_1819-1828_
Where'er I find the Good, the True, the Fair,
I ask no names--God's spirit dwelleth there!
The unconfounded, undivided Three,
Each for itself, and all in each, to see
In man and Nature, is Philosophy.
S. T. C.
[Sidenote: THE MOON'S HALO AN EMBLEM OF HOPE]
The moon, rushing onward through the coursing clouds, advances like an
indignant warrior through a fleeing army; but the amber halo in which
she moves--O! it is a circle of Hope. For what she leaves behind her has
not lost its radiance as it is melting away into oblivion, while, still,
the other semi-circle catches the rich light at her approach, and
heralds her ongress.
[Sidenote: A COMPLEX VEXATION]
It is by strength of mind that we are to untwist the tie or copula of
the besom of affliction, which not nature but the strength of
imagination had twisted round it, and thus resolve it into its component
twigs, and conquer in detail "one down and t'other come on"! _Dividendo
diminuitur_--which forms the true ground of the advantage accruing from
communicating our griefs to another. We enable ourselves to see them
each in its true magnitude.
[Sidenote: THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ENGLAND]
After re-perusal of my inefficient, yet not feeble efforts in behalf of
the poor little white slaves in the cotton-factories, I ask myself, "But
still are we not better than the other nations of Christendom?"
Yes--Perhaps. I don't know. I dare not affirm it. Better than the French
certainly! Mammon _versus_ Moloch and Belial. But Sweden, Norway,
Germany, the Tyrol? No.
[Sidenote: THE MEED OF PRAISE]
There is a species of applause scarcely less genial to a poet, whether
bard, musician, or artist, than the vernal warmth to the feathered
songsters during their nest-building or incubation--a sympathy, an
expressed hope, that is the open air in which the poet breathes, and
without which the sense of power sinks back on itself like a sigh heaved
up from the tightened chest of a sick man. Alas! alas! alas!
[Sidenote: THE GREAT UNKNOWN]
Anonymity is now an artifice to acquire celebrity, as a black veil is
worn to make a pair of bright eyes more conspicuous.
[Sidenote: BOOK-LEARNING FOR LEGISLATORS]
For the same reasons that we cannot now act by impulses, but must think,
so now must every legislator be a man of sound book-learning, because he
cannot, if he would, think or act from the simple dictates of unimproved
but undepraved common sense. Newspapers, reviews, and the conversation
of men who derive their opinions from newspapers and reviews will secure
for him artificial opinions, if he does not secure them for himself from
purer and more authentic sources. There is now no such being as a
country gentleman. Like their relation, the Dodo, the race is extinct,
or if by accident one has escaped, it belongs to the Museum, not to
active life, or the purposes of active life.
[Sidenote: THEISM AND ATHEISM]
The more I read and reflect on the arguments of the truly philosophical
theists and atheists, the more I feel convinced that the ultimate
difference is a moral rather than an intellectual one, that the result
is an x y z, an acknowledged insufficiency of the known to account for
itself, and, therefore, a something unknown--that to which, while the
atheist leaves it a blank in the understanding, the theist dedicates his
noblest feelings of love and awe, and with which, by a moral syllogism,
he connects and unites his conscience and actions. For the words
goodness and wisdom are clearly only reflexes of the effect, just as
when we call the unknown cause of cold and heat by the name of its
effects, and _know_ nothing further. For if we mean that a Being like
man, with human goodness and intellect, only magnified, is the cause,
that is, that the First Cause is an immense man (as according to
Swedenborg and Zinzendorf), then come the insoluble difficulties of the
incongruity of qualities whose very essence implies finiteness, with a
Being _ex hypothesi_ infinite.
[Sidenote: THE MIND'S EYE]
An excellent instance of the abstraction [from objects of the sense]
that results from the attention converging to any one object, is
furnished by the oily rags, broken saucers, greasy phials, dabs, crusts,
and smears of paints in the laboratory of a Raphael, or a Claude
Lorraine, or a Van Huysum, or any other great master of the beautiful
and becoming. In like manner, the mud and clay in the modelling hand of
a Chantrey--what are they to him whose total soul is awake, in his eye
as a subject, and before his eye as some ideal of beauty _objectively_?
The various objects of the senses are as little the objects of _his_
senses, as the ink with which the "Lear" was written, existed in the
consciousness of a Shakspere.
[Sidenote: A LAND OF BLISS]
The humming-moth with its glimmer-mist of rapid unceasing motion before
the humble-bee within the flowering bells and cups--and the eagle
_level_ with the clouds, himself a cloudy speck, surveys the vale from
mount to mount. From the cataract flung on the vale, the broadest
fleeces of the snowy foam light on the bank flowers or the water-lilies
in the stiller pool below.
[Sidenote: TIME AND ETERNITY]
The defect of Archbishop Leighton's reasoning is the taking eternity for
a sort of time, a _baro major_, a baron of beef or quarter of lamb, out
of which and off which time is cut, as a brisket or shoulder--while,
even in common discourse, without any design of sounding the depth of
the truth or of weighing the words expressing it in the hair-balance of
metaphysics, it would be more convenient to consider eternity the _simul
et totum_ as the _antitheton_ of time.
[Sidenote: THE LITERARY STERILITY OF ISLAMISM]
The extraordinary florency of letters under the Spanish Caliphate in
connection with the character and capabilities of Mohammedanism has
never yet been treated as its importance requires. Halim II, founder of
the University of Cordova, and of numerous colleges and libraries
throughout Spain, is said to have possessed a library of six hundred
thousand MSS., the catalogue filling forty-four volumes. Nor were his
successors behind him in zeal and munificence. That the prime article of
Islamism, the uni-personality of God, is one cause of the downfall, say
rather of the merely meteoric existence of their literary age, I am
persuaded, but the exclusive scene (in Spain) suggests many interesting
views. With a learned class Mohammedanism could not but pass into Deism,
and Deism never did, never can, establish itself as a religion. It is
the doctrine of the tri-unity that connects Christianity with
philosophy, gives a positive religion a specific interest to the
philosopher, and that of redemption to the moralist and psychologist.
Predestination, in the plenitude, in which it is equivalent to fatalism,
was the necessary alternative and _succedaneum_ of Redemption, and the
Incarnation the only preservative against pantheism on one side, and
anthropomorphism on the other. The Persian (Europeans in Asia) form of
Mohammedanism is very striking in this point of view.
[Sidenote: THE SPIRIT OF A PEOPLE]
It is not by individual character that an individual can derive just
conclusions respecting a community or an age. Conclusions so drawn are
the excuse of selfish, narrow and pusillanimous statesmen, who, by
dwelling on the kindred baseness or folly of the persons with whom they
come in immediate contact, lose all faith in human nature, ignorant that
even in these a spark is latent which would light up and consume the
worthless overlay in a national moment. The spirit of a race is the
character of a people, the sleep or the awakening of which depends on a
few minds, pre-ordained for this purpose, and sometimes by the mere
removal of the dead weight of a degenerate Court or nobility pressing on
the spring. So I doubt not would it be with the Turks, were the Porte
and its seraglio conquered by Russia. But the spirit of a race ought
never to be supposed extinct, but on the other hand no more or other
ought to be expected than the race contains in itself. The true cause of
the irrecoverable fall of Rome is to be found in the fact, that Rome was
a city, a handful of men that multiplied its subjects incomparably
faster than its citizens, so that the latter were soon dilute and lost
in the former. On a similar principle colonists in modern times
degenerate by _excision_ from their race (the ancient colonies were
_buds_). This, I think, applies to the Neapolitans and most of the
Italian States. A nest of republics keep each other alive; but a
patchwork of principalities has the effect of excision by insulation, or
rather by compressure. How long did the life of Germany doze under these
ligatures! Yet did we not _despair wrongfully_ of the people? The spirit
of the race survived, of which literature was a part. Hence I dare not
despair of Greece, because it has been barbarised and enslaved, but not
split up into puny independent governments under Princes of their own
race. The Neapolitans have always been a conquered people, and
degenerates in the original sense of the word, _de genere_--they have
lost their race, though what it was is uncertain. Lastly, the individual
in all things is the prerogative of the divine knowledge. What it is,
our eyes can see only by what it has in common, and this can only be
seen in communities where neither excision, nor ligature, nor commixture
exists. Despotism and superstition will not extinguish the character of
a race, as Russia testifies. But again, take care to understand that
character, and expect no other fruit than the root contains in its
nature.
[Sidenote: THE FLIGHT OF MOHAMMED]
Had I proceeded, in concert with R. Southey, with the "Flight and Return
of Mohammed," [1799] I had intended to introduce a disputation between
Mahomet, as the representative of unipersonal Theism with the
Judaico-Christian machinery of angels, genii, and prophets, an idolater
with his gods, heroes, and spirits of the departed mighty, and a
fetish-worshipper who adored the invisible alone, and held no religion
common to all men or any number of men other than as they chanced at the
same moment to be acted on by the same influence--even as when a hundred
ant-hills are in motion under the same burst of sunshine. And, still,
chiefly for the sake of the last scheme, I should like to do something
of the kind. My enlightened fetish-divine would have been an Okenist, a
zoo-magnetist and (a priest of) the night-side of Nature.
[For the fragment entitled "Mahomet," see _P. W._, 1893, p. 139, and
editor's _Note_, p. 615.]
[Sidenote: PRUDENCE _VERSUS_ FRIENDSHIP]
Among the countless arguments against the Paleyans state, this too--Can
a wise moral legislator have made _prudence_ the true principle-ground,
and guide of moral conduct, where in almost all cases in which there is
contemplation to act wrong the first appearances of prudence are in
favour of immorality, and, in order to ground the contrary on a
principle of prudence, it is necessary to refine, to calculate, to look
far onward into an uncertain future? Is this a guide, or primary guide,
that for ever requires a guide against itself? Is it not a strange
system which sets prudence against prudence? Compare this with the Law
of Conscience--Is it not its specific character to be immediate,
positive, unalterable? In short, _a priori_, state the requisites of a
moral guide, and apply them first to prudence, and then to the law of
pure reason or conscience, and ask if we need fear the result if the
Judge is pure from all bribes and prejudices.
What then are the real dictates of prudence as drawn from every man's
experience in late manhood, and so lured from the intoxication of
youth, hope, and love? How cold, how dead'ning, what a dire vacuum they
would leave in the soul, if the high and supreme sense of duty did not
form a root out of which new prospects budded. What, I say, is the clear
dictate of prudence in the matter of friendship? Assuredly to _like_
only, and never to be so attached as to be stripped naked by the loss. A
friend may be a great-coat, a beloved a couch, but never, never our
necessary clothing, our only means of quiet heart-repose! And, yet, with
this the mind of a generous man would be so miserable, that prudence
itself would fight against prudence, and advise him to drink off the
draught of Hope, spite of the horrid and bitter dregs of disappointment,
with which the draught will assuredly finish.
Though I have said that duty is a consolation, I have not affirmed that
the scar of the wound of disappointed love and insulted, betrayed
fidelity would be removed in _this_ life. No! it will not--nay, the very
duty must for ever keep alive feelings the appropriate objects of which
are indeed in another world; but yet our human nature cannot avoid at
times the connection of those feelings with their original or their
first forms and objects; and so far, therefore, from removing the scar,
will often and often make the wound open and bleed afresh. But, still,
we know that the feeling is not objectless, that the counterfeit has a
correspondent genuine, and this is the comfort.
[Sidenote: A POET ON POETRY]
_Canzone XVIII. fra le Rime di Dante_ is a poem of wild and interesting
images, intended as an enigma, and to me an enigma it remains, spite of
all my efforts. Yet it deserves transcription and translation. A.D. 1806
[? 1807].
"Tre donne intorno al cuor mi son venute," &c.
[After the four first lines the handwriting is that of my old, dear, and
honoured friend, Mr. Wade, of Bristol.--S. T. C.]
_Ramsgate, Sept. 2nd, 1819._--I _begin_ to understand the above poem,
after an interval from 1805, during which no year passed in which I did
not reperuse, I might say construe, parse, and spell it, twelve times at
least--such a fascination had it, spite of its obscurity! It affords a
good instance, by the bye, of that soul of _universal_ significance in a
true poet's composition, in addition to the specific meaning.
[Sidenote: GREAT AND LITTLE MINDS]
Great minds can and do create the taste of the age, and one of the
contingent causes which warp the taste of nations and ages is, that men
of genius in part yield to it, and in part are acted on by the taste of
the age.
Common minds may be compared to the component drops of the stream of
life--men of genius to the large and small bubbles. What if they break?
they are still as good as the rest--drops of water.
[Sidenote: SUBJECT AND OBJECT]
In youth our happiness is hope; in age the recollection of the hopes of
youth. What else can there be?--for the substantial mind, for the _I_,
what else can there be? Pleasure? Fruition? Filter hope and memory from
pleasure, and the more entire the fruition the more is it the death of
the _I_. A neutral product results that may exist for others, but no
longer for itself--a coke or a slag. To make the object one with us, we
must become one with the object--_ergo, an_ object. _Ergo_, the object
must be itself a subject--partially a favourite dog, principally a
friend, wholly God, _the_ Friend. God is Love--that is, an object that
is absolutely subject (God is a spirit), but a subject that for ever
condescends to become the object for those that meet Him subjectively.
[As in the] Eucharist, [He is] verily and truly present to the Faithful,
neither [by a] _trans_ nor _con_, but [by] _substantiation_.
[Sidenote: THE THREE ESTATES OF BEING]
We might as well attempt to conceive more than three dimensions of
space, as to imagine more than three kinds of living existence--God,
man, and beast. And even of these the last (division) is obscure, and
scarce endures a fixed contemplation without passing into an unripe or
degenerated humanity.
[Sidenote: A LIFE-LONG ERROR]
My mother told my wife that I was a year younger, and that there was a
blunder made either in the baptismal register itself or in the
transcript sent for my admission into Christ's Hospital; and Mrs. C.,
who is older than myself, believes me only 48. Be this as it may, in
_life_, if not in years, I am, alas! nearer to 68.
[S. T. C. was born on October 21, 1772. Consequently, on October 20,
1819, he was not yet forty-seven. He entered his forty-eighth year
October 21, 1819.]
[Sidenote: AN UNWRITTEN SONNET]
N.B.--A sonnet on the child collecting shells and pebbles on the
sea-shore or lake-side, and carrying each with a fresh shout of delight
and admiration to the mother's apron, who smiles and assents to each
"This is pretty!" "Is not that a nice one?" and then when the prattler
is tired of its _conchozetetic_ labours lifts up her apron and throws
them out on her apron. Such are our first discoveries both in science
and philosophy.--S. T. Coleridge, Oct. 21, 1819.
[Sidenote: MILTON AND SHAKSPERE]
Found Mr. G. with Hartley in the garden, attempting to explain to
himself and to Hartley a feeling of a something not present in Milton's
works, that is, in "Paradise Lost," "Paradise Regained," and "Samson
Agonistes," which he _did_ feel delightedly in the "Lycidas," and (as I
added afterwards) in the Italian sonnets compared with the English. And
this appeared to me to be the _poet_ appearing and wishing to appear as
the poet, and, likewise, as the man, as much as, though more rare than,
the father, the brother, the preacher, and the patriot. Compare with
Milton, Chaucer's "Fall of the Leaf" and Spenser throughout, and you
cannot but _feel_ what Gillman meant to convey. What is the solution?
This, I believe--but I must premise that there is a _synthesis_ of
intellectual insight including the mental object, the organ of the
correspondent being indivisible, and this (O deep truth!) because the
objectivity consists in the universality of its subjectiveness--as when
it _sees_, and millions _see_ even so, and the seeing of the millions is
what constitutes to _A_ and to each of the millions the _objectivity_ of
the sight, the equivalent to a common object--a synthesis of _this_, I
say, and of proper external object which we call _fact_. Now, this it is
which we find in religion. It is more than philosophical truth--it is
other and more than historical fact; it is not made up by the addition
of the one to the other, but it is the _identity_ of both, the
co-inherence.
Now, this being understood, I proceed to say, using the term objectivity
(arbitrarily, I grant), for this identity of truth and fact, that Milton
hid the poetry in or transformed (not trans-substantiated) the poetry
into this objectivity, while Shakspere, in all things, the divine
opposite or antithetic correspondent of the divine Milton, transformed
the objectivity into poetry.
Mr. G. observed as peculiar to the Hamlet, that it alone, of all
Shakspere's plays, presented to him a moving along _before_ him; while
in others it was a moving, indeed, but with which he himself moved
equally in all and with all, and without any external something by which
the motion was manifested, even as a man would move in a balloon--a
sensation of motion, but not a sight of moving and having been moved.
And why is this? Because of all the characters of Shakspere's plays
Hamlet is the only character with which, by contra-distinction from the
rest of the _dramatis personæ_, the fit and capable reader identifies
himself as the representation of his own contemplative and strictly
proper and very own being (action, etc., belongs to others, the moment
we call it our own)--hence the events of the play, with all the
characters, move because you stand still. In the other plays, your
identity is equally diffused over all. Of no parts can you say, as in
Hamlet, they are moving. But ever it is _we_, or that period and portion
of human action, which is unified into a dream, even as in a dream the
personal unity is diffused and severalised (divided to the sight though
united in the dim feeling) into a sort of reality. Even so [it is with]
the styles of Milton and Shakspere--the same weight of effect from the
exceeding _felicity_ (subjectively) of Shakspere, and the exceeding
_propriety_ (_extra arbitrium_) of Milton.
[Sidenote: A ROYAL ROAD TO KNOWLEDGE]
The best plan, I think, for a man who would wish his mind to continue
growing is to find, in the first place, some means of ascertaining for
himself whether it does or no; and I can think of no better than early
in life, say after three-and-twenty, to procure gradually the works of
some two or three great writers--say, for instance, Bacon, Jeremy
Taylor, and Kant, with the _De Republicâ_, _De Legibus_, the _Sophistes_
and _Politicus_ of Plato, and the _Poetics_, _Rhetorics_, and _Politics_
of Aristotle--and amidst all other reading, to make a point of
reperusing some one, or some weighty part of some one of these every
four or five years, having from the beginning a separate note-book for
each of these writers, in which your impressions, suggestions,
conjectures, doubts and judgments are to be recorded with date of each,
and so worded as to represent most sincerely the exact state of your
convictions at the time, such as they would be if you did not (which
this plan will assuredly make you do sooner or later) anticipate a
change in them from increase of knowledge. "It is possible that I am in
the wrong, but so it now appears to me, after my best attempts; and I
must therefore put it down in order that I may find myself so, if so I
am." It would make a little volume to give in detail all the various
moral as well as intellectual advantages that would result from the
systematic observation of the plan. Diffidence and hope would
reciprocally balance and excite each other. A continuity would be given
to your being, and its progressiveness ensured. All your knowledge
otherwise obtained, whether from books or conversation or experience,
would find centres round which it would organise itself. And, lastly,
the habit of confuting your past self, and detecting the causes and
occasions of your having mistaken or overlooked the truth, will give you
both a quickness and a winning kindness, resulting from sympathy, in
exposing the errors of others, as if you were an _alter ego_, of his
mistake. And such, indeed, will your antagonist appear to you, another
past self--in all points in which the falsity is not too plainly a
derivation from a corrupt heart and the predominance of bad passion or
worldly interests overlaying the love of truth as truth. And even in
this case the liveliness with which you will so often have expressed
yourself in your private note-books, in which the words, unsought for
and untrimmed because intended for your own eye, exclusively, were the
first-born of your first impressions, when you were either enkindled by
admiration of your writer, or excited by a humble disputing with him
reimpersonated in his book, will be of no mean rhetorical advantage to
you, especially in public and extemporary debate or animated
conversation.
[Sidenote: THE IDEA OF GOD]
Did you deduce your own being? Even that is less absurd than the conceit
of deducing the Divine being? Never would you have had the notion, had
you not had the idea--rather, had not the idea worked in you like the
memory of a name which we cannot recollect and yet feel that we have and
which reveals its existence in the mind only by a restless anticipation
and proves its _a priori_ actuality by the almost explosive
instantaneity with which it is welcomed and recognised on its
re-emersion out of the cloud, or its re-ascent from the horizon of
consciousness.
[Sidenote: APHORISMS AND ADAGES]
I should like to know whether or how far the delight I feel, and have
always felt, in adages or aphorisms of universal or very extensive
application is a general or common feeling with men, or a peculiarity of
my own mind. I cannot describe how much pleasure I have derived from
"Extremes meet," for instance, or "Treat everything according to its
nature," and, the last, "Be"! In the last I bring all inward rectitude
to its test, in the former all outward morality to its rule, and in the
first all problematic results to their solution, and reduce apparent
contraries to correspondent opposites. How many hostile tenets has it
enabled me to contemplate as fragments of truth, false only by negation
and mutual exclusion?
[Sidenote: IGNORE THYSELF July 12, 1822]
I have myself too often of late used the phrase "rational self-love" the
same as "enlightened self-love." O no more of this! What have love,
reason or light to do with _self_, except as the dark and evil spirit
which it is given to them to overcome! _Soul-love_, if you please. O
there is more stuff of thought in our simple and pious fore-elders'
adjuration, "Take pity of your poor soul!" than in all the volumes of
Paley, Rochefoucauld, and Helvetius!
[Sidenote: RUGIT LEO]
N.B.--The injurious manner in which men of genius are treated, not only
as authors, but even when they are in social company. _A_ is believed to
be, or talked of as, a man of unusual talent. People are anxious to
meet him. If he says little or nothing, they wonder at the report, never
considering whether they themselves were fit either to excite, or if
self-excited to receive and comprehend him. But with the simplicity of
genius he attributes more to them than they have, and they put questions
that cannot be answered but by a return to first principles, and then
they complain of him as not conversing, but lecturing. "He is quite
intolerable," "Might as well be hearing a sermon." In short, in answer
to some objection, _A_ replies, "Sir, this rests on the distinction
between an _idea_ and an _image_, and, likewise, its difference from a
perfect _conception_." "Pray, sir, explain." Because he does not and
cannot [state the case as concisely as if he had been appealed to about
a hand at] whist, 'tis "Lord! how long he talks," and they never ask
themselves, Did this man force himself into your company? Was he not
dragged into it? What is the practical result? That the man of genius
should live as much as possible with beings that simply love him, from
relationship or old association, or with those that have the same
feelings with himself; but in all other company he will do well to cease
to be the man of genius, and make up his mind to appear dull or
commonplace as a companion, to be the most silent except upon the most
trivial subjects of any in the company, to turn off questions with a
joke or a pun as not suiting a wine-table, and to trust only to his
writings.
[Sidenote: A BROKEN HEART]
Few die of a _broken heart_, and these few (the surgeons tell us) know
nothing of it, and, dying suddenly, leave to the dissector the first
discovery. O this is but the shallow remark of a hard and unthinking
prosperity! Have you never seen a stick broken in the middle, and yet
cohering by the rind? The fibres, half of them actually broken and the
rest sprained and, though tough, unsustaining? O many, many are the
broken-hearted for those who know what the moral and practical heart of
the man is!
[Sidenote: VOX HIEMALIS Thursday, Sept. 30, 1824]
Now the breeze through the stiff and brittle-becoming foliage of the
trees counterfeits the sound of a rushing stream or water-flood suddenly
sweeping by. The sigh, the modulated continuousness of the murmur is
exchanged for the confusion of overtaking sounds--the self-evolution of
the One, for the clash or stroke of ever-commencing contact of the
multitudinous, without interspace, by confusion. The short gusts rustle
and the ear feels the unlithesome dryness, before the eye detects the
coarser, duller, though deeper green, deadened and not [yet] awakened
into the hues of decay--echoes of spring from the sepulchral vault of
winter. The aged year, conversant with the forms of its youth and
forgetting all the intervals, feebly reproduces them [as it were, from],
memory.
[Sidenote: CONSTANCY Friday, June 9, 1826]
"Constancy lives in realms above." This exclusion of constancy from the
list of earthly virtues may be a poet's exaggeration, but, certainly, it
is of far rarer occurrence in _all_ relations of life than the young and
warm-hearted are willing to believe, but in cases of _exclusive_
attachment (that is, in Love, properly so-called, and yet distinct from
Friendship), and in the _highest_ form of the Virtue, it is _so_ rare
that I cannot help doubting whether an instance of _mutual_ constancy in
effect ever existed. For there are two sorts of constancy, the one
negative, where there is no _transfer_ of affection, where the bond of
attachment is not broken though it may be attenuated to a thread--this
may be met with, not so seldom, and, where there is goodness of heart,
it may be expected--but the other sort, or _positive_ constancy, where
the affection endures in the same intensity with the same or increased
tenderness and _nearness_, of this it is that I doubt whether once in an
age an instance occurs where _A_ feels it toward _B_, and _B_ feels it
towards _A_, and _vice versâ_.
[Sidenote: FLOWERS AND LIGHT April 18, 1826]
Spring flowers, I have observed, look best in the day, and by sunshine:
but summer and autumnal flower-pots by lamp or candle-light. I have now
before me a flower-pot of cherry-blossoms, polyanthuses, double violets,
periwinkles, wall-flowers, but how dim and dusky they look! The scarlet
anemone is an exception, and three or four of them with all the rest of
the flower-glass sprays of white blossoms, and one or two periwinkles
for the sake of the dark green leaves, green stems, and flexible elegant
form, make a lovely group both by sun and by candle-light.
Grove, Highgate.
[Sidenote: THE BREATH OF SPRING Feb. 28, 1827]
What an interval! Heard the singing birds this morning in our garden for
the first time this year, though it rained and blew fiercely; but the
long frost has broken up, and the wind, though fierce, was warm and
westerly.
[Sidenote: THE IDEA OF LIFE May 5, 1827]
To the right understanding of the most awfully _concerning_ declaration
of Holy Writ there has been no greater obstacle than the want of insight
into the nature of Life--what it is and what it is not. But in order to
this, the mind must have been raised to the contemplation of the
_Idea_--the life celestial, to wit--or the distinctive essence and
character of the Holy Spirit. Here Life is _Love_--communicative,
outpouring love. _Ergo_, the terrestrial or the Life of Nature ever the
shadow and opposite of the Divine is appropriative, absorbing
_appetence_. But the great mistake is, that the soul cannot continue
without life; for, if so, with what propriety can the portion of the
reprobate soul be called Death? What if the natural life have two
possible terminations--true Being and the falling back into the dark
Will?
[Sidenote: A COMPREHENSIVE FORMULA]
The painter-parson, Rev. Mr. Judkin, is about to show off a Romish
priest converted to the Protestant belief, on Sunday next at his church,
and asked of me (this day, at Mr. Gray's, Friday, 27th July, 1827)
whether I knew of any form of recantation but that of Archbishop
Tenison. I knew nothing of Tenison's or any other, but expressed my
opinion that no other recantation ought to be required than a
declaration that he admitted no outward authority superior to, or
co-ordinate with, the canonical Scriptures, and no interpreter that
superseded or stood in the place of the Holy Spirit, enlightening the
mind of each true believer, according to his individual needs. I can
conceive a person holding all the articles that distinguish the Romish
from the Protestant conception, with this one exception; and, yet, if he
did make this exception, and professed to believe them, because he
thought they were contained in, or to be fairly inferred from, right
reason and the Scriptures, I should consider him as true a Protestant
as Luther, Knox, or Calvin, and a far better than Laud and his
compeers, however meanly I might think of him as a philosopher and
theologian. The laying so great a stress on transubstantiation I have
long regarded as the great calamity or error of the Reformation--if not
constrained by circumstances, the great _error_--or, if constrained, the
great _calamity_.
[Sidenote: THE NIGHT IS AT HAND August 1, 1828]
The sweet prattle of the chimes--counsellors pleading in the court of
Love--then the clock, the solemn sentence of the mighty Judge--long
pause between each pregnant, inappellable word, too deeply weighed to be
reversed in the High-Justice-Court of Time and Fate. A more richly
solemn sound than this eleven o'clock at Antwerp I never heard--dead
enough to be opaque as central gold, yet clear enough to be the mountain
air.
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES
_Abergavenny, The_, 132
Achilles, 25
Adam, 51
Adar River, 261
Africa, 70, 71
Alexander the Great, 256
Alfieri, 230
Allen, Robert, 139, 140 _n_
Allston, Washington, 167, 175
Anacreon, 183, 263
Antonio, St., 78
Antwerp, 307
Aphrodite, 192
Apollo, 110
Ariosto, 151, 230
Aristotle, 183, 222, 268, 298
Arne, 270
Arrian, 183
Augustine, St., 179
Bacon, F. (Lord Verulam), 21, 79, 151, 177, 183, 298
Ball, Sir Alexander, 206
Ball, Lady, 92
Barrow, J., 26, 47
Bassenthwaite, 18
Barclay, W. ("Argenis"), 207
Beaumont, Francis, 207
Beaumont, Sir George, 67, 79, 145
Beaumont, Lady, 67
Beddoes, Thomas, M.D., 239 _n_
Bentham, 127
Berkeley, Bishop, 183
Bernard, Saint, 273
Bernouilli, 152
Beverley, 94
Blackmore, 24, 270
Blount, Sir Edward, 63
Blumenbach, 67
Boccaccio, 46
Bonnet, 152
Borrowdale, 34, 35, 52
Bosch, 182
Boyer, J., 14
Brandelhow, 46
Bristol, 293 _n_
Brunck, 182
Brougham, Lord, 250
Brown, Dr. J., 14
Browne, William, 158 and _n_
Bruno, Giordano, 16, 17 _n_, 72, 73, 151
Buffon, 209
Buonaparte, 75
Burdett, Sir F., 174, 255
Burton, Robert, 25
Cain, 51
Cairns, M. J., 9
Calvin, 307
Cambridge, 214
Campbell, T., 156
Campeachy, Bay of, 208
Caracciolo, 87
Caernarvon Castle, 71
Castle Crag, 34
Castlerigg, 43
Catullus, 165
Cecilia, St., 200
Ceres, 110
Cervantes, 152
Chantrey, 286
Charlemagne, 170
Chartreuse, 119
Chaucer, 296
Chersites, Theodoras, 21
China, 29, 132, 151
Christ's Hospital, 46, 295
Cicero, 23 _n_
Circe, 192
Clarkson, Thomas, 24
Clarkson, Mrs., 167
Claudian, 165
Clotharius, 211
Cobbett, W., 76, 255
Cochrane (Earl of Dundonald). 237
Coleorton, 171 _n_
Coleridge, Berkeley, 120
Coleridge, Derwent, 18, 29, 120
Coleridge, Hartley, 3, 13, 15, 24, 40, 41, 65, 66, 96, 135, 296
Coleridge, Colonel James, 158 _n_.
Coleridge, S. T., 9, 23 _n_, 64 _n_, 75 _n_, 103, 140 _n_, 157 and _n_,
158 _n_, 169, 177 _n_, 195 _n_, 196 _n_, 203 _n_, 211 _n_, 225 _n_,
236 _n_, 242 _n_, 246 _n_, 248 _n_, 263 _n_, 273 _n_, 293 _n_,
295 and _n_
Coleridge, Sara (Mrs. S. T.), 9, 218, 295
Coleridge, Sara (Mrs. H. N. Coleridge), 120, 208 _n_.
Collins, 5
Combe, S., 129
Combe Satchfield, 158 _n_.
Condillac, 79
Constantine, Budæo-Tusan, 182
Cordova, 287
Cottle, Joseph, 60, 86, 235
_Courier_ Office, 193, 203 _n_
Cowper, William, 121, 128
Cuthill, Mr., 182, 183
Dampier, Travels of, 208
Dante, 25, 151, 229, 230, 293
Daphnis, D'Orvilles, 183
Darwin, Dr., 5, 92, 151, 280
David, King, 235
Davy, Sir H., 218
Dennison, Mr., 144, 146
De Quincey, 177 _n_, 183
Diogenes, 97
Domitian, 159
Drayton, 154
Dresden, 85
Dryden, 159
Duke Richard, 158 _n_
Dundas (Lord Melville), 151
Durham, 35, 36
Dyer, George, 9 _n_, 67
Edgeworth, Miss, 117
Elizabeth, Queen, 231
Empedocles, 163
Eolus, 193
Epictetus, 183
Erigena, Joannes Scotus, 58
Escot, 157 _n_
Etna, 114
Euphormio, 207
Exeter, 67
Favell, 28 _n_
Fay, Benedict, 154
Fénelon, 133
Fichte, 106, 133, 169, 183
Fielding, 166, 167
Flaminius, 207, 263
Fletcher, John, 207
Fracastorius, 148, 207, 263
France, 75, 119, 120, 152
Geddes, Dr. Alexander, 109 _n_
Geneva, Lake of, 261
Genoa, 7
Germany, 8 _n_, 151, 169, 284, 289
Gibbon, 272
Gillman, James, 296, 297
Gillman, Mrs., 273
Glanvillians, The, 281
Godwin, W., 13, 66, 68
Goethe, 229
Göttingen, 67
Grasmere, 76, 132
Gray, Thomas, 5, 270
Greece, 110, 177, 206, 289
Greenough, 68
Greta River, 19, 29, 43, 44
Greta Hall, 218 _n_
Greville, Fulk, 17
Grysdale Pike, 19, 46
Guarini, 191
Guyon, Madame, 133, 152
Haarlem, 67
Halim II., 287
Hamburg, 101
Harrington, J., 79, 151
Hartz, 211 and _n_
Hayley, 151
Hazlitt, W., 9, 35, 36
Hebrides, 129
Helvellyn, 52
Helvetius, 301
Henry, Prince, 158
Herbert's, St., Island, 32
Hobbes, 13, 183
Holcroft, 66, 68
Homer, 207, 270
Horace, 176
Hume, David, 24, 79, 102, 151, 272
Huss, 215
Hutchinson, Mary (Mrs. Wordsworth), 8 _n_, 20
Hutchinson, Sarah, 8 _n_
India, 132
Ireland, 177
Italy, 152, 229
Java, 271
Jennings, J., 60
Johnson, Dr., 115, 151, 155, 272
Jonson, Ben, 207
Judkin, Rev. Mr., 306
Kant, 12, 106, 151, 169, 183
Keswick, 54 _n_, 101
Klopstock, 101, 229
Knox, John, 164, 307
Lamb, Charles, 66, 140 _n_.
Latrigg, 60 _n_
Laud, 307
Lavater, 223
Leckie, 183
Leibnitz, 147, 151, 152, 183
Leighton, 287
Lessing, 151
Linnæus, 268
Lloyd, Charles, 107
Lloyd, David, 230
Locke, 24, 151, 155, 183, 185
Loch Leven, 208
Lodore, 34
London, 9, 28, 194
Lorraine, Claude, 286
Lupus, 211
Luther, 11, 152, 215, 239, 307
Lyceum, 193
Lyonnet, 94
Mackintosh, Sir J., 6, 126, 198
Malone, E., 88, 89 _n_
Malta, 75 _n_, 83, 87, 98, 104, 107, 130, 140 _n_, 144, 187, 197
Malthus, Rev. J., 64
Marathon, 74 _n_
Marini, G. B., 191
Martial, 159
Massinger, 207
Mediterranean, 85, 109
Metastasio, 166, 229
Middleton, Sir Hugh, 250
Milton, 14, 24, 72, 73, 120, 151, 152, 159, 161, 215 _n_, 229, 253,
271, 296, 297, 298
Mohammed, 290, 291 _n_.
Molière, 152
Montagu, Basil, 218 _n_.
Moses, 9, 268
Mylius, Johann Christoph., 96
Naples, King of, 87
Naucratius, 21
Nelson, Lord, 237
Newlands, 52
Newmarket, 168
New River, 168
Newton, Sir Isaac, 214
Nile, 20
Norway, 284
Okenist, An, 291
Orleans, 211
Otter River, 29
Otterton, 158 _n_
Ottery St. Mary, 29, 157 _n_, 158 _n_
Ovid, 165
Paine, Tom, 226
Paley, Archdeacon, 35, 151, 155, 265, 301
Paracelsus, 14, 232
Parisatis, 176
Parkinson (_Theatrum Botanicum_), 59
Pascal, 152
Pasley, Captain, 145, 154
Paul, Jean (Richter), 235
Paul, St., 93, 163
Penelope, Nature a, 100
Peter, St., 215
Petrarch, 262, 263 _n_
Picts, The, 129
Pindar, 168
Pitt, 151
Plato, 31, 133, 183, 298
Plotinus, 48, 49, 183
Polyclete, 192
Poole, T., 70, 153
Pope, 151, 166, 233
Porphyry, 183
Port Royal, 208
Porte, The, 289
Portugal, 140 _n_
Price, Dr., 167
Priestley, Dr., 151, 155
Prince, The Black, 71
Proclus, 17, 63, 183
Proserpine, 110
Psyche, 89, 109, 142
Pygmalion, 192
Pyramids, The, 258
Pythagoras, 55, 231
Quintilian, 23 _n_
Raleigh, Sir W., 148, 250
Raphael, 286
Ray (or Wray), John, 35, 36
Reignia, Captain, 89
Reimarus, Herman Samuel, 91 _n_, 92
Rhone River, 261
Richardson, Samuel, 166, 167
Rickman, J., 67
Robertson, William, 272
Rochefoucauld, 301
Rock, Captain (son of), 208
Rogers, Samuel, 156
Rome, Church of, 58, 124, 215
Rome, 110, 129, 206, 289
Russia, 170, 289
Scapula, 182
Scarlett (James Lord Abinger), 198
Schelling, 169, 183
Schiller, 150, 161, 181, 211 _n_, 229
Scott, Sir Walter, 74 _n_
Scotus, Duns, 222
Sens, 211
Shakspere, 21, 24, 71, 72, 73, 88, 89 _n_, 97, 108, 115, 127, 128, 145,
147, 150, 151, 152, 161, 180, 286, 297, 298
Sharp, Grenville, 250
Sharp, Richard, 158, 198
Sheridan, R. B., 41, 177
Shield, 270
Sidney, Sir Philip, 17, 151
Simonides, 163
Skiddaw, 18, 19, 52
Smith, Robert, 198
Smith, Sydney, 198
Sorel, Dr., 107
Sotheby, William, 53
South, 47
Southey, 6, 28 _n_, 36, 107, 158 _n_, 221, 290
Spain, 70, 152, 287
Spenser, 296
Spinoza, 57, 81, 183
Staunton, Sir G., 271
Stephen's, St., 211
Stephen's Thesaurus, 182
Stewart, Sir James, 1
Stoddart (Dr. afterwards Sir J.), 74, 75 _n_, 107, 140 _n_, 167
Stowey, Upper, 143
Stowey, Nether, 60 _n_
Strabo, Geographicus, 179
Strada, Prolusions of, 183
Strozzi, Giambatista, 225
Stuart, Daniel, 195
Sweden, 284
Swedenborg, 286
Swift, Dean, 24, 151, 164
Swinside, 19
Switzerland, 129
Syracuse, 95
Tantalus, 234
Taylor, Dorothy, 158 _n_
Taylor, Frances, 158 _n_
Taylor, Jeremy, 12, 20, 76, 298
Taylor, Thomas, 17
Teme, Valley of, 26
Tenison, Archbishop, 306
Theophrastus, 268
Tiberius, 37
Tibullus, 165
Tobin, J., 68, 139, 140 _n_
Tyrol, The, 284
Underwood, Mr., 68
Unzer, D., 94
Valetta, 75 _n_, 144
Van Huysum, 286
Varrius, 134
Vida, 263
Vincent, Captain, 134
Virgil, 263
Virginia, 94
Voltaire, 152
Voss, 151, 229
Vossius, 134
Wade, Mr., 293 _n_
Wedgwood, T., 27, 91
Whinlatter, 46, 50
White, Mr. (of Clare Hall, Camb.), 225
Wickliffe, 215
Wieland, 229
Wilberforce, 250
Willoughby, Lord, 231
Wilson, John, 60 _n_
Windybrow, 60 _n_
Withop Fells, 47
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 66
Wordsworth, Dorothy, 60 _n_
Wordsworth, John, 132
Wordsworth, William, 4, 10 _n_, 30, 35, 36, 60 _n_, 70, 71,
79, 101, 131, 137, 138 _n_, 147, 151, 163, 169, 171 _n_,
201 _n_, 207, 208 _n_, 221, 251 _n_
Wyndham, 41, 237
Zinzendorf, 286
INDEX OF TITLES
NOTE.--_Brief paragraphs and sentences to which no title has been given,
in the text will be found indexed under the following headings._
Abstruse Research, 53-56
Anecdotes, A Sheaf of, 66-68
Aphorisms and Pithy Sentences, 253-256
Comparisons and Contrasts, 5-7
Country and Town, 28-29
Dreams and Shadows, 172-173
Duty and Experience, 2-3
For the _Soother in Absence_, 84-85; 86-87; 95-97; 99-100; 115-118;
147-150; 159-161; 162-165; 175-180
Hints for _The Friend_, 209, 210; 221-223; 230-233
Observations and Reflections, 17-21
_Seriores Rosæ_, 274
Things Visible and Invisible, 7-14
Thoughts, a Crowd of, 58-61
Thoughts and Fancies, 22-25
Transcripts from my Velvet Pocket Books, 26-28
INDEX
_Abstruse Research_, 53-55
Face, the phantom of, 54
Eye-spectra, 55
Reluctance of mind to analyse, 53
Soul within the body. Window at Keswick, 54
A bliss, &c., 264
Adam's death, 51
Alas! they had been friends, &c., 62
Allston, To, 169
All thoughts, all passions, &c., 224
A man's a man, &c., 51
Analogy, 89-91
Anecdote, a genuine, 218
_Anecdotes, a Sheaf of_, 66-68
Beaumont, Sir G., and gauze spectacles, 67
Beaumont, Lady, her prayers, 67
Göttingen and the _hospes_, 67
Godwin, Holcroft, and Underwood, 68
Holcroft and M. Wollstonecraft, 66
Exeter, the organ pipe, 67
Lamb, Charles, a call upon, 66
Rickman and George Dyer, 67
Anticipations in Nature, &c., 136
Aphorisms and Adages, 300-301
_Aphorisms and Pithy Sentences_, 253-256
Bookmaking, 256
Burdett, Sir Francis, 255
Catamaran, man compared with, 253
Convalescence without love, 254
Half-reconciliation, 254
Hunter, the light of his torch, 255
Love, inspired by superiority, 253
Money, the depreciation of, 254
Peninsulating river, 255
Philosophy, its plummet-line, 255
Sun, the rosy fingers of, 254
Vision and appetite, 255
Architecture and Climate, 194
Art, the pyramid in, 98
An afterthought, 99
As the sparks fly upward, 110
Ascend a step, etc., 158-159
Aspiration, a pious, 213
Association, 226
Association, of streamy, 55
A time to cry out, 220-221
Attention and sensation, 128
_Auri sacra fames_, 44
Ave Phoebe Imperator, 63
Being, the three estates of, 294
Bells, concerning, 210-212
Clotharius, 211
Latin distichs, 210
Names of bells, 211
Passing bells, 211
Waggon-horse, &c., in the Hartz, 211
Note on Schiller's 'Song of the Bell,' &c., 211
Bibliological memoranda, 182-183
Bird, the captive, 193
Birds caged, especially the robin, 194
Bliss, a land of, 286-287
Book-knowledge and experience, 129
Book-learning for legislators, 285
Books in the air, 206-207
Bright October, 34
Browne, William, of Ottery and Note, 157-158
Bruno, Giordano, 16, 17
Bulls in action, 156
But love is indestructible, 250
Candour another name for cant, 75
Catholic reunion, 215
Cast not your pearls, &c., 80-81
Ceres, the conversion of, 110
_C'est magnifique_, etc., 258
Children of a larger growth, 204
Christabel, a hint for, 223
Chymical analogies, 204-206
Clerical errors, the psychology of, 181-182
_Cogitare est laborare_, 66
Communicable, the, 32
_Comparisons and Contrasts_, 5-7
Constitution, the, and rotten cheese, 6
Eyes, meaning glances from, 6
Genoa, "Liberty" on prisons of, 7
Gratitude, the curse of, 7
Intellect, snails of, 6
Mackintosh, the style of, 6
Malice, 6
Minds, pygmy, 6
Poetry, the effect of, 5
Sot, the prayer of, 7
Southey, an ostrich, 6
Trout, his likeness to, 5
Truth, the blindness of, 7
Two dew-drops, 6
Worldly-minded men, like owls, 7
Columba, St., 129
Conceits, verbal, 108
Conscience and immortality, 201-3
Constancy, etc., 304
Conversation, his, a nimiety, &c., 103-104
Converts, the intolerance of, 74
_Corruptio optimi pessima_, 92, 263
Cottle, an apology for, 86
Cottle, free version of the Psalms, 235
_Country and Town_, 28-29
Calf-lowing, a reminiscence of Ottery, 29
Coloured bottles, reflections of, 28
Country, depraving effect of, 25
Lecture, dream concerning a, 29
Smiles on men and mountains, 29
Stones like life, and life motionless as stones, 28
Critics, immature, 128
Criticism, a principle of, 30
Criticism, minute, 167
Darwin's "Botanical Garden," 280
Death, the realisation of, 139-140
Delusion, an optical, 47
Devil, the, with a memory, 161-162
Devil, the, a recantation, 259-260
Distemper's worst calamity, 126-127
Distinction in union, 184
_Document humain_, 168
Dream, a, and a parenthesis, 40
Dreams, order in, 134
_Dreams and Shadows_, 172-173
Idea, the descent of, 172
Taper's cone of flame, a simile, 172
"As in life's noisiest hour," etc., 172
"You mould my thoughts," etc., 173
Drip, drip, drip, drip, 165
_Duty and Experience_, 2, 3
Human happiness, 3
Chymistry, a noble, 3
Metaphysical opinion in anguish, 3
Misfortunes a fertilising rain, 2
Pleasure and pain, 2
Real pain a panacea, 2
Duty and self-interest, 130-131
Early death, 44, 45
Easter, the Northern, 138
Education, of, 227-228
Ego, the, 15
Egotism, 14
Empyrean, the, 125
England, the righteousness of, 284
Enthusiasm, 139
Entity, a superfluous, 217
Entomology _v._ ontology, 94
Epigram, a divine, 273
Error, a life-long (his age), 295
Etymology, 123-124
Evil, the origin of, 36-42
Evil produces evil, 131
Experience and book knowledge, 129-130
Experiment, a doubtful, 56
Extremes meet, 52, 53
Facts and Fiction, 75
Fallings from us vanishings, 180-181
"Floods and general inundations," 282
First thoughts and friendship, 251, 252
Flowers and light, 304, 305
Flowers of speech, 269, 270
Form and feeling, 101
Formula, a comprehensive, 306-307
"For compassion a human heart," 282
_For the soother in absence_, 84-85
Dreams and reveries, 85
Dresden, the engraved cherry-stone, 85
Mediterranean, the white sails on, 85
Outwardly happy but no joy within, 84
Sunset in winter, and summer-set, 84
_For the soother in absence_, 86-87
Caracciolo and his floating corse, 87
Final causes, 87
Moonlight, crinkled circles on the sea, 87
Religion repels the gay, 86
Vicious thoughts and rhyme-terminations, 86
Diogenes, why not? 97
Interest and satisfaction, 97
_For the soother in absence_, 95-97
Language, its growth, etc., 95
Medical romance--a title, 96
Mylius, 96
Poets the bridlers of delight, 96
Quintetta, the, in the Syracuse Opera, 95
Recollections of pre-existent state, 96
Tarantula dance of argumentation, 97
_For the soother in absence_, 99-100
_Quisque sui faber_, 99
Nature a Penelope, 100
Root to the crown--growth of the flower, 99
_For the soother in absence_, 115-118
Admiralty Court maxims, 116
Convoy from England, 115
Cyphers, 118
Death and the sleeping baby, 118
Faults and forewarnings, Miss Edgeworth, 117
Johnson, Dr., and Shakspere, 115
Pen-slit, the action of, 118
Sealing-wax--where was it? 116
Totalising, disease of, 116
Voice and eye--precedence and sequence, 118
Wafers, Maltese, 115
_For the soother in absence_, 147-150
Conscience and watches, 150
Contra-reasoning and controversy, 149
Earthly losses and heaven, 150
Eye, the twofold power of, 149
Facts and the relation of them, 148
Metaphor and reality, 149
Negation begets errors, 147
Speculative men not unpractical, 148
War, the weariness of, no excuse for peace, 148
Word-play a cat's cradle, 149
Worldly men, their belief in sincerity, 149
_For the soother in absence_, 159-161
_Co-arctation_, 161
Dull souls may become great poet's bodies, 161
Judgment compared to Belgic towns, 160
Lover married, a frog in a well, 160
Music and the genus and particular, 160
Originality not claimed by the original, 160
Shorthandists for the House of Commons, 161
Stiletto and the rosary, 159
Water-lily and the sponge, 160
_For the Soother in Absence_, 162-164
Death and the tree of life, 163
Grave, our growth in, 163
Irish architect, 164
_Scopæ viarum_, 164
Shooting stars and bedtime, 162
Sleep, the lovers', 164
Swift and the pine-tree, 164
Truth and action, 164
Wordsworth, an aspiration, 163
Yellowing leaflets, 163
_For the Soother in Absence_, 175-180
Affliction and adversity, 176
_Allapse_ of serpents, 176
Atmosphere, every man his own, 176
Augustine, St., and a friend's misjudgment, 179
Blast, the, 178
Blue sky, yellow green at twilight, 175
Greece, the genius of, 177
Hayfield and still life, 175
_Heu! quam miserum_, 177
Indian fig and death of an immortal, 177
Kings, what kind of gods? 176
Love, the mighty works of, 178
Metallic pencils, 175
Parisatis, and the poisoned knife, 176
Peacock moulting, 178
Shadow, 177
Sheridan, and Bacon, 177
Sunflowers, 175
Strabo Geographicus on genius, 179
Two faces, etc., 176-177
Tycho Brahe, a subject for Allston, 175
Water-wagtails, 178
Woman, a passionate, a simile, 178
French language and poetry, 118-120
Friendship and marriage, 235-236
Genius, 233
Genius, his own, 197-198
German philosophy, his indebtedness to, 106
God, the idea of, 300
Great and little minds, 293
Great men and national worth, 150-152
Hail and farewell, 218
Halfway house, the, 195-197
Happiness made perfect, 142
Hazlitt, W., 36
Health, independence, and friendship, 248
Heart, a broken, 303
Heaviness, may endure, &c., 239, 240
Hesperus, 247, 248
_Hinc illa marginalia_, 91-92
_Hints for the Friend_, 209, 210
Authors and Buffon's fan, 209
Conscience good, and fine weather, 209
Great deeds, great hearts, and great states, 209
Hypocrisy, 210
Massy misery, 210
Mystery from wilful deafness, 210
No glory and no Christianity, a total eclipse, 210
Proud ignorance, 210
Reformers like scourers of silver plate, 209
_Hints for the Friend_, 221-223
Conscience, a pure, like a life-boat, 221
Dame Quickly on parties, 222
Duns Scotus on faith, 222
Foliage, not the trunk, 223
Helvetius, his selenography, 221
Lavater and Narcissus, 223
Pope, the, a simile, 233
Reliance on God and man, 222
Reviewers like jurymen, 223
_Hints for the Friend_, 230-233
Amboynese, and their clove trees, 232
Eloign, a word of Queen Elizabeth's, 231
Esoteric Christianity, 231
Mathematics and metaphysics, 230
Monsoon, the Chinese elephant, 232
Nature, the perception of, a comparison, 232
Paracelsus, on new words, 232
Partisans or opponents, how to address them, 231
Hope, the moon's halo an emblem of, 238
Humanity, the hope of, 137, 138
Humility, the lover's, 188
Hypothesis, of a new, 105
I will lift up, etc., 101
Idea, the birth of, 109
Idealist, the, at bay, 277-279
"If a man could pass through paradise," 282
Ignore thyself, 301
Illusion (Mr. Dennison and the "bottle man"), 144-147
Imagination 'eisenoplasy,' 236
In a twinkling of an eye, 185-186
In wonder all philosophy began, 185
Incommunicable, the, 31
Infancy and infants, 3, 4
Infinite, the, and the finite, 81
_Inopem me copia fecit_, 189
Insects, 271
_Spiders' webs in Java_, 271
_Libellulidæ_, 271
_Tipulidæ minimæ_, 271
Islamism, 287, 288
"Kingdom of Heavenite," a, 273
Knave, a treacherous, 28
Knowledge, a royal road to, 298-300
Knowledge and Understanding, 173
Landing places, 157
Law and gospel, 214
Liberty, the cap of, 203
Life, the idea of, 305
Light, the inward, 48
_Litera scripta manet_, 121
Love, 1-2
Affected by jealousy, 1
soother of misfortune, 2
Disappointed, 2
The transformer, 2
Love, 233-235
Love, the adolescence of, 68
Love, the divine essence, 133-134
Love and duty, 140-142
Love, the ineffable, 191-192
Love and music, 200-201
Lover, the humble complaint of, 190
Loves, of first, 153-154
_Lucus a non lucendo_, 200
Magnitude, the sense of, 112-115
Maiden's primer, 195
Marriage, the ideal, 216
Mean, the danger of, 62
Means to ends, 107
Mediterranean, the, 100
"A brisk gale and the foam," 100
Memorandum, a serious, 79
Metaphysic, a defence of, 42
Metaphysician, the, at bay, 106
Metaphysic, the aim of his, 42
Milton's blank verse, 253
Milton and Shakspere, 296-8
Mohammed, the flight of, 290-291
Moment, a, and a magic mirror, 245-246
Monition, the rage for, 68-70
Moonlight gleams and massy glories, 171
Moonset, a, 50
Morning, a gem of, 187
_Mot propre_, the passion for, 155
Mother wit, 226
Motion, the psychology of, 56-57
_Multum in parvo_, 85
Name it and you break it, 198
Nature, the night side of, 45-47
_Ne quid nimis_, 89
_Nefas est ab hoste doceri_, 76
Neither bond nor free, 195
Neutral pronoun, a, 190
Night, in the visions of, 43, 44
Nightmare, the hag, 243-245
_Noscitur a sociis_, 32
Not the beautiful, etc., 49-50
_Obductâ fronte senectus_, 272-273
_Observations and Reflections_, 17-21
Ashes in autumn, 19
Citizens eat, rustics drink, 19
Definition hostile to images, 19
First cause and source of the Nile, 20
Love poems, a scheme of, 20
Moon, the setting, 18
My birthday, 19
Northern Lights, Derwent's birthday, 18
Shakspere and Naucratius, 21
Soul the mummy, an emblem, 20
Spring with cone of sand, 17
Stability and Instability, the cause of, 19
State, the eye of, 18
Superiors and inferiors, 20
Truths and feelings, 18
Two moon-rainbows, 19
Of a too witty book, 280-281
Official distrust, 83
O star benign! 76
O thou whose fancies, etc., 15-16
Omniscient, the comforter, 127
One music as before, etc. 168
One, the, and the good, 63
One, the many and the, 77
Opera, the, 82
Orange blossom, 134-136
Over-blaming, the danger of, 198
[Greek: PANTA RHEI], 183-184
_Pars altera mei_, 49
Partisans and renegades, 173-174
Past and present, 1
People, the spirit of a, 288-290
Petrarch's epistles, 262, 263
Phantoms of sublimity, 170
Philanthropy and self-advertisement, 249, 250
Philosophy the friend of poetry, 78
Pindar, 168
Places and persons, 70-74
Poet, a, on poetry, 294
Poet, the, and the spider, 32
Poetic licence, a plea for, 165-166
Poetry, 4
Correction of, 4
Dr. Darwin, 5
Elder languages, the fitter for, 5
Ode, definition of, 4
Poetry and prose, 229-230
Poets as critics of poets, 127-128
Populace and people, 174
Posterity, a caution to, 159
Practical man, a, 199-200
Praise, the meed of, 284
Presentiments, 256-257
Price, Dr., 167-168
Prophecy, the manufacture of, 192-193
Prudence _versus_ friendship, 291-293
Pseudo-poets, 156
Psychology in youth and maturity, 218
Public opinion and the services, 237
Purgatory, an intellectual, 152-153
Rain, the maddening, 154
Recollection and remembrance, 57
Reimarus and the instinct of animals, 92-95
Religion, spiritual, 138, 218-219
_Remedium amoris_, 266
Richardson, 166-167
Righteousness, the sun of, 162
_Rugit leo_, 301-303
Save me from my friends, 264-265
Science and philosophy, 261-262
Scholastic terms, a plea for, 274-275
Schoolman, a Unitarian, 58
Sea, the bright blue, 109
Self, the abstract, 120
Self-absorption and selfishness, 249
Self-esteem, excess of, 198, 199
Self-esteem, defect of, 199
Self-reproof, a measure in, 81-82
Sensations, the continuity of, 102, 103
Sentiment an antidote to casuistry, 124-125
Sentiment, morbid, 169-170
Sentiments below morals, 154
_Seriores Rosæ_, 274
"Lie with the ear," 274
"Like some spendthrift lord," 274
"On the same man as in a vineyard," 274
"The blossom gives not only," 274
"We all look up," 274
Sermons, ancient and modern, 237-239
Seventeen hundred and sixty yards, etc., 280
Shakspere and Malone, 88
Subject and object, 294
Silence is golden, 259
Simile, a, 76
_Sine qua non_, 186
Sleepless, the feint of the, 251
Solace, external, his need of, 167
_Solvitur suspiciendo_, 187
Sonnet, an unwritten, 295
Soul, the embryonic, 104
Spinoza, a poem on spirit or on, 61
Spinoza, the ethics of, 57
Spiritual blindness, 270
Spiritualism and mysticism, 276-277
Spooks, 281
Spring, the breath of, 305
Square, the, the circle, the pyramid, 97
Star, to the evening, 247
Style of Milton, Smectymnuus, etc., 271
Subject and object, 294
Sundog, a, 97
Sunset, a, 52
Superstition, 143-144
Supposition, a, 138
Syracuse, 78
Taste, an ethical quality, 165
Teleology and nature worship, 35
Temperament and morals, 33
That inward eye, etc., 246, 247
The body of this death, 276
The conclusion of the whole matter, 266
The greater damnation, 279
The mind's eye, 286
"The more exquisite," etc., 282
The night is at hand, 307
"The sunny mist," etc., 31
The tender mercies of the good, 208-209
"The tree or sea-weed like," etc., 31
Theism and Atheism, 285-286
_Things Visible and Invisible_, 7-14
Anthropomorphism and the Trinity, 14
Anti-optimism, 13
Babe, its sole notion of cruelty, 13
Cairns, J., on the Nazarites, 9
Child scolding a flower, 10
Children's words, analogous, 11
Dandelions, beards of, note, 10
Dyer, George, and poets' throttles, 9
Fisherman, the idle, note, 10
Friends' friends, reception by, note, 8
Godwin, a definition of, 13
Hartley's fire-place of stones, 13
Hazlitt's theory of picture and palette, 9
"Hot-headed men confuse," 11
"How," the substratum of philosophy, 13
Kingfishers' flight, 7
"Little Daisy," etc., 7
London and Nature, 8
Luther, his prejudices, 11
Comment, 11
Materialists and mystery, 14
Nightingale and frogs in Germany, note, 7
Quotations, rage for, 9
Reproaches and remorse, 12
Sickbed and prison, 12
"Slanting pillars of misty light," 9
Space a perception of additional magnitude, 12
Taylor, Jeremy, quotation from _Via Pacis_, 12
"The thin scattered rain-clouds," 12
Things perishable, thoughts imperishable, 8
Thinking and perceiving, 12
Time and likeness, 13
Upturned leaves, 10
_Thoughts, a Crowd of_, 58-61
Children and hard-skinned ass, 59
Ghost of a mountain, 60
Light as lovers love, 59
Man, epitheton of, 58
Palm, the, 61
Place and time, 59
Poets' bad and beautiful expressions, 59
Public schools, advantage of, 60
Rainbows stedfast in mist, 61
Rosemary tree, a, 59
Slang, religious, 60
Sopha of sods, note, 60
Stump of a tree, 61
Thought, a mortal agony of, 63
Thought and attention, 213-214
_Thoughts and Fancies_, 22-25
Achilles and his heel, 25
Devil at the very end of hell, 23
Dimness and numbness, 23
Friendship and comprehension, 24
Green fields after the city, 25
Happiness and paradise, 25
Hartley and the "seems," 24
Kind-hearted men refuse roughly, 23
Limbo, 22
Metaphysics, their effect on the thoughts, 23
Nature for likeness, men for difference, 25
Old world, the, and the new year, 22
Opposite talents not incompatible, 24
Poets and death, 22
Poets, his rank among, 25
Sounds and outness, 23
Swift and Socinianism, 24
Time as threefold, 22
Thought and things, 143
Thoughts-how like music at times! 139
Through doubt to faith, 85
Time an element of grief, 31
Time and eternity, 155
Time, real and imaginary, note, 241-243
_Transcripts from my velvet pocket-books_, 26-28
Action, the meanness of, 27
Barrow and the verbal imagination, 26
Candle-snuffers not discoverers, 26
Falling asleep, 27
New play compared to toy ship, 27
Plagiarist, a thief in the candle, 26
Post, its influence, 26
Quotation and conversation, 26
Repose after agitation, 27
Socinianism and methodism, 26
Teme, the valley of, 26
Universe, the federal republic of, 27
Wedgwood, T., and thoughts and things, 27
Transubstantiation, 61-62
Truth, 191, 220
Truth, the danger of adapting, &c., 228
Truth, the fixed stars of, 257
Turtle-shell, a, for household tub, 207-208
Unwin, Mrs., Cowper's lines to, 121-123
Unknown, the great, 284
Vain Glory, 203-204
_Verbum sapientibus_, 102
_Ver, zer, and al_, 187
Vexation, a complex, 283
_Vox hiemalis_, 303-304
We ask not whence, etc., 89
Wedgwood, T., and Reimarus, 91
What man has made of man, 264-265
Will, the undisciplined, 64-66
Windmill and its shadow, 77-78
Winter, a mild, 170
Woman's frowardness, 89
Words and things, 225
Words, creative power of, and images, 87
Words, the power of, 266-269
Wordsworth and _The Prelude_, 30
Wordsworth, John, 132
Worldly wise, 230
Wounded vanity, a salve for, 82-83
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. London & Edinburgh
* * * * *
Transcriber's note
The following changes have been made to the text:
Page ix: "ceasless" changed to ceaseless".
Page 73: "wordliness" changed to "worldliness".
Page 173: "PARTIZANS" changed to "PARTISANS".
Page 218: "pyschologise" changed to "psychologise".
Page 253: "strenghth" changed to "strength".
Page 320: "lifelong" changed to "life-long".
Page 320: "Caraccioli" changed to "Caracciolo".
Page 323: "philososhy" changed to "philosophy".
Page 324: "Partizans" changed to "Partisans".
Page 327: "Righteousnesss" changed to "Righteousness".
Page 330: "rainclouds" changed to "rain-clouds'.
Page 330: "hardskinned" changed to "hard-skinned".