THE COLERIDGE PLAGIARISM--MISCELLANEOUS LITERARY WORK
The story of the so-called Coleridge plagiarism is an old one now, but
it is one which roused much feeling at the time, and likewise one on
which there is considerable division of opinion even in the present
day. Into this controversy Ferrier plunged by writing a formidable
indictment of Coleridge's position in _Blackwood's Magazine_ for March
of 1840.
When Ferrier took up the cudgels the matter stood thus. In the earlier
quarter of the century German Philosophy was coming, or rather had
already come, more or less into vogue in England; and as the German
language was not largely read, and yet people were vaguely interested,
though in what they hardly knew, they welcomed an appreciative
interpreter of that philosophy, and an original writer on similar
lines, in one whose reputation was esteemed so highly as that of
Coleridge. Coleridge in this matter, indeed, occupied a position which
was unique; for the treasures of German poetry and prose had not as yet
been fully opened up, and he was held to possess the means of doing
this in a quite exceptional degree. The works of Schiller, Goethe, and
the other poets came to the world--and to Coleridge with the rest--as a
sort of revelation. But the poet in his own mind was nothing if not a
philosopher--a kind of seer amongst men, speculating, somewhat vaguely
it might be, on matters of transcendental import--and in Schelling he
thought he had discovered a kindred spirit; in his writings he believed
he had found the Idealism for which he had so long been seeking in
Böhme, Fox, and the other mystics--a creed which, though pantheistic in
its essence, yet fulfilled the condition of being both orthodox and
Trinitarian in its form. This, for many reasons, was a creed presenting
many attractions to the younger men of the day, especially when set
forth with a certain literary flavour. We have Carlyle's immortal
picture of how it influenced John Sterling and his friends.
Coleridge's _Biographia Literaria_, in which the principal so-called
Schelling plagiarisms are contained, was published in 1817, but it was
not for a considerable time after that that the plagiarisms were
discovered, or at least taken notice of. The first serious indictment
came from no less an authority than De Quincey, whose interest in
philosophical matters was as great as Coleridge's, and who published
his views in an appreciative but gossipy article in _Tait's Magazine_
of September 1834. To commence with, he took up the question of the
'Hymn to Chamouni'; but since, in this matter, Coleridge afterwards
admitted his indebtedness to a German poetess, Frederica Brun, it does
not seem an important one. Nor, indeed, does De Quincey pretend to take
exception to certain expressions in Coleridge's 'France' which are
evidently borrowed from Milton, or to regard them as indicating more
than a peculiar omission of quotation marks. But the really serious
matter, one for which De Quincey cannot by any means account, is that
in the _Biographia Literaria_ there occurs a dissertation on the
doctrine of Knowing and Being which is an exact translation from an
essay written by Schelling. De Quincey cannot indeed explain away the
mystery, but he makes the best of it, pleading excuses such as we often
hear adduced in cases of 'kleptomania' when they occur amongst the
well-to-do, or so-called higher classes--_e.g._, the evident fact that
there was no necessity so to steal, no motive for stealing, even though
the theft had evidently been committed. Still, though the defence may
be ingenious, and though we may go so far as to acknowledge that
Coleridge had sufficient originality of mind to weave out theories of
his own without borrowing from others, it must be confessed that under
the aggravated circumstances the argument falls somewhat flat; and this
was the impression made on many minds even at the time. The ball once
set rolling, the dispute went on, and the next important incident was
an article by Julius Hare in the _British Magazine_ of January 1835.
This is a hot defence of the so-called 'Christian' philosopher, who is
said to be influencing the best and most promising young men of the
day, as against the assault of the 'English Opium-Eater'--'that
ill-boding _alias_ of evil record.' As to De Quincey's somewhat unkind
but entertaining stories, there is some reason in Hare's objections,
seeing that they were told of one to whom the writer owned himself
indebted. But when Hare tackles the plagiarisms themselves, and
endeavours to defend them, his task is harder. Coleridge had indeed
stated that his ideas were thought out and matured before he had seen a
page of Schelling; but at the same time, in an earlier portion of his
work, he made a somewhat ambiguous reference to his indebtedness to the
German philosopher, and deprecated his being accused of intentioned
plagiarism from his writings. Of course it may be said that a thief
does not draw attention to the goods from which he has stolen, but yet
even Hare acknowledges that it is hard to understand how half a dozen
pages (we now know that it really exceeded thirty) should have been
bodily transferred from one work to another, and suggests that the most
probable solution is that Coleridge had a practice of keeping notebooks
for his thoughts, mingled with extracts from what he had been reading
at the time, and that he thus became confused between the two.
At this point Ferrier steps in and takes the whole matter under
review--a matter which he looked upon as serious (perhaps more serious
than we should now consider it) from a national as well as an
individual point of view. He held that the reputation of his country
was at stake, as well as that of a single philosophic thinker, and that
neither De Quincey nor Hare had gone into the matter with sufficient
care or knowledge, or ascertained how large it really was. It was
undoubtedly the case that Coleridge's reputation in philosophic
matters--and in these days that reputation was not small--was derived
from what he had purloined from the writings of a German youth, and
whatever the poet's claim on our regard on other scores may be, it was
certainly due to Schelling that the debt should be acknowledged. As far
as the _Biographia Literaria_ is concerned, the facts are plain.
Coleridge makes certain general acknowledgments of indebtedness to
Schelling to begin with. He acknowledges that there may be found in his
works an identity of thought or phrase with Schelling's, and allows him
to be the founder of the philosophy of nature; but he claims at the
same time the honour of making that philosophy intelligible to his
fellow-countrymen, and even of thinking it out beforehand. Having said
so much, there follow pages together--sometimes as many as six or eight
on end--which are virtually copied _verbatim_ from Schelling, though
with occasional interpolations of the so-called author here and there.
Ferrier has examined the whole matter most minutely, and made a long
list of the more flagrant cases of copying: thirty-one pages, he points
out, are faithfully transcribed, partially or wholly, from Schelling's
works alone, without allowing for what the author admits to be
translated _in part_ from a 'contemporary writer of the Continent.' And
Schelling was not the only sufferer, nor was it only in the region of
metaphysics that the thefts were made. The substratum of a whole
chapter of the _Biographia Literaria_ is, Ferrier discovered, taken
from another author named Maasz, and Coleridge's lecture 'On Poesy or
Art' is closely copied and largely translated from Schelling's
'Discourse upon the Relations in which the Plastic Arts stand to
Nature.' This was a blow indeed to those who had boasted of the
profundity of Coleridge's views on art; but his poetry surely remained
intact. But no, 'Verses exemplifying the Homeric Metre' are found to
be--unacknowledged--a translation from Schiller; and yet worse, because
less likely to be discovered, the lines written 'To a Cataract' have
the same metre, language, and thought as certain verses by Count von
Stolberg, which were shown to Ferrier by a friend.
The whole matter is a very strange one and not easy to explain. Of
course the references to Schelling's labours in similar lines are
there, and may in a sense disarm our criticism. But then,
unfortunately, there also are the statements that the ideas had been
matured in Coleridge's mind before he had seen a single line of
Schelling's work, and he clearly gives us to understand that he had
toiled out the system for himself, and that it was the 'offspring of
his own spirit.' It is this overmuch protesting that makes us, like
Ferrier, disposed to take the darkest view of the affair: anything that
can be said in Coleridge's defence is found in the manner in which it
was taken by the one who had most right to feel aggrieved. In the life
of Jowett,[10] recently published, there is an interesting account of
Schelling's views on Coleridge, taken from a conversation, notes of
which were made by the late Sir Alexander Grant, Ferrier's son-in-law,
when still an undergraduate. Jowett, while at Berlin, had, it appears,
seen Schelling, and talked to him of the plagiarisms. He took the
matter, Jowett states, good-naturedly, thought Coleridge to have been
attacked unfairly, and even went so far as to assert that he had
expressed many things better than he could have done himself--certainly
a very generous acknowledgment. Probably the most charitable
construction we can put on Coleridge's act is that which Jowett himself
advances in saying that the poet is not to be looked upon or judged as
an ordinary man would be, seeing that often enough he hardly could be
said to have been responsible for his actions; while his egotism, which
was extreme, may have likewise led him--it may be almost
unconsciously--into acts of doubtful honesty. But evidently, in spite
of Ferrier's work, Jowett, and possibly even Schelling himself, had no
idea of the extent to which the plagiarisms extended. There would, of
course, have been comparatively little harm in Coleridge's action had
he been content to borrow materials which he was about to work up in
his own way, or to do what his biographer Gillman says is done by the
'bee which flies from flower to flower in quest of food,' but which
'digests and elaborates' that food by its native power. Unfortunately,
the more we read Coleridge's philosophic writings, the more we feel
constrained to agree with Ferrier that the matter is not digested as
Gillman suggests, but taken possession of in its ready-made condition.
The parts which he adds do not assist in throwing light on what
precedes, but are evidently padding of a somewhat commonplace and
superficial kind. We can only say, like Jowett, that the manner of his
life may have injured Coleridge's moral sense, and that his desire to
pose as a philosopher who should yet be a so-called 'Christian' may
have led him to encroach upon the spheres of others, instead of keeping
to those in which he could hold his own unchallenged.
