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VICTORIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
TORONTO, ONTARIO

74 Coleridg-e (Sara). Memoir and
Letters, edited by her daughter, en-
port^ Thick, cr. 8™, 413 pages.

Jo/O.

i?' AVeh PaS Hnf rem«r7ksJ°n Walter Sa^ffe Landoiy
Words^'ortl> and other literr

MEMOIE AND LETTEES

SARA COLERIDGE.

SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE

MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

"Two delightful volumes. ... We could have wished to give specimens of her very just, subtle, and con-
cise criticisms on authors of every sort and time— poets, moralists, historians, and philosophers. We refer
especially for samples of acute criticism in few words to passing remarks on Dr. Chalmers, Walter Savage
Laridor, and Sir Arthur Helps. She worships Milton, the man as well as the poet, and is unusually appre-
ciative of Dryden. She has made an important contribution to a subject already very rich— Wordsworth
criticism. Sara Coleridge, as she is revealed, or rather reveals herself, in the correspondence, makes a brilliant
addition to a brilliant family reputation." — Saturday Review.

"These charming volumes are attractive in two ways : first, as a memorial of a most amiable woman of high
intellectual mark ; and secondly, as rekindling recollections, and adding a little to our information regarding
the life of Sara Coleridge's father, the poet and philosopher. We can scarcely conceive anirintelligent reader for
whom these volumes will not have a charm, as telling genuinely and naturally the life, the daily thoughts and
hopes and occupations, of a noble woman of a high order of mind, and as mirroring a pure heart. Her letter-
writing is thoroughly unaffected. There is never straining for effect. Abstruse subjects are treated without the
least apparent consciousness of learning, and without any studied fine writing."— Athenaeum.

"An acceptable record, and present an' adequate image of a mind of singular beauty and no inconsiderable
power. "—Examiner.

" Her letters here published have no nonsense whatever in them, She is always at the 'same high level,
always thinking, always communicating her thoughts. . . . She writes so that men and angels may read, and
the whole world hear, and she never be ashamed. We promise the reader that he will receive many ' casual
and transitory expressions ' of a beautiful and poetic nature from this book."— blackwood's Magazine.

" The memoir has only one fault, it is too short ; but the real value of the book lies in the letters, from which
one can deduce the image of just such a beautiful, loveable character as looks out upon us from the face of
her portrait, both in youth and in middle age." — Graphic.

" These volumes, containing extracts from the correspondence of Coleridge's' only daughter, give the impres-
sion at once of one of the wisest and also of one of the most truly feminine natures that was ever possessed of
great learning and great powers of thought."— Spectator.

" Her letters are interesting as the expression of the feelings of a clever woman, who lived in the really best
society of the time. . . . Readable from beginning to end." — Westminster Review.

" These volumes enable us to follow intimately the course of a noble and elevated life. . . . The) interest
attaching to her name and memory, and the mass of vigorous letters which ishe left behind, embodying her
thoughts and observations on art, literature, and religion, subjects on which her mind ;habitually dwelt, fully
justify the publication of these volumes." — Guardian.

PHANTASMION. A Fairy Romance. By SARA COLERIDGE. With an Intro-
troductory Preface by the RIGHT HON. LORD COLERIDGE, of OTTERY ST.
MARY. A New Edition. In 1 vol. Crown 8vo. Price 7s. Qd.

"»" The readers of this fairy tale will find themselves dwelling for a time 'in a veritable region of romance,
breathing an atmosphere of unreality, and surrounded by supernatural beings." — Morning Post.

" This delightful work. ... We would gladly have read it were it twice the length, closing the book with a
feeling of regret that the repast was at an end." — Vanity fair.

"A beautiful conception of a rarely-gifted mind."— Examiner.

PRETTY LESSONS IN VERSE FOR GOOD CHILDREN, with some
Lessons in Latin, in Easy Rhyme. By SARA COLERIDGE. A New Edition,
with Illustrations.

HENRY S. KING & Co., LONDON.

Ztti^V'

MEMOIR AND LETTERS

SARA COLERIDGE.

EDITED BY

HEE DAUGHTEK.

" A Spirit, yet a. Woman, too."

WORDS^OUTH.

FOURTH EDITION, ABRIDGED.

HENEY S. KING & Co.,

65 CORNHILL, AND 12 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

1875.

PEEFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION.

" Poor is the portrait that one look pourtrays,
It mocks the face on which we loved to gaze."*

AND if this be true of such external resemblances as pictorial
art is employed to produce, it is equally true of that uncon-
scious self-portraiture, that revelation of the inner mind,
which is contained in a greater or less degree in any collec-
tion of published letters. The interest which such works
are intended to excite is, in the main, biographical, and
their object is not merely to preserve .and bring to light a
number of writings of intrinsic merit and beauty, but still
more, perhaps, to present to the reader a record, however
imperfect, of the personal characteristics, both moral and
intellectual, of the writer.

But how faint and inadequate, if not incorrect, is that
image of the departed, which can alone be thus reproduced !
Even the original correspondence, could it be given entire
in all its details (which is, for obvious reasons, impossible),

* Lines in " Phantasmion."

Vi PREFACE.

would be but as a mirrored reflection — a selection from the
correspondence is but its scattered fragments.

The difficulty which must attend on all such under-
takings as that on which I have been engaged, in editing
the letters of my mother, is rather increased than dimin-
ished by that very quality which constitutes their peculiar
charm, I mean their perfect genuineness and life-like
reality.

Touching descriptions of personal feeling, acute remarks
and wise reflections occur here in abundance, which seem,
to the eye of affection, to be gems " of purest ray serene,"
the utterances of a heart full of sensibility, and an intellect
at once subtle and profound. Yet, severed as they must
often be from the context which justified and explained
them, these thoughtful comments on the life within and
around her may, it is to be feared, either lose their full
significance, or assume one that is exaggerated and untrue.

Even those portions of the following collection which
seem, at first sight, to be most abstract and elaborate (such
as the critical discussions on art and poetry, and those
which intimate the results of speculative thought and
religious inquiry), will be found, on consideration, to be
full of personal references, suggested by special occasions,
and connected at all points with the realities of life.

The letters of Sara Coleridge were not acts of authorship,
but of friendship ; we feel, in reading them, that she is not
entertaining or instructing a crowd of listeners, but holding
quiet converse with some congenial mind. Her share of

PREFACE. Vll

that converse we are privileged in part to overhear, while
the response is borne away by the winds in another direc-
tion.

A book composed of epistolary extracts can never be a
wholly satisfactory one, because its contents are not only
relative and fragmentary, but unauthorized and unrevised.
To arrest the passing utterances of the hour, and reveal to
the world that which was spoken either in the innermost
circle of home affection, or in the outer (but still guarded)
circle of social and friendly intercourse, seems almost like
a betrayal of confidence, and is a step which cannot be
taken by survivors without some feelings of hesitation and
reluctance. That reluctance is only to be overcome by the
sense that, however natural, it is partly founded on delusion
— a delusion which leads us to personify " the world " to
our imagination as an obtuse and somewhat hostile indivi-
dual, who is certain to take things by the wrong handle,
and cannot be trusted to make the needful allowances, and
supply the inevitable omissions. Whereas it is a more
reasonable as well as a more comfortable belief, that the
only part of the world which is in the least likely to concern
itself with such volumes as these, is composed of a number
of enlightened and sympathetic persons, who, it is hoped,
though strangers to all but the name of Sara Coleridge,
may yet derive from her letters some portion of the gratifi-
cation which they once afforded to those who knew and
loved her. And if it be well for us to "think on whatso-
ever things are true, whatsoever things are pure, whatso-

Vlll PREFACE.

ever things are lovely," and to rejoice in " any virtue and
any praise," we ought surely to be willing that all who
desire it should hear the music of the words in which these
things are uttered, and see the light of the life in which
they shone.

In conclusion, I have only to offer my respectful and
grateful acknowledgments to those who have rendered this
memorial possible, by their kindness in entrusting me with
these treasured records of a friendship long past, yet never
past away.

E. C.

HANWELL RECTORY,
May 7th, 1873.

PEEFACE TO THE FOUBTH EDITION.

ERRATA.

Page 3, line 8,Jor " Crescelles " read " Cressilly ; " and for " Allan " read " Allen.
„ line 9,/or " Drew " read " Drewe ; " and/or " brother " rend " mother."

of its results has been almost more than realized. The
name of Sara Coleridge recalls now, I am happy to think,
•to many beside personal friends, an image which they
would not willingly part with.

But while thus dwelling on what is so gratifying to me,
it would not be candid to avoid all allusion to the adverse
criticism that has appeared in certain quarters. According

Vlll PREFACE.

In conclusion, I have only to offer my respectful and
grateful acknowledgments to those who have rendered this
memorial possible, by their kindness in entrusting me with
these trfifl.snrfid rp.r.orrla of a. frip.nrlshin loner -nn.st,. vp.t np.vp.r

PEEFACE TO THE FOUETH EDITION.

A NEW edition of the ''Memoir and Letters of Sara Cole-
ridge " having been called for, I gladly avail myself of the
opportunity to express my grateful appreciation of the
favourable manner in which this book has been received by
the public. It was my purpose and endeavour, in pre-
paring it, to preserve a truthful, though necessarily incom-
plete, record of the chief characteristics of my mother's
mind and life, in the confident hope that such a record
would prove to be generally acceptable. This endeavour
of mine has been met by the kind interest and warm
sympathy of a wide circle of readers ; and my anticipation
of its results has been almost more than realized. The
name of Sara Coleridge recalls now, I am happy to think,
•to many beside personal friends, an image which they
would not willingly part with.

But while thus dwelling on what is so gratifying to me,
it would not be candid to avoid all allusion to the adverse
criticism that has appeared in certain quarters. According

X PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

to some of these notices, there is an excess of the intel-
lectual and abstract element in the correspondence, over-
laying its personal interest; while according to others, it
contains too many passing references to trifling matters,
social or domestic, about which no one at the present day
can be expected to know or care anything. It is very
probable that both these opposite objections may have
some foundation in truth; but though I sincerely regret
that my judgment on several points has not been approved,
I am still glad to find it generally acknowledged that the
defects complained of are not in the letters themselves, but
in the selection made from them for publication.

It was not, indeed, my principal object, in this new
edition, to amend, so much as to abridge ; to present the
main substance of my mother's written discourse in a more
convenient and compendious form, and by this means to
place it in the hands of a more numerous class of readers.
But this object could not be attained without a considerable
remodelling, amounting almost to a fresh selection from
the materials already in print ; and in the execution of this
somewhat difficult task, I have been ready and willing to
adopt, from any remarks or criticisms that have come
before me, whatever seemed likely to aid me in offering to
the public not merely a shorter, but in some respects a
better book. To persons of a conservative turn of mind,
all changes are a grievance ; to a filial editor, all omissions
are a loss ; yet since omissions were inevitable, I can only
hope that they have been made in the right directions, and

PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. XI

that the book will be thought, upon the whole, to have
rather gained than lost by compression.

It cannot be denied, however, that this process of com-
pression, when exercised upon a collection of familiar
letters, though the result may be to a certain extent an
improvement, is not without a counter-balancing disadvan-
tage. In every correspondence extending over many years,
a change, if not a progress of opinion on many important
topics, is sure to be perceptible ; and it is feared that these
signs of advancing thought and increased experience,
which, in a biography of the ordinary length, are felt to
be both natural and interesting, may have the appearance
of inconsistency, when brought together within the narrower
limits of a volume of epistolary extracts. It would have
been easy indeed to secure an artificial uniformity by the
simple expedient of suppressing the earlier, perhaps the less
mature, utterances. But I have preferred to leave the
reconciliation of these slight discrepancies to the considera-
tion of the thoughtful reader, in the belief that such a
course is most in conformity with that which was my
mother's one standard — truth.

It will not, I trust, appear needlessly explanatory if I
add that, in determining the contents of this volume, I
have not proceeded in every instance solely on my own
responsibility, but have enjoyed the advantage of consult-
ing with persons on whose judgment I could thoroughly
rely. The first of these is one who takes a deeper interest
in the following memorials than can be felt by any one else

Xll PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

now living, except myself, and who is on all accounts best
fitted to decide on what ought to form 'a part of them —
I mean my mother's only surviving brother, the Eev.
Derwent Coleridge. The others are gentlemen to whose
care, zeal, and experience this work is already much
indebted, my publishers, Messrs. Henry S. King & Co.

E. C.

HANWELL RECTORY,
October 3rd, 1874.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION v

PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION . ix

MEMOIE.

RECOLLECTIONS OF SARA COLERIDGE. WRITTEN BY HERSELF, IN A
LETTER TO HER DAUGHTER.

Little Grand-Lamas—Fall into the Greta—" Pi-pos, Pot-pos "— Visit to the
South — Martha and Elizabeth Fricker — Greta Hall Garden — Greta Hall
Drawing-room — Visit to Allan Bank — Political Discussions — The Lake
Poets on Dress — Visit to Allonby — Night Fears — Sketch by William
Collins — Reminiscences of Sir Henry Taylor — Early Religious Views —
"Memoir of the Chevalier Bayard" — "Account of the Abipones" — Visit
to Highgate — Marriage Prospects — Henry Nelson Coleridge — "Phan-
tasmion" and "Pretty Lessons" — Widowhood — Editorial Duties — Last
Illness and Death — Her Character — Her Memory . . 1-43

XIV CONTENTS.

CORRESPONDENCE.

CHAPTER I.— 1833.
LETTERS TO HER ELDEST BROTHER HARTLEY COLERIDGE, AND TO

MlSS TREVENENj 44-51.

I. Importance of indirect Influences in Education — Description of her Son
at three years old — A Child's first effort at Recollection (44-47). II. Mrs.
Joanna Baillie — " An Old Age Serene and Bright " — Miss Martineau's
Characters of Children — "A Little Knowledge" of Political Economy "a
Dangerous Thing" — Comparison of Tasso, Dante, and Milton (47-50).
III. Characteristics of English Scenery — Somerset, Yorkshire, Devon, Derby-
shire, and the Lakes — Visit of H. N. Coleridge to Mr. Poole at Nether
Stowey (50, 51).

CHAPTER II.— 1834

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND AND Miss TREVENEN^ 52-59.

I. Mrs. Hannah More — Girlish view of her Literary pretensions confirmed
by maturer judgment — A group of Authoresses — Remarks on Jane Austen's
novels by the Lake Poets — Hannah More's celebrity accounted for — Letters
of Walpole and Mrs. Barbauld — Love of Gossip in the Reading Public
(52-55). II. Dryden and Chaucer (55). III. Cruelty (56,57). IV.
The Drama and the Epic (57).- V. Miss Herschel — Hard Words in the
Latin Grammar useful to young Learners — Geography made Easy — Right
Opinions must be held in the right Spirit (58, 59) .

CHAPTER III.— 1834 (continued).
LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND AND TO MRS. PLUMMER, 60-70.

I. Note on Enthusiasm — Mischievous effect of wrong Names given to
Moral Qualities (60, 61) . II. Cowper's " Iliad and Odyssey "—Requisites
for a successful Translation of Homer (61, 62). III. Quiet Conclusion
of " Paradise Lost," and of the Part of Shy lock in the " Merchant of Venice"
— Silence of Revenge ; Eloquence of Love and Grief and Indignation
(62-64). IV. On the Death of Samuel Taylor Coleridge— Details of his
last Illness — His Will, Letters, and Literary Remains — Respect and Affection
felt for him by those with whom he lived — Probable Influence of his Writings
on the Course of Religious Thought — Remarks on his Genius and Character
by different Critics — His last Readings and Notes (64-70) . V. Attach-
ment of Mr. Wordsworth to the Church of England (70).

