_The Great Work described_
_Jan._ 1821.
... I have already the _written_ materials and contents, requiring
only to be put together from the loose papers and commonplace or
memorandum books, and needing no other change, whether of omission,
addition, or correction, than the mere act of arranging, and the
opportunity of seeing the whole collectively bring with them of course
(1) Characteristics of Shakespeare's dramatic works, with a critical
review of each play; together with a relative and comparative critique
on the kind and degree of the merits and demerits of the dramatic
works of Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger. The
History of the English Drama; the accidental advantages it afforded
to Shakespeare, without in the least detracting from the perfect
originality or proper creation of the Shakespearian Drama; the
contradistinction of the latter from the Greek Drama, and its still
remaining _uniqueness_, with the causes of this, from the combined
influences of Shakespeare himself, as man, poet, philosopher, and
finally, by conjunction of all these, dramatic poet; and of the age,
events, manners, and state of the English language. This work, with
every art of compression, amounts to three volumes of about five
hundred pages each. (2) Philosophical Analysis of the Genius and Works
of Dante, Spenser, Milton, Cervantes, and Calderon, with similar, but
more compressed criticisms on Chaucer, Ariosto, Donne, Rabelais, and
others, during the predominance of the Romantic Poetry. In one large
volume. These two works will, I flatter myself, form a complete code
of the principles of judgement and feeling applied to works of Taste;
and not of Poetry only, but of Poesy in all its forms, Painting,
Statuary, Music, &c., &c. (3) The History of Philosophy considered
as a Tendency of the Human Mind to exhibit the Powers of the Human
Reason, to discover by its own Strength the Origin and Laws of Man and
the World, from Pythagoras to Locke and Condillac. Two volumes.
(4) Letters on the Old and New Testament, and on the Doctrine
and Principles held in common by the Fathers and Founders of the
Reformation, addressed to a candidate for Holy Orders, including
advice on the Plan and Subjects of Preaching, proper to a Minister of
the Established Church.
To the completion of these four works, I have literally nothing more
to do than to _transcribe_; but, as I before hinted, from so many
scraps and _sibylline_ leaves, including margins of books and blank
pages, that, unfortunately, I must be my own scribe, and not done by
myself, they will be all but lost; or perhaps (as has been too often
the case already) furnish feathers for the caps of others; some for
this purpose, and some to plume the arrows of detraction, to be let
fly against the luckless bird from whom they had been plucked or
moulted.
In addition to these--of my GREAT WORK, to the preparation of which
more than twenty years of my life have been devoted, and on which
my hopes of extensive and permanent utility, of fame, in the noblest
sense of the word, mainly rest--that, by which I might,
As now by thee, by all the good be known,
When this weak frame lies moulder'd in the grave,
Which self-surviving I might call my own,
Which folly cannot mar, nor hate deprave--
The incense of those powers, which, risen in flame,
Might make me dear to Him from whom they came.
Of this work, to which all my other writings (unless I except my
Poems, and these I can exclude in part only) are introductory and
preparative; and the result of which (if the premises be, as I, with
the most tranquil assurance, am convinced they are--insubvertible,
the deductions legitimate, and the conclusions commensurate, and only
commensurate, with both) must finally be a revolution of all that has
been called _philosophy_ or metaphysics in England and France, since
the era of the commencing predominance of the mechanical system at
the restoration of our second Charles, and with this the present
fashionable views, not only of religion, morals, and politics but
even of the modern physics and physiology. You will not blame the
earnestness of my expressions, nor the high importance which I attach
to this work: for how, with less noble objects, and less faith in
their attainment, could I stand acquitted of folly, and abuse of time,
talents, and learning in a labour of three-fourths of my intellectual
life? Of this work, something more than a volume has been dictated
by me, so as to exist fit for the press, to my friend and enlightened
pupil, Mr. Green; and more than as much again would have been evolved
and delivered to paper, but that, for the last six or eight months,
I have been compelled to break off our weekly meeting, from the
necessity of writing (alas! alas! of attempting to write) for
purposes, and on the subjects, of the passing day. Of my poetic works
I would fain finish the _Christabel_! Alas! for the proud time when I
planned, when I had present to my mind, the materials, as well as
the scheme, of the Hymns entitled _Spirit_, _Sun_, _Earth_, _Air_,
_Water_, _Fire_ and _Man_; and the Epic Poem on what still appears
to me the one only fit subject remaining for an epic poem--Jerusalem
besieged and destroyed by Titus.