CHAPTER X

A chapter of digression and anecdotes, as an interlude preceding that on

the nature and genesis of the Imagination or Plastic Power--On

pedantry and pedantic expressions--Advice to young authors respecting

publication--Various anecdotes of the Author’s literary life, and the

progress of his opinions in Religion and Politics.

“Esemplastic. The word is not in Johnson, nor have I met with it

elsewhere.” Neither have, I. I constructed it myself from the Greek

words, eis en plattein, to shape into one; because, having to convey a

new sense, I thought that a new term would both aid the recollection of

my meaning, and prevent its being confounded with the usual import of

the word, imagination. “But this is pedantry!” Not necessarily so, I

hope. If I am not misinformed, pedantry consists in the use of words

unsuitable to the time, place, and company. The language of the market

would be in the schools as pedantic, though it might not be reprobated

by that name, as the language of the schools in the market. The mere

man of the world, who insists that no other terms but such as occur in

common conversation should be employed in a scientific disquisition, and

with no greater precision, is as truly a pedant as the man of letters,

who either over-rating the acquirements of his auditors, or misled by

his own familiarity with technical or scholastic terms, converses at the

wine-table with his mind fixed on his museum or laboratory; even though

the latter pedant instead of desiring his wife to make the tea should

bid her add to the quant. suff. of thea Sinensis the oxyd of hydrogen

saturated with caloric. To use the colloquial (and in truth somewhat

vulgar) metaphor, if the pedant of the cloister, and the pedant of the

lobby, both smell equally of the shop, yet the odour from the Russian

binding of good old authentic-looking folios and quartos is less

annoying than the steams from the tavern or bagnio. Nay, though the

pedantry of the scholar should betray a little ostentation, yet a

well-conditioned mind would more easily, methinks, tolerate the fox

brush of learned vanity, than the sans culotterie of a contemptuous

ignorance, that assumes a merit from mutilation in the self-consoling

sneer at the pompous incumbrance of tails.

The first lesson of philosophic discipline is to wean the student’s

attention from the degrees of things, which alone form the vocabulary of

common life, and to direct it to the kind abstracted from degree. Thus

the chemical student is taught not to be startled at disquisitions on

the heat in ice, or on latent and fixible light. In such discourse the

instructor has no other alternative than either to use old words

with new meanings (the plan adopted by Darwin in his Zoonomia;) or to

introduce new terms, after the example of Linnaeus, and the framers

of the present chemical nomenclature. The latter mode is evidently

preferable, were it only that the former demands a twofold exertion of

thought in one and the same act. For the reader, or hearer, is required

not only to learn and bear in mind the new definition; but to unlearn,

and keep out of his view, the old and habitual meaning; a far more

difficult and perplexing task, and for which the mere semblance of

eschewing pedantry seems to me an inadequate compensation. Where,

indeed, it is in our power to recall an unappropriate term that had

without sufficient reason become obsolete, it is doubtless a less evil

to restore than to coin anew. Thus to express in one word all that

appertains to the perception, considered as passive and merely

recipient, I have adopted from our elder classics the word sensuous;

because sensual is not at present used, except in a bad sense, or at

least as a moral distinction; while sensitive and sensible would each

convey a different meaning. Thus too have I followed Hooker, Sanderson,

Milton and others, in designating the immediateness of any act or

object of knowledge by the word intuition, used sometimes subjectively,

sometimes objectively, even as we use the word, thought; now as the

thought, or act of thinking, and now as a thought, or the object of

our reflection; and we do this without confusion or obscurity. The very

words, objective and subjective, of such constant recurrence in the

schools of yore, I have ventured to re-introduce, because I could not

so briefly or conveniently by any more familiar terms distinguish the

percipere from the percipi. Lastly, I have cautiously discriminated the

terms, the reason, and the understanding, encouraged and confirmed

by the authority of our genuine divines and philosophers, before the

Revolution.

------both life, and sense,

Fancy and understanding; whence the soul

Reason receives, and reason is her bring,

Discursive or intuitive: discourse [32]

Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours,

Differing but in degree, in kind the same.

I say, that I was confirmed by authority so venerable: for I had

previous and higher motives in my own conviction of the importance, nay,

of the necessity of the distinction, as both an indispensable condition

and a vital part of all sound speculation in metaphysics, ethical or

theological. To establish this distinction was one main object of

The Friend; if even in a biography of my own literary life I can with

propriety refer to a work, which was printed rather than published, or

so published that it had been well for the unfortunate author, if it

had remained in manuscript. I have even at this time bitter cause for

remembering that, which a number of my subscribers have but a trifling

motive for forgetting. This effusion might have been spared; but I

would fain flatter myself, that the reader will be less austere than an

oriental professor of the bastinado, who during an attempt to extort per

argumentum baculinum a full confession from a culprit, interrupted his

outcry of pain by reminding him, that it was “a mere digression!” “All

this noise, Sir! is nothing to the point, and no sort of answer to my

questions!” “Ah! but,” (replied the sufferer,) “it is the most pertinent

reply in nature to your blows.”

An imprudent man of common goodness of heart cannot but wish to turn

even his imprudences to the benefit of others, as far as this is

possible. If therefore any one of the readers of this semi-narrative

should be preparing or intending a periodical work, I warn him, in the

first place, against trusting in the number of names on his subscription

list. For he cannot be certain that the names were put down by

sufficient authority; or, should that be ascertained, it still remains

to be known, whether they were not extorted by some over zealous

friend’s importunity; whether the subscriber had not yielded his name,

merely from want of courage to answer, no; and with the intention of

dropping the work as soon as possible. One gentleman procured me nearly

a hundred names for THE FRIEND, and not only took frequent opportunity

to remind me of his success in his canvass, but laboured to impress my

mind with the sense of the obligation, I was under to the subscribers;

for, (as he very pertinently admonished me,) “fifty-two shillings a year

was a large sum to be bestowed on one individual, where there were so

many objects of charity with strong claims to the assistance of the

benevolent.” Of these hundred patrons ninety threw up the publication

before the fourth number, without any notice; though it was well known

to them, that in consequence of the distance, and the slowness and

irregularity of the conveyance, I was compelled to lay in a stock of

stamped paper for at least eight weeks beforehand; each sheet of which

stood me in five pence previously to its arrival at my printer’s; though

the subscription money was not to be received till the twenty-first week

after the commencement of the work; and lastly, though it was in nine

cases out of ten impracticable for me to receive the money for two or

three numbers without paying an equal sum for the postage.

In confirmation of my first caveat, I will select one fact among many.

On my list of subscribers, among a considerable number of names equally

flattering, was that of an Earl of Cork, with his address. He might as

well have been an Earl of Bottle, for aught I knew of him, who had been

content to reverence the peerage in abstracto, rather than in concretis.

Of course THE FRIEND was regularly sent as far, if I remember right, as

the eighteenth number; that is, till a fortnight before the subscription

was to be paid. And lo! just at this time I received a letter from his

Lordship, reproving me in language far more lordly than courteous for my

impudence in directing my pamphlets to him, who knew nothing of me or my

work! Seventeen or eighteen numbers of which, however, his Lordship

was pleased to retain, probably for the culinary or post-culinary

conveniences of his servants.

Secondly, I warn all others from the attempt to deviate from the

ordinary mode of publishing a work by the trade. I thought indeed, that

to the purchaser it was indifferent, whether thirty per cent of the

purchase-money went to the booksellers or to the government; and that

the convenience of receiving the work by the post at his own door would

give the preference to the latter. It is hard, I own, to have been

labouring for years, in collecting and arranging the materials; to have

spent every shilling that could be spared after the necessaries of life

had been furnished, in buying books, or in journeys for the purpose of

consulting them or of acquiring facts at the fountain head; then to buy

the paper, pay for the printing, and the like, all at least fifteen per

cent beyond what the trade would have paid; and then after all to give

thirty per cent not of the net profits, but of the gross results of the

sale, to a man who has merely to give the books shelf or warehouse room,

and permit his apprentice to hand them over the counter to those who may

ask for them; and this too copy by copy, although, if the work be on any

philosophical or scientific subject, it may be years before the edition

is sold off. All this, I confess, must seem a hardship, and one, to

which the products of industry in no other mode of exertion are subject.

