Perhaps the attribution or analogy may seem fanciful at first sight, but I
am in the habit of realizing to myself Magnetism as length; Electricity as
breadth or surface; and Galvanism as depth.
_June 24. 1827._
SPENSER.--CHARACTER Of OTHELLO.--HAMLET.--POLONIUS.--PRINCIPLES AND
MAXIMS.--LOVE.--MEASURE FOR MEASURE.--BEN JONSON.--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.--
VERSION OF THE BIBLE.--SPURZHEIM.--CRANIOLOGY.
Spenser's Epithalamion is truly sublime; and pray mark the swan-like
movement of his exquisite Prothalamion. [1] His attention to metre and
rhythm is sometimes so extremely minute as to be painful even to my ear,
and you know how highly I prize good versification.
[Footnote 1:
How well I remember this Midsummer-day! I shall never pass such another.
The sun was setting behind Caen Wood, and the calm of the evening was so
exceedingly deep that it arrested Mr. Coleridge's attention. We were alone
together in Mr. Gillman's drawing-room, and Mr. C. left off talking, and
fell into an almost trance-like state for ten minutes whilst contemplating
the beautiful prospect before us. His eyes swam in tears, his head inclined
a little forward, and there was a slight uplifting of the fingers, which
seemed to tell me that he was in prayer. I was awestricken, and remained
absorbed in looking at the man, in forgetfulness of external nature, when
he recovered himself, and after a word or two fell by some secret link of
association upon Spenser's poetry. Upon my telling him that I did not very
well recollect the Prothalamion: "Then I must read you a bit of it," said
he; and, fetching the book from the next room, he recited the whole of it
in his finest and most musical manner. I particularly bear in mind the
sensible diversity of tone and rhythm with which he gave:--
"Sweet Thames! run softly till I end my song,"
the concluding line of each of the ten strophes of the poem.
When I look upon the scanty memorial, which I have alone preserved of this
afternoon's converse, I am tempted to burn these pages in despair. Mr.
Coleridge talked a volume of criticism that day, which, printed verbatim as
he spoke it, would have made the reputation of any other person but
himself. He was, indeed, particularly brilliant and enchanting; and I left
him at night so thoroughly _magnetized_, that I could not for two or three
days afterwards reflect enough to put any thing on paper,--ED.]
* * * * *
I have often told you that I do not think there is any jealousy, properly
so called, in the character of Othello. There is no predisposition to
suspicion, which I take to be an essential term in the definition of the
word. Desdemona very truly told Emilia that he was not jealous, that is, of
a jealous habit, and he says so as truly of himself. Iago's suggestions,
you see, are quite new to him; they do not correspond with any thing of a
like nature previously in his mind. If Desdemona had, in fact, been guilty,
no one would have thought of calling Othello's conduct that of a jealous
man. He could not act otherwise than he did with the lights he had; whereas
jealousy can never be strictly right. See how utterly unlike Othello is to
Leontes, in the Winter's Tale, or even to Leonatus, in Cymbeline! The
jealousy of the first proceeds from an evident trifle, and something like
hatred is mingled with it; and the conduct of Leonatus in accepting the
wager, and exposing his wife to the trial, denotes a jealous temper already
formed.
* * * * *
Hamlet's character is the prevalence of the abstracting and generalizing
habit over the practical. He does not want courage, skill, will, or
opportunity; but every incident sets him thinking; and it is curious, and
at the same time strictly natural, that Hamlet, who all the play seems
reason itself, should he impelled, at last, by mere accident to effect his
object. I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so.
* * * * *
A Maxim is a conclusion upon observation of matters of fact, and is merely
retrospective: an Idea, or, if you like, a Principle, carries knowledge
within itself, and is prospective. Polonius is a man of maxims. Whilst he
is descanting on matters of past experience, as in that excellent speech to
Laertes before he sets out on his travels, he is admirable; but when he
comes to advise or project, he is a mere dotard. [1] You see Hamlet, as the
man of ideas, despises him.
[Footnote 1: Act i. sc. 3]
* * * * *
A man of maxims only is like a Cyclops with one eye, and that eye placed in
the back of his head.
* * * * *
In the scene with Ophelia, in the third act,[1] Hamlet is beginning with
great and unfeigned tenderness; but, perceiving her reserve and coyness,
fancies there are some listeners, and then, to sustain his part, breaks out
into all that coarseness.
Love is the admiration and cherishing of the amiable qualities of the
beloved person, upon the condition of yourself being the object of their
action. The qualities of the sexes correspond. The man's courage is loved
by the woman, whose fortitude again is coveted by the man. His vigorous
intellect is answered by her infallible tact. Can it be true, what is so
constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls?--I doubt it, I doubt it
exceedingly. [2]
[Footnote 1: Sc. 1.]
[Footnote 2: Mr. Coleridge was a great master in the art of love, but he
had not studied in Ovid's school. Hear his account of the matter:--
"Love, truly such, is itself not the most common thing in the world, and
mutual love still less so. But that enduring personal attachment, so
beautifully delineated by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly,
perhaps, in the well-known ballad, 'John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in
addition to a depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence,
supposes a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature; a constitutional
communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul; a delight in the detail
of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament within,--to
count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But, above all, it
supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide of life, even in
the lustihood of health and strength, had felt oftenest and prized highest
that which age cannot take away, and which in all our lovings is _the_
love; I mean, that willing sense of the unsufficingness of the self for
itself, which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the total being of
another, the supplement and completion of its own; that quiet perpetual
seeking which the presence of the beloved object modulates, not suspends,
where the heart momently finds, and, finding again, seeks on; lastly, when
'life's changeful orb has passed the full,' a confirmed faith in the
nobleness of humanity, thus brought home and pressed, as it were, to the
very bosom of hourly experience; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt reverence
for worth, not the less deep because divested of its solemnity by habit, by
familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of modesty which
will arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious of possessing the
same, or the correspondent, excellence in their own characters. In short,
there must be a mind, which, while it feels the beautiful and the excellent
in the beloved as its own, and by right of love appropriates it, can call
goodness its playfellow; and dares make sport of time and infirmity, while,
in the person of a thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged
virtue the caressing fondness that belongs to the innocence of childhood,
and repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies which had been
dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in feminine
loveliness or in manly beauty." (Poetical Works, vol. ii. p. 120.)--ED.]
Measure for Measure is the single exception to the delightfulness of
Shakspeare's plays. It is a hateful work, although Shakspearian throughout.
Our feelings of justice are grossly wounded in Angelo's escape. Isabella
herself contrives to be unamiable, and Claudio is detestable.
* * * * *
I am inclined to consider The Fox as the greatest of Ben Jonson's works.
But his smaller works are full of poetry.
* * * * *
Monsieur Thomas and the little French Lawyer are great favourites of mine
amongst Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. How those plays overflow with wit!
And yet I scarcely know a more deeply tragic scene any where than that in
Rollo, in which Edith pleads for her father's life, and then, when she
cannot prevail, rises up and imprecates vengeance on his murderer. [1]
[Footnote 1: Act iii. sc. 1.:--
"ROLLO. Hew off her hands!
HAMOND. Lady, hold off!
EDITH. No! hew 'em;
Hew off my innocent hands, as he commands you!
They'll hang the faster on for death's convulsion.--
Thou seed of rocks, will nothing move thee, then?
Are all my tears lost, all my righteous prayers
Drown'd in thy drunken wrath? I stand up thus, then,
Thou boldly bloody tyrant,
And to thy face, in heav'n's high name defy thee!
And may sweet mercy, when thy soul sighs for it,--
When under thy black mischiefs thy flesh trembles,--
When neither strength, nor youth, nor friends, nor gold,
Can stay one hour; when thy most wretched conscience,
Waked from her dream of death, like fire shall melt thee,--
When all thy mother's tears, thy brother's wounds,
Thy people's fears, and curses, and my loss,
My aged father's loss, shall stand before thee--
ROLLO. Save him, I say; run, save him, save her father;
Fly and redeem his head!