removed my

doubts concerning the incarnation and the redemption by the cross;

which I could neither reconcile in 'reason' with the impassiveness of

the Divine Being, nor in my moral feelings with the sacred distinction

between things and persons, the vicarious payment of a debt and the

vicarious expiation of guilt.

A more thorough revolution in my philosophic principles, and a deeper

insight into my own heart were yet wanting. Nevertheless, I cannot

doubt, that the difference of my metaphysical notions from those of

Unitarians in general 'contributed' to my final re-conversion to the

'whole truth' in 'Christ;' even as according to his own confession the

books of certain Platonic philosophers (Libri quorundam Platonicorum)

commenced the rescue of St. Augustine's faith from the same error,

aggravated by the far darker accompaniment of the Manichean heresy."

Perhaps it is right also to state, that no small share of his final

reconversion was attributable to that zeal and powerful genius, and to

his great desire that others should become sharers in his own

acquirements, which he was so desirous to communicate. During his

residence at the foot of Quantock, his thoughts and studies were not

only directed to an enquiry into the great truths of religion, but,

while he stayed at Stowey, he was in the habit of preaching often at the

Unitarian Chapel at Taunton, and was greatly respected by all the better

and educated classes in the neighbourhood.

He spoke of Stowey with warmth and affection to the latest hours of his

life. Here, as before mentioned, dwelt his friend Mr. Thomas Poole--the

friend (justly so termed) to whom he alludes in his beautiful dedicatory

poem to his brother the Rev. George Coleridge, and in which, when

referring to himself, he says,

"To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed

A different fortune and more different mind--

Me from the spot where first I sprang to light

Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fix'd

Its first domestic loves; and hence through life

Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while

Some have preserved me from life's pelting ills;

But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem,

If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze

Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once

Dropp'd the collected shower; and some most false,

False and fair foliaged as the Manchineel,

Have tempted me to slumber in their shade

E'en mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps,

Mix'd their own venom with the rain from Heaven,

That I woke poison'd! But, all praise to Him

Who gives us all things, more have yielded me

_Permanent shelter_; and beside one friend, [19]

Beneath the impervious covert of one oak,

I've raised a lowly shed, and know the names

Of husband and of father; not unhearing

Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice,

Which from my _childhood to maturer years_

Spake to me of predestinated wreaths,

Bright with no fading colours!"

These beautiful and affecting lines to his brother are dated May 26th,

1797, Nether Stowey, Somerset. In his will, dated Highgate, July 2nd,

1830, he again refers to this friend, and directs his executor to

present a plain gold mourning ring to Thomas Poole, Esq., of Nether

Stowey.

"The Dedicatory Poem to my 'Juvenile Poems,' and my 'Fears in

Solitude,'[20] render it unnecessary to say more than what I then, in

my early manhood, thought and felt, I now, a gray-headed man, still

think and feel."

In this volume, dedicated to his brother, are to be found several poems

in early youth and upwards, none of later date than 1796.

The "Ode," he says, "on the Departing Year, was written on the 24th,

25th, and 26th of December, 1796, and published separately on the last

day of that year. 'The Religious Musings' were written as early as

Christmas 1794."

He then was about to enter his 23rd year. The preface to this volume is

a key to his opinions and feelings at that time, and which the foregoing

part of this memoir is also intended to illustrate.

"Compositions resembling those of the present volume are not

unfrequently condemned for their querulous egotism. But egotism is to

be condemned only when it offends against time and place, as in a

history or epic poem. To censure it in a monody or sonnet is almost as

absurd as to dislike a circle for being round. Why then write sonnets

or monodies? Because they give me pleasure when, perhaps, nothing else

could. After the more violent emotions of sorrow, the mind demands

amusement, and can find it in employment alone; but full of its late

sufferings, it can endure no employment not in some measure connected

with them. Forcibly to turn away our attention to general subjects is

a painful and most often an unavailing effort.

'But O! how grateful to a wounded heart

The tale of misery to impart

From others' eyes bid artless sorrows flow,

And raise esteem upon the base of woe.'

(Shaw.)

The communicativeness of our nature leads us to describe our own

sorrows; in the endeavour to describe them, intellectual activity is

exerted; and from intellectual activity there results a pleasure,

which is gradually associated, and mingles as a corrective, with the

painful subject of the description. 'True,' (it may be answered) 'but

how are the PUBLIC interested in your sorrows or your description'?'

We are for ever attributing personal unities to imaginary

aggregates.--What is the PUBLIC, but a term for a number of scattered

individuals? Of whom as many will be interested in these sorrows, as

have experienced the same or similar.

'Holy be the lay

Which mourning soothes the mourner on his way.'

If I could judge of others by myself, I should not hesitate to affirm,

that the most interesting passages in our most interesting poems are

those in which the author developes his own feelings. The sweet voice

of Cona [21] never sounds so sweetly, as when it speaks of itself; and

I should almost suspect that man of an unkindly heart, who could read

the opening of the third book of 'Paradise Lost' without peculiar

emotion. By a law of nature, he, who labours under a strong feeling,

is impelled to seek for sympathy; but a poet's feelings are all

strong.--Quicquid amat valde amat.--Akenside therefore speaks with

philosophical accuracy when he classes love and poetry as producing

the same effects:

'Love and the wish of poets when their tongue

Would teach to others' bosoms, what so charms

Their own.'

'Pleasures of Imagination'.

There is one species of egotism which is truly disgusting; not that

which leads to communicate our feelings to others, but that which

would reduce the feelings of others; to an identity with our own.

The atheist who exclaims 'pshaw,' when he glances his eye on the

praises of Deity, is an egotist; an old man, when he speaks

contemptuously of love verses is an egotist; and the sleek favourites

of fortune are egotists when they condemn all 'melancholy

discontented' verses. Surely it would be candid not merely to ask

whether the poem pleases ourselves, but to consider whether or no

there may not be others, to whom it is well calculated to give an

innocent pleasure.

I shall only add, that each of my readers will, I hope, remember, that

these poems on various subjects, which, he reads at one time and under

the influence of one set of feelings, were written at different times

and prompted by very different feelings; and, therefore, that, the

supposed inferiority of one poem to another may sometimes be owing to

the temper of mind in which he happens to peruse it."

In the second edition (the second edition was published in conjunction

with his friends Charles Lloyd and Charles Lamb) is added the following:

"My poems have been rightly charged with a profusion of

double-epithets, and a general turgidness. I have pruned the

double-epithets with no sparing hand; and used my best efforts to tame

the swell and glitter both of thought and diction. This latter fault,

however, had insinuated itself into my Religious Musings with such

intricacy of union, that sometimes I have omitted to disentangle the

weed from the fear of snapping the flower. A third and heavier

accusation has been brought against me, that of obscurity; but not, I

think, with equal justice. An author is obscure, when his conceptions

are dim and imperfect, and his language incorrect, or inappropriate,

or involved. A poem that abounds in allusions, like the 'Bard' of

Gray, or one that impersonates high and abstract truths, like

Collins's 'Ode on the Poetical Character,' claims not to be popular,

but should be acquitted of obscurity. The deficiency is in the reader;

but this is a charge which every poet, whose imagination is warm and

rapid, must expect from his 'contemporaries'. Milton did not escape

it; and it was adduced with virulence against Gray and Collins. We now

hear no more of it, not that their poems are better understood at

present, than they were at their first publication; but their fame is

established; and a critic would accuse him self of frigidity or,

inattention, who should profess not to understand them: but a living

writer is yet sub judice; and if we cannot follow his conceptions or

enter into his feelings, it is more consoling to our pride to consider

him as lost beneath, than as soaring above, us. If any man expect from

my poems the same easiness of style which he admires in a

drinking-song for him, I have not written. Intelligibilia, non

intellectum adfero.

I expect neither profit nor general fame by my writings; and I

consider myself as having been amply repaid without either. Poetry has

been to me its own 'exceeding great reward;' it has soothed my

afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has

endeared solitude; and it has given me the habit of wishing to

discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds

me."

We seem now to have arrived at that period of Coleridge's life which a

profound student of his poetry, and himself a pleasing and elegant poet,

has considered the period of the "Annus Mirabilis." "The Manhood," he

observes, "of Coleridge's true poetical life was in the year 1797." This

is perfectly true, and at that period he was only twenty-five, as before

stated. He was, as is proved in his earlier poems, highly susceptible

and sensitive, requiring kindness and sympathy, and the support of

something like intellectual friendship. He tells us that he chose his

residence at Stowey, on account of his friend Mr. Poole, who assisted

and enabled him to brave the storm of "Life's pelting ills." Near him,

at Allfoxden, resided Mr. Wordsworth, with whom, he says,

"Shortly after my settlement there, I became acquainted, and whose

society I found an invaluable blessing, and to whom I looked up with

equal reverence as a poet, a philosopher, or a man. His conversation

extended to almost all subjects except physics and politics; with the

latter he never troubled himself."

Although Coleridge lived a most retired life, it was not enough to

exempt him from the watchfulness of the spies of government whose

employment required some apparent activity before they could receive the

reward they expected. Nor did he escape the suspicion of being a

dangerous person to the government; which arose partly from his

connexion with Wordsworth, and from the great seclusion of his life.

Coleridge was ever with book, paper, and pencil in hand, making, in the

language of, artists, "Sketches and studies from nature." This

suspicion, accompanied with the usual quantity of obloquy, was not

merely attached to Coleridge, but extended to his friend, "whose perfect

innocence was even adduced as a suspicion of his guilt," by one of these

sapients, who observed that

"as to Coleridge, there is not much harm in him; for he is a

whirl-brain, that talks whatever comes uppermost; but that Wordsworth!

he is a dark traitor. You never hear _him_ say a syllable on the

subject."

During this time the brother poets must have been composing or arranging

the Lyrical Ballads, which were published the following year, i.e. 1798.

Coleridge also in 1797 wrote the "Remorse," or rather the play he first

called Osorio, the name of the principal character in it, but finding

afterwards that there was a respectable family of that name residing in

London, it was changed for the title of the Remorse, and the principal

character, Osorio, to Ordonio. This play was sent to Sheridan.

The following remarks were given in Coleridge's "Biographia Literaria,"

which wholly clears him from the suspicion of being concerned in making

maps of a coast, where a smuggler could not land, and they shew what

really was his employment; and how poets may be mistaken at all times

for other than what they wish to be considered:

"During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbours, our

conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of

poetry,--the power of exciting the sympathy of a reader 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 moonlight or sunset diffused

over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the

practicability of combining both. These are the poetry of nature. The

thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) 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 aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the

affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally

accompany such situations, supposing them real; and real in 'this'

sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever source of

delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency.

For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life:

the characters and incidents were to be such as will be found in every

village and its vicinity, where there is a meditative and feeling mind

to seek after them, or to notice them when they present themselves.

In this idea originated the plan of the 'Lyrical Ballads,' in which it

was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons and

characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer

from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth

sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing

suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith.

Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself, as his

object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to

excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the

mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the

loveliness and the wonders of the world before us,--an inexhaustible

treasure; but for which, in consequence of the feeling of familiarity

and selfish solicitude, we have eyes yet see not, ears that hear not,

and hearts that neither feel nor understand.

With this view I wrote the 'Ancient Mariner,' and was preparing,

among other poems, the 'Dark Ladie' and the 'Christabel,' in which I

should have more nearly realized my ideal than I had done in my first

attempt: but Mr. Wordsworth's industry had proved so much more

successful, and the number of his poems so much greater, that my

compositions, instead of forming a balance, appeared rather an

interpolation of heterogeneous matter.

Mr. Wordsworth added two or three poems written in his own character,

in the impassioned, lofty, and sustained diction, which is

characteristic of his genius. In this form the 'Lyrical Ballads' were

published, and were presented by him as an 'experiment', whether

subjects, which from their nature rejected the usual ornaments and

extra-colloquial style of poems in general, might not be so managed,

in the language of ordinary life, as to produce the pleasurable

interest which it is the peculiar business of poetry to impart.

To the second edition he added a preface of considerable length, in

which, notwithstanding some passages of apparently a contrary import,

he was understood to contend for the extension of the style to poetry

of all kinds, and to reject as vicious and indefensible all phrases

and forms of style that were not included in what he (unfortunately, I

think, adopting an equivocal expression) called the language of 'real'

life. From this preface, prefixed to poems in which it was impossible

to deny the presence of original genius, however mistaken its

direction might be deemed, arose the whole long-continued controversy.