[10] _Life of Benjamin Jowett_, vol. i. pp. 98 and 145.
A labour of love with Ferrier, on very different lines than the above,
was to bring out in five volumes the works of his father-in-law, John
Wilson, 'Christopher North,' including the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, and his
Essays and Papers contributed to _Blackwood_. This was published in
1856, but must, of course, have meant a considerable amount of work to
the editor for some time previously. One of the most interesting parts
of the work is Ferrier's preface to the famous 'Chaldee Manuscript,' in
vol. iv. The story of the 'Chaldee MS.' is now a matter of history,
fully recorded in the recently published records of the famous house of
Blackwood. In 1817 the Whigs ruled in matters literary, mainly through
the instrumentality of the _Edinburgh Review_, then in its heyday of
fame. A reaction, however, set in, and the change was inaugurated by
the publication of the so-called 'Chaldee MS.,' a wild _extravaganza_,
or _jeu d'esprit_, hitting off the foibles of Whiggism, under the guise
of an allegory describing the origin and rise of _Blackwood's
Magazine_, the rival which had risen up in opposition to the _Review_,
and the discomfiture of another journal carried on under the auspices
of Constable. It was in the seventh number of _Blackwood_ that the
satire appeared--that is, the first number of _Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine_ as distinguished from the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_,
published from Blackwood's office to begin with, but on comparatively
mild and inoffensive lines. One may imagine the effect of this Tory
outburst on the society of Edinburgh. All the _literati_ of the town
were involved: Sir Walter Scott himself, Mackenzie, Sir David Brewster,
Sir William Hamilton, Professor Jamieson, Tytler, Playfair, and many
others, some of whom emerged but seldom from the retirement of private
life. Nowadays it would be difficult, if not impossible, to identify
the different characters, were it not for the assistance of Professor
Ferrier's marginal notes; but in those days they were no doubt
recognisable enough. Of course the magazine went like wildfire; but the
ludicrous description in semi-biblical language of individuals with
absurd allegorical appendages, constituted, as Ferrier acknowledges, an
offence against propriety which could not be defended, even though no
real malevolence might be signified. Whether Ferrier was justified in
republishing the _Noctes_, in so far as they could be identified with
Wilson, has been disputed; but, as the publisher, Major Blackwood,
points out, the time was past for anyone to be hurt by the
personalities which they contained, and the only harm the republication
could inflict was upon the _Noctes_ themselves. The conception of the
'Chaldee Manuscript,' he tells us, was in the first part due to Hogg;
and Wilson and Lockhart were held responsible for the last. There is a
tradition, too, though Ferrier does not mention it, that Hamilton was
one of the party in Mr. Wilson's house (53 Queen Street) where the skit
was said to have been concocted, and that he even contributed to it a
verse. This may have been the case, as Wilson and Lockhart were his
intimate friends; but it seems strange to think of so thoroughgoing a
Whig being found mixed up in such a plot, and with such companions.
Though it is easy to understand that Ferrier felt the editing of his
father-in-law and uncle's work was a duty which it was incumbent upon
him to perform, one cannot help surmising that it may have been a less
congenial task to him than many others. There was little in common
between the two men, both distinguished in their way, and Wilson's
humour and poetic fancy, however bright and vivid, was not of the sort
that would appeal most to Ferrier. A few years before his death Ferrier
gave up the project he had in view of writing Wilson's life, partly in
despair of setting forth his talents as he felt they should be set
forth, and partly from the lack of material to work from. He says, in a
letter written at the time, 'It would do no good to talk in general
terms of his wonderful powers, of his genius being greater (as in some
sense it was) than that of any of his contemporaries--greater, too,
than any of his publications show. The public would require other
evidences of this beyond one's mere word--something might have been
done had some of us Boswellized him judiciously, but this having been
omitted, I do not see how it is possible to do him justice.' The book
was eventually undertaken, and successfully accomplished, by Wilson's
daughter, Mrs. Gordon.
We have spoken of Ferrier's interest in German literature; so early as
1839 he published a translation of _Pietro d'Abano_ by Ludwig Tieck,
one of the inner circle of the so-called Romantic School to which the
Schlegels and Novalis also belonged--the school which opposed itself to
the eighteenth-century enlightenment, making its cry the return to
nature, and demanding with Fichte that a work of art should be a 'free
product of the inner consciousness.' Another specimen of Ferrier's
translating powers is given in a rendering from Deinhardstein's _Bild
der Danæ_, a love story in which Salvator Rosa figures. This appeared
in _Blackwood_ of September 1841, and an extract from it is published
in the _Remains_.
But one of the earliest and most remarkable of Ferrier's literary
criticisms in _Blackwood's Magazine_ was an anonymous article on the
various translations of Goethe's _Faust_ published in 1840. We have
seen that Ferrier had made a special study of the writings of Schiller
and Goethe, and that his work had been much appreciated both by Lytton
and De Quincey. In this article the writer takes seven different
renderings of the drama, carefully analyses them, points out their
deficiencies, and even adventures on the difficult task, for a critic,
of himself translating one or two pages. Now that German is so widely
read in England, we are all too well aware of the insufficiency of any
translation of _Faust_ to regard even the best in any other light than
as a makeshift. But then things were different, and it was possible
that wrong impressions of the original might be conveyed by inadequate
translations. Ferrier's point was that Goethe, while writing in rhyme
and in exquisitely poetical language, managed at the same time to find
words such as might really be used by ordinary mortals; but the
translators, in endeavouring rightly enough to keep to the rhyming
form, entirely fail in their endeavour after the same end. He considers
that though in prose we may deviate from the ordinary proprieties of
language, we may not do so in rhyming poetry; for though the poet has
to describe the thought and passion of real men in the language of real
life, his dialect must at the same time be taken out of the category of
ordinary discourse because of the use of rhyme; and he is therefore
called upon as far as possible to remove this bar, and reconcile us to
the peculiarity of his style by the simplicity of his language;
otherwise all illusion will be at an end. Rhymes brought together by
force can succeed in giving us no pleasure; the writer should possess
the power of mastering his material and compelling it to serve his
ends.
Ferrier's speculative instincts naturally led him to discuss the
often-discussed motive of the play. Is it so, as Coleridge says, that
the love of knowledge for itself could not bring about the evil
consequences depicted in the character of Faust, but only the love of
knowledge for some base purpose? Ferrier replies, No, the love of
knowledge as an end in itself would people the world with Fausts. 'Such
a love of knowledge exercises itself in speculation merely, and not in
action; and if the experiences of purely speculative men were gathered,
we think that most of them would be found to confess, bitterly confess,
that indulgence in an abstract reflective thinking (whatever effect it
may have ultimately upon their nobler genius, supposing them to have
one) in the meantime absolutely kills, or appears to kill, all the
minor faculties of the soul--all the lesser genial powers, upon the
exercise of which the greater part of human happiness depends. They
would own, not without remorse, that pure speculation--that is,
knowledge pursued _for itself_ alone--has often been tasted by them to
be, as Coleridge elsewhere says, 'the bitterest and rottenest part of
the core of the fruit of the forbidden tree.' This seems a strange
confession for a thinker reputed so abstract as Ferrier, but of course
the truth of what he says is evident. Knowledge regarded as an end in
itself might have brought Faust into his troubles, it is true, and he
might likewise have found himself ready to rush into what he conceives
to be the opposite extreme; but a greater philosopher than Ferrier has
said that though 'knowledge brought about the Fall, it also contains
the principle of Redemption,' and we take this to signify that we must
look at knowledge as a necessary element in the culture and education
of an individual or a people, which, though it carries trouble in its
wake, does not leave us in our distress, but brings along with it the
principle of healing, or is the 'healer of itself.'
Soon after the above, Ferrier contributes to the same journal an
article entitled 'The Tittle-Tattle of a Philosopher,' or an account of
the 'Journey through Life' of Professor Krug of Leipzig. Krug appears
to have been a sort of Admirable Crichton amongst philosophers, to whom
no subject came amiss, and who was ready to take his part in every sort
of philosophical discussion. By Hegel and the idealist school he is
somewhat contemptuously referred to as one of that class of writers of
whom it is said '_Ils se sont battus les flancs pour être de grands
hommes_.' Anyhow, his recollections are at least amusing, if not
philosophically edifying.
A review of the poems of Coventry Patmore a few years later is a very
different production. It carries us back to the old days of
_Blackwood_, when calm judgment was not so much an object as strength
of expression, withering criticism, and biting sarcasm. Ferrier no
doubt believed it would be well for literature to turn back to the old
days of the knout; but few, we fancy, will agree with him, even if they
suffer for so differing by permitting certain trashy publications to
see the light. Too often, unfortunately, the knout, when it is applied,
arrives on shoulders that are innocent. Of course Ferrier believed that
the worst prognostications of a quarter of a century before were now
being realised by the application not being persevered in; but as to
this particular piece of criticism, whatever our opinion of Patmore's
poetic powers may be, surely the writer was unreasonably severe; surely
the work does not deserve to be dealt with in such unmeasured terms of
opprobrium. It is refreshing to turn to an appreciative, if also
somewhat critical review of the poems of Elizabeth Barrett, published
in the same year, 1844, part of which has been republished in the
_Remains_. In this article Ferrier urges once more the point on which
he continually insists--the adoption of a direct simplicity of style:
one which goes straight to the point, or, as he puts it, which is felt
to 'get through business.' Excepting certain criticism on the score of
style and phraseology, however, Ferrier is all praise of the high
degree of poetic merit which the writings revealed--merit which he must
have been amongst the first to discover and make known.
The last of Ferrier's work for the magazine in which he had so often
written, was a series of articles on the New Readings from Shakespeare,
published in 1853. These articles were in the main a criticism of Mr.
Payne Collier's 'Notes and Emendations' to the Text of Shakespeare's
'Plays' from early MS. corrections which he had discovered in a copy of
the folio 1632. Ferrier, who was a thorough Shakespeare student, and
whose appreciation of Shakespeare is often spoken of by those who knew
him, had no faith in the authenticity of the new readings, though he
thinks they have a certain interest as matter of curiosity. He goes
through the plays and the alterations made in them _seriatim_, and
comes to the conclusion that in most cases they have little value. In
fact, he proceeds so far as to say that they have opened his eyes to 'a
depth of purity and correctness in the received text of Shakespeare' of
which he had no suspicion--a satisfactory conclusion to the ordinary
reader.
Besides his work for _Blackwood_, Ferrier was in the habit of
contributing articles to the _Imperial Dictionary of Universal
Biography_ on the various philosophers. Two of these, the biographies
of Schelling and Hegel, are printed in the _Remains_, but besides these
he wrote on Adam Smith, Swift, Schiller, etc., and occasionally
utilised the articles in his lectures.
On yet another line Ferrier wrote a pamphlet in 1848, entitled
_Observations on Church and State_, suggested by the Duke of Argyll's
essay on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland. This pamphlet aims at
proving that the Assembly of the Church is really, as the Duke argues,
not merely an ecclesiastical, but a national council, or, as Ferrier
terms it, the 'second and junior of the Scottish Houses of Parliament.'
Being therefore amenable to no other earthly power, it was justified in
opposing the decrees of the Court of Session; though, however, the Free
Church ministers were right in defending their constitutional
privileges, Ferrier holds that they were wrong in doing so as the
'Church' in opposition to the 'State,' and that this brought upon them
their discomfiture. They should not, in his view, have acknowledged
that the Church's property could be forfeit to the State, and
consequently should not have voluntarily resigned their livings. The
pamphlet shows considerable interest in the controversy raging so
vehemently at the time.
In St. Andrews there was no social meeting at which Ferrier was not a
welcome guest. When popular lectures, then coming into vogue, were
instituted in the town, Ferrier was called upon to deliver one of the
series, the subject chosen being 'Our Contemporary Poetical
Literature.' He says in a letter: 'I am in perfect agony in quest of
something to say about "Our Contemporary Poets" in the Town Hall here
on Friday. I must pump up something, being committed like an ass to
that subject, but devil a thing will come. I wish Aytoun would come
over and plead their cause.' However, in spite of fears, the lecture
appears to have been a success: it was an eloquent appeal on behalf of
poetry as an invaluable educational factor and agent in carrying
forward the work of human civilisation, and an appreciation of the work
of Tennyson, Macaulay, Aytoun, and Lytton. In the same year, but a few
months later, Ferrier was asked to deliver the opening address of the
Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. This Institution has for long been
the means of bringing celebrities from all parts of the country to
lecture before an Edinburgh audience, and its origin and conception was
largely due to Professor Wilson, Ferrier's father-in-law, who was in
the habit of opening the session with an introductory address. His
health no longer permitting this to be done, the directors requested
Ferrier to take his place. The address was on purely general topics,
dealing mainly with the objects of the Institution, then somewhat of a
novelty. He concluded: 'Labour is the lot of man. No pleasure can
surpass the satisfaction which a man feels in the efficient discharge
of the active duties of his calling. But it is equally true that every
professional occupation, from the highest to the lowest, requires to be
counterpoised and alleviated by pursuits of a more liberal order than
itself. Without these the best faculties of our souls must sink down
into an ignoble torpor, and human intercourse be shorn of its highest
enjoyments, and its brightest blessings.' This is characteristic of
Ferrier's view of life. One-sidedness was his particular abhorrence,
and if he could in any measure impress its evil upon those whose daily
business was apt to engross their attention, to the detriment of the
higher spheres of thinking, he was glad at least to make the attempt.