CONTENTS. XV

CHAPTER IV.— 1835.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, MRS. PLUMMER, AND MRS. HENRY M.
JONES, 71-75.

I. Deaths of Charles Lamb and Edward Irving (71). II. Union of
Thought and Feeling in the Poetry of Wordsworth — The White Doe of
Rylstone : lofty Moral of the Poem, and beauty of particular passages (71-73).
III. Charles Lamb, his Shyness and Tenderness — A lifelong Friend-
ship (73, 74). IV. Spiders— their Webs and Ways (74, 75).

CHAPTER V.— 1836.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, Miss TREVENEN, AND Miss ARABELLA
BROOKE, 76-80.

I. "The Boy and the Birds," and the " Story without an End" — Defects
of the latter as a Book for Children— A Critic's Foible (76, 77). II. " The
shaping Spirit of Imagination" — Mrs. Hemans (77). III. "The

Kemains" — Metaphysics like Alum (78). IV. Abbott's " Corner-Stone,"
and other Religious Works — Comparison of Archbishop Whately with
Dr. Arnold, in their mode of setting forth the Evidences of Christianity —
Dr. Chalmers— The Greek Language (78-80).

CHAPTER VI.— 1837.
LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND^ Miss TREVENEN, Miss A. BROOKE, 81-96.

I. The English Beppoists (81). II. " Phantasmion, a Eomance of
Fairyland" — Defence of Fairy Tales by Five Poets — "Mary and Florence,"
by Miss Tytler — " Newman's Sermons " — " Maurice's Letters to the Quakers"
(81-84). III. Definition of "Force" and " Liveliness " in Poetry — The
Homeric Mythology not Allegorical — Symbolical Character of the Imagery
of Milton and Wordsworth— Originality of Virgil (84-86). IV. "Parochial
Sermons," by John Henry Newman — Power and Beauty of his Style —
Tendency of his Teaching to exalt the Passive rather than the Active
Qualities of Humanity — The Ordinance of Preaching (86-89). V. Graphic
Style of the Old Testament Narratives — Married Happiness (90, 91) . VI.
Conservative Eeplies to some Arguments of the Radical Party — The British
Constitution not originally Popular but Paternal — An appeal to Universal
Suffrage not an appeal to the Collective Wisdom of the Age, but to its
Collective Ignorance — " The Majority will be always in the right ; " but not
till it has adopted the views of the Minority — Despotism of the Mob in
America regretted by many Americans — English Government not a mere
machine for registering Votes — How are the People to be trained to a right
Exercise of their Liberties ? (91-96) .

CHAPTER VII.— 1838.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, MRS. PLUMMER, Miss TREVENEN,
Miss A. BROOKE, 97-103.

I. Seaside Occupations — Bathing : Childish Timidity not to be cured by
Compulsion — Letter -writing (97,98). II. The History of Rome, by Dr.
Arnold — The Study of Divinity, Poetry, and Physiology, preferred to that of

XVI CONTENTS.

History or Politics— Christian Theology and Metaphysics (99,100). III.
Miracle of the Raising of Lazarus passed over by the Synoptical Gospels
(100, 101). IV. Connection between the Senses and the Mind — Early
Greatness of great Poets — Poetic Imagination of Plato (101). V. De-
scription of the Falls of Niagara in Miss Martineau's " Kestrospect of
Western Travel" (102). VI. Lukewarm Christians (102,103).

CHAPTER VIIL— 1839.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, MRS. PLUMMER, Miss TREVENEN,
Miss A. BROOKE, 104-114.

I. Characteristics of the Oxford School of Divines — Combinations, even
for the best Purposes, not favourable to Truth — Superior Confidence inspired
by an Independent Thinker — Are Presbyterians Excluded from the Visible
Church ? — Authority of Hooker cited against such a Decision — Defence of
the Title of Protestant — Luther : Injustice commonly done to his Character
and Work (104-108). II. A Little Lecturer— Stammering (108, 109).
III. Philosophy of the "Excursion" (109, 110). IV. Lord Byron on
the Lake Poets (HO). V. Writing to Order— Sunday Stories and
Spanish Romances (110, 111). VI. Pain more bearable when its Cause
is Known — Musings on Eternity — Descriptions of Heaven, Symbolical,
Material, and Spiritual — Conjectures of Various Writers respecting the Con-
dition of Departed Souls

CHAPTER IX.— 1840.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, HER ELDEST BROTHER, MRS. J. STANGER,
MRS. H. M. JONES, 115-119.

I. Love of Books and Classical Studies (115). II. Lord Byron's
Mazeppa and Manfred — His success in Satire and in Sensational Writing
(116). III. On the Death of an Infant Daughter (116, 117). IV.
"They sin who tell us love can die" (118). V. A Sunset Landscape
(118, 119). VI. The true Art of Life (119).

CHAPTER X.— 1841— 1843.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, MRS. PLUMMER, MRS. THOMAS FARRER,
Miss TREVENEN, MRS. H. M. JONES, THE REV. HENRY MOORE,
THE HON. MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE, 120-129.

I. Necessity of Patience and Hope in Education (120) . II. The Lake
Poets on Sport— The Life of Wesley (120, 121). III. Inflexibility of the
French Language — The Second Part of Faust : its Beauties and Defects —
Visionary Hopes (121, 122). IV. Reminiscences of a Tour in Belgium —
Hemling's " Marriage of St. Catherine " at Bruges ; and Van Eyck's " Adora-

CONTENTS. XV11

tion of the Lamb" at Ghent — Devotional gravity of the early Flemish
Painters — Pathos of Rubens — Works of that Master at Antwerp and Mechlin
(122-124). V. Prayer for the Dead (124). VI. A Visit to Oxford
(125). VII. Illness of her Husband, and Death of his only Sister (125-
127). VIII. Religious Bigotry (127). IX. " Hope deferred " (128).
X. Resignation (128, 129).

CHAPTER XI.— 1843 (continued).

LETTERS TO HER SON, HER ELDEST BROTHER, MRS. J. STANGER, HON.
MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE, REV. HENRY MOORE, EDWARD QUILLI-
NAN, ESQ., MRS. THOMAS FARRER, MRS. H. M. JONES, 130-149.

I. Widowhood (130). II. Her Husband's Death — First meeting with
him at Highgate (130, 131). III. On the same Subject — Trial of a
Mourner's Faith, and how it was met (132-134). IV. Affectionate Kind-
ness of Relatives and Friends — Special Gifts of a Christian Minister, in his
Attendance upon the Sick and Dying (134-137). V. Memoir of Nicholas
Ferrer (137). VI. A Quiet Heart (137, 138). VII. Monument of
Robert Southey — Recumbent Statues (138). VIII. On her Loss —

Injury done to the Mind by brooding over Grief (139, 140). IX. Dryness
of Controversial Sermons (140, 141). X. A Visit to Margate — Domestic
Economy in its Right Place — An Eton Schoolboy — Reading under Difficulties
— High Moral Aim of Carlyle's " Hero-worship" — Joy of a True Christian —
The Logic of the Heart and the Logic of the Head (141-144). XI. Tun-
bridge Wells— Congenial Society (144, 145). XII. On her Loss— Cheer-
fulness instead of Happiness — Visits to Eton and Tunbridge Wells (145-
147) . XIII. Sympathy inspired by the Sorrows of Childhood and Youth
(147, 148) . XIV. Readings in Aristophanes — Cheerf ulness and Simplicity
of Early Poetry (148, 149) .

CHAPTER XII.— 1844.

LETTERS TO HER ELDEST BROTHER, Miss MORRIS, JOHN KENYON,
ESQ., MRS. EDWARD COLERIDGE, MRS. FARRER, 150-162.

I. " Travelling Onwards " — Differences of Mental Perspective in the Con-
templation of Truth— Doctrine of the Millennium — Symbolism in the Bible
— " Messiah's Kingdom " and the " Reign of the Saints " — Literal Explana-
tion of the latter Prophecy by some of the Fathers (150-152). II.
Critique on the Early Poems of Elizabeth Barrett (Mrs. Browning) — Favourite
Pieces — Exuberance of her Style inappropriate to Solemn Themes — Hasty

Objections made by Miss B to the Ideal Philosophy of Berkeley, and to

the Wolfian Theory of Homer (152-155) . III. Gladsomeness of Childhood
— Severe Discipline not suited to the Period of Early Youth (155, 156).
IV. The Temple Church— Colour in Architecture (156). V. Use of
Metrical Rules in Poetry — Versification of " Christabel " and " The Ancient
Mariner" — Artificial Character of some of the Greek Metres (157). VI.
The " Life of Arnold " a Book to be " gloried in "—The Visible Church not

XV111 CONTENTS.

to be Identified with any Single System — Dr. Arnold's View (158). VII.
" Nothing to do " — Isaac Taylor's Suggestion that there will be Work as well
as Rest in Heaven — Seaside Views and Walks — Fellow-Lodgers — Idleness
and Extravagance of London Shopkeepers — Two Sorts of Diffuseness — Lord
Eldon — Reflections on his Character and Portrait (159-162).

CHAPTER XIII.— 1845.

» ~

LETTERS TO HER ELDEST BROTHER, THE HON. MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE,
AUBREY DE VERB, ESQ., Miss MORRIS, Miss ERSKINE, MRS.
FARRER, THE HON. MRS. HENRY TAYLOR, 163-190.

I. Memories of her Native Vale — The Quarterly Review a greater Authority
on Practical than on Poetical Matters — Dr. Arnold as a Man and a Writer —
His peculiar Theory of Church and State — Definition of Humility and
Modesty, suggested by a Note in the " Northern Worthies " (163-166).
II. The Royal Academy of 1845— Turner's Painting (166-168). III.
Visitors before Luncheon (168, 169). IV. Interpretations of Scripture
Prophecies by Writers of the Evangelical School — Contents of the Sixth Vial
— Shelley's Atheism — Not Papal but Pagan Rome the real Object of the
Apocalyptic Denunciations (169-172). V. Occasional Recurrence of
Millennial Preachings — Bearing of the Parable of the Ten Virgins on this
Subject — Various Styles of Contemporary Divines (172, 173). VI. Dr.
Pusey's Preaching (173, 174). VII. Sunset over the Sea (174).

VIII. • Canterbury Cathedral, and St. Augustine's College (174, 175) .

IX. Re-union of Christendom — The Romish Clergy and the Roman Church
(175-177). X. "New Heavens and a New Earth" (177, 178). XI.
Poetry of Keats : its Beauties and Defects — " The Grecian Urn " and
"Endymion" (179-182). XII. On the Sudden Death of her Mother
(182, 183). XIII. Peculiar Sense of Solitude arising from the loss of a
Parent — Editorial Labours on the " Biographia Literaria " — A Giant Cam-
panula (183-185). XIV. "S. T. C. on the Body"— The Essential
Principle of Life not dependent on the Material Organism — Teaching of
St. Paul on this Point — The Glorified Humanity of Christ — Disembodied
Souls — Natural Regrets arising from the Thought of our great Change
(185-190).

CHAPTER XIV.— 1846.

LETTERS TO AUBREY DE VERB, ESQ., HENRY TAYLOR, ESQ., Miss
MORRIS, MRS. H. M. JONES, MRS. RICHARD TOWNSEND, 191-204.

I. The Conviction of Sin — Exaggerated Self -Accusations of the Religious
— Substantial Agreement amongst Christians of all Denominations (191-
193). II. Originality of Milton's Genius — Love of Nature displayed in his
Poetry (193, 194). III. Unfair Criticism of Mr. Coleridge's Religious
Opinions— His MS. Notes— Care taken of them by Mr. Southey (194, 195).
IV. Beauties of Crabbe (195). V. Reflections of an Invalid — Defence
of Luther — Charges of Irreverence often unjustly made — Ludicrous Illustra-
tion found in a Sermon of Bishop Andrewes — Education : how far it may be
Secular without being Irreligious — Mr. Keble's "Lyra Innocentium" —

CONTENTS. XIX

Religions Poetry ought to be poetical, as well as religions (195-200). VI.
Comparative Merits of the Earlier and Later Poems of Wordsworth — Burns
(200, 201). VII. Critique on " Laodamia "— Want of Truth and Delicacy
in the Sentiments attributed to the Wife in that Poem — No Moral Lesson of
any Value to be drawn from such a Misrepresentation — Superior Beauty and
Fidelity of a Portrait taken from the Life — Leading Idea of Shelley's
"Sensitive Plant" (201-204).

CHAPTER XV.— July— December, 1846.

LETTERS TO AUBREY DE VERB, ESQ., REV. HENRY MOORE, Miss FEN-
WICK, MRS. FARRER, Miss MORRIS, 205-227.

' I. Mr. Enskin's "Modern Painters" (205). II. A Talk with Mr.
Carlyle — Different Effects of Sorrow on Different Minds — Miss Fenwick —
Milton Good as well as Great (205-207). III. Danger of Exclusiveness
in Parental Affection (208). IV. St. Augustine's College — Holiday Tasks
— The Evening Grey, and the Morning Eed (209, 210). V. "Saintism"
— Untmstworthiness of Eeligious Autobiographies (210-212) VI. Human
Sorrow and Heavenly Eest — "The Golden Manual" — Blue and White, in
Sky, Sea, and Land — Lander's Pentameron— Comparative rank of Homer,
Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante (212-216). VII. Age and Ugliness—
" Expensive Blessings " — JEschylus — Principle of Pindaric Metre, and Spirit
of Pindaric Poetry— Physical and Intellectual Arts of Greece (216-219).
VIII. Miss Farrer (219, 220). IX. On the Establishment— The Church
Supported by the State, not in its Catholic, but in its National Character —
Bishops in Parliament (220-222). X. The Divina Commedia — Barbarous
Conception of the World of Fallen Spirits exhibited in the "Inferno" —
Dante compared with Milton, Lucretius, and Goethe — Dante as Poet,
Philosopher, and Politician (222-227) .

CHAPTER XVI.— January— July, 1847.

LETTERS TO AUBREY DE VERB, ESQ., Miss FENWICK, Miss ERSKINE,
Miss MORRIS, Miss TREVENEN, 228-241.

I. Characters of Milton, Charles the First, and Oliver Cromwell (228)
II. A Visit to Bath — Her Son's Eton Successes — Schoolboy Taste — The
Athanasian Creed — Doctrine of the Filial Subordination not contained in it
— The Damnatory Clauses— Candour in Argument (228-231). III. Mr.
and Mrs. Wordsworth— Walks and Talks with the aged Poet— His Consent
obtained to a Eemoval of the Alterations made by him in his early Poems
(231-233). IV. Fasting and Self-denial (233). V. The Irish Famine
— Defects and Excellencies of the Irish Character — "The Old Man's Home "
(234, 235). VI. Illness of Mrs. Quillinan— Answer to the Question
whether Dying Persons ought to be warned of their State at the risk of

XX CONTENTS.

hastening their Departure ? — Holy Living the only real Preparation for Holy
Dying (236-238). VII. A Month later (238-240). VIII. The Earnest
of Eternal Life (240). IX. The Sister of Charles Lamb (240). X.
Keligious Tendency of Mr. Coleridge's Writings — Her own Obligations to
her Father, her Uncle, and Mr. Wordsworth (241).

CHAPTER XVII.— July— December, 1847.

LETTERS TO AUBREY DE VERB, ESQ., HON. MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE,
Miss FENWICK, REV. HENRY MOORE, Miss ERSKINE, Miss
MORRIS, Miss TREVENEN, MRS. H. M. JONES, MRS. RICHARD
TOWNSEND, 242-259.