For, from the conjunction of perceived power with supposed heresy, I

explain the inveteracy, and in some instances, I grieve to say, the

acrimonious passions, with which the controversy has been conducted by

the assailants." (Vol. ii. p. 1.)

There are few incidents in the life of the literary man to make any

narrations of sufficient importance or sufficiently amusing for the

readers, and the readers only of works of amusement. The biography of

such men is supposed to contain the faithful history and growth of their

minds, and the circumstances under which it is developed, and to this it

must be confined.

What has been done by Coleridge himself, and where he has been his own

biographer, will be carefully noticed and given here, when it falls in

with the intention and purposes of this work; for this reason the

Biographia Literaria has been so frequently quoted. Coleridge had passed

nearly half his life in a retirement almost amounting to solitude, and

this he preferred. First, he was anxious for leisure to pursue those

studies which wholly engrossed his mind; and secondly, his health

permitted him but little change, except when exercise was required; and

during the latter part of his life he became nearly crippled by the

rheumatism. His character will form a part in the Philosophical History

of the Human Mind, which will be placed in the space left for it by his

amiable and most faithful friend and disciple, whose talents, whose

heart and acquirements makes him most fit to describe them, and whose

time was for so many years devoted to this great man. But, to continue

in the order of time, in June, 1797, he was visited by his friend

Charles Lamb and his sister.

On the morning after their arrival, Coleridge met with an accident which

disabled him from walking during the whole of their stay. One evening,

when they had left him for a few hours, he composed the poem, "This

Lime-tree Bower my Prison," in which he refers to his old friend, while

watching him in fancy with his sister, winding and ascending the hills

at a short distance, himself detained as if a prisoner:

"Yes! they wander on

In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,

My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined

And hunger'd after nature, many a year;

In the great city pent, winning thy way

With sad yet patient soul, through evil, and pain,

And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink

Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun!

Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,

Ye purple heath flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!

Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!

And kindle, thou blue ocean! So my friend

Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,

Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round

On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem

Less gross than bodily; and of such hues

As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes

Spirits perceive his presence."

During his residence here, Mr. William Hazlitt became acquainted with

him, which is thus vividly recorded in the 'Liberal':

"My father was a dissenting minister at Wem, in Shropshire; and in the

year 1798, Mr. Coleridge came to Shrewsbury, to succeed Mr. Rowe in

the spiritual charge of a Unitarian congregation there. He did not

come till late on the Saturday afternoon before he was to preach, and

Mr. Rowe, who himself went down to the coach in a state of anxiety and

expectation, to look for the arrival of his successor, could find no

one at all answering the description, but a round-faced man, in a

short black coat (like a shooting jacket), which hardly seemed to have

been made for him, but who appeared to be talking at a great rate to

his fellow-passengers. Mr. Rowe had scarcely returned to give an

account of his disappointment, when the round-faced man in black

entered, and dissipated all doubts on the subject, by beginning to

talk. He did not cease while he stayed, nor has he since that I know

of. [22]

He held the good town of Shrewsbury in delightful suspense for three

weeks that he remained there, 'fluttering the proud Salopians like an

eagle in a dove-cot;' and the Welsh mountains, that skirt the horizon

with their tempestuous confusion, agree to have heard no such mystic

sounds since the days of

'High-born Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lyre!'

My father lived ten miles from Shrewsbury, and was in the habit of

exchanging visits with Mr. Rowe, and Mr. Jenkins of Whitchurch (nine

miles further on), according to the custom of dissenting ministers in

each other's neighbourhood. A line of communication is thus

established, by which the flame of civil and religious liberty is kept

alive, and nourishes its mouldering fire unquenchable, like the fires

in the Agamemnon of Æschylus, placed at different stations, that

waited for ten long years to announce, with their blazing pyramids,

the destruction of Troy.

Coleridge had agreed to come once to see my father, according to the

courtesy of the country, as Mr. Rowe's probable successor; but in the

meantime I had gone to hear him preach the Sunday after his arrival. A

poet and a philosopher getting up into a Unitarian pulpit to preach

the gospel was a romance in these degenerate days,--which was not to

be resisted.

It was in January, 1798, that I rose one morning before daylight, to

walk ten miles in the mud, to hear this celebrated person preach.

Never, the longest day I have to live, shall I have such another walk

as this cold, raw, comfortless one, in the winter of the year 1798.

'Il y a des impressions que ni le tems, ni les circonstances peuvent

effacer. Dussé-je vivre des siècles entiers, le doux tems de ma

jeunesse ne peut renaître pour moi, ni s'effacer jamais dans ma

mémoire.' When I got there, the organ was playing the 100th psalm;

and, when it was done, Mr. Coleridge rose and gave out his text,--'He

departed again into a mountain 'himself alone'.' As he gave out this

text, his voice 'rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes;' and

when he came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep,

and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds

had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer

might have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of

St. John came into my mind, 'of one crying in the wilderness, who had

his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey.' The

preacher then launched into his subject, like an eagle dallying with

the wind. The sermon was upon peace and war--upon church and

state--not their alliance, but their separation--on the spirit of the

world, and the spirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as opposed

to one another. He talked of those who had 'inscribed the cross of

Christ on banners dripping with human gore.' He made a poetical and

pastoral excursion,--and to show the fatal effects of war, drew a

striking contrast between the simple shepherd-boy, driving his team

afield, or sitting under the hawthorn, piping to his flock, as though

he should never be old,' and the same poor country lad, crimped,

kidnapped, brought into town, made drunk at an alehouse, turned into a

wretched drummer-boy, with his hair sticking on end with powder and

pomatum, a long cue at his back, and tricked out in the finery of the

profession of blood:

'Such were the notes our once loved poet sung;'

and, for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I had heard

the music of the spheres. Poetry and Philosophy had met together.

Truth and Genius had embraced under the eye and with the sanction of

Religion. This was even beyond my hopes. I returned home well

satisfied. The sun that was still labouring pale and wan through the

sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an emblem of the 'good

cause'; and the cold dank drops of dew, that hung half melted on

the beard of the thistle, had something genial and refreshing in

them--

...

"On the Tuesday following, the half-inspired speaker came. I was

called down into the room where he was, and went half-hoping,

half-afraid. He received me very graciously, and I listened for a long

time without uttering a word, and did not suffer in his opinion by my

silence. 'For those two hours (he was afterwards pleased to say) he

was conversing with W. H.'s forehead.' His appearance was different

from what I had anticipated from seeing him before. At a distance, and

in the dim light of the chapel, there was to me a strange wildness in

his aspect, a dusky obscurity, and I thought him pitted with the

small-pox. His complexion was at that time clear, and even bright,

'As are the children of yon azure sheen.'

His forehead was broad and high, as if built of ivory, with large

projecting eyebrows, and his eyes rolling beneath them like a sea with

darkened lustre.

'A certain tender bloom his face o'erspread;'

a purple tinge, as we see it in the pale, thoughtful complexions of

the Spanish portrait painters, Murillo and Velasquez. His mouth was

rather open, his chin good-humoured and round, and his nose small.

Coleridge in his person was rather above the common size, inclining to

the corpulent. His hair (now, alas! grey, and during the latter years

of his life perfectly white) was then black, and glossy as the raven's

wing, and fell in smooth masses over his forehead. This long liberal

hair is peculiar to enthusiasts." [23]

(The Liberal, vol. ii. pp. 23-27.)

He used, in his hours of relaxation, to relate the state of his

feelings, and his adventures during the short time he was a preacher.

His congregations were large, and if he had the power of attracting one

man of such talents from a distance, it may well be understood how the

many near the chapel flocked to listen to him; in short, if one is to

give credence to current report, he emptied churches and chapels to hear

him. If he had needed any stimulus, this would have been sufficient, but

such a mind so intensely occupied in the search after truth needed no

external excitement.

He has often said, that one of the effects of preaching was, that it

compelled him to examine the Scriptures with greater care and industry.

These additional exertions and studies assisted mainly to his final

conversion to the whole truth; for it was still evident that his mind

was perplexed, and that his philosophical opinions would soon yield to

the revealed truth of Scripture.