Yet even this is better, far better, than to attempt in any way to unite

the functions of author and publisher. But the most prudent mode is to

sell the copy-right, at least of one or more editions, for the most that

the trade will offer. By few only can a large remuneration be expected;

but fifty pounds and ease of mind are of more real advantage to a

literary man, than the chance of five hundred with the certainty

of insult and degrading anxieties. I shall have been grievously

misunderstood, if this statement should be interpreted as written

with the desire of detracting from the character of booksellers or

publishers. The individuals did not make the laws and customs of their

trade, but, as in every other trade, take them as they find them. Till

the evil can be proved to be removable, and without the substitution of

an equal or greater inconvenience, it were neither wise nor manly even

to complain of it. But to use it as a pretext for speaking, or even for

thinking, or feeling, unkindly or opprobriously of the tradesmen, as

individuals, would be something worse than unwise or even than unmanly;

it would be immoral and calumnious. My motives point in a far different

direction and to far other objects, as will be seen in the conclusion of

the chapter.

A learned and exemplary old clergyman, who many years ago went to his

reward followed by the regrets and blessings of his flock, published

at his own expense two volumes octavo, entitled, A NEW THEORY OF

REDEMPTION. The work was most severely handled in THE MONTHLY or

CRITICAL REVIEW, I forget which; and this unprovoked hostility became

the good old man’s favourite topic of conversation among his friends.

“Well!” (he used to exclaim,) “in the second edition, I shall have an

opportunity of exposing both the ignorance and the malignity of the

anonymous critic.” Two or three years however passed by without any

tidings from the bookseller, who had undertaken the printing and

publication of the work, and who was perfectly at his ease, as the

author was known to be a man of large property. At length the accounts

were written for; and in the course of a few weeks they were presented

by the rider for the house, in person. My old friend put on

his spectacles, and holding the scroll with no very firm hand,

began--“Paper, so much: O moderate enough--not at all beyond my

expectation! Printing, so much: well! moderate enough! Stitching,

covers, advertisements, carriage, and so forth, so much.”--Still

nothing amiss. Selleridge (for orthography is no necessary part of

a bookseller’s literary acquirements) L3. 3s. “Bless me! only three

guineas for the what d’ye call it--the selleridge?” “No more, Sir!”

replied the rider. “Nay, but that is too moderate!” rejoined my old

friend. “Only three guineas for selling a thousand copies of a work in

two volumes?” “O Sir!” (cries the young traveller) “you have mistaken

the word. There have been none of them sold; they have been sent

back from London long ago; and this L3. 3s. is for the cellaridge,

or warehouse-room in our book cellar.” The work was in consequence

preferred from the ominous cellar of the publisher’s to the author’s

garret; and, on presenting a copy to an acquaintance, the old gentleman

used to tell the anecdote with great humour and still greater good

nature.

With equal lack of worldly knowledge, I was a far more than equal

sufferer for it, at the very outset of my authorship. Toward the close

of the first year from the time, that in an inauspicious hour I left the

friendly cloisters, and the happy grove of quiet, ever honoured Jesus

College, Cambridge, I was persuaded by sundry philanthropists and

Anti-polemists to set on foot a periodical work, entitled THE WATCHMAN,

that, according to the general motto of the work, all might know the

truth, and that the truth might make us free! In order to exempt it from

the stamp-tax, and likewise to contribute as little as possible to the

supposed guilt of a war against freedom, it was to be published on every

eighth day, thirty-two pages, large octavo, closely printed, and price

only four-pence. Accordingly with a flaming prospectus,--“Knowledge is

Power,” “To cry the state of the political atmosphere,”--and so forth,

I set off on a tour to the North, from Bristol to Sheffield, for the

purpose of procuring customers, preaching by the way in most of

the great towns, as an hireless volunteer, in a blue coat and white

waistcoat, that not a rag of the woman of Babylon might be seen on me.

For I was at that time and long after, though a Trinitarian (that is

ad normam Platonis) in philosophy, yet a zealous Unitarian in religion;

more accurately, I was a Psilanthropist, one of those who believe our

Lord to have been the real son of Joseph, and who lay the main stress on

the resurrection rather than on the crucifixion. O! never can I remember

those days with either shame or regret. For I was most sincere, most

disinterested. My opinions were indeed in many and most important points

erroneous; but my heart was single. Wealth, rank, life itself then

seemed cheap to me, compared with the interests of what I believed to

be the truth, and the will of my Maker. I cannot even accuse myself of

having been actuated by vanity; for in the expansion of my enthusiasm I

did not think of myself at all.

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

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

length was so predominant over breadth, that he might almost have been

borrowed for a foundery poker. O that face! a face kat’ emphasin! I

have it before me at this moment. The lank, black, twine-like hair,

pingui-nitescent, cut in a straight line along the black stubble of his

thin gunpowder eye-brows, that looked like a scorched after-math from a

last week’s shaving. His coat collar behind in perfect unison, both of

colour and lustre, with the coarse yet glib cordage, which I suppose

he called his hair, and which with a bend inward at the nape of the

neck,--the only approach to flexure in his whole figure,--slunk in

behind his waistcoat; while the countenance lank, dark, very hard, and

with strong perpendicular furrows, gave me a dim notion of some one

looking at me through a used gridiron, all soot, grease, and iron! But

he was one of the thorough-bred, a true lover of liberty, and, as I was

informed, had proved to the satisfaction of many, that Mr. Pitt was one

of the horns of the second beast in THE REVELATIONS, that spake as a

dragon. A person, to whom one of my letters of recommendation had been

addressed, was my introducer. It was a new event in my life, my first

stroke in the new business I had undertaken of an author, yea, and of

an author trading on his own account. My companion after some imperfect

sentences and a multitude of hums and has abandoned the cause to his

client; and I commenced an harangue of half an hour to Phileleutheros,

the tallow-chandler, varying my notes, through the whole gamut of

eloquence, from the ratiocinative to the declamatory, and in the latter

from the pathetic to the indignant. I argued, I described, I promised, I

prophesied; and beginning with the captivity of nations I ended with the

near approach of the millennium, finishing the whole with some of my own

verses describing that glorious state out of the Religious Musings:

------Such delights

As float to earth, permitted visitants!

When in some hour of solemn jubilee

The massive gates of Paradise are thrown

Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild

Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies,

And odours snatched from beds of amaranth,

And they, that from the crystal river of life

Spring up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales!

My taper man of lights listened with perseverant and praiseworthy

patience, though, as I was afterwards told, on complaining of certain

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

him. “And what, Sir,” he said, after a short pause, “might the cost be?”

“Only four-pence,”--(O! how I felt the anti-climax, the abysmal

bathos of that four-pence!)--“only four-pence, Sir, each number, to be

published on every eighth day.”--“That comes to a deal of money at

the end of a year. And how much, did you say, there was to be for

the money?”--“Thirty-two pages, Sir, large octavo, closely

printed.”--“Thirty and two pages? Bless me! why except what I does in a

family way on the Sabbath, that’s more than I ever reads, Sir! all

the year round. I am as great a one, as any man in Brummagem, Sir!

for liberty and truth and all them sort of things, but as to this,--no

offence, I hope, Sir,--I must beg to be excused.”

So ended my first canvass: from causes that I shall presently mention, I

made but one other application in person. This took place at Manchester

to a stately and opulent wholesale dealer in cottons. He took my letter

of introduction, and, having perused it, measured me from head to foot

and again from foot to head, and then asked if I had any bill or invoice

of the thing. I presented my prospectus to him. He rapidly skimmed

and hummed over the first side, and still more rapidly the second and

concluding page; crushed it within his fingers and the palm of his hand;

then most deliberately and significantly rubbed and smoothed one part

against the other; and lastly putting it into his pocket turned his back

on me with an “over-run with these articles!” and so without another

syllable retired into his counting house. And, I can truly say, to my

unspeakable amusement.

This, I have said, was my second and last attempt. On returning baffled

from the first, in which I had vainly essayed to repeat the miracle of

Orpheus with the Brummagem patriot, I dined with the tradesman who had

introduced me to him. After dinner he importuned me to smoke a pipe with

him, and two or three other illuminati of the same rank. I objected,

both because I was engaged to spend the evening with a minister and

his friends, and because I had never smoked except once or twice in

my lifetime, and then it was herb tobacco mixed with Oronooko. On the

assurance, however, that the tobacco was equally mild, and seeing

too that it was of a yellow colour; not forgetting the lamentable

difficulty, I have always experienced, in saying, “No,” and in

abstaining from what the people about me were doing,--I took half a

pipe, filling the lower half of the bowl with salt. I was soon however

compelled to resign it, in consequence of a giddiness and distressful

feeling in my eyes, which, as I had drunk but a single glass of ale,

must, I knew, have been the effect of the tobacco. Soon after, deeming

myself recovered, I sallied forth to my engagement; but the walk and the

fresh air brought on all the symptoms again, and, I had scarcely entered

the minister’s drawing-room, and opened a small pacquet of letters,

which he had received from Bristol for me; ere I sank back on the sofa

in a sort of swoon rather than sleep. Fortunately I had found just time

enough to inform him of the confused state of my feelings, and of

the occasion. For here and thus I lay, my face like a wall that is

white-washing, deathly pale and with the cold drops of perspiration

running down it from my forehead, while one after another there dropped

in the different gentlemen, who had been invited to meet, and spend the

evening with me, to the number of from fifteen to twenty. As the

poison of tobacco acts but for a short time, I at length awoke from

insensibility, and looked round on the party, my eyes dazzled by the

candles which had been lighted in the interim. By way of relieving my

embarrassment one of the gentlemen began the conversation, with “Have

you seen a paper to-day, Mr. Coleridge?” “Sir!” I replied, rubbing my

eyes, “I am far from convinced, that a Christian is permitted to read

either newspapers or any other works of merely political and temporary

interest.” This remark, so ludicrously inapposite to, or rather,

incongruous with, the purpose, for which I was known to have visited

Birmingham, and to assist me in which they were all then met, produced

an involuntary and general burst of laughter; and seldom indeed have

I passed so many delightful hours, as I enjoyed in that room from

the moment of that laugh till an early hour the next morning.

Never, perhaps, in so mixed and numerous a party have I since heard

conversation, sustained with such animation, enriched with such variety

of information and enlivened with such a flow of anecdote. Both then

and afterwards they all joined in dissuading me from proceeding with

my scheme; assured me in the most friendly and yet most flattering

expressions, that neither was the employment fit for me, nor I fit for

the employment. Yet, if I determined on persevering in it, they promised

to exert themselves to the utmost to procure subscribers, and insisted

that I should make no more applications in person, but carry on the

canvass by proxy. The same hospitable reception, the same dissuasion,

and, that failing, the same kind exertions in my behalf, I met with at

Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield,--indeed, at every place in

which I took up my sojourn. I often recall with affectionate pleasure

the many respectable men who interested themselves for me, a perfect

stranger to them, not a few of whom I can still name among my friends.

They will bear witness for me how opposite even then my principles were

to those of Jacobinism or even of democracy, and can attest the strict

accuracy of the statement which I have left on record in the tenth and

eleventh numbers of THE FRIEND.

From this rememberable tour I returned with nearly a thousand names on

the subscription list of THE WATCHMAN; yet more than half convinced,

that prudence dictated the abandonment of the scheme. But for this

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

so completely hag-ridden by the fear of being influenced by selfish

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

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

was the dictate of duty. Accordingly, I commenced the work, which was

announced in London by long bills in letters larger than had ever been

seen before, and which, I have been informed, for I did not see them

myself, eclipsed the glories even of the lottery puffs. But alas!

the publication of the very first number was delayed beyond the day

announced for its appearance. In the second number an essay against fast

days, with a most censurable application of a text from Isaiah for its

motto, lost me near five hundred of my subscribers at one blow. In the

two following numbers I made enemies of all my Jacobin and democratic

patrons; for, disgusted by their infidelity, and their adoption of

French morals with French psilosophy; and perhaps thinking, that charity

ought to begin nearest home; Instead of abusing the government and the

Aristocrats chiefly or entirely, as had been expected of me, I levelled

my attacks at “modern patriotism,” and even ventured to declare my

belief, that whatever the motives of ministers might have been for the

sedition, or as it was then the fashion to call them, the gagging bills,

yet the bills themselves would produce an effect to be desired by all

the true friends of freedom, as far as they should contribute to deter

men from openly declaiming on subjects, the principles of which they had

never bottomed and from “pleading to the poor and ignorant, instead

of pleading for them.” At the same time I avowed my conviction, that

national education and a concurring spread of the Gospel were the

indispensable condition of any true political melioration. Thus by the

time the seventh number was published, I had the mortification--(but why

should I say this, when in truth I cared too little for any thing that

concerned my worldly interests to be at all mortified about it?)--of

seeing the preceding numbers exposed in sundry old iron shops for a

penny a piece. At the ninth number I dropt the work. But from the London

publisher I could not obtain a shilling; he was a ------ and set me at

defiance. From other places I procured but little, and after such delays

as rendered that little worth nothing; and I should have been inevitably

thrown into jail by my Bristol printer, who refused to wait even for a

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

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

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

continued my friend with a fidelity unconquered by time or even by my

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

was not wise, nor a remonstrance that was not gentle and affectionate.

Conscientiously an opponent of the first revolutionary war, yet with

my eyes thoroughly opened to the true character and impotence of the

favourers of revolutionary principles in England, principles which

I held in abhorrence,--(for it was part of my political creed, that

whoever ceased to act as an individual by making himself a member of

any society not sanctioned by his Government, forfeited the rights of

a citizen)--a vehement Anti-Ministerialist, but after the invasion of

Switzerland, a more vehement Anti-Gallican, and still more intensely

an Anti-Jacobin, I retired to a cottage at Stowey, and provided for my

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

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

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

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

that could enable me to become a popular writer; and that whatever my

opinions might be in themselves, they were almost equi-distant from

all the three prominent parties, the Pittites, the Foxites, and the

Democrats. Of the unsaleable nature of my writings I had an amusing

memento one morning from our own servant girl. For happening to rise

at an earlier hour than usual, I observed her putting an extravagant

quantity of paper into the grate in order to light the fire, and mildly

checked her for her wastefulness; “La, Sir!” (replied poor Nanny) “why,

it is only Watchmen.”

I now devoted myself to poetry and to the study of ethics and

psychology; and so profound was my admiration at this time of Hartley’s

ESSAY ON MAN, that I gave his name to my first-born. In addition to the

gentleman, my neighbour, whose garden joined on to my little orchard,

and the cultivation of whose friendship had been my sole motive in

choosing Stowey for my residence, I was so fortunate as to acquire,

shortly after my settlement there, an invaluable blessing in the society

and neighbourhood of one, to whom I could look up with equal reverence,

whether I regarded him as a poet, a philosopher, or a man. His

conversation extended to almost all subjects, except physics and

politics; with the latter he never troubled himself. Yet neither my

retirement nor my utter abstraction from all the disputes of the day

could secure me in those jealous times from suspicion and obloquy, which

did not stop at me, but extended to my excellent friend, whose perfect

innocence was even adduced as a proof of his guilt. One of the many busy

sycophants of that day,--(I here use the word sycophant in its original

sense, as a wretch who flatters the prevailing party by informing

against his neighbours, under pretence that they are exporters of

prohibited figs or fancies,--for the moral application of the term it

matters not which)--one of these sycophantic law-mongrels, discoursing

on the politics of the neighbourhood, uttered the following deep

remark: “As to Coleridge, there is not so much harm in him, for he is a

whirl-brain that talks whatever comes uppermost; but that ------! he is

the dark traitor. You never hear HIM say a syllable on the subject.”

Now that the hand of Providence has disciplined all Europe into

sobriety, as men tame wild elephants, by alternate blows and caresses;

now that Englishmen of all classes are restored to their old English

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

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

defamation,--(the too constant attendant on party-zeal)--during

the restless interim from 1793 to the commencement of the Addington

administration, or the year before the truce of Amiens. For by the

latter period the minds of the partizans, exhausted by excess of

stimulation and humbled by mutual disappointment, had become languid.

The same causes, that inclined the nation to peace, disposed the

individuals to reconciliation. Both parties had found themselves in

the wrong. The one had confessedly mistaken the moral character of

the revolution, and the other had miscalculated both its moral and

its physical resources. The experiment was made at the price of great,

almost, we may say, of humiliating sacrifices; and wise men foresaw that

it would fail, at least in its direct and ostensible object. Yet it

was purchased cheaply, and realized an object of equal value, and,

if possible, of still more vital importance. For it brought about

a national unanimity unexampled in our history since the reign of

Elizabeth; and Providence, never wanting to a good work when men have

done their parts, soon provided a common focus in the cause of Spain,

which made us all once more Englishmen by at once gratifying and

correcting the predilections of both parties. The sincere reverers of

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

of freedom; while the honest zealots of the people could not but admit,

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

and consecrated by religious principle. The youthful enthusiasts who,

flattered by the morning rainbow of the French revolution, had made a

boast of expatriating their hopes and fears, now, disciplined by the

succeeding storms and sobered by increase of years, had been taught

to prize and honour the spirit of nationality as the best safeguard of

national independence, and this again as the absolute pre-requisite and

necessary basis of popular rights.

If in Spain too disappointment has nipped our too forward expectations,

yet all is not destroyed that is checked. The crop was perhaps springing

up too rank in the stalk to kern well; and there were, doubtless,

symptoms of the Gallican blight on it. If superstition and despotism

have been suffered to let in their wolvish sheep to trample and eat it

down even to the surface, yet the roots remain alive, and the

second growth may prove the stronger and healthier for the temporary

interruption. At all events, to us heaven has been just and gracious.

The people of England did their best, and have received their rewards.

Long may we continue to deserve it! Causes, which it had been too

generally the habit of former statesmen to regard as belonging to

another world, are now admitted by all ranks to have been the main

agents of our success. “We fought from heaven; the stars in their

courses fought against Sisera.” If then unanimity grounded on moral

feelings has been among the least equivocal sources of our national

glory, that man deserves the esteem of his countrymen, even as patriots,

who devotes his life and the utmost efforts of his intellect to the

preservation and continuance of that unanimity by the disclosure

and establishment of principles. For by these all opinions must be

ultimately tried; and, (as the feelings of men are worthy of regard only

as far as they are the representatives of their fixed opinions,) on the

knowledge of these all unanimity, not accidental and fleeting, must be

grounded. Let the scholar, who doubts this assertion, refer only to

the speeches and writings of Edmund Burke at the commencement of the

American war and compare them with his speeches and writings at the

commencement of the French revolution. He will find the principles

exactly the same and the deductions the same; but the practical

inferences almost opposite in the one case from those drawn in the

other; yet in both equally legitimate and in both equally confirmed by

the results. Whence gained he the superiority of foresight? Whence arose

the striking difference, and in most instances even, the discrepancy

between the grounds assigned by him and by those who voted with him, on

the same questions? How are we to explain the notorious fact, that

the speeches and writings of Edmund Burke are more interesting at the

present day than they were found at the time of their first publication;

while those of his illustrious confederates are either forgotten, or

exist only to furnish proofs, that the same conclusion, which one man

had deduced scientifically, may be brought out by another in consequence

of errors that luckily chanced to neutralize each other. It would be

unhandsome as a conjecture, even were it not, as it actually is, false

in point of fact to attribute this difference to the deficiency

of talent on the part of Burke’s friends, or of experience, or of

historical knowledge. The satisfactory solution is, that Edmund Burke

possessed and had sedulously sharpened that eye, which sees all things,

actions, and events, in relation to the laws that determine their

existence and circumscribe their possibility. He referred habitually

to principles. He was a scientific statesman; and therefore a seer. For

every principle contains in itself the germs of a prophecy; and, as the

prophetic power is the essential privilege of science, so the fulfilment

of its oracles supplies the outward and, (to men in general,) the

only test of its claim to the title. Wearisome as Burke’s refinements

appeared to his parliamentary auditors, yet the cultivated classes

throughout Europe have reason to be thankful, that he

------went on refining,

And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining.

Our very sign-boards, (said an illustrious friend to me,) give evidence,

that there has been a Titian in the world. In like manner, not only the

debates in parliament, not only our proclamations and state papers,

but the essays and leading paragraphs of our journals are so many

remembrancers of Edmund Burke. Of this the reader may easily convince

himself, if either by recollection or reference he will compare the

opposition newspapers at the commencement and during the five or six

following years of the French revolution with the sentiments, and

grounds of argument assumed in the same class of journals at present,

and for some years past.

Whether the spirit of jacobinism, which the writings of Burke exorcised

from the higher and from the literary classes, may not, like the ghost

in Hamlet, be heard moving and mining in the underground chambers

with an activity the more dangerous because less noisy, may admit of

a question. I have given my opinions on this point, and the grounds of

them, in my letters to judge Fletcher occasioned by his charge to the

Wexford grand jury, and published in the Courier. Be this as it may, the

evil spirit of jealousy, and with it the Cerberean whelps of feud and

slander, no longer walk their rounds, in cultivated society.

Far different were the days to which these anecdotes have carried me

back. The dark guesses of some zealous Quidnunc met with so congenial a

soil in the grave alarm of a titled Dogberry of our neighbourhood, that

a spy was actually sent down from the government pour surveillance of

myself and friend. There must have been not only abundance, but variety

of these “honourable men” at the disposal of Ministers: for this proved

a very honest fellow. After three weeks’ truly Indian perseverance in

tracking us, (for we were commonly together,) during all which

time seldom were we out of doors, but he contrived to be within

hearing,--(and all the while utterly unsuspected; how indeed could such

a suspicion enter our fancies?)--he not only rejected Sir Dogberry’s

request that he would try yet a little longer, but declared to him his

belief, that both my friend and myself were as good subjects, for aught

he could discover to the contrary, as any in His Majesty’s dominions. He

had repeatedly hid himself, he said, for hours together behind a bank at

the sea-side, (our favourite seat,) and overheard our conversation. At

first he fancied, that we were aware of our danger; for he often heard

me talk of one Spy Nozy, which he was inclined to interpret of himself,

and of a remarkable feature belonging to him; but he was speedily

convinced that it was the name of a man who had made a book and lived

long ago. Our talk ran most upon books, and we were perpetually desiring

each other to look at this, and to listen to that; but he could not

catch a word about politics. Once he had joined me on the road; (this

occurred, as I was returning home alone from my friend’s house, which

was about three miles from my own cottage,) and, passing himself off

as a traveller, he had entered into conversation with me, and talked

of purpose in a democrat way in order to draw me out. The result, it

appears, not only convinced him that I was no friend of jacobinism; but,

(he added,) I had “plainly made it out to be such a silly as well as

wicked thing, that he felt ashamed though he had only put it on.” I

distinctly remembered the occurrence, and had mentioned it immediately

on my return, repeating what the traveller with his Bardolph nose had

said, with my own answer; and so little did I suspect the true object

of my “tempter ere accuser,” that I expressed with no small pleasure my

hope and belief, that the conversation had been of some service to the

poor misled malcontent. This incident therefore prevented all doubt as

to the truth of the report, which through a friendly medium came to me

from the master of the village inn, who had been ordered to entertain

the Government gentleman in his best manner, but above all to be silent

concerning such a person being in his house. At length he received Sir

Dogberry’s commands to accompany his guest at the final interview;

and, after the absolving suffrage of the gentleman honoured with the

confidence of Ministers, answered, as follows, to the following queries:

D. “Well, landlord! and what do you know of the person in question? L.

I see him often pass by with maister ----, my landlord, (that is, the

owner of the house,) and sometimes with the new-comers at Holford; but

I never said a word to him or he to me. D. But do you not know, that he

has distributed papers and hand-bills of a seditious nature among the

common people? L. No, your Honour! I never heard of such a thing. D.

Have you not seen this Mr. Coleridge, or heard of, his haranguing and

talking to knots and clusters of the inhabitants?--What are you grinning

at, Sir? L. Beg your Honour’s pardon! but I was only thinking, how

they’d have stared at him. If what I have heard be true, your Honour!

they would not have understood a word he said. When our Vicar was here,

Dr. L. the master of the great school and Canon of Windsor, there was a

great dinner party at maister’s; and one of the farmers, that was there,

told us that he and the Doctor talked real Hebrew Greek at each other

for an hour together after dinner. D. Answer the question, Sir! does he

ever harangue the people? L. I hope your Honour an’t angry with me. I

can say no more than I know. I never saw him talking with any one, but

my landlord, and our curate, and the strange gentleman. D. Has he not

been seen wandering on the hills towards the Channel, and along the

shore, with books and papers in his hand, taking charts and maps of

the country? L. Why, as to that, your Honour! I own, I have heard; I am

sure, I would not wish to say ill of any body; but it is certain, that I

have heard--D. Speak out, man! don’t be afraid, you are doing your duty

to your King and Government. What have you heard? L. Why, folks do

say, your Honour! as how that he is a Poet, and that he is going to put

Quantock and all about here in print; and as they be so much together,

I suppose that the strange gentleman has some consarn in the

business.”--So ended this formidable inquisition, the latter part of

which alone requires explanation, and at the same time entitles the

anecdote to a place in my literary life. I had considered it as a defect

in the admirable poem of THE TASK, that the subject, which gives the

title to the work, was not, and indeed could not be, carried on beyond

the three or four first pages, and that, throughout the poem, the

connections are frequently awkward, and the transitions abrupt and

arbitrary. I sought for a subject, that should give equal room and

freedom for description, incident, and impassioned reflections on men,

nature, and society, yet supply in itself a natural connection to the

parts, and unity to the whole. Such a subject I conceived myself to

have found in a stream, traced from its source in the hills among the

yellow-red moss and conical glass-shaped tufts of bent, to the first

break or fall, where its drops become audible, and it begins to form a

channel; thence to the peat and turf barn, itself built of the same dark

squares as it sheltered; to the sheepfold; to the first cultivated

plot of ground; to the lonely cottage and its bleak garden won from the

heath; to the hamlet, the villages, the market-town, the manufactories,

and the seaport. My walks therefore were almost daily on the top

of Quantock, and among its sloping coombes. With my pencil and

memorandum-book in my hand, I was making studies, as the artists call

them, and often moulding my thoughts into verse, with the objects and

imagery immediately before my senses. Many circumstances, evil and good,

intervened to prevent the completion of the poem, which was to have been

entitled THE BROOK. Had I finished the work, it was my purpose in the

heat of the moment to have dedicated it to our then committee of public

safety as containing the charts and maps, with which I was to have

supplied the French Government in aid of their plans of invasion. And

these too for a tract of coast that, from Clevedon to Minehead, scarcely

permits the approach of a fishing-boat!

All my experience from my first entrance into life to the present hour

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

political or religious zealots of his age, is safer from their obloquy

than he who differs from them but in one or two points, or perhaps only

in degree. By that transfer of the feelings of private life into the

discussion of public questions, which is the queen bee in the hive of

party fanaticism, the partisan has more sympathy with an intemperate

opposite than with a moderate friend. We now enjoy an intermission,

and long may it continue! In addition to far higher and more important

merits, our present Bible societies and other numerous associations

for national or charitable objects, may serve perhaps to carry off

the superfluous activity and fervour of stirring minds in innocent

hyperboles and the bustle of management. But the poison-tree is not

dead, though the sap may for a season have subsided to its roots. At

least let us not be lulled into such a notion of our entire security, as

not to keep watch and ward, even on our best feelings. I have seen gross

intolerance shown in support of toleration; sectarian antipathy

most obtrusively displayed in the promotion of an undistinguishing

comprehension of sects: and acts of cruelty, (I had almost said,) of

treachery, committed in furtherance of an object vitally important

to the cause of humanity; and all this by men too of naturally kind

dispositions and exemplary conduct.

The magic rod of fanaticism is preserved in the very adyta of human

nature; and needs only the re-exciting warmth of a master hand to bud

forth afresh and produce the old fruits. The horror of the Peasants’ war

in Germany, and the direful effects of the Anabaptists’ tenets,

(which differed only from those of jacobinism by the substitution of

theological for philosophical jargon,) struck all Europe for a time with

affright. Yet little more than a century was sufficient to obliterate

all effective memory of these events. The same principles with

similar though less dreadful consequences were again at work from the

imprisonment of the first Charles to the restoration of his son. The

fanatic maxim of extirpating fanaticism by persecution produced a civil

war. The war ended in the victory of the insurgents; but the temper

survived, and Milton had abundant grounds for asserting, that “Presbyter

was but OLD PRIEST writ large!” One good result, thank heaven! of this

zealotry was the re-establishment of the church. And now it might have

been hoped, that the mischievous spirit would have been bound for a

season, “and a seal set upon him, that he should deceive the nation

no more.” [33] But no! The ball of persecution was taken up with

undiminished vigour by the persecuted. The same fanatic principle that,

under the solemn oath and covenant, had turned cathedrals into stables,

destroyed the rarest trophies of art and ancestral piety, and hunted the

brightest ornaments of learning and religion into holes and corners, now

marched under episcopal banners, and, having first crowded the prisons

of England, emptied its whole vial of wrath on the miserable Covenanters

of Scotland [34]. A merciful providence at length constrained both

parties to join against a common enemy. A wise government followed;

and the established church became, and now is, not only the brightest

example, but our best and only sure bulwark, of toleration!--the

true and indispensable bank against a new inundation of persecuting

zeal--Esto perpetua!

A long interval of quiet succeeded; or rather, the exhaustion had

produced a cold fit of the ague which was symptomatized by indifference

among the many, and a tendency to infidelity or scepticism in the

educated classes. At length those feelings of disgust and hatred,

which for a brief while the multitude had attached to the crimes and

absurdities of sectarian and democratic fanaticism, were transferred to

the oppressive privileges of the noblesse, and the luxury; intrigues and

favouritism of the continental courts. The same principles, dressed

in the ostentatious garb of a fashionable philosophy, once more rose

triumphant and effected the French revolution. And have we not

within the last three or four years had reason to apprehend, that

the detestable maxims and correspondent measures of the late French

despotism had already bedimmed the public recollections of democratic

phrensy; had drawn off to other objects the electric force of the

feelings which had massed and upheld those recollections; and that a

favourable concurrence of occasions was alone wanting to awaken the

thunder and precipitate the lightning from the opposite quarter of the

political heaven?

In part from constitutional indolence, which in the very hey-day of

hope had kept my enthusiasm in check, but still more from the habits and

influences of a classical education and academic pursuits, scarcely

had a year elapsed from the commencement of my literary and political

adventures before my mind sank into a state of thorough disgust and

despondency, both with regard to the disputes and the parties disputant.

With more than poetic feeling I exclaimed:

The sensual and the dark rebel in vain,

Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game

They break their manacles, to wear the name

Of freedom, graven on a heavier chain.

O Liberty! with profitless endeavour

Have I pursued thee many a weary hour;

But thou nor swell’st the victor’s pomp, nor ever

Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power!

Alike from all, howe’er they praise thee,

(Nor prayer nor boastful name delays thee)

From Superstition’s harpy minions

And factious Blasphemy’s obscener slaves,

Thou speedest on thy cherub pinions,

The guide of homeless winds and playmate of the waves!

I retired to a cottage in Somersetshire at the foot of Quantock, and

devoted my thoughts and studies to the foundations of religion and

morals. Here I found myself all afloat. Doubts rushed in; broke upon me

“from the fountains of the great deep,” and fell “from the windows

of heaven.” The fontal truths of natural religion and the books of

Revelation alike contributed to the flood; and it was long ere my ark

touched on an Ararat, and rested. The idea of the Supreme Being appeared

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

the idea of infinite space in all the geometrical figures by which space

is limited. I was pleased with the Cartesian opinion, that the idea of

God is distinguished from all other ideas by involving its reality; but

I was not wholly satisfied. I began then to ask myself, what proof I

had of the outward existence of anything? Of this sheet of paper for

instance, as a thing in itself, separate from the phaenomenon or image

in my perception. I saw, that in the nature of things such proof is

impossible; and that of all modes of being, that are not objects of the

senses, the existence is assumed by a logical necessity arising from the

constitution of the mind itself,--by the absence of all motive to

doubt it, not from any absolute contradiction in the supposition of the

contrary. Still the existence of a Being, the ground of all existence,

was not yet the existence of a moral creator, and governour. “In the

position, that all reality is either contained in the necessary being as

an attribute, or exists through him, as its ground, it remains undecided

whether the properties of intelligence and will are to be referred to

the Supreme Being in the former or only in the latter sense; as inherent

attributes, or only as consequences that have existence in other things

through him [35]. Were the latter the truth, then notwithstanding all

the pre-eminence which must be assigned to the Eternal First from the

sufficiency, unity, and independence of his being, as the dread ground

of the universe, his nature would yet fall far short of that, which we

are bound to comprehend in the idea of GOD. For, without any knowledge

or determining resolve of its own, it would only be a blind

necessary ground of other things and other spirits; and thus would

be distinguished from the FATE of certain ancient philosophers in no

respect, but that of being more definitely and intelligibly described.”

For a very long time, indeed, I could not reconcile personality with

infinity; and my head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained

with Paul and John. Yet there had dawned upon me, even before I had met

with the CRITIQUE OF THE PURE REASON, a certain guiding light. If the

mere intellect could make no certain discovery of a holy and intelligent

first cause, it might yet supply a demonstration, that no legitimate

argument could be drawn from the intellect against its truth. And what

is this more than St. Paul’s assertion, that by wisdom,--(more properly

translated by the powers of reasoning)--no man ever arrived at the

knowledge of God? What more than the sublimest, and probably the oldest,

book on earth has taught us,

Silver and gold man searcheth out:

Bringeth the ore out of the earth, and darkness into light.

But where findeth he wisdom?

Where is the place of understanding?

The abyss crieth; it is not in me!

Ocean echoeth back; not in me!

Whence then cometh wisdom?

Where dwelleth understanding?

Hidden from the eyes of the living

Kept secret from the fowls of heaven!

Hell and death answer;

We have heard the rumour thereof from afar!

GOD marketh out the road to it;

GOD knoweth its abiding place!

He beholdeth the ends of the earth;

He surveyeth what is beneath the heavens!

And as he weighed out the winds, and measured the sea,

And appointed laws to the rain,

And a path to the thunder,

A path to the flashes of the lightning!

Then did he see it,

And he counted it;

He searched into the depth thereof,

And with a line did he compass it round!

But to man he said,

The fear of the Lord is wisdom for thee!

And to avoid evil,

That is thy understanding. [36]

I become convinced, that religion, as both the cornerstone and the

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

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

science, be wholly independent of the will. It were therefore to be

expected, that its fundamental truth would be such as might be denied;

though only, by the fool, and even by the fool from the madness of the

heart alone!

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

only as the ground of the universe by his essence, but as its maker and

judge by his wisdom and holy will, appeared to stand thus. The sciential

reason, the objects of which are purely theoretical, remains neutral, as

long as its name and semblance are not usurped by the opponents of the

doctrine. But it then becomes an effective ally by exposing the false

show of demonstration, or by evincing the equal demonstrability of the

contrary from premises equally logical [37]. The understanding meantime

suggests, the analogy of experience facilitates, the belief. Nature

excites and recalls it, as by a perpetual revelation. Our feelings

almost necessitate it; and the law of conscience peremptorily commands

it. The arguments, that at all apply to it, are in its favour; and

there is nothing against it, but its own sublimity. It could not be

intellectually more evident without becoming morally less effective;

without counteracting its own end by sacrificing the life of faith to

the cold mechanism of a worth less because compulsory assent. The belief

of a God and a future state, (if a passive acquiescence may be flattered

with the name of belief,) does not indeed always beget a good heart;

but a good heart so naturally begets the belief, that the very few

exceptions must be regarded as strange anomalies from strange and

unfortunate circumstances.

From these premises I proceeded to draw the following conclusions.

First, that having once fully admitted the existence of an infinite yet

self-conscious Creator, we are not allowed to ground the irrationality

of any other article of faith on arguments which would equally prove

that to be irrational, which we had allowed to be real. Secondly, that

whatever is deducible from the admission of a self-comprehending and

creative spirit may be legitimately used in proof of the possibility

of any further mystery concerning the divine nature. Possibilitatem

mysteriorum, (Trinitatis, etc.) contra insultus Infidelium et

Haereticorum a contradictionibus vindico; haud quidem veritatem, quae

revelatione sola stabiliri possit; says Leibnitz in a letter to his

Duke. He then adds the following just and important remark. “In

vain will tradition or texts of scripture be adduced in support of a

doctrine, donec clava impossibilitatis et contradictionis e manibus

horum Herculum extorta fuerit. For the heretic will still reply, that

texts, the literal sense of which is not so much above as directly

against all reason, must be understood figuratively, as Herod is a fox,

and so forth.”

These principles I held, philosophically, while in respect of revealed

religion I remained a zealous Unitarian. I considered the idea of the

Trinity a fair scholastic inference from the being of God, as a creative

intelligence; and that it was therefore entitled to the rank of an

esoteric doctrine of natural religion. But seeing in the same no

practical or moral bearing, I confined it to the schools of philosophy.

The admission of the Logos, as hypostasized (that is, neither a mere

attribute, nor a personification) in no respect removed my doubts

concerning the Incarnation and the Redemption by the cross; which I

could neither reconcile in reason with the impassiveness of the Divine

Being, nor in my moral feelings with the sacred distinction between

things and persons, the vicarious payment of a debt and the vicarious

expiation of guilt. A more thorough revolution in my philosophic

principles, and a deeper insight into my own heart, were yet wanting.

Nevertheless, I cannot doubt, that the difference of my metaphysical

notions from those of Unitarians in general contributed to my final

re-conversion to the whole truth in Christ; even as according to his own

confession the books of certain Platonic philosophers (libri quorundam

Platonicorum) commenced the rescue of St. Augustine’s faith from the

same error aggravated by the far darker accompaniment of the Manichaean

heresy.

While my mind was thus perplexed, by a gracious providence for which

I can never be sufficiently grateful, the generous and munificent

patronage of Mr. Josiah, and Mr. Thomas Wedgwood enabled me to finish

my education in Germany. Instead of troubling others with my own crude

notions and juvenile compositions, I was thenceforward better employed

in attempting to store my own head with the wisdom of others. I made the

best use of my time and means; and there is therefore no period of my

life on which I can look back with such unmingled satisfaction. After

acquiring a tolerable sufficiency in the German language [38] at

Ratzeburg, which with my voyage and journey thither I have described in

The Friend, I proceeded through Hanover to Goettingen.

Here I regularly attended the lectures on physiology in the morning, and

on natural history in the evening, under Blumenbach, a name as dear to

every Englishman who has studied at that university, as it is venerable

to men of science throughout Europe! Eichhorn’s lectures on the New

Testament were repeated to me from notes by a student from Ratzeburg,

a young man of sound learning and indefatigable industry, who is now,

I believe, a professor of the oriental languages at Heidelberg. But my

chief efforts were directed towards a grounded knowledge of the German

language and literature. From professor Tychsen I received as many

lessons in the Gothic of Ulphilas as sufficed to make me acquainted with

its grammar, and the radical words of most frequent occurrence; and with

the occasional assistance of the same philosophical linguist, I read

through [39] Ottfried’s metrical paraphrase of the gospel, and the most

important remains of the Theotiscan, or the transitional state of the

Teutonic language from the Gothic to the old German of the Swabian

period. Of this period--(the polished dialect of which is analogous to

that of our Chaucer, and which leaves the philosophic student in doubt,

whether the language has not since then lost more in sweetness and

flexibility, than it has gained in condensation and copiousness)--I

read with sedulous accuracy the Minnesinger (or singers of love, the

Provencal poets of the Swabian court) and the metrical romances; and

then laboured through sufficient specimens of the master singers, their

degenerate successors; not however without occasional pleasure from the

rude, yet interesting strains of Hans Sachs, the cobbler of Nuremberg.

Of this man’s genius five folio volumes with double columns are

extant in print, and nearly an equal number in manuscript; yet the

indefatigable bard takes care to inform his readers, that he never made

a shoe the less, but had virtuously reared a large family by the labour

of his hands.

In Pindar, Chaucer, Dante, Milton, and many more, we have instances of

the close connection of poetic genius with the love of liberty and of

genuine reformation. The moral sense at least will not be outraged, if

I add to the list the name of this honest shoemaker, (a trade by the by

remarkable for the production of philosophers and poets).

His poem entitled THE MORNING STAR, was the very first publication that

appeared in praise and support of Luther; and an excellent hymn of Hans

Sachs, which has been deservedly translated into almost all the European

languages, was commonly sung in the Protestant churches, whenever the

heroic reformer visited them.

In Luther’s own German writings, and eminently in his translation of

the Bible, the German language commenced. I mean the language as it is

at present written; that which is called the High-German, as

contra-distinguished from the Platt-Teutsch, the dialect on the flat or

northern countries, and from the Ober-Teutsch, the language of the

middle and Southern Germany. The High German is indeed a lingua

communis, not actually the native language of any province, but the

choice and fragrancy of all the dialects. From this cause it is at once

the most copious and the most grammatical of all the European tongues.

Within less than a century after Luther’s death the German was inundated

with pedantic barbarisms. A few volumes of this period I read through

from motives of curiosity; for it is not easy to imagine any thing more

fantastic, than the very appearance of their pages. Almost every third

word is a Latin word with a Germanized ending, the Latin portion being

always printed in Roman letters, while in the last syllable the German

character is retained.

At length, about the year 1620, Opitz arose, whose genius more nearly

resembled that of Dryden than any other poet, who at present occurs to

my recollection. In the opinion of Lessing, the most acute of critics,

and of Adelung, the first of Lexicographers, Opitz, and the Silesian

poets, his followers, not only restored the language, but still remain

the models of pure diction. A stranger has no vote on such a question;

but after repeated perusal of the works of Opitz my feelings justified

the verdict, and I seemed to have acquired from them a sort of tact for

what is genuine in the style of later writers.

Of the splendid aera, which commenced with Gellert, Klopstock, Ramler,

Lessing, and their compeers, I need not speak. With the opportunities

which I enjoyed, it would have been disgraceful not to have been

familiar with their writings; and I have already said as much as the

present biographical sketch requires concerning the German philosophers,

whose works, for the greater part, I became acquainted with at a far

later period.

Soon after my return from Germany I was solicited to undertake the

literary and political department in the Morning Post; and I acceded to

the proposal on the condition that the paper should thenceforwards be

conducted on certain fixed and announced principles, and that I should

neither be obliged nor requested to deviate from them in favour of any

party or any event. In consequence, that journal became and for many

years continued anti-ministerial indeed, yet with a very qualified

approbation of the opposition, and with far greater earnestness and zeal

both anti-Jacobin and anti-Gallican. To this hour I cannot find reason

to approve of the first war either in its commencement or its conduct.

Nor can I understand, with what reason either Mr. Perceval, (whom I

am singular enough to regard as the best and wisest minister of this

reign,) nor the present Administration, can be said to have pursued the

plans of Mr. Pitt. The love of their country, and perseverant hostility

to French principles and French ambition are indeed honourable qualities

common to them and to their predecessor. But it appears to me as clear

as the evidence of the facts can render any question of history, that

the successes of the Perceval and of the existing ministry have been

owing to their having pursued measures the direct contrary to Mr.

Pitt’s. Such for instance are the concentration of the national force to

one object; the abandonment of the subsidizing policy, so far at least

as neither to goad nor bribe the continental courts into war, till

the convictions of their subjects had rendered it a war of their own

seeking; and above all, in their manly and generous reliance on the good

sense of the English people, and on that loyalty which is linked to

the very [40] heart of the nation by the system of credit and the

interdependence of property.

Be this as it may, I am persuaded that the Morning Post proved a far

more useful ally to the Government in its most important objects,

in consequence of its being generally considered as moderately anti-

ministerial, than if it had been the avowed eulogist of Mr. Pitt. The

few, whose curiosity or fancy should lead them to turn over the journals

of that date, may find a small proof of this in the frequent charges

made by the Morning Chronicle, that such and such essays or leading

paragraphs had been sent from the Treasury. The rapid and unusual

increase in the sale of the Morning Post is a sufficient pledge, that

genuine impartiality with a respectable portion of literary talent

will secure the success of a newspaper without the aid of party

or ministerial patronage. But by impartiality I mean an honest and

enlightened adherence to a code of intelligible principles previously

announced, and faithfully referred to in support of every judgment

on men and events; not indiscriminate abuse, not the indulgence of an

editor’s own malignant passions, and still less, if that be possible,

a determination to make money by flattering the envy and cupidity, the

vindictive restlessness and self-conceit of the half-witted vulgar; a

determination almost fiendish, but which, I have been informed, has

been boastfully avowed by one man, the most notorious of these

mob-sycophants! From the commencement of the Addington administration to

the present day, whatever I have written in THE MORNING POST, or (after

that paper was transferred to other proprietors) in THE COURIER, has

been in defence or furtherance of the measures of Government.

Things of this nature scarce survive that night

That gives them birth; they perish in the sight;

Cast by so far from after-life, that there

Can scarcely aught be said, but that they were!

Yet in these labours I employed, and, in the belief of partial friends

wasted, the prime and manhood of my intellect. Most assuredly, they

added nothing to my fortune or my reputation. The industry of the week

supplied the necessities of the week. From government or the friends of

government I not only never received remuneration, nor ever expected it;

but I was never honoured with a single acknowledgment, or expression

of satisfaction. Yet the retrospect is far from painful or matter of

regret. I am not indeed silly enough to take as any thing more than a

violent hyperbole of party debate, Mr. Fox’s assertion that the late war

(I trust that the epithet is not prematurely applied) was a war produced

by the Morning Post; or I should be proud to have the words inscribed on

my tomb. As little do I regard the circumstance, that I was a specified

object of Buonaparte’s resentment during my residence in Italy in

consequence of those essays in the Morning Post during the peace of

Amiens. Of this I was warned, directly, by Baron Von Humboldt, the

Prussian Plenipotentiary, who at that time was the minister of the

Prussian court at Rome; and indirectly, through his secretary,

by Cardinal Fesch himself. Nor do I lay any greater weight on the

confirming fact, that an order for my arrest was sent from Paris, from

which danger I was rescued by the kindness of a noble Benedictine, and

the gracious connivance of that good old man, the present Pope. For the

late tyrant’s vindictive appetite was omnivorous, and preyed equally on

a Duc d’Enghien [41], and the writer of a newspaper paragraph. Like a

true vulture [42], Napoleon with an eye not less telescopic, and with a

taste equally coarse in his ravin, could descend from the most dazzling

heights to pounce on the leveret in the brake, or even on the field

mouse amid the grass. But I do derive a gratification from the

knowledge, that my essays contributed to introduce the practice of

placing the questions and events of the day in a moral point of view;

in giving a dignity to particular measures by tracing their policy or

impolicy to permanent principles, and an interest to principles by the

application of them to individual measures. In Mr. Burke’s writings

indeed the germs of almost all political truths may be found. But I

dare assume to myself the merit of having first explicitly defined

and analyzed the nature of Jacobinism; and that in distinguishing the

Jacobin from the republican, the democrat, and the mere demagogue, I

both rescued the word from remaining a mere term of abuse, and put on

their guard many honest minds, who even in their heat of zeal against

Jacobinism, admitted or supported principles from which the worst parts

of that system may be legitimately deduced. That these are not

necessary practical results of such principles, we owe to that fortunate

inconsequence of our nature, which permits the heart to rectify the

errors of the understanding. The detailed examination of the consular

Government and its pretended constitution, and the proof given by me,

that it was a consummate despotism in masquerade, extorted a recantation

even from the Morning Chronicle, which had previously extolled this

constitution as the perfection of a wise and regulated liberty. On every

great occurrence I endeavoured to discover in past history the event,

that most nearly resembled it. I procured, wherever it was possible,

the contemporary historians, memorialists, and pamphleteers. Then fairly

subtracting the points of difference from those of likeness, as the

balance favoured the former or the latter, I conjectured that the result

would be the same or different. In the series of essays entitled “A

comparison of France under Napoleon with Rome under the first Caesars,”

and in those which followed “On the probable final restoration of the

Bourbons,” I feel myself authorized to affirm, by the effect produced on

many intelligent men, that, were the dates wanting, it might have

been suspected that the essays had been written within the last twelve

months. The same plan I pursued at the commencement of the Spanish

revolution, and with the same success, taking the war of the United

Provinces with Philip II as the ground work of the comparison. I have

mentioned this from no motives of vanity, nor even from motives of self

defence, which would justify a certain degree of egotism, especially

if it be considered, how often and grossly I have been attacked for

sentiments, which I have exerted my best powers to confute and expose,

and how grievously these charges acted to my disadvantage while I was

in Malta. Or rather they would have done so, if my own feelings had not

precluded the wish of a settled establishment in that island. But I

have mentioned it from the full persuasion that, armed with the two-fold

knowledge of history and the human mind, a man will scarcely err in his

judgment concerning the sum total of any future national event, if he

have been able to procure the original documents of the past, together

with authentic accounts of the present, and if he have a philosophic

tact for what is truly important in facts, and in most instances

therefore for such facts as the dignity of history has excluded from

the volumes of our modern compilers, by the courtesy of the age entitled

historians.

To have lived in vain must be a painful thought to any man, and

especially so to him who has made literature his profession. I should

therefore rather condole than be angry with the mind, which could

attribute to no worthier feelings than those of vanity or self-love,

the satisfaction which I acknowledged myself to have enjoyed from the

republication of my political essays (either whole or as extracts) not

only in many of our own provincial papers, but in the federal journals

throughout America. I regarded it as some proof of my not having

laboured altogether in vain, that from the articles written by me

shortly before and at the commencement of the late unhappy war with

America, not only the sentiments were adopted, but in some instances the

very language, in several of the Massachusetts state papers.

But no one of these motives nor all conjointly would have impelled me

to a statement so uncomfortable to my own feelings, had not my character

been repeatedly attacked, by an unjustifiable intrusion on private life,

as of a man incorrigibly idle, and who intrusted not only with ample

talents, but favoured with unusual opportunities of improving them, had

nevertheless suffered them to rust away without any efficient exertion,

either for his own good or that of his fellow creatures. Even if the

compositions, which I have made public, and that too in a form the most

certain of an extensive circulation, though the least flattering to an

author’s self-love, had been published in books, they would have

filled a respectable number of volumes, though every passage of merely

temporary interest were omitted. My prose writings have been charged

with a disproportionate demand on the attention; with an excess of

refinement in the mode of arriving at truths; with beating the ground

for that which might have been run down by the eye; with the length and

laborious construction of my periods; in short with obscurity and the

love of paradox. But my severest critics have not pretended to have

found in my compositions triviality, or traces of a mind that shrunk

from the toil of thinking. No one has charged me with tricking out in

other words the thoughts of others, or with hashing up anew the cramben

jam decies coctam of English literature or philosophy. Seldom have I

written that in a day, the acquisition or investigation of which had not

cost me the previous labour of a month.

But are books the only channel through which the stream of intellectual

usefulness can flow? Is the diffusion of truth to be estimated by

publications; or publications by the truth, which they diffuse or at

least contain? I speak it in the excusable warmth of a mind stung by an

accusation, which has not only been advanced in reviews of the widest

circulation, not only registered in the bulkiest works of periodical

literature, but by frequency of repetition has become an admitted fact

in private literary circles, and thoughtlessly repeated by too many who

call themselves my friends, and whose own recollections ought to have

suggested a contrary testimony. Would that the criterion of a scholar’s

utility were the number and moral value of the truths, which he has been

the means of throwing into the general circulation; or the number and

value of the minds, whom by his conversation or letters, he has excited

into activity, and supplied with the germs of their after-growth!

A distinguished rank might not indeed, even then, be awarded to

my exertions; but I should dare look forward with confidence to

an honourable acquittal. I should dare appeal to the numerous and

respectable audiences, which at different times and in different places

honoured my lecture rooms with their attendance, whether the points

of view from which the subjects treated of were surveyed,--whether the

grounds of my reasoning were such, as they had heard or read elsewhere,

or have since found in previous publications. I can conscientiously

declare, that the complete success of the REMORSE on the first night of

its representation did not give me as great or as heart-felt a pleasure,

as the observation that the pit and boxes were crowded with faces

familiar to me, though of individuals whose names I did not know, and

of whom I knew nothing, but that they had attended one or other of my

courses of lectures. It is an excellent though perhaps somewhat vulgar

proverb, that there are cases where a man may be as well “in for a pound

as for a penny.” To those, who from ignorance of the serious injury

I have received from this rumour of having dreamed away my life to no

purpose, injuries which I unwillingly remember at all, much less am

disposed to record in a sketch of my literary life; or to those, who

from their own feelings, or the gratification they derive from thinking

contemptuously of others, would like job’s comforters attribute these

complaints, extorted from me by the sense of wrong, to self conceit or

presumptuous vanity, I have already furnished such ample materials, that

I shall gain nothing by withholding the remainder. I will not

therefore hesitate to ask the consciences of those, who from their long

acquaintance with me and with the circumstances are best qualified to

decide or be my judges, whether the restitution of the suum cuique would

increase or detract from my literary reputation. In this exculpation

I hope to be understood as speaking of myself comparatively, and in

proportion to the claims, which others are entitled to make on my time

or my talents. By what I have effected, am I to be judged by my fellow

men; what I could have done, is a question for my own conscience. On

my own account I may perhaps have had sufficient reason to lament my

deficiency in self-control, and the neglect of concentering my powers

to the realization of some permanent work. But to verse rather than to

prose, if to either, belongs the voice of mourning for

Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe

Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;

And fears self-willed that shunned the eye of hope;

And hope that scarce would know itself from fear;

Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,

And genius given and knowledge won in vain;

And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild,

And all which patient toil had reared, and all,

Commune with thee had opened out--but flowers

Strewed on my corpse, and borne upon my bier,

In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!

These will exist, for the future, I trust, only in the poetic strains,

which the feelings at the time called forth. In those only, gentle

reader,

Affectus animi varios, bellumque sequacis

Perlegis invidiae, curasque revolvis inanes,

Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in aevo.

Perlegis et lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta

Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus.

Omnia paulatim consumit longior aetas,

Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo.

Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor;

Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago,

Vox aliudque sonat--Jamque observatio vitae

Multa dedit--lugere nihil, ferre omnia; jamque

Paulatim lacrymas rerum experientia tersit.