I. Grasmere Churchyard (242). II. The Installation Ode— The Triad
(242, 243). III. Intellectual Ladies, Modern and Ancient (243, 244).
IV. Sacred Poetry: Keble, Quarles, and Crashaw (244-246). V. The
Art of Poetry— A Lesson on Metre (246-248). VI. Modern Novels:
"Grantley Manor," " Granby," "The Admiral's Daughter" (248, 249).
VII. "Marriage," by Miss Ferrier— Novel Writing (250). VIII. Mrs.
Gillman of Highgate (250) . IX. The Salutary Discipline of Affliction-
Intellectual Eesources — Earthly Enjoyments and Heavenly Hopes (251,
252). X. Controlling Grief for the Sake of Others (252, 253). XL
" Anti-Lutherism" — Charges made against Luther of Irreverence, Immorality,
and Uncharitableness — Luther's Doctrine of Justification adopted by the
English Church — " Heroes," and the " Worship " due to them — Luther's
Mission as a Witness for Gospel Truth (253-257). XII. Church-Orna-
mentation (257, 258). XIII. Dr. Hampden (258, 259). XIV. Dr.
Hampden's " Observations on Dissent "

CHAPTER XVIIL— 1848.

LETTERS TO AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ., REV. HENRY MOORE, Miss
MORRIS, MRS. H. M. JONES, MRS. RICHARD TOWNSEND, MRS.
GILLMAN, C. B. STUTFIELD, ESQ. , 260-271.

I. Her Son's Preparation for the Newcastle Examination — School Rivalries
(260). II. The Newcastle Scholar— The Chartist Demonstration— Lower-
ing of the Franchise ; its probable Result — Moral and Material Improvement
the real Wants of the Poor, not Political Power (261-263). III. Youth
and Age (264). IV. Early Marriage (264). V. Charms of our
Native Place — Country Life and Town Life— Portraits of Middle-aged People
(265, 266). VI. Teaching Work— Dickens as a Moralist for the Young
(266, 267) . VII. Mr. Coleridge's Philosophy inseparable from his Religious
Teaching— His View of the Inspiration of Scripture (267,268). VIII.
Mr. Spedding's Critique on Lord Macaulay's Essay on Bacon — The Ordinance
of Confirmation — Primitive Explanations of its Meaning and Efficacy (268,
269). IX. Pindar— Dante's " Paradiso "— " Faustina," by Ida Countess
Hahn-Hahn — Haziness of Continental Morality — A Coquette on Principle —
Lord Bacon's Insincerity (269-271).

CONTENTS. XXI

CHAPTER XIX.— 1848 (continued).

LETTERS TO THE REV. HENRY MOORE, AUBREY DE VERB, ESQ., Miss
FENWICK, THE REV. EDWARD COLERIDGE, 272-290.

I. Dr. Arnold's School Sermons — His Comment on the Story of the Young
Men who mocked Elisha — Individuals under the Mosaic Dispensation dealt
with as Public, not as Private Characters — Dr. Hammond's proposed render-
ing of 2 Peter i. 20. (272-274). II. Mr. Longfellow's " Evangeline "—
Hexameters in German and English — " Hyperion," by the same Author —
" Letters and Poetical Remains of John Keats " (274-276) . III. Justice
and Generosity — "Vanity Fair" — The World, and the Wheels on which it
m0ves — Thackeray, Dickens, and Currer Bell — Devotion of Dobbin to Amelia
(276-278). IV. Mr. Carlyle on Hero-Worship — Ceremonial, in his View,
the Husk of Eeligion ; Veneration its Kernel — Veneration rightly bestowed
on Mental Power as an Image of one of the Divine Attributes — Voltaire justly
Admired by the French for his Native Genius — Association of Goodness with
Wisdom, and of Poetry with Philosophy — Mr. Carlyle's Heroes described by
him as Benefactors, not merely Rulers of Men — Instances of Voltaire, Rous-
seau, and Cromwell — A True Sense in which " Might is Right " — Character of
Mirabeau — Comparison of Mr. Carlyle as a Moralist with Lord Byron, as an
Historian with Lord Macaulay — Aim and Spirit of his History of the French
Revolution (278-290).

CHAPTER XX.— January— July, 1849.

LETTERS TO Miss FENWICK, Miss MORRIS, MRS. J. STANGER, MRS.
R. TOWNSEND, MRS. PLUMMER, AUBREY DE VERB, ESQ., HON.
MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE, EDWARD QUILLINAN, ESQ., REV.
EDWARD COLERIDGE, 291-309.

I. A sad New Year— Alarming lUness of her Brother Hartley (291, 292).
II. His long Absence and unexpected Death — Disappointment of long,
cherished Hopes — His attaching Qualities — His Grave in Grasmere Church-
yard—His last Hours (292-294). III. Affectionate Behaviour of the Old
Friends at Rydal Mount on this Occasion — Mr. Wordsworth's Opinion of
Hartley's Character and Genius (294, 295). IV. Christian Use of
Sorrow (295,296). V. Sensitiveness about Public Opinion (296,297).
VI. Visit to the Dudley Gallery — Early Italian Masters, Fra Angelico and
Fra Bartolomeo — Fra Angelico and Dante (297, 298). VII. Strong-
minded Women (298). VIII. Dean Stanley's Sermons— Study of
German Theology (298-300). IX. Review of Lord Macaulay's History
in the Quarterly — Miss Strickland's Life of Maria d'Este — Remarks on
Governesses in an Article on "Vanity Fair" 300, 301). X. " Une
Femme Accomplie " (301, 302). XI. Failure and Success — Her Son's
Choice of a Profession — Metaphysical Training a Desideratum in University
Education — A General Council of the Church to be desired for the Settle,
ment of Controversies (302-304). XII. Modern "Miracles" (304).
XIII. Lights and Shadows — "Latter-Day Pamphlets" — "Chartism" —
"Shirley"— Walking Powers not Lost (305,306). XIV. Afternoon Calls

XX11 CONTENTS.

— Hurried Composition — Middle-aged Looks — Simplicity of her Mother's
Character (306, 307). XV. Early Associations with the Seasons —
Vaughan, Herbert, and Crashaw (308) . XYI. Miss Sellon at Plymouth
—Lord Macaulay's History— Cruelty of James II. (308, 309).

CHAPTER XXI.— -August— -December, 1849.

LETTERS TO MRS. J. STANGER, AUBREY DE VERB, ESQ., HENRY TAYLOR,
ESQ., Miss FENWICK, MRS. FARRER, 310-318.

I. " Sacred and Legendary Art," by Mrs. Jameson — Parallel between the
Classic Mythology and the Hagiology of the Eoman Catholic Church (310,
311). II. Hearing and Reading — Facts and Opinions (311). III.
Judgment of the Privy Council in the Gorham case — Depreciatory Tone of
the " Latter-Day Pamphlets " — Pictures belonging to Mr. Munro of Hamilton
Place (312, 313). IV. Scotland and Switzerland— Historical Interest
attaching to the former — Bathing in the river Greta (313, 314). V.
Tunbridge Wells (314, 315). VI. Cholera and Infection— Need of
Sanitary Improvements — Evening Walks at Herne Bay — Sisterhoods —
Remarks of Sir Francis Palgrave on the Resurrection of the Body, and on
the Gospel Narratives of the Healing of Demoniacs — A Last View of Herne
Bay — Home and Social Duties — Archbishop Trench on the Miracles —
Associations with Places— Love and Praise (315-322). VII. Kentish
Landscapes— Scenery of the Lakes (322, 323). VIII. Remarks on an
Article on " Tennyson, Shelley, and Keats," in the Edinburgh Review —
InferiDrity of Keats to Shelley in point of Personal Character — Connection
between Intellectual Earnestness and Moral Elevation — Perfection of his
Poetry within its own Sphere — Versatility ascribed by the Reviewer to
Keats in Contrast to Coleridge — Classification of her Father's Poems, showing
their Variety (323-328). IX. Personal Likeness between Mr. Coleridge
and Lord Macaulay (328).

CHAPTER XXII.— January— July, 1850.

LETTERS TO EDWARD QUILLINAN, ESQ. , AUBREY DE VERB, ESQ. , Miss
FENWICK, MRS. T. M. JONES, Miss, MORRIS, MRS. R. TOWNSEND,
PROFESSOR HENRY REED, 329-359.

I. Chinese Selfishness — The Irish Famine — Objects of Charity — Church
Decoration, and the Relief of the Poor — Butchers' Prices — Sudden Death of
Bishop Coleridge (329-331). II. Various Occupations of S. C. — Fatigues
of Chaperonage — Barry Cornwall at a Ball — Waltzing — Invitation to the
Lakes— Effect of Railway Travelling on her Health (332-334). III.
" Telling" Speeches not always the Best (334, 335). IV. Death of Mrs.
Joanna Baillie (335). V. Mr. Carlyle's "Latter-Day Pamphlets " com-
pared with his " Chartism " — Ideal Aristocracy — English Government (335,
336). VI. Illness of Mr. Wordsworth (337). VII. Hopes of Mr.
Wordsworth's Recovery — His Natural Cheerfulness — Use of Metaphysical
Studies (337, 338). VIII. A Relapse — Regeneration in the Scriptural
Sense implies a Moral Change (339-341). IX. Death of Mr. Wordsworth
— Sense of Intimacy with her Father, produced by her Continual Study of
his Writings (341-343). X. "Now we see through a glass darkly; but

CONTENTS. XX111

then face to face" (343, 344). XI. Breaking of Old Ties— The Times
on Mr. Wordsworth's Poetry — True Cause of its Different Eeception on the
Continent, and in America (344-346). XII. "The Prelude" (346).
XIII. The Prelude a greater Poem than the Excursion — Collection of
Turners at Tottenham — Lycidas, by Fuseli (346, 347). XIV. A

Staffordshire Country House (347, 348). XV. Critique on Mr. Euskin's
" Modern Painters " — Figures and Landscapes painted on the same Prin-
ciples by the Old Masters — Instances of Generalizations in Poetry and Painting
— Turner "the English Claude" — Distinct kinds of Interest inspired by
Nature and by Art — Subjective Character of the Latter — Truth in Painting
Ideal, not Scientific — Imitation denned by Writers Ancient and Modern —
Etymology of the Word — Death of Sir Eobert Peel — Vindication of his

Policy (348-354). XVI. The Black Country— T Wood; the Dingle;

Boscobel; Chillington — Liberality and Exclusiveness — The Wolverhampton

Iron Works — Trentham — B Park — Leicestershire Hospitality (354-

359).

CHAPTER XXIII.— July— December, 1850.

LETTERS TO Miss FENWICK, AUBREY DE VERB, ESQ., PROFESSOR
HENRY REED, REV. EDWARD COLERIDGE, Miss MORRIS, EDWARD
QUILLINAN, ESQ., HON. MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE, 360-384.

I. Eain, Eoses, and Hay — Experiences of Wesley as a Preacher among the
Agriculturists and Manufacturers — Influences of Society, Education, and
Scenery, on the Development of Poetic Genius (360,361). II. Domestic
Architecture, Medieval and Modern (361, 362). III. First appearance
of Mr. Tennyson's "In Memoriam" — Moral Tone of the "Prelude" —
Neuralgia, and Dante's Demons (362-366). IV. "In Memoriam": its
Merits and Defects — Shelley's Adonais (367). V. Public Singers —
Lovers at the Opera (367, 368). VI. Mr. Coleridge's Influence as an
Adviser (368). VII. Spiritual Truths beheld by the Eye of Faith in the
Light of Eeason — The Gospel its own best Evidence (369, 370). VIII.
Character of Christian in the " Pilgrim's Progress" (370, 371). IX.
Comparative Merits of Sir Walter Scott's Novels — Severity of Satirists on
the Faults of their own Country or Class (371, 372). X. Sympathy of
Friends — Collection of her Brother Hartley's Works — Article in the Quarterly
on the Homeric Controversy — Infidelity — Attacks on Eevelation (372-374) .
XI. Her native Vale of Keswick ; and the Valley of Life — " Alton Locke "
(374). XII. Early and late Periods of the Wordsworthian Poetry com-
pared with Ancient and Modern Art — Mr. Euskin's " Modern Painters " —
Scott's Novels — Character-drawing in the "Black Dwarf" — The Anti-Papal
Demonstration — Aversion to Popery in the English Mind — The Pope's Move
political not religious — Intolerance of Eomanism (375-384).

CHAPTER XXIV.— 1851.

LETTERS TO THE REV. HENRY MOORE, MRS. MOORE, Miss FENWICK,
MRS. FARRER, AUBREY DE YERE, ESQ. , EDWARD QUILLINAN, ESQ. ,
PROFESSOR HENRY REED, 385-402.

I. Caiisea of the Indifferences to the Papal Aggression displayed both by
Ultra-High Churchmen and Ultra- Liberals — Mixed Character of all National
Movements — The Three Chief Eeligious Parties, and the Eight of each to a

XX1Y CONTENTS.

place in the English Church (385-388). II. Letter to Conntess Ida Hahn-
Hahn by Abeken — " Death's Jest Book," and other Dramatic Works, by
Mr. Beddoes (388, 389). III. Mr. Carlyle's "Life of Sterling "—Auto-
biography of Leigh Hunt — Epicureanism (390). IV. Early Reminis-
cences of the Character and Conversation of Mr. Wordsworth and Mr.
Southey — Youthful Impressions mostly Unconscious — The Platonic Ode —
The Triad compared with Lycidas — The Prelude — Testimonies contained in
it to the Friendship between her Father and Mr. Wordsworth (390-394).
V. Visit to the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park— Sculpture and Jewels— The
Royal Academy of 1851— Portrait of Mr. Wordsworth by Pickersgill—
Supposed Tendency to Pantheism in the " Lines on Tintern Abbey " (395-
398). VI. InteUectual Tuft-hunting (398). VII. The Bears of
Literature — Margate — Bean-fields and Water Companies — Leibnitz on the
Nature of the Soul — Materialism of the Early Fathers — Historical Reading
—Scott's Novels (398-402).

CHAPTER XXV.— July— December, 1851.

LETTERS TO MR. ELLIS YARNALL, PROFESSOR HENRY REED, AUBREY
BE VERE, ESQ., THOMAS BLACKBURNE, ESQ., Miss FENWICK, 403-431.

I. A Visit to the Zoological Gardens (403, 404). II. Immortality-
Causes of Ancient and Modern Infidelity — Comparative Advantages of
America and Europe — Copies from the Old Masters — The Bridgewater
Gallery — The High Church Movement — The Central Truth of Christianity —
Merits of Anglicanism as compared with Romanism, Quakerism, and
Scepticism — Danger of Staking the Faith on External Evidences — Pre-
eminence ascribed by certain Fathers and Councils of the Church to the See
of Rome — The Protestant Ground of Faith — The Theory of Development — A
Dinner Party at Mr. Kenyon's — Interesting Appearance and High Poetic
Gifts of Mrs. Browning — Expression and Thought in Poetry — Women's
Novels — Conclusion (404-418). III. Prayer for Temporal and Spiritual
Benefits (418). IV. Increase of Illness — Fancied Wishes — Trial and
Effects of Mesmerism — Editorial Duties still fulfilled — Derwent Isle and
Keswick Vale — Visit of the Archdukes to General Peachey in 1815 — Old
Letters— Death, and the Life beyond it (418-422). V. Leave-taking-
Value of a Profession — A Lily, and a Poem — Flowers — Beauty and Use
(422-424). VI. Proposal to visit the South of France — Climate and
Society of Lausanne — The Spasmodic School of Poetry — Article on Immor-
tality, in the Westminster Review — Outward Means a part of the Christian
Scheme— The "Evil Heart of Unbelief "—The Foundations of Religion
(424-428). VII. Gradual Loss of Strength— Credulity of Unbelievers-
Spiritual Peace— Thoughts of Past Years (428,429). VIII. Congratula-
tions on a Friend's Recovery from Illness — Her own State of Health and of
Mind— Wilkie's Portrait of her Brother Hartley at Ten Years old— The
" Northern Worthies "—A Farewell (429-431) .

POSTSCRIPT 431

EECOLLECTIONS

OF THE

EAELY LIFE OF SAEA COLERIDGE.

WEITTEN BY HERSELF,
In a Letter addressed to her Daughter.

September 8th, 1851, Chester Place.

MY DEAKEST E , — I have long wished to give you a

little sketch of my life. I once intended to have given it
with much particularity, but now time presses * — my horizon
has contracted of late. I must content myself with a brief
compendium.

I shall divide my history into childhood, earlier and later,
youth, earlier and later, wedded life, ditto, widowhood,
ditto, and I shall endeavour to state the chief moral or
reflection suggested by each — some maxim which it spe-
cially illustrated, or truth which it exemplified, or warning
which it suggested.

My father has entered his marriage with my mother, and
the births of my three brothers, with some particularity, in
a Family Bible, given him, as he also notes, by Joseph
Cottle on his marriage ; the entry of my birth is in my
dear mother's handwriting, and this seems like an omen of

* The fragment of autobiography was begun by my mother during her
last illness, a few months before her death.— E. 0,

2 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

our lifelong separation, for I never lived with him for more
than a few weeks at a time. He lived not much more,
indeed, with his other children, but most of their infancy
passed under his eye. Alas ! more than any of them I
, inherited that uneasy health of his, which kept us apart.
But I did not mean to begin with alas ! so soon, or so early
to advert to the great misfortune of both our lives — want
of bodily vigour, adequate to the ordinary demands of life,
even under favourable circumstances.

I was born at Greta Hall, near Keswick, December 22nd,
1802. My brother Hartley was then six years and three
months, born September 19th, 1796, at Bristol; Derwent,
born September 14th, 1800, at Keswick, two* years and
three months old. My father, married at Bristol, October
4th, 1795, was now twenty -nine years of age, my mother
thirty-one. Their second child Berkeley, born at Nether
Stowey, May 10th, 1798, died while my father was in
Germany, February 10th, 1799, in consequence of a cold
caught after inoculated small-pox, which brought on decline.
Mama used to tell me mothers' tales, which, however, were
confirmed by my Aunt Lovell, of this infant's noble and
lovely style of beauty, his large, soft eyes, of a "London-
jSmoke " colour, exquisite complexion, regular features, and
goodly size. She said that my father was very proud of
him, and one day, when he saw a neighbour approaching
his little cottage at Stowey, snatched him away from the
nurse half-dressed, and with a broad smile of pride and
delight, presented him. to be admired. In. her lively way,
she mimicked the tones of satisfaction with which he
uttered, " this is my second son." Yet, when the answer
was, " Well, this is something like a child," he felt affronted
on behalf of his little darling Hartley.

During the November, and great part of December,
previous to my birth, my father was travelling in Cornwall

with Mr. Tom Wedgewood, as I learn by letters from him
to my mother. The last of the set is dated December 16th,
and in it my father speaks as if he expected to be at Amble-
side, Thursday evening, December 23rd. He writes with
great tenderness to my mother on the prospect of her con-
finement. I believe he reached home the day after my
birth. Several of his letters, the last three, are from
Crescelles, the house of Mr. Allan, father of Lady Mackin-
tosh and of Mrs. Drew, the brother of Lady Alder son.

Mama used to tell me that, as a young infant, I was not
so fine and flourishing as Berkeley, who was of a taller
make than any of her other children, or Derwent, though
not quite so small as her eldest born. In a few months,
however, I became very presentable, and had my share of
adoration. " Little grand-lamas," my father used to call
babes in arms, feeling doubtless all the while what a
blessed contrivance of the Supreme Benignity it is that
man, in the very weakest stage of his existence, has power
in that very weakness. Then babyhood, even where at-
tended with no special grace, has a certain loveliness of its
own, and seems to be surrounded, as by a spell, in its
attractions for the female heart, and for all hearts which
partake of woman's tenderness, and whose tenderness is
drawn out by circumstances in that particular direction.

My father wrote thus of Hartley and of me in a letter to
Mr. Poole of 1803 :— " Hartley is what he always was, a
strange, strange boy, ' exquisitely wild,' an utter visionary:
like the moon among thin clouds, he moves in a circle of
light of his own making. He alone is a light of his own.
Of all human beings I never saw one so utterly naked of
self. He has no vanity, no pride, no resentments ; and,
though very passionate, I never yet saw him angry with
anybody. He is, though seven years old, the merest child
you can conceive ; and yet Southey says he keeps him in

4 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

perpetual wonderment ; his thoughts are so truly his own.
His dispositions are very sweet, a great lover of truth, and
of the finest moral nicety of feelings ; and yet always
dreaming. He said very prettily, about half a year ago, on
my reproving him for some inattention, and asking him if
he did not see something : t My father/ quoth he with flute-
like voice, ' I see it — I saw it, and to-morrow I shall see it
again, when I shut my eyes, and when my eyes are open,
and I am looking at other things ; but, father, it is a sad
pity, but it cannot be helped, you know ; but I am always
being a bad boy when I am thinking of my thoughts.' If
God preserve his life for me, it will be interesting to know
what he will become ; for it is not only my opinion, or the
opinion of two or of three, but all who have been with him
talk of him as a thing that cannot be forgotten.

"My meek little Sara is a remarkably interesting baby,
with the finest possible skin, and large blue eyes ; and she
smiles as if she were basking in a sunshine, as mild as
moonlight, of her own quiet happiness."

In the same letter my father says : " Southey I like more
and more. He is a good man, and his industry is stu-
pendous ; take him all in all, his regularity and domestic
virtues, genius, talent, acquirements, and knowledge, and
he stands by himself."

Of this first stage of my life, of course, I have no remem-
brance ; but something happened to me when I was two
years old, which was so striking as to leave an indelible
trace on my memory. I fancy I can even now recall,
though it may be but the echo or reflection of past remem-
brances, my coming dripping up the Forge Field, after
having fallen into the river, between the rails of the high
wooden bridge that crossed the Greta Hall hill. The maid
had my baby-cousin Edith, sixteen months younger than
I, in her arms ; I was rushing away from Derwent, who

FALL INTO THE GRETA. 5

was fond of playing the elder brother on the strength of his
two years' seniority, when he was trying in some way to
control me, and in my hurry slipped from the bridge into
the current. Luckily for me young Eichardson was still at
work in his father's forge. He doffed his coat and rescued
me from the water. I had fallen from a considerable
height, but the strong current of the Greta received me
safely. I remember nothing of this adventure but the walk
home through the field. I was put between blankets on
my return to the house ; but my constitution had received
a shock, and I became tender and delicate, having before
been a thriving child. As an infant I had been nervous
and insomnolent. My mother has often told me how seldom
I would sleep in the cradle, how I required to be in her
arms before I could settle into sound sleep. This weakness
has accompanied me through life.

One other glimpse of early childhood my mind retains.
I can just remember sitting by my Aunt Lovell in her little
downstairs wingroom, and exclaiming in a piteous tone,
" I'se miseral ! " A poor little, delicate, low-spirited child
I doubtless was, with my original nervous tendencies, after
that escape from the Greta. " Yes, and you will be miser-
able," Aunt Lovell compassionately broke out, as mama
has told me, " if your mother doesn't put you on a cap."
The hint was taken, and I wore a cap till I was eight years
old. I appear in a cap, playing with a doll, in a little
miniature taken of me at that age by the sister of Sir
William Benthorn, who also made portraits in the same
style of my Uncle and Aunt Southey, my mother, Aunt
Lovell, and Cousins Edith and Herbert.

I cannot leave this period of my existence without some
little allusion to my brother Derwent's sweet childhood. I
often heard from mama what a fine, fair, broad-chested
little fellow he was at two years old, and how he got the

6 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

name of Stumpy Canary when he wore a yellow frock,
which made him look like one of these feathery bundles in
colour and form. I fancy I see him now, as my mother's
description brought him before me, racing from kitchen to
parlour, and from parlour to kitchen, just putting in his
head at the door, with roguish smile, to catch notice, then
off again, shaking his little sides with laughter. Mr. Lamb
and his sister, who paid a visit of three weeks to my parents
in the summer of 1802, were charmed with the little fellow,
and much struck with the quickness of eye and of memory
that he displayed in naming the subjects of prints in books
which he was acquainted with. "Pi-pos, Pot-pos," were
his names for the striped or spotted opossum, and these he
would utter with a nonchalant air, as much. as to say/' Of
course I know it all as pat as possible." " David Lesley,
Deneral of the Cock Army," was another of his familiars.
Mr. Lamb calls him "Pi-pos" in letters to Greta Hall,
after his visit to the Lakes.

My parents came to Keswick in 1800. My father writes
to my Uncle Southey, urging his joining him in the North,
and describing Greta Hall, April 13th, 1801. See Southey 's
Life, vol. ii., p. 146.

I find in a letter of mama to Aunt Lovell, written but not
sent, this record of early Greta Hall times : —

"Well, after poor Mrs. Southey's death you all removed
to Bristol, where the first child, Margaret, was born and
died. Soon after this period Southey, Edith, and you
(Mrs. Lovell) came to Keswick. How well I recollect your
chaise driving up the Forge Field ! The driver could not
find the right road to the house, so he came down Stable
Lane, and in at the Forge Gate. My Sara was seven
months old, very sweet, and her uncle called her ' Fat Sal.'

" My husband, I think, was then in Malta, where he
remained three years, there and in Sicily and Kome. Soon

A VISIT TO THE SOUTH. 7

after his return in the autumn of 1806, Coleridge went
away with Hartley to the Wordsworths at Coleorton;
thence he went to London, and wrote to me to bring the
other two children to Bristol, and wait there in College
Street at Martha's with mother till he should join us to go
to Stowey and Ottery together. Accordingly, I set off to
Penrith, stayed a night at old Miss Monkhouse's, and next
day proceeded towards Liverpool, where we were met by
Dr. Crompton's carriage, and taken to Eton Hall, four
miles out of Liverpool, where we stayed a fortnight, to the
great happiness of Derwent and Sara. Thence we got to
Birmingham, stayed a few days with the Misses Lawrence,
saw Joseph Lovell and wife and children, and then pro-
ceeded to Bristol, to Martha's in College Street.

" After some time Samuel Taylor Coleridge brought
Hartley from London to join us, and we five all proceeded
to Stowey, to Mr. Poole's most hospitable abode, remaining
most pleasantly with him for more than two months, and
did not go to Ottery at all. (I believe they had illness
there.) We made visits to Ashhall (Mr. Brice's), to
Bridgewater, at the Chubbs'. Then I, with my children,
returned to Bristol, hoping to be rejoined by father. At
length he came, but was not for returning with us to
Keswick. We set forward with Mr. De Quincey to Liver-
pool, where we (i.e., myself and children) remained a few
days with the Coster family, and were again joined by Mr.
De Quincey, and reached Grasmere, where we were joyfully
received by the Wordsworths at their cottage, and the
next day took a chaise to Keswick, on which occasion poor
Hartley was so afraid that he should not again be a pet
of dear friend Wilsy,* that he screamed out of a window
of the chaise, ' 0 Wilsy, Wilsy, let me sleep with you ! '

* Mrs. Wilson, the landlord's housekeeper. — See Memoir of Hartley
Coleridge, p. xxix. — E. C.

8 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

I was in my fifth year during this visit to the South, and
my remembrances are partial and indistinct glimpses of
memory, islanded amid the sea of non-remembrance. I
recollect more of Derwent than of Hartley, and have an
image of his stout build, and of his resolute, managing way,
as we played together at Bristol. I remember Mrs. Perkins,
with her gentle Madonna countenance, and walking round
the Square with her daughter, who gave me currants when
we came round to a certain point. I have faint recollections
too, of Stowey, and of staying at the Costers' at Liverpool.
At this time I was fond of reading the original poems of the
Miss Taylors, and used to repeat some of them by heart to
friends of mama's. Aunt Martha I thought a fine lady on
our first arrival at College Street. She wore a white veil —
so it seems to my remembrance — when I first saw her. I
can but just remember Aunt Eliza, then at Mrs. Watson's,
and that there was an old lady, very invalidish, at College
Street, Mrs. Fricker, my mother's mother.

My brothers were allowed to amuse themselves with the
noble art of painting, which they practised in the way of
daubing with one or two colours, I think chiefly scarlet,
over any bit of a print or engraving in vol., or out of it,
that was abandoned to their clutches. It was said of
Derwent, that upon one of these pictorial occasions, after
diligently plying his brush for some time, he exclaimed,
with a slow, solemn, half-pitying, half-self-complacent air,
" Thethe little minute thingth are very difficult ; but they
mutht be done ! ethpethially thaithes / " * This " mutht be
done!" conveyed an awful impression of resistless necessity,
the mighty force of a principled submission to duty, with a
hint of the exhausting struggles and trials of life.

Talking of struggles and trials of life, my mother's two
unmarried sisters were maintaining themselves at this time

* i.e., chaises. — E. C.

MARTHA AND ELIZABETH FRICKER. 9

by their own labours. Aunt Martha, the elder, a plain,
but lively, pleasing woman, about five feet high, or little
more, was earning her bread as a dressmaker. She had
lived a good deal with a farmer, in the country, Uncle
Hendry, who married Edith Fricker, her father's sister;
but not liking a female-farmer mode of life, came to Bristol,
and fitted herself for the business. Uncle Hendry left her
a small sum of money, some hundreds, and would have
done more, doubtless, had she remained with him. Burnet
offered marriage to my Aunt Martha, during the agitation
of the Pantisocracy scheme. She refused him scornfully,
seeing that he only wanted a wife in a hurry, not her indi-
vidually of all the world.

Aunt Eliza, a year or twenty months younger, about the
same height, or but a barleycorn above it, was thought
pretty in youth, from her innocent blue eyes, ingenuous
florid countenance, fine light-brown hair, and easy light
motions. She was not nearly so handsome in face, how-
ever, as my mother and Aunt Lovell, and had not my Aunt
Southey's fine figure and quietly commanding air. Yet, on
the whole, she was very feminine, pleasing, and attractive.
Both sisters sang, but had never learned music artistically.

Such were my Aunts Martha and Elizabeth Fricker in
youth; but they had sterling qualities, which gave their
characters a high respectability. Without talent, except
of an ordinary kind, without powerful connections, by
lifelong perseverance, fortitude, and determination, by
prudence, patience, and punctuality, they not only main-
tained themselves, but, with a little aid from kind friends,
whom their merits won, they laid by a comfortable com-
petency for their old age. They asked few favours,
accepted few obligations, and were most scrupulous in
returning such as they did accept, as soon as possible.
They united caution and discretion with perfect honesty

10 MEMOIK AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

and truth, strict frugality and self-control, with the disposi-
tion to be kind and charitable, and even liberal, as soon as
ever it was in their power. Their chief faults were pride
and irritability of temper. Upon the whole, they were
admirable women. I say were ; but one, Aunt Eliza
Fricker, still survives, in the Isle of Man. Aunt Martha
died of paralysis, at the Isle of Man, September 26, 1850,
at the age of seventy-three. Aunt Eliza is ailing ; she
must be seventy-three, I believe now, or seventy-two.*

Our return to Greta Hall has left an image on my mind,
and a pleasant one. I can just remember entering the
parlour, seeing the urn on* the table, and tea things laid
out, and a little girl, very fair, with thick yellow hair, and
round, rosy cheeks, seated, I think, on a stool- near the fire.
This was my Cousin Edith, and I thought her quite a
beauty. She looked very shy at first, but ere long we were
sociably travelling round the room together on one stftol,
our joint vessel, and our childish noise soon required to be
moderated. I was five years old, the Christmas after this
return, which, I believe, was latish in autumn. I remember
how Mr. De Quincey jested with me on the journey, and
declared I was to be his wife, which I partly believed. I
thought he behaved faithlessly in not claiming my hand.
I will now describe the home of my youth, dear Greta
Hall, where I was born, and where I resided till my marriage,
at twenty-six years of age, in September 1829. It was built
on a hill, on one side of the town of Keswick, having a
large nursery-garden in front. The gate at the end of this
garden opened upon the end of the town. A few steps
further was the bridge over the Greta. At the back of
Greta Hall was an orchard of not very productive apple-
trees and plum-trees. Below this a wood stretched down to

* Miss Fricker died at Eamsay, in the Isle of Man, in September
1868.— E. C.

GEETA HALL. 11

the river side. A rough path ran along the bottom of the
wood, and led, on the one hand (the Skiddaw side of the
vale), to the Cardingmill Field, which the river nearly sur-
rounded ; on the other hand, the path led below the Forge
Field, on to the Forge. Oh, that rough path beside the
Greta ! How much of my childhood, of my girlhood, of my
youth, was spent there !

But to return to the house. Two houses inter-connected
under one roof, the larger part of which my parents and my
Uncle and Aunt Southey occupied, while the smaller was
the abode of Mr. Jackson, the landlord. On the ground
floor was the kitchen, a cheerful, stone-flagged apartment,
looking into the back-place, which was skirted by poultry
and other out-houses, and had trees on the side of the
orchard, from whence it was separated by a gooseberry
hedge. There was a drooping laburnum -tree outside out-
back-kitchen, just in the way as you passed to the Forge
Field portion of the kitchen-garden.

A passage ran from the kitchen to the front-door, and to
the left of this passage was the parlour, which was the
dining-room and general sitting-room. This apartment
had a large window, looking upon the green, which
stretched out in front, in the form of a long horse-shoe,
with a flower-bed running round it, and fenced off from
the great nursery-garden by pales and high shrubs and
hedges. There was another smaller window, which looked
out upon another grass-plot. The room was comfortably
but plainly furnished, and contained many pictures, two
oil landscapes, by a friend, and several water-colour land-
scapes. One recess was occupied by a frightful portrait of
mama, by a young lady.

The passage ran round the kitchen, and opened into two
small rooms in one wing of the rambling tenement, one
which Aunt Lovell sat in by day, and another which held

12 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

the mangle, had cupboards as a pantry, but was called the
mangling-rooni. Here were kept the lanterns and all the
array of clogs and pattens for out-of-door roamings. The
clog shoes were ranged in a row, from the biggest to the
least, and curiously emblemed the various stages of life.

The staircase, to the right of the kitchen, which you
ascended from the passage, led to a landing-place filled
with bookcases. A few steps more led to a little bedroom
which mama and I occupied; that dear bedroom where I
lay down, in joy or in sorrow, nightly for so many years of
comparative health and happiness, whence I used to hear
the river flowing, and sometimes the forge hammer in the
distance, at the end of the field ; but seldom other sounds
in the night, save of stray animals. A few- steps further
was a little wing bedroom, — then the study where my
uncle sat all day occupied with literary labours and
researches, but which was used as a drawing-room for
company. Here all the tea-visiting guests were received.
The room had three windows, a large one looking down
upon the green with the wide flower-border, and over to
Keswick Lake and mountains beyond. There were two
smaller windows looking toward the lower part of the town
seen beyond the nursery-garden. The room was lined with
books in fine bindings ; there were books also in brackets,
elegantly lettered vellum-covered volumes lying on their
sides in a heap. The walls were hung with pictures,
mostly portraits, miniatures of the family and some friends
by Miss Bentham ; of Uncle and Aunt Southey by Down-
man, now engraved for the Life of Southey ; of my Cousin
Edith and me by Mr. Nash ; and the three children,
Bertha, Kate, and Isabel, by the same hand. At the back
of the room was a comfortable sofa, and there were sundry
tables, beside my uncle's library table, his screen, desk, etc.
Altogether, with its internal fittings up, its noble outlook,

GRETA HALL. 13

and something pleasing in its proportions, this was a
charming room. I never have seen its like, I think,
though it would look mean enough in my eyes, as a mere
room, could I see it now, as to size, furnishing, etc. The
curtains were of French grey merino, the furniture-covers,
at one time, buff; I cannot tell what they were latterly.
My uncle had some fine volumes of engravings, which were
sometimes shown to visitors ; especially, I remember,
Duppa's sketches from Eaffaelle and Michael Angelo from
the Vatican.

On the same floor with the study and wing bedrooms
was a larger bedroom above the kitchen, looking into the
back-yard. This was my uncle and aunt's sleeping apart-
ment. A passage, one side of which was filled with book-
shelves, led to the Jackson part of the house, the whole of
which after his decease (and some rooms before) belonged
to our party. There was a room which used to be my
father's study, called the organ room, from an old organ
which Mr. Jackson placed there; a bedroom generally
occupied by Aunt Lovell looking into the back-place ; this
was a comfortable but gloomyish room.* At the end was a
wing bedroom. Thence stairs led down to Wilsy's bed-
room, Hartley's parlour, Wilsy's kitchen and back-kitchen.

In the highest storey of the house were six rooms, a
nursery, nursery bedroom, maid's bedroom, another
occupied by Kate and Isabel at one time, a sort of lumber-
room, and a dark apple-room, which used to be supposed
the abode of a bogle. Then there was a way out upon the
roof, and a way out upon the leads over one wing of the
house, whence we could look far out to the Penrith Eoad,
Brow Top, and the Saddleback side of the region.

My young life is almost a blank in memory from that
well-remembered evening of my return from our series of
southern visits, till the time of my visit to Allan Bank,

14 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SAEA COLERIDGE.

when I was six years old. That journey to Grasmere
gleams before me as the shadow of a shade. Some goings
on of my stay there I remember more clearly. Allan Bank
is a large house on a hill overlooking Easedale on one side,
and Grasmere on the other. Dorothy, Mr. Wordsworth's
only daughter, was at this time very picturesque in her
appearance, with her long, thick, yellow locks, which were
never cut, but curled with papers, a thing which seems
much out of keeping with the poetic simplicity of the
household. I remember being asked by my father and
Miss Wordsworth, the poet's sister, if I did not think her
very pretty. "No," said I, bluntly; for which I met a
rebuff which made me feel as if I was a culprit.

My father's wish it was to have me for a- month with
him at Grasmere, where he was domesticated with the
Wordsworths. He insisted upon it that I became rosier
and hardier during my absence from mama. She did not
much like to part with me, and I think my father's motive,
at bottom, must have been a wish to fasten my affections
on him. I slept with him, and he would tell me fairy
stories when he came to bed at twelve and one o'clock. I
remember his telling me a wild tale, too, in his study, and
my trying to repeat it to the maids afterwards.

I have no doubt there was much enjoyment in my young
life at that time, but some of my recollections are tinged
with pain. I think my dear father was anxious that I
should learn to love him and the Wordsworths and their
children, and not cling so exclusively to my mother and all
around me at home. He was therefore much annoyed
when, on my mother's coming to Allan Bank, I flew to her,
and wished not to be separated from her any more. I
remember his showing displeasure to me, and accusing me
of want of affection. I could not understand why. The
young Wordsworths came in and caressed him. I sate

EABLY DAYS. 15

benumbed ; for truly nothing does so freeze affection as the
breath of jealousy. The sense that you have done very
wrong, or at least given great offence, you know not how or
why — that you are dunned for some payment of love or
feeling which you know not how to produce or to
demonstrate on a sudden, chills the heart, and fills it with
perplexity and bitterness. My father reproached me, and
contrasted my coldness with the childish caresses of the
little Wordsworfchs. I slunk away, and hid myself in the
wood behind the house, and there my friend John, whom at
that time I called my future husband, came to seek me.

It was during this stay at Allan Bank that I used to see
my father and Mr. De Quincey pace up and down the room
in conversation. I understood not, nor listened to a word
they said, but used to note the handkerchief hanging out of
the pocket behind, and long to clutch it. Mr. Wordsworth,
too, must have been one of the room walkers. How
gravely and earnestly used Samuel Taylor Coleridge and
William Wordsworth and my Uncle Southey also to discuss
the affairs of the nation, as if it all came home to their
business and bosoms, as if it were their private concern!.
Men do not canvass these matters now-a-days, I think,
quite in the same tone. Domestic concerns absorb their
deeper feelings, national ones are treated* more as things
aloof, the speculative rather than the practical.

My father used to talk to me with much admiration and
affection of Sarah Hutchinson, Mrs. Wordsworth's sister,
who resided partly with the Wordsworth's partly with her
own brothers. At this time she used to act as my father's
amanuensis. She wrote out great part of the " Friend " to
his dictation. She had fine, long, light brown hair, I think
her only beauty, except a fair skin, for her features were
plain and contracted, her figure dumpy, and devoid of
grace and dignity. She was a plump woman, of little more

16 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

than five feet. I remember my father talking to me
admiringly of her long light locks, and saying how mildly
she bore it when the baby pulled them hard in play.

Miss Wordsworth, Mr. Wordsworth's sister, of most
poetic eye and temper, took a great part with the children.
She told us once a pretty story of a primrose, I think,
which she spied by the wayside when she went to see me
soon after my birth, though that was at Christmas, and
how this same primrose was still blooming when she went
back to Grasmere.

My father had particular feelings and fancies about
dress, as had my Uncle Southey and Mr. Wordsworth also.
He could not abide the scarlet socks which Edith and I
wore at one time. I remember going to hjm when mama
had just dressed me in a new stuff frock. He took me up
and set me down again without a caress. I thought he
disliked the dress ; perhaps he was in an uneasy mood.
He much liked everything feminine and domestic, pretty
and becoming, but not fine-ladyish. My Uncle Southey
was all for gay, bright, cheerful colours, and even declared
he had a taste for the grand, in half jest.

Mr. Wordsworth loved all that was rich and picturesque,
light and free in clothing. A deep Prussian blue or purple
was one of his* favourite colours for a silk dress. He
wished that white dresses were banished, and that our
peasantry wore blue and scarlet and other warm colours,
instead of sombre, dingy black, which converts a crowd
that might be ornamental in the landscape into a swarm of
magnified ants. I remember his saying how much better
young girls looked of an evening in bare arms, even if the
arms themselves were not very lovely, it gave such a light-
ness to their general air. I think he was looking at Dora
when he said this. White dresses he thought cold, a blot
and disharmony in any picture, in door or out of door.

THE LAKE POETS ON DRESS. 17

My father admired white clothing, because he looked at it
in reference to woman, as expressive of her delicacy and
purity, not merely as a component part of a general
picture.

My father liked my wearing a cap. He thought it looked
girlish and domestic. Dora and I must have been a curious
contrast, — she with her wild eyes, impetuous movements, and
fine, long floating yellow hair, — I with my timid, large blue
eyes, slender form, a little fair delicate face, muffled up in
lace border and muslin. But I thought little of looks then;
only I fancied Edith South ey, on first seeing her, most
beautiful.

I attained my sixth year on the Christmas after this my
first Grasmere visit. It must have been the next summer
that I made my first appearance at the dancing school, of
which more hereafter. All I can remember of this first
entrance into public is, that our good-humoured, able, but
rustical dancing-master, Mr. Yewdale, tried to make me
dance a minuet with Charlie Denton, the youngest of our
worthy pastor's home flock, a very pretty, rosy-cheeked,
large-black-eyed, compact little laddikin. But I was not
quite up to the business. I think my beau was a year
older. At all events, it was I who broke down, and Mr.
Yewdale, after a little impatience, gave the matter up. All
teaching is wearisome ; but to teach dancing of all teaching
the wearisomest.

The last event of my earlier childhood which abides with
me, is a visit to Allonby, when I was nine years old, with
Mrs. Calvert. I remember the ugliness and meanness of
Allonby (the town, a cluster of red-looking houses, as far as
I recollect,) and being laughed at at home for describing it
as " a pretty place," which I did conventionally, according
to the usual practice, as I conceived, of elegant letter
writers. The sands are really fine in their way, so un-

18 MEMOIR AND LETTEES OF SABA COLERIDGE.

broken and extensive, capital for galloping over on pony-
back. I recollect the pleasures of these sands, and of the
seaside animation and vegetation; the little close, white
Scotch roses ; the shells, the crabs of every size, from Lilli-
putian to Brobdignagian, crawling in the pools ; the sea-
anemones with their flower-like appendages, which we kept
in jugs of salt water, delighted to see them draw in their
petals, or expand them by a sudden blossoming; the sea-
weed with its ugly berries, of which we made hideous
necklaces. All these things I recollect, but not what I
should most regard now, the fine forms of the Scotch hills
on the opposite coast, sublime in the distance, and the
splendid sunsets which give to this sort of landscape a
gorgeous filling up.

Of the party, beside J. and E. Calvert and M., their sister,

were Tom and William M , two sons of Mrs. Calvert's

sister, Mrs. M . We used to gallop up and down the

wide sands on two little ponies, a dark one called Sancho,
and a light one called Airey, behind the boys. M. and I
sometimes quarrelled with the boys, and, of course, in a
trial of strength got the worst of it. I remember K. and
the rest bursting angrily into our bedroom, and flinging a
pebble at M., enraged at our having dared to put crumbs
into their porridge; not content with which inroad and
onslaught, they put mustard into ours the next morning,
the sun having gone down upon their boyish wrath without
quenching it. One of them said, it was all that little vixen,
Sara Coleridge ; M. was quiet enough by herself.

I had a leaven of malice, I suppose, in me, for I remem-
ber being on hostile terms with some little old woman, who
lived by herself in a hut, and who took offence at something
I did, as it struck me, unnecessarily. She repaired to Mrs.
Calvert to complain, and the head and front of her accusa-
tion was, that "un (meaning me) ran up and down the

A VISIT TO ALLONBY. 19

mound before her door." Mrs. C. thought this no heinous
offence ; but it was done by me, no doubt, with an air of
derision. The crone was one of those morose, ugly,
withered, ill-conditioned, ignorant creatures who in earlier
times were persecuted as witches, and tried to be such.
Still, I ought to have been gently corrected for my beha-
viour, and told the duty of bearing with the ill-temper of
the poor and ignorant and afflicted.

At this time, on coming to Allonby, I was rather delicate.

Oh me, how rough these young Calverts and M s were !

and yet they had a certain respect for me, mingled with a
contrary feeling. I was honoured among them for my
extreme agility, — my power of running and leaping. They
called me "Cheshire cat" because I "grinned," said they.
Almost as pretty as Miss Cheshire, said Tom M. to me one
day, of some admired little girl.

Such are the chief historical events of my little life up to
nine years of age. But can I in any degree retrace what
being I was then, what relation my then being held to my
maturer self? Can I draw any useful reflection from my
childish experience, or found any useful maxim upon it?
What was I? In person very slender and delicate, not
habitually colourless, but often enough pallid and feeble
looking. Strangers used to exclaim about my eyes, and I
remember remarks made upon their large size, both by my
Uncle Southey and Mr. Wordsworth. I suppose the thin-
ness of my face, and the smallness of the other features,
with the muffling close cap, increased the apparent size of
the eye, for only artists, since I have grown up, speak of
my eyes as large and full. They were bluer, too, in my
early years than now. My health alternated, as it has
done all my life, till the last ten or twelve years, when it
has been unchangeably depressed, between delicacy and a
very easy, comfortable condition. I remember well that

20 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

nervous sensitiveness and morbid imaginativeness had set
in with me very early. During my Grasmere visit I used to
feel frightened at night on account of the darkness. I then
was a stranger to the whole host of night-agitators, ghosts,
goblins, demons, burglars, elves, and witches. Horrid
ghastly tales and ballads, of which crowds afterwards came
in my way, had not yet cast their shadows over my mind.
And yet I was terrified in the dark, and used to think of
lions, the only form of terror which my dark-engendered
agitation would take. My next bugbear was the Ghost in
Hamlet. Then the picture of Death at Hell Gate in an
old edition of Paradise Lost, the delight of my girlhood.
Last and worst came my Uncle Southey's ballad horrors,
above all the Old Woman of Berkeley. Oh, the agonies I
have endured between nine and twelve at night, before
mama joined me in bed, in presence of that hideous assem-
blage of horrors, the horse with eyes of flame ! I dare not,
even now, rehearse these particulars, for fear of calling up
some of the old feeling, which, indeed, I have never in my
life been quite free from. What made the matter worse
was that, like all other nervous sufferings, it could not be
understood by the inexperienced, and consequently sub-
jected the sufferer to ridicule and censure. My Uncle
Southey laughed heartily at my agonies. I mean at the
cause. He did not enter into the agonies. Even mama
scolded me for creeping out of bed after an hour's torture,
and stealing down to her in the parlour, saying I could
bear the loneliness and the night-fears no longer. But my
father understood the case better. He insisted that a
lighted candle should be left in my room, in the interval
between my retiring to bed and mama's joining me. From
that time forth my sufferings ceased. I believe they would
have destroyed my health had they continued.

Yet I was a most fearless child by daylight, ever ready to

NIGHT FEAES. 21

take the difficult mountain-path and outgo my companions'
daring in tree-climbing. In those early days we used to
spend much of our summer-time in trees, greatly to the
horror of some of our London visitors.

On reviewing my earlier childhood, I find the predomi-
nant reflection

II.

THUS abruptly terminates, in the very middle of a sentence,
the narrative of Sara Coleridge's childhood. The history of
her wedded life and widowhood, which would have been of
such deep interest as told by herself, had time and strength
been granted, is, fortunately, to a great extent contained
in her correspondence. In order, however, to combine the
scattered notices of the letters, and put readers at once in
possession of the main facts; and still more, in order to
provide some partial substitute for that chapter of her
youth, which would otherwise remain a blank, it has seemed
desirable to preface the correspondence by a slight bio-
graphical sketch. In doing this I shall gratefully avail
myself of the valuable reminiscences most kindly imparted
to me by friends, both of earlier and later date, as well as
of an interesting memoir of my mother which appeared
shortly after her death in an American journal,* composed
by one who, though personally unknown to her, was yet a
highly esteemed correspondent, the lamented Professor
Henry Eeed of Philadelphia.

In that dear home of her childhood, remembered with

* "The Daughter of Coleridge," written for the Literary World, July,
1852.

22 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

such loving minuteness after more than twenty years of
absence, Sara Coleridge grew up as fair and sweet as one of
the exquisite wild flowers of her native vale. The childish
prettiness which had excited the admiration of her young
playfellows at Allonby, changed first into the maidenly
bloom of fifteen; at which age she is mentioned by the
painter William Collins, as " Coleridge's elegant daughter
Sara, a most interesting creature," of whom he made a
sketch, which was greatly admired by her father for its
simplicity and native refinement. It represents her in the
character of the Highland Girl, seated in rustic fashion
under a tree. Five years later these girlish graces had
matured into a perfection of womanly beauty, which is thus
described by Sir Henry Taylor : —

"I first saw your mother," he writes in a letter which I
have lately had the pleasure of receiving from him, " when
in 1823 I paid my first visit to Mr. Southey at Greta Hall,
where she and her mother were staying. I suppose she
was then about twenty years of age. I saw but little of
her, for I think she was occupied in translating some
mediaeval book from the Latin, and she was seen only at
meals, or for a very short time in the evening ; and as she
was almost invariably silent, I saw nothing and knew
nothing of her ;mind, till I renewed my acquaintance with
her many years after. But I have always been glad that I
did see her in her girlhood, because I then saw her beauty
untouched by time, and it was a beauty which could not but
remain in one's memory for life, and which is now distinctly
before me as I write. The features were perfectly shaped,
and almost minutely delicate, and the complexion delicate
also, but not wanting in colour, and the general effect was
that of gentleness, indeed I may say of composure, even to
stillness. Her eyes were large, and they had the sort of
serene lustre which I remember in her father's.

REMINISCENCES OF SIB HENRY TAYLOR. 23

" After her marriage, I think, I did not see her till the
days of her widowhood, in young middle life, when she was
living in Chester Place, Eegent's Park. Her beauty, though
not lost, was impaired, and with the same stillness and
absolute simplicity which belonged to her nature, there was
some sadness which I had not seen before in the expression
of her face, and some shyness of manner. I think I was
myself shy, and this perhaps made her so, and the effect
was to shut me out from the knowledge, by conversation, of
almost any part of her mind and nature, except her intel-
lect. For whenever she was shy, if she could not be silent,
which was impossible when we were alone together, she fled
into the region where she was most at home and at ease,
which was that of psychology and abstract thought ; and
this was the region where I was by no means at ease and at
home. Had we met more frequently (and I never cease
to wish that we had) no doubt these little difficulties would
soon have been surmounted ; and we should have got into
the fields of thought and sentiment which had an interest
common to us both. But I was a busy man in these years,
and not equal in health and strength to what I had to do,
and it was in vain for me to seek her society, when I was
too tired to enjoy it ; and then came her illness and her
early death, and she had passed away before I had attained
to know her in her inner mind and life. I only know that
the admirable strength and subtlety of her reasoning faculty,
shown in her writings and conversation, were less to me
than the beauty and simplicity and feminine tenderness
of her face; and that one or two casual and transitory
expressions of her nature in her countenance, delightful in
their poetic power, have come back to me from time to time,
and that they are present with me now, when much of what
was most to be admired in her intellectual achievements or
discourse, have passed into somewhat of a dim distance."

24 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Of all the personal influences which had to do with the
formation of my mother's mind and character in early life,
by far the most important were those exercised by the two
eminent men with whom she was so intimately connected,
by ties of kindred or affection, her Uncle Southey, and her
father's friend Mr. Wordsworth. In attempting to estimate
the value of these various impressions, and trace them to
their respective source, I am but repeating her own remark
when I say, that in matters of the intellect and imagination,
she owed most to Mr. Wordsworth. In his noble poetry
she took an ever-increasing delight, and his impressive
discourse, often listened to on summer rambles over the
mountains, or in the winter parlours of Greta Hall and
Kydal Mount, served to guide her taste and cultivate her
understanding. But in matters of the heart and conscience,
for right views of duty and practical lessons of industry,
truthfulness, and benevolence, she was " more, and more
importantly, indebted to the daily life and example of her
admirable Uncle Southey," whom she long afterwards
emphatically declared to have been " upon the whole, the
best man she had ever known."

There is a third province of human nature beside those
of the intellect and the moral sense, — that of the spiritual,
where the pure spirit of Sara Coleridge breathed freely, as
in an " ampler ether, a diviner air." In these serene and
lofty regions she wandered hand in hand with her father,
whose guidance she willingly followed, with a just confi-
dence in his superior wisdom, yet with no blind or
undiscriniinating submission. He, like herself, was but a
traveller through the heavenly country, whose marvels they
explored together ; and the sun of Eeason was above them
both to light them on their way. In September, 1825,
when not quite three-and-twenty, she was reading the
"Aids to Reflection," "and delighted with all that she

EARLY RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 25

could clearly understand," as she says in a letter of that
date to Sir John Taylor Coleridge. "Do you not think,"
she adds, with modest deference to the opinion of a highly
respected elder cousin, " that in speaking of free will, and
the other mysteries of religion, my father, though he does
not attempt to explain what I suppose is inexplicable, puts
the subject in a new and comfortable point of view for
sincere Christians ? " The " new and comfortable point of
view," thus early perceived and adopted, was still more
deeply appreciated, when years of experience and reflection
had increased her sense of its importance. Led by circum-
stances, as well as by natural congeniality of mind, to a
study of her father's philosophy, she then devoted herself,
with all the fulness of matured conviction, to the task of
illustrating those great principles of Christian truth which
it was the main object of his life to defend. If, in following
this path, she approached the dusty arena of controversy
(though without actually entering it), and watched the
combatants with approving or disapproving eye, it will yet,
I believe, be acknowledged, even by those who differ most
widely from her conclusions, that in her mode of reaching
them she combined charity with candour. Possessing, as
she did, a knowledge of theology, both as a history and a
science, rare in any woman (perhaps in any layman), she had
received from heaven a still more excellent gift, " even the
ornament of a meek and quiet spirit."

These solemn investigations were, however, the appro-
priate employment of a more advanced stage of life than
that of which I am now speaking. In youthful days my
mother's favourite pursuits were chiefly literary and lin-
guistic. Before she was five-and-twenty she had made her-
self acquainted with the leading Greek and Latin classics,
and was well skilled in French, Italian, German, and
Spanish. These acquirements were mainly the result of her

26 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

own efforts ; though it is needless to point out the advan-
tages she derived in her studies from the advice and direction
of a man like Mr. Southey, and from the use which she
was kindly encouraged to make of his valuable library.

Natural History, too, in all its branches, especially those
of botany and zoology, was a subject in which she found
endless attractions. The beauty of nature manifested in
bird or insect, flower or tree, delighted her poetical imagi-
nation ; while the signs of Divine Wisdom and Goodness,
revealed in all the works of creation, furnished a constant
theme for the contemplations of a thoughtful piety. Other
advantages accompanied these studies, so healthful both to
mind and body. The out-door interests which they pro-
vided, the habits of careful observation which they rendered
necessary, aided in the harmonious development of her
faculties, and served to counterbalance the subjective ten-
dencies of her intellect. She could turn at any time from
the most abstruse metaphysical speculations, to inspect the
domestic architecture of a spider, or describe the corolla of
a rose.

The work referred to by Sir Henry Taylor in his interest-
ing letter, as that upon which my mother was engaged
at the time of his first visit to Greta Hall, was probably
her translation of the " Memoirs of the Chevalier Bayard, by
the Loyal Servant ; " which was published by Mr. Murray,
in 1825. The trouble of rendering the accounts of battles and
sieges, from the French of the sixteenth century, into appro-
priate English, was considerable ; but was lightened by the
interest inspired by the romantic character and adventures
of Bayard, the Knight " sans peur et sans reproche."

This was not, however, her earliest appearance in print.
Her first literary production was one concerning which
Professor Keed gives the following particulars, in the
notice above referred to. After observing that it "mani-

" AN ACCOUNT OF THE ABIPONES." 27

festly had its origin in connection with some of Southey's
labours," * he proceeds thus : — " In 1822 there issued from
the London press a work in three octavo volumes, entitled,
'An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian people of
Paraguay. From the Latin of Martin Dobrizhoffer, eighteen
years a Missionary in that country.' No name of translator
appears, and a brief and modest preface gives not the least
clue to it ; even now in catalogues the work is frequently
ascribed to Southey. At the time of the publication Miss
Coleridge was just twenty years of age, and therefore this
elaborate toil of translation must have been achieved before
she had reached the years of womanhood. The stout-
hearted perseverance needed for such a task is quite as
remarkable as the scholarship in a young person. Coleridge
himself spoke of it with fond and just admiration, when, in
1832, he said :—

" 'My dear daughter's translation of this book is, in my
judgment, unsurpassed for pure mother-English, by any-
thing I have read for a long time.'

" Southey in his ' Tale of Paraguay,' which was suggested
by the missionary's narrative, paid to the translator a
tribute so delicate, and so controlled, perhaps, by a sense
of his young kinswoman's modesty, that one need be in the
secret to know for whom it is meant. It is in the stanza
which mentions Dobrizhoffer's forgetfulness of his native
speech, during his long missionary expatriation, and alludes
to the favour shown him by the Empress Maria Theresa.

"' But of his native speech because well-nigh
Disuse in him forgetfulness had wrought,
In Latin he composed his history,
A garrulous but a lively tale, and fraught

* The work was undertaken, in the first instance, for the purpose of as-
sisting one of her brothers in his college expenses. The necessary means
were, however, supplied by his own exertions ; and the proceeds of the
translation (£125) were funded in Sara Coleridge's name, for her own
use.— E. C.

28 MEMOIK AND LETTEKS OF SAEA COLERIDGE.

With matter of delight and food for thought,

And if he could in Merlin's glass have seen

By whom his tomes to speak our tongue were taught,

The old man would have felt as pleased, I ween,

As when he won the ear of that great Empress Queen. '

Canto III., stanza 16.

" Charles Lamb, in an epistolary strain, eminently
characteristic, echoes the praise bestowed upon his friend's
child, and her rare achievement. Writing to Southey, in
1825, in acknowledgment of a presentation copy of the
' Tale of Paraguay,' he says :

" ' The compliment to the translatress is daintily con-
ceived. Nothing is choicer in that sort of writing than to
bring in some remote impossible parallel — as between the
great empress and the unobstrusive quiet soul, who digged
her noiseless way so perseveringly through that rugged
Paraguay mine. How she Dobrizhoffered it all out puzzles
my slender latinity to conjecture.* '

There is a graceful allusion to my mother's classical
attainments in that lovely strain composed in her honour
by the great poet whose genius, especially in its earlier
manifestations, she so highly admired and reverenced :—

" Last of the Three, though eldest born,
Reveal thyself, like pensive morn,
Touched by the skylark's earliest note,
Ere humbler gladness be afloat ;
But whether in the semblance drest
Of dawn, or eve, fair vision of the west,
Come with each anxious hope subdued
By woman's gentle fortitude,
Each grief, through meekness, settling into rest.
Or I would hail thee when some high-wrought page
Of a closed volume lingering in thy hand,
Has raised thy spirit to a peaceful stand
Among the glories of a happier age.
Her brow hath opened on me, see it there
Brightening the umbrage of her hair,

* " Talfourd's Letters of Charles Lamb," vol. ii. p. 189.

THE TRIAD. 29

So gleams the crescent moon, that loves

To be descried through shady groves.

Tenderest bloom is on her cheek,

Wish not for a richer streak,

Nor dread the depth of meditative eye,

But let thy love upon that azure field

Of thoughtfulness and beauty, yield

Its homage, offered up in purity.

What wouldst thou more ? In sunny glade,

Or under leaves of thickest shade,

Was such a stillness e'er diffused

Since earth grew calm, while angels mused ?

Softly she treads, as if her foot were loth

To crush the mountain dewdrops, soon to melt

On the flower's breast ; as if she felt

That flowers themselves, whate'er their hue,

With all their fragrance, all their glistening,

Call to the heart for inward listening ;

And though for bridal wreaths and tokens true

Welcomed wisely ; though a growth

Which the careless shepherd sleeps on,

As fitly spring from turf the mourner weeps on,

And without wrong are cropped the marble tomb to strew."

My mother was once told by a poetical friend that, till he
knew the original, he had always taken this passage in the
Triad for a personification of the Christian grace of Faith.
She used to smile at her involuntary exaltation, and main-
tain that there must be something exaggerated and unreal
in a description which was liable to such a misinterpreta-
tion. Yet the conjecture may have been a right one in the
spirit, though not in the letter. Certainly no one who knew
my mother intimately, and was privileged to see "the very
pulse of the machine " —

" A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller betwixt life and death,
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill " —

could doubt that such a life as hers could only be lived " by
faith."

30 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

That light of faith, which shone so brightly in declining
years, had been early sought and found between the
troubled clouds of life's opening day. In 1828, when the
"Triad" was written, Sara Coleridge was no stranger to
the most powerful emotion which can agitate a woman's
heart, either for joy or sorrow. The "anxious hope"
alluded to by the poet, with almost parental tenderness,
was for the joyful time when she might be enabled peace-
fully to enjoy the " dear and improving society" of him to
whom she had given her affections ; the " grief " that settled
into the "rest" which is promised to the meek and lowly,
arose not so much from the postponement of her own
happiness as from the sympathy with his disappointment,
and sorrow for its cause, which was principally the uncer-
tainty of health and means on both sides.

In 1822, while on a visit to her father at Highgate, she
had first met her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge, a younger
son of James Coleridge, Esq., of Heath's Court, Ottery St.
Mary, who was educated at Eton College, and at King's
College, Cambridge, where his course was not unmarked by
academical honours. He was then practising as a Chancery
barrister in London, and made frequent pilgrimages to High-
gate, one result of which was that series of notes to which the
world is indebted for the " Table Talk of S. T. Coleridge."

The attachment thus formed between the two youthful
cousins, under the roof of Mr. Gillman, was never for a
single moment regretted by my mother, in spite of the
solicitudes to which it exposed her, and the sorrows which,
in after years, cast a shade of sadness over the stillness
which characterized her gentle face.

" She was a maid," thus writes Hartley Coleridge of his
only sister :—

te Not easily beguiled by loving words,
Nor apt to love ; but when she loved, the fate
Of her affections was a stern religion,
Admitting nought less holy than itself. "

MARRIAGE PROSPECTS. 31

These "seven years of patience" did not pass without
bringing forth precious fruits of piety and goodness in a
heart already enriched with the dews of heavenly blessing.
"Your virtues," writes my father to his betrothed in a
letter of 1827, "never shone so brilliantly in my eyes as
they do now ; and it is a spring of deep and sacred joy in
my heart to think that, however weak and wavering my
steps may be in the ways of religion, you are already a
firm traveller in them, and indeed a young saint upon
earth. The trials to which our engagement has exposed
you have been fatiguing and painful ; but you have borne
them all, not only without impatience or murmuring, but
with a holy cheerfulness and energetic resignation, than
which no two states of the heart are more difficult to man,
or more acceptable to God.

" I made a true remark to you once, which I feel every
day justified by our own correspondence, that spiritual
things differ from mere things of sense in this amongst
other points, that sensual objects, capacities, and enjoy-
ments are all naturally bounded, short, and fugitive, whilst
pure love and pure intellectual communion are essentially
without limits, and that to the pure-hearted a boundless
ascent towards identity of moral being lies open, and that
every day fresh depths of love and thought might open to
the tender and assiduous sympathies of two mutually
adoring persons. I have always loved you as much as
my heart could feel at the time; but my respect, my
veneration for you has gone on increasing as I knew you
more intimately. I hope I shall always have the sense to
submit myself to your guiding influence in all cases of
moral election. The more closely I imitate your habits,
thoughts, and actions, the better and happier man shall
I become."

The noble affection thus generously expressed was as
fully returned by her on whom it was bestowed. In a letter

32 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

written on the eve of her marriage she thus addresses the
expected bridegroom, "You will not, I know, grudge a few
tears to my dearest mother, to dear Keswick, dear Greta
Hall, and its dear and interesting inmates. These changes,
these farewells, are types of the great change, the long
farewell, that awaits us all hereafter. We cannot but be
thoughtful upon them. Yet I know and feel that this
change is to be infinitely for the better ; and in your dear
and improving society I trust I shall learn to look upon
that other change as a blessed one too. The sadness of my
present farewell will be tempered by the prospect of meet-
ing all here frequently again upon earth, as, I hope, all
dear friends will be reunited in heaven. But that specula-
tion would lead me too far. Fear not, Henry, that such
speculations, or rather, such a tendency in my nature to
speculation and dreaminess, will render me an unfit wife
for you. Does not Wordsworth point out to us how the
most excursive bird can brood as long and as fondly on the
nest as any of the feathered race ? * This taste for the
spiritual I consider a great blessing, crowned by that other
inexpressibly great one, the having found a partner who
will tolerate, approve, sympathize in all I think and feel,
and will allow me to sympathize with him."

On the 3rd of September, 1829, Henry Nelson Coleridge
and Sara Coleridge were married at Crosthwaite Church,
Keswick. After a few months spent in a London lodging,
they began their frugal housekeeping in a tiny cottage on
Downshire Hill, Hampstead, where their four elder children
were born, of whom the twins, Berkeley and Florence, died
in infancy. In 1837 my parents removed to a more com-
modious dwelling in Chester Place, Kegent's Park, where
a third daughter, Bertha Fanny, was born in 1840, who
survived her birth but a few days.

My mother's married life was, as Professor Eeed has

* " True to the kindred points of heaven and home." — The Skylark.

HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE. . 33

truly observed, "rich in the best elements of conjugal
happiness,— wedded to a gentleman of high moral worth,
and of fine mind and scholarship, one who blended litera-
ture with his professional pursuits, — she was not exposed
to the perils of intellectual superiority."

The compositions (chiefly on classical subjects) which
occupied his leisure, while his health lasted, and which
displayed the varied powers of an acute and polished
intellect, and the elegant taste of an accomplished scholar,
formed a topic of common interest, and one which is
frequently referred to, in the letters of that period, with
visible pride and pleasure. With respect to moral and
personal qualities, too, my father was, as she afterwards
said to a friend when describing her grief at his loss, " of
all men whom she had ever known, best suited to her; "
and this quite as much by force of contrast as of resem-
blance. Of sensitive temperament, reserved though deeply
earnest feelings, and manners which illness and suffering
rendered serious, though not usually sad, she was especially
likely to -feel the charm of the wit, gaiety, and conversa-
tional brilliancy, which, on social occasions, made her
husband the "life and soul of the company," as well as of
the joyous frankness and overflowing affectionateness which
made him the delight of his home.

In that genial atmosphere of loving appreciation, free
from the cares and depressing circumstances of her girl-
hood, she was encouraged and enabled to put forth all her
best powers —

" A thousand happy things that seek the light,
Till now in darkest shadow forced to lie," *

began to st show their forms and hues in the all-revealing
sun." The poetical genuis which she inherited from her
father (together with his turn for philosophical reflection,
developed in her at a later date) found its most perfect

* From a song in " Phantasmion. " — E. C.

34 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

expression in her romance of Phantasmion, published in
1837. The wild and beautiful scenery of her birthplace,
vividly remembered and fondly dwelt on in the enforced
seclusion of sickness (for she was now unhappily an invalid),
reappears here, idealized by imagination, to form the main
subject of the picture ; while groups of graceful and dignified
figures give animation to the landscape, and fairy forms
flitting above or around them, spirits of the wind, the woods,
or the waters, serve as a connecting link between humanity
and nature.

"Nothing has appeared in this species of writing," says
a friendly American critic, "to be for one moment com-
pared with * Phantasmion,' since Fouque produced his
inimitable 'Undine.' There is one characteristic feature
in this book that will render it peculiarly acceptable to all
lovers of nature. We do not allude to its accuracy in the
delineating of the infinite phases of earth and air, sea and
sky, though nothing can be more perfect in this respect;
but what we mean, is its remarkable freedom from the con-
ventional forms and usages of life. It has the patriarchal
simplicity, the beautiful truthfulness of primitive ages;
while it is at the same time enriched and ennobled by the
refinement of a more advanced period. . . . Do you ask
what is its grand characteristic ? It is beauty, — beauty
truly feminine, beauty of conception, character, and ex-
pression. It is indeed a wilderness of sweets illumined by
the richest hues of earth and heavens, and through which
a stream of magic melody is for ever flowing. . . . The
' Songs of Phantasmion ! ' what sweetness of verse ! what
breathings of a tender spirit ! whose voice — who but the
writer's own Spirit of the Flowers — could do them justice ? "

This beautiful fairy tale was at first intended (though it
soon outgrew its original limits) as a mere child's story for
the amusement of her little boy, whose beauty, vivacity,
and early intelligence are described with maternal love

PRETTY LESSONS.'* 35

and pride, in one of the letters of that period, in reply to
the questions of her brother Hartley, about his unseen
nephew. The education of her children was now their
mother's principal object, an object on which she deemed
it no waste to lavish the charms of her genius, and the
resources of her cultivated understanding. Latin grammar,
natural history, geography, and the " Kings of England,"
were all made easy and attractive to the little learners by
simple and appropriate verses, written on cards, in clear
print-like characters. Even a set of wooden bricks, which
was a favourite source of amusement, was thus agreeably
decorated, in the hope that those tough morsels, hie, hac,
hoc, and their congeners, might glide gently over the youth-
ful palate, sweetened with play and pleasure. From these
Sibylline leaves of the nursery a selection of juvenile poetry
was published in 1834, by my father's desire, who wished
that other children might have some share in the advan-
tages enjoyed by his own. The little volume, entitled
"Pretty* Lessons for Good Children," proved a popular
work, and passed through five editions.

" Learning, Herbert, hath the features
Almost of an angel's face ;
Contemplate them steadfastly,
Learn by heart each speaking grace.
Truth and wisdom, high-wrought fancy,
In those lineaments we trace ;
Never be your eyes averted
Long from that resplendent face ! " *

Happy the boy who is permitted to see those glorious
lineaments reflected in the " angel-face" of a wise and tender
mother ! It may not be uninteresting to the sympathizing
reader to learn that he who enjoyed the blessing of such
rare guardianship lived to appreciate and reward it, and to
attest its value by those public honours that are won by

* Fifth stanza of a poem on the Latin declensions in " Pretty Lessons,"
— Fades, a Face.

36 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

industry and talent.* And that, when disease came to
blight the hopes of his manhood, and cut short a promising
career, Learning was, to him as to her, a shield from the
monotony of the sick-room and an exceeding great reward ;
and that as long as anything earthly could claim his atten-
tion, it was seldom " averted from that resplendent face."

But it is time to return to an earlier stage of the
narrative, when that domestic happiness so patiently
waited for, and thankfully enjoyed, was smitten by the
hand of death. All that was earthly of it fell to the earth,
and was no more; but there remained to the desolate
widow the Christian's hope of a heavenly re-union, which
proved an anchor of the soul sure and steadfast, when the
waves of affliction rose high. In 1841 my father's health
began to give way ; and in January, 1843, he died of spinal
paralysis, after a trying illness of nine months.

In her deep distress my mother again endeavoured to act
upon that principle of " energetic resignation " (so different
from the aimless broodings of mere submission), which had
been early noticed in her by the discriminating eye of
affection. " I feel it such a duty, such a necessity," she
writes to a friend three months after her bereavement, "to
cling fast to every source of comfort, to be, for my
children's sake, as happy, as willing to live on in this heart-
breaking world, as possible, that I dwell on all the blessings
which God continues to me, and has raised up to me out of
the depths of affliction, with an earnestness of endeavour
which is its own reward; — for so long as the heart and
mind are full of movement, employed continually in not
unworthy objects, there may be sorrow, but there cannot
be despair. The stagnation of the spirit, the dull, motion-

* My brother was the Newcastle and Balliol scholar in 1847 and 1848,
and took a double first class at Oxford in 1852, which latter honour his
mother did not live to witness. He was a fine Icelandic scholar ; and at
the time of his death, which took place in 1861, he was engaged in pre-
parations for the new English dictionary projected by the Philological
Society, of which he was a member. — E. C.

WIDOWHOOD. 37

less brooding over one miserable set of thoughts, is that
against which, in such cases as mine, we must both strive
and pray."

There is another, an equally interesting, though less
personal, point of view, in which this great bereavement
was an important turning-point in the life of Sara
Coleridge. Her husband was Mr. Coleridge's literary
executor, and the editorial task, first undertaken by my
father, now devolved upon his widow. It has been beauti-
fully remarked by Professor Eeed, as a peculiarity of my
mother's truly feminine authorship, that it was in no case
prompted by mere literary ambition, but that there was
ever some "moral motive," — usually some call of the
affections, that set her to work, and overcame her natural
preference for retirement. " This helpful, loving, and
unselfish spirit, which had actuated her hitherto, now took
a more commanding form, and led her to dedicate the
whole of her intellectual existence to the great object of
carrying out a husband's wishes, of doing justice to a
father's name. In the fulfilment of this sacred trust, she
found occasion to illustrate and adorn the works which fell
under her editorship with several compositions of no
inconsiderable extent, and displaying powers of critical
analysis, and of doctrinal, political, and historical research
and discussion, of no common order. The most important
of these are the "Essay on Eationalism, with a special
application to the Doctrine of Baptismal Kegeneration,"
appended to Vol. II. of the "Aids to Eeflection," the
" Introduction " to the Biographia Liter aria ; and a Preface
to the collection of her father's political writings, entitled,
"Essays on his Own Times, by S. T. Coleridge," which
contains, in Professor Eeed's opinion, the most judicious
and impartial comparison between British and American
civilization, and the social and intellectual conditions of
the two countries, that has yet been written. " And thus,"

38 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

continues her accomplished friend and biographer, " there
have been expended in the desultory form of notes, and
appendices, and prefaces, an amount of original thought
and an affluence of learning, which, differently and more
prominently presented, would have made her famous.
There is not one woman in a thousand, not one man in ten
thousand, who would have been thus prodigal of the means
of celebrity."

" Father ! no amaranths e'er shall wreath my brow ;
Enough that round thy grave they nourish now !
But Love his roses 'mid my young locks braided,
And what cared I for flowers of richer bloom ?
Those too seemed deathless — here they never faded,
But, drenched and shattered, dropt into the tomb/' *

This blended expression of the wife's and the daughter's
affection was recorded when she was in the midst of her
pious duties. Ere long she too was called upon to resign
the work, still unfinished, into another, but a dear and well-
skilled hand.f Seven years of waiting for the happiness so
long expected — again seven years — not always of mourning,
but of faithful memories and tender regrets for that which
had past away for ever; and then came preparations for
the "great change, the long farewell," to which she had
learned to look forward when on the very eve of bridal joys
and earthly blessedness. She who had once called
marriage the type of death, now heard the summons to the
heavenly Marriage Feast with no startled or reluctant ear.
Solemn indeed is the darkness of the Death Valley, and
awful are the forms that guard its entrance —

" Fear, and trembling Hope,
Silence, and Foresight,"

but beyond all these, and revealed to the heart (though not

* From an unpublished poem by Sara Coleridge. — E. C.

f Her brother, the Eev. Derwent Coleridge, the present Editor. — E. C.

LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 39

to the eye) of the humble and believing Christian, are the
blissful realities of Light and Love.

After a lingering and painful illness of about a year and
a half, Sara Coleridge was released from much suffering,
borne with unfailing patience, on the 3rd of May, 1852, in
the forty-ninth year of her age. In the old churchyard of
Highgate (now enclosed in a crypt under the school chapel)
her remains lie, beside those of her parents, her husband,
and her son.

The following letter will be read with pleasure, not only
for its own sake, but as a tribute to my mother's memory,
from one whose friendship, correspondence, and society
helped to brighten her latter years, and to whom this work
owes some of the most interesting portions of its contents.

" I rejoice to hear," Mr. de Vere writes to me, on the
subject of the present publication, "that a portion of your
mother's letters will be published so soon. To those who
knew her she remains an image of grace and intellectual
beauty that time can never tarnish. A larger circle will
now know, in part at least, what she was. Her correspond-
ence will, to thoughtful readers, convey a clearer impres-
sion than aught beside could convey of one who of course
could only be fully understood by those who had known her
personally and known her long.

"In their memories she will ever possess a place apart
from all others. With all her high literary powers she was
utterly unlike the mass of those who are called * literary
persons,' Few have possessed such learning; and when
one calls to mind the arduous character of those studies,
which seemed but a refreshment to her clear intellect, like
a walk in mountain air, it seems a marvel how a woman's
faculties could have grappled with those Greek philosophers
and Greek fathers, just as no doubt it seemed a marvel

40 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

when her father, at the age of fourteen, woke the echoes of
that famous old cloister with declamations from Plato and
Plotinus. But in the daughter, as in the father, the real
marvel was neither the accumulated knowledge nor the
literary power. It was the spiritual mind.

e The rapt one of the Godlike forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature,'

was Wordsworth's description of Coleridge, the most spiritual
perhaps of England's poets, certainly of her modern poets.
Of her some one said, * Her father had looked down into
her eyes, and left in them the light of his own.' Her great
characteristic was the radiant spirituality of her intellectual
and imaginative being. This it was that looked forth from
her countenance.

" Great and various as were your mother's talents, it
was not from them that she derived what was special to
her. It was from the degree in which she had inherited
the feminine portion of genius. She had a keener appre-
ciation of what was highest and most original in thought
than of subjects nearer the range of ordinary intellects.
She moved with the lightest step when she moved over the
loftiest ground. Her ' feet were beautiful on the mountain-
tops ' of ideal thought. They were her native land ; for
her they were not barren ; honey came up from the stony
rock. In this respect I should suppose she must have
differed from almost all women whom we associate with
literature. I remember hearing her say that she hardly
considered herself to be a woman 'of letters.' She felt
herself more at ease when musing on the mysteries of the
soul, or discussing the most arduous speculations of philo-
sophy and theology, than when dealing with the humbler
topics of literature.

"As might have been expected, the department of litera-
ture which interested her most was that of poetry — that is,
poetry of the loftiest and most spiritual order, for to much

HER CHARACTER. 41

of what is now popular she would have refused the name.
How well I remember our discussions about Wordsworth !
She was jealous of my admiration for his poems, because
it extended to too many of them. No one could be a true
Wordsworthian, she maintained, who admired so much
some of his late poems, his poems of accomplishment, such
as the ' Triad.' It implied a disparagement of his earlier
poems, such as ' Eesolution and Independence,' in which
the genuine Wordsworthian inspiration, and that alone,
uttered itself ! I suspect, however, that she must have
taken a yet more vivid delight in some of her father's
poems. Beside their music and their spirituality, they
have another quality, in which they stand almost without
a rival, — their subtle sweetness. I remember Leigh Hunt
once remarking to me on this characteristic of them, and
observing that in this respect they were unapproached. It
is like distant music, when the tone comes to you pure,
without any coarser sound of wood or of wire ; or like odour
on the air, when you smell the flower, without detecting in
it the stalk or the earth. As regards this characteristic of
her father's genius, as well as its spirituality, there was
something in hers that resembled it. One is reminded of it
by the fairylike music of the songs in ' Phantasmion.'

" There is a certain gentleness and a modesty which
belong to real genius, and which are in striking contrast
with the self-confidence and self-assertion, so often found in
persons possesssed of vigorous talents, but to whom litera-
ture is but a rough sport or a coarse profession. It was
these qualities that gave to her manners their charm of
feminine grace, self-possession, and sweetness. She was
one of those whose thoughts are growing while they speak,
and who never speak to surprise. Her intellectual fervour
was not that which runs over in excitement ; a quietude
belonged to it, and it was ever modulated by a womanly
instinct of reserve and dignity. She never ' thought for

42 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

effect,' or cared to have the last word in discussion, or
found it difficult to conceive how others should differ from
her conclusions. She was more a woman than those who
had not a tenth part of her intellectual energy. The
seriousness and the softness of her nature raised her above
vanity and its contortions. Her mind could move at once
and be at rest.

" I fear that the type of character and intellect to which
your mother belonged must be expected to grow rarer in
these days of ' fast ' intellect. Talents rush to the market,
the theatre, or the arena, and genius itself becomes
vulgarized for want of that ' hermit heart ' which ought to
belong to it, whether it be genius of the creative or the
susceptive order. There will always, however, be those
whose discernment can trace in your mother's corres-
pondence and in her works the impress of what once was so
fair. But, alas ! how little will be known of her even by
such. Something they will guess of her mind, but it is
only a more fortunate few who can know her yet higher
gifts, those that belong to the heart and moral being. If
they have a loss which is theirs only, they too have re-
membrances which none can share with them. They
remember the wide sympathies and the high aspirations,
the courageous love of knowledge, and the devout submis-
sion to Eevealed Truth ; the domestic affections so tender,
so dutiful, and so self-sacrificing, the friendships so faithful
and so unexacting. For her great things and little lived on
together through the fidelity of a heart that seemed never
to forget. I never walk beside the Greta or the Derwent
without hearing her describe the flowers she had gathered
on their margin in her early girlhood. For her they
seemed to preserve their fragrance, amid the din and the
smoke of the great metropolis."

To these high and discerning praises, any addition from
me would be indeed superfluous. Yet one word of con-

HER MEMORY. 43

firmation may here find a place ; it is this, that such as
Sara Coleridge appeared to sympathizing friends and
admiring strangers, such she was known to be, by those
who, as her children, lived with her in habits of daily
intimacy, and depended on her wholly for guidance, affec-
tion, and support. To such an one her memory is almost
a religion ; or, to speak more soberly as well as more
Christianly, it is prized not only out of love for herself, but
as a practical evidence of the truth of that Eeligion which
made her what she was.

44 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTEK I.

LETTERS TO HER ELDEST BROTHER, HARTLEY
COLERIDGE, AND TO MISS TREVENEN : 1833.

Importance of indirect Influences in Education — Description of her
Son at three years old — A Child's first effort at Recollection.

To HARTLEY COLERIDGE, Esq., Grasmere.

Hampstead 1833. — I THINK, the present, hard-working,
over -busy, striving age, somewhat over-does the positive
part of education, and forgets the efficacy of the negative.
Not to make children irreligious by dosing them with
religion unskilfully administered — not to make them self-
important by charging them on no account to be conceited
(which you used to complain of so bitterly) — not to make
them busy-bodies and uncharitable by discussing the mis-
demeanours of all belonging to them, whom they ought to
hold in reverence, in their hearing, giving them the fruit of
the tree of ill knowledge (a fruit which both puffs up and
imparts bitterness) before their stomachs have acquired
firmness enough to receive it without injury (before the secre-
tions of the mind are all settled, and such knowledge can
subsist without disturbing the sweet juices of charity and
humanity) — not to create disgust, or excite hypocrisy, by
attempting to pour sensibility, generosity, and such other
good qualities, which cannot be supplied from without, but
must well up from within, by buckets full into their hearts,
— not to cram them with knowledge which their minds are not
mature enough to digest (such as Political Economy), the
only result of which will be to make them little superficial

HERBERT COLERIDGE. 45

coxcombs, — in short, to give nature elbow room, and not to
put swathes on their minds, now we have left off lacing
them upon their infant bodies, to trust more to happy
influences, and less to direct tuition, not to defeat our own
purpose by over-anxiety, and to recollect that the powers of
education are even more limited than those of circum-
stances, that nature and God's blessing are above all things,
and to arm ourselves against the disappointment that may
attend our best directed and most earnest endeavours ; all
these considerations, I think, are treated too slightingly in
the present day. Folks are all too busy to think ; churches
are built in a fortnight — but not quite such as our ancestors
built. The only wonder is that there is so much childish
innocence and nature left in the world. But, as an old
nurse said, " 0 Lord, ma'am, it's not very easy to kill a
looby" so I think it not very easy to spoil a child. Nature
has a wonderful power of rejecting what does not suit her ;
and the harangue which is unfitted for juvenile hearts and
understandings, often makes no impression upon either.
How often does a child that was certainly to be ruined by
mismanagement disappoint all the wise Jeremiahs, and
turn out an amiable member of society !

You say you cannot bring before your mind's eye our
little Herby. A mother is qualified to draw a child's
portrait, if close study of the original be a qualification.
High colouring may be allowed for. I will try to give you
some notion of our child. He is too even a mixture of both
father and mother to be strikingly like either ; and this is
the more natural as Henry and I have features less definite
than our expressions. This may, perhaps, account for that
flowing softness and more than childlike indefiniteness of
outline which our boy's face presents : it is all colour and
expression — such varying expression as consists with the
sort of corporeal moulding which I have described ; in
which the vehicle is lost sight of, and the material of the

46 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

veil is obscured by the brightness of what shines through it —
not that pointed sort of fixed expression which seenis more
mechanically formed by strong lines and angular features.
To be more particular, he has round eyes, and a round
nose, and round lips and cheeks ; and he has deep blue
eyes, which vary from stone grey to skiey azure, according
to influences of light and shade ; and yellowish light-brown
hair, and cheeks and lips rosy up to the very deepest,
brightest, tint of childish rosyhood. He will not be a
handsome man, but he is a pretty representative of three
years old, as Derwent was a " representative baby," and
folks who put the glossy side of their opinions outermost
for the gratified eyes of mothers and nurses, and all that
large class with whom rosy cheeks are the beginning,
middle, and end of beauty, say enough to make me — as
vain as I am. I don't pretend to any exemption from the
general lot of parental delusion; I mean that, like most
other parents, I see my child through an atmosphere which
illuminates, magnifies, and at the same time refines the
object to a degree that amounts to a delusion ; at least,
unless we are aware that to other eyes it appears by the
light of common day only. My father says that those who
love intensely see more clearly than indifferent persons ;
they see minutenesses which escape other eyes ; they see
" the very pulse of the machine." Doubtless, but then,
don't they magnify by looking through the medium of their
partiality? Don't they raise into undue relative import-
ance by exclusive gazing — don't wishes and hopes, indulged
and cherished long, turn into realities, as the rapt
astronomer gazed upon the stars, and mused on human
knowledge, and longed for magic power, till he believed
that he directed the sun's course and the sweet influences
of the Pleiades ?

To return to our son and heir ; he is an impetuous,
vivacious child, and the softer moments of such are

MRS. JOANNA BAILLIE. 47

particularly touching (so thinks the mother of a vehement
urchin). I lately asked him the meaning of a word ; he
turned his rosy face to the window, and cast up the full
blue eyes, which looked liquid in the light, in the short
hush of childish contemplation. The innocent thoughtful-
ness, contrasted with his usual noisy mirth and rapidity,
struck my fancy. I had never before seen him condescend
to make an effort at recollection. The word usually passed
from his lips like an arrow from a bow ; and if not forth-
coming instantly there was an absolute unconcern as to its
fate in the region of memory. The necessity of brain-
racking is not among the number of his discoveries in the
(to him) new world. All wears the freshness and the glory
of a dream ; and the stale, flat and unprofitable, and the
improbus labor, and the sadness and despondency, are all
behind that visionary haze which hides the dull reality, the
mournful future of man's life. You may well suppose that I
look on our darling boy with many fears — but "fortitude and
patient cheer " must recall me from such " industrious
folly ; " and faith and piety must tell me that this is not to
be his home for ever, and that the glories of this world are
lent but to spiritualize us, to incite us to look upward ; and
that the trials which I dread for my darling are but part of
his Maker's general scheme of goodness and wisdom.

II.

Mrs. Joanna Baillie— " An Old Age Serene and Bright "—Miss
Martineau's Characters of Children—" A Little Knowledge " of
Political Economy "a Dangerous Thing" — Comparison of Tasso,
Dante, and Milton.

To Miss EMILY TREVENEN, Helston, Cornwall.

Hampstead, 1833. — Our great poetess, or rather the
sensible, amiable old lady that was a great poetess thirty
years ago, is still in full preservation as to health. Never
did the flame of genius more thoroughly expire than in her

48 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

case ; for though, as Lamb says, " Ancient Mariners,"
" Lyrical Ballads," and "Kehamas," are not written in the
grand climacteric, the authors of such flights of imagina-
tion generally give out sparkles of their ancient fires in
conversation ; but Mrs. Joanna Baillie is, as Mr. Words-
worth observes, when quoting her non-feeling for Lycidas,
" dry and Scotchy : " learning she never possessed, and
some of her poetry, which I think was far above that of any
other woman, is the worse for a few specks of bad English ;
but then her criticisms are so surprisingly narrow and
jejune, and show so slight an acquaintance with fine
literature in general. Yet if the authoress of " Plays on
the Passion " does not now write or talk like a poetess, she
looks like one, and is a piece of poetry in herself. Never
was old age more lovely and interesting ; the face, the
dress, the quiet, subdued motions, the silver hair, the calm
in-looking eye, the pale, yet not unhealthy skin, all are in
harmony ; this is winter with its own peculiar loveliness of
snows and paler sunshine ; no forced flowers or fruits to
form an unnatural contrast with the general air of the
prospect.

I never could relish those wonderfully young-looking old
ladies that are frequently pointed out to our admiration,
and who look like girls at a little distance ; so much the
greater your disappointment when you come close. Why
should an old person look young ? ought such an one to feel
and think young ? if not, how can the mind and person be
in harmony ; how can there be the real grace and comeli-
ness which old age, as old age, may possess, though not
round cheeks and auburn ringlets ?

Do you read Miss Martineau ? How well she always
succeeds in her portraits of children, their simplicity and
partially developed feelings and actions ; and what a pity
it is that, with all her knowledge of child nature, she should
try to persuade herself and others that political economy is

POLITICAL ECONOMY. 49

a fit and useful study for growing minds, and limited capa-
bilities, a subject of all others requiring matured intellect
and general information as its basis ! This same political
economy, which quickens the sale of her works now, will, I
think, prove heavy ballast for a vessel that is to sail down
the stream of time, as all agree that it is a dead weight
upon the progress of her narratives, introducing the most
absurd incongruities and improbabilities in regard to the
dramatic propriety of character, and setting in arms against
the interest of the story the political opinions of a great
class of her readers. And she might have rivalled Miss
Edge worth ! What a pity that she would stretch her
genius on such a Procrustes bed ! And then what practical
benefit can such studies have for the mass of the people,
for whom it seems that Miss Martineau intends her exposi-
tions ? they are not like religion, which may and must
mould the thoughts and acts of everyday life, the true spirit
of which, therefore, cannot be too much studied and
explained ; but how can poor people help the corn-laws,
except by sedition, and what pauper will refuse to marry,
because his descendants may, hundreds of years hence (if
hundreds of things don't happen to prevent it), help among
millions of others to choke up the world ? Who, in short,
will listen to dry and doubtful themes, when passion calls ?
A smattering of Greek or Latin is, in my opinion, a
harmless thing ; nay, I think it useful and agreeable, just
according to its extent ; a little is good, more is better, if
people are aware how short a way they have proceeded,
and what length of road is before them, which they have
more opportunity of seeing than those who have never set
out. But a little learning is, indeed, a dangerous thing,
when no part can be seen clearly without a view of the
whole, and when knowledge, or fancied knowledge, is sure
to incite to practice. . . .

I admire the elegant and classical Tasso, but cannot

50 MEMOIK AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

agree with those who call him the great poet of Italy. He
borrowed from the ancients, not, as Milton did, to melt down
the foreign with the original ore of his own mind, and to
form out of the mass a new creation wholly his own in
shape and substance, and in its effect on the minds of
others. It appears to me that he only produced a vigorous
and highly-wrought imitation of former copies, into which
he combined many new materials, but the frame and body
of which was not original. Dante's was the master-mind
that wrought, like Homer and Milton, for itself from the
beginning, and which influenced the poetry of Italy for
ages.

III.

Characteristics of English Scenery — Somerset, Yorkshire, Devon,
Derbyshire, and the Lakes — Visit of H. N. Coleridge to Mr.
Poole at Nether Stowey.

To Miss E. TREVENEN, Helston, Cornwall.

Hampstead, October, 1833. — Henry agrees with me in
thinking the Somerset landscape the ideal of rurality, where
nature is attired in amenity rather than in grandeur. The
North of England is more picturesque ; you are there
ever thinking of what might be represented on canvas ;
parts of Yorkshire are far more romantic, especially in the
mellowing lights and hues of autumn, when its old ruins
and red and yellow trees and foaming streams bring you
into communion with the genius of Scott ; Derbyshire is
lovely and picturesque, but to me it is unