P. 205. _and thank_. Cf. "Comus," 176: "In wanton dance they praise the
bounteous Pan."
_a mind reflecting_. See p. 35 and n.
_dark rearward_. Cf. "Tempest," i, 2, 50: "In the dark backward and abysm
of time."
P. 206. _That which was_. "Antony and Cleopatra," iv, 14, 9.
_quick, forgetive_. 2 "Henry IV," iv, 3, 107.
_what in him is weak_. Cf. "Paradise Lost," I, 22: "What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support."
P. 207. _and by the force_. Cf. "Macbeth," iii, 5, 28: "As by the strength
of their illusion Shalt draw him on to his confusion."
_rich strond_. "Faerie Queene," III, iv, 18, 29, 34.
_goes sounding_. "Hazlitt seems to have had a hazy recollection of two
passages in Chaucer's _Prologue_. In his essay on 'My First Acquaintance
with Poets,' he says, 'the scholar in Chaucer is described as going
"sounding on his way,"' and in his _Lectures on the English Poets_ he
says, 'the merchant, as described in Chaucer, went on his way "sounding
always the increase of his winning."' The scholar is not described as
'sounding on his way,' but Chaucer says of him, 'Souninge in moral vertu
was his speche,' while the merchant, though 'souninge alway th' encrees of
his winning,' is not described as going on his way. Wordsworth has a line
('Excursion,' Book III), 'Went sounding on a dim and perilous way,' but it
seems clear that Hazlitt thought he was quoting Chaucer." Waller-Glover,
IV, 412.
P. 208. _his own nothings_. "Coriolanus," ii, 2, 81.
_letting contemplation_. Cf. Dyer's "Grongar Hill," 26: "till
contemplation have its fill."
_Sailing with supreme dominion_. Gray's "Progress of Poesy."
_He lisped_. Pope's "Prologue to the Satires," 128.
_Ode on Chatterton_. "Monody on the Death of Chatterton," written by
Coleridge in 1790, at the age of eighteen.
P. 209. _gained several prizes_. "At Cambridge Coleridge won the Browne
Gold Medal for a Greek Ode in 1792." Waller-Glover.
_At Christ's Hospital_, a London school which Leigh Hunt and Lamb attended
about the same time as Coleridge. The former has left a record of its life
in his "Autobiography," and Lamb has written of it, with special reference
to Coleridge, in his "Recollections of Christ's Hospital" and "Christ's
Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago."
_Struggling in vain_. "Excursion," VI, 557.
P. 210. _Hartley_, David (1705-1757), author of "Observations on Man"
(1749), and identified chiefly with the theory of association. Cf.
Coleridge's "Religious Musings," 368: "and he of mortal kind Wisest, he
first who marked the ideal tribes Up the fine fibres through the sentient
brain."
_Dr. Priestley_, Joseph (1733-1804), scientist and philosopher of the
materialistic school, author of "The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity
Illustrated" (1777). "See! Priestley there, patriot, and saint, and sage."
"Religious Musings," 371.
_Bishop Berkeley's fairy-world_. George Berkeley (1685-1753), idealistic
philosopher. Cf. p. 287.
_Malebranche_, Nicholas (1638-1715), author of "De la Recherche de la
Verite" (1674).
_Cudworth_, Ralph (1617-1688), author of "The True Intellectual System of
the Universe" (1678).
_Lord Brook's hieroglyphical theories_. Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke
(1554-1628), friend and biographer of Sir Philip Sidney.
_Bishop Butler's Sermons_. Joseph Butler (1692-1752), author of "Fifteen
Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel" (1726), and "The Analogy of
Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature"
(1736).
_Duchess of Newcastle_. Margaret Cavendish (1624?-1674), published about a
dozen folio volumes of philosophical fancies, poems, and plays. In
"Mackery End in Hertfordshire" Lamb refers to her as "the thrice noble,
chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical and original-brained,
generous Margaret Newcastle."
_Clarke_, Samuel (1675-1729), English theologian of latitudinarian
principles.
_South_, Robert (1634-1716), controversial writer and preacher.
_Tillotson_, John (1630-1694), a popular theological writer of
rationalistic tendency.
_Leibnitz's Pre-established Harmony_. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz
(1646-1716), a German philosopher, represented the world as consisting of
an infinite number of independent substances or monads related to each
other in such a way (by the pre-established harmony) as to form one
universe. Cf. Coleridge's "Destiny of Nations," 38 ff.:
"Others boldlier think
That as one body seems the aggregate
Of atoms numberless, each organized;
So by a strange and dim similitude
Infinite myriads of self-conscious minds
Are an all-conscious spirit, which informs
With absolute ubiquity of thought
(His own eternal self-affirming act!)
All his involved Monads, that yet seem
With various province and apt agency
Each to pursue its own self-centering end."
P. 210, n. _And so by many_. "Two Gentlemen of Verona," ii, 7, 30.
P. 211. _hortus siccus_ [dry garden] _of Dissent_. Burke's "Reflections on
the French Revolution," Works, ed. Bohn, II, 287.
_John Huss_ (1373?-1415), Bohemian reformer and martyr.
_Jerome of Prague_, a follower of Huss who was burnt for heresy in 1416.
_Socinus_. Fausto Paulo Sozzini (1539-1604), an Italian theologian who
sought to simplify the doctrine of the Trinity.
_John Zisca_ (1370?-1424), a leader of the extreme Hussite party.
_Neal's History_. Daniel Neal (1648-1743) published his "History of the
Puritans" 1732-38.
_Calamy_, Edmund (1671-1732) published an "Account of the Ministers,
Lecturers, Masters and Fellows of Colleges, and Schoolmasters who were
Ejected or Silenced after the Restoration of 1660" (1702 and 1713).
_Spinoza_, Baruch (1632-1677), a Dutch philosopher of Jewish parentage,
the chief representative of Pantheism, "the doctrine of one infinite
substance, of which all finite existences are modes or limitations."
_When he saw_. Cf. Coleridge's "Remorse," iv, 2, 100:
"When we saw nought but beauty; when we heard
The voice of that Almighty One who loved us
In every gale that breathed, and wave that murmur'd!"
_Proclus_ (410-485) and _Plotinus_ (204-270), philosophers of the
Neo-Platonic school. In "Biographia Literaria" (chap. 9) Coleridge refers
to his "early study of Plato and of Plotinus, with the commentaries and
the 'Theologia Platonica' of the illustrious Florentine; of Proclus, and
Gemistius Pletho."
_Duns Scotus_ (1265 or 1275-1308) and _Thomas Aquinas_ (1227-1274), two
great theologians of the Catholic Church.
_Jacob Behmen_ or Boehme (1575-1624), a German religious mystic who exerted
considerable influence on English religious thought in the eighteenth
century. In the "Biographia Literaria" (chap. 9) Coleridge writes: "A meek
and shy quietist, his intellectual powers were never stimulated into
feverous energy by crowds of proselytes, or by the ambition of
proselyting. Jacob Behmen was an enthusiast in the strictest sense, as not
merely distinguished, but as contradistinguished from a fanatic.... The
writings of these Mystics acted in no slight degree to prevent my mind
from being imprisoned within the outline of any single dogmatic system."
_Swedenborg_, Emanuel (1688-1772), the Swedish scientist and mystic from
whom have sprung some of the modern theosophical cults.
_Religious Musings_, published in his "Poems on Various Subjects" (1796).
_the glad prose of Jeremy Taylor_. Cf. "Literature of the Age of
Elizabeth," Lecture VII: "In his writings, the frail stalk of human life
reclines on the bosom of eternity. His Holy Living and Dying is a divine
pastoral. He writes to the faithful followers of Christ, as the shepherd
pipes to his flock. He introduces touching and heartfelt appeals to
familiar life; condescends to men of low estate; and his pious page
blushes with modesty and beauty. His style is prismatic. It unfolds the
colours of the rainbow; it floats like the bubble through the air; it is
like innumerable dew-drops that glitter on the face of morning, and
tremble as they glitter. He does not dig his way underground, but slides
upon ice, borne on the winged car of fancy. The dancing light he throws
upon objects is like an Aurora Borealis, playing betwixt heaven and
earth.... In a word, his writings are more like fine poetry than any other
prose whatever; they are a choral song in praise of virtue, and a hymn to
the Spirit of the Universe."
_Bowles_, William Lisle (1762-1850), published "Fourteen Sonnets" in 1789,
and a second edition containing twenty-one in the same year. In the first
chapter of the "Biographia Literaria," Coleridge credits the sonnets of
Bowles with saving him from a premature absorption in metaphysics and
theology and with introducing him to the excellences of the new school of
poetry. In his enthusiasm he went about making proselytes for Bowles and
"as my school finances did not permit me to purchase copies, I made,
within less than a year and a half, more than forty transcriptions, as the
best presents I could offer to those, who had in any way won my regard.
And with almost equal delight did I receive the three or four following
publications of the same author." Coleridge also addressed a "Sonnet to
Bowles," opening
"My heart hath thanked thee, Bowles! for those soft strains,
That on the still air floating tremblingly,
Wak'd in me Fancy, Love, and Sympathy!"
P. 212. _John Bull_. Croker's John Bull was a scurrilous newspaper edited
by Theodore Hook, the first number of which appeared December 17, 1820.
_Mr. Croker_, John Wilson (1780-1857), politician and man of letters, one
of Hazlitt's pet aversions, and the same who comes in for such a severe
chastisement in Macaulay's review of his edition of Boswell's "Johnson."
_Junius_, the mysterious author of a famous series of political letters
which appeared in the London Public Advertiser from January 21, 1769, to
January 21, 1772, collected as the "Letters of Junius" in 1772. The name
of Sir Philip Francis is the one most persistently associated with the
composition of these letters.
_Godwin_, William (1756-1836), leader of the philosophical radicals in
England and a believer in the perfectibility of man, wrote "An Enquiry
concerning Political Justice" (1793), "Caleb Williams" (1794), and other
novels and miscellaneous works. Godwin was the husband of Mary
Wolstonecraft, and the father-in-law of Shelley. Hazlitt wrote a sketch of
him in the "Spirit of the Age" and reviewed his last novel, "Cloudesley,"
in the Edinburgh Review. Coleridge has a Sonnet to William Godwin:
"Nor will I not thy holy guidance bless,
And hymn thee, Godwin! with an ardent lay;
For that thy voice, in Passion's stormy day
When wild I roam'd the bleak Heath of Distress,
Bade the bright form of Justice meet my way--
And told me that her name was Happiness."
_Sorrows of Werter_, a sentimental novel of Goethe's, the work by which he
was most generally known to English readers in Hazlitt's day.
_laugh'd with Rabelais_. Cf. Pope's "Dunciad," I, 22: "Or laugh and shake
in Rab'lais easy chair."
_spoke with rapture of Raphael_. Coleridge had visited Italy in 1806 on
his return from a stay in Malta, and had devoted his time there to a study
of Italian art. See p. 298 n.
_Giotto_ (d. 1337), _Ghirlandaio_, whose real name was Domenico Bigardi
(1449-1494), and _Massaccio_ (1402-1429) were early Florentine painters.
_wandered into Germany_. Coleridge's visit to Germany and his introduction
to the leading German philosophers dates back to 1798-99.
_Kantean philosophy_. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was the leader of modern
philosophy. "The writings of the illustrious sage of Koenigsberg, the
founder of the Critical Philosophy, more than any other work, at once
invigorated and disciplined my understanding. The originality, the depth,
and the compression of the thoughts; the novelty and subtlety, yet
solidity and importance of the distinctions; the adamantine chain of the
logic; and I will venture to add--(paradox as it will appear to those who
have taken their notion of Immanuel Kant from Reviewers and
Frenchmen)--the clearness and evidence, of the Critique of Pure Reason;
and Critique of the Judgment; of the Metaphysical Elements of Natural
Philosophy; and of his Religion within the bounds of Pure Reason, took
possession of me as with a giant's hand. After fifteen years' familiarity
with them, I still read these and all his other productions with
undiminished delight and increasing admiration." "Biographia Literaria,"
chap. IX.
_Fichte_, J. Gottlieb (1762-1814). "Fichte's _Wissenschaftslehre_, or Lore
of Ultimate Science, was to add the key-stone of the arch" of Kant's
system. Ibid.
_Schelling_, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph (1775-1829). "In Schelling's
_Natur-Philosophie_, and the _System des Transcendentalen Idealismus_, I
first found a genial coincidence with much that I had toiled out for
myself, and a powerful assistance in what I had yet to do.... Many of the
most striking resemblances, indeed all the main and fundamental ideas,
were born and matured in my mind before I had ever seen a single page of
the German Philosopher; and I might indeed affirm with truth, before the
most important works of Schelling had been written, or at least made
public. Nor is this coincidence at all to be wondered at. We had studied
in the same school; been disciplined by the same preparatory philosophy,
namely, the writings of Kant; we had both equal obligations to the polar
logic and dynamic philosophy of Giordano Bruno; and Schelling has lately,
and, as of recent acquisition, avowed that same affectionate reverence for
the labors of Behmen, and other mystics, which I had formed at a much
earlier period." Ibid.
_Lessing_, Gotthold Ephraim (1729-1781), German dramatist and critic.
_sang for joy_. Coleridge had in 1789 composed some stanzas "On the
Destruction of the Bastille," but these were not published till 1834.
_would have floated his bark_. Coleridge and Southey with some other
friends had in 1794 formed a plan for an ideal colony, the Pantisocracy,
on the banks of the Susquehanna.
_In Philharmonia's_. Cf. Coleridge's "Monody on the Death of Chatterton,"
140: "O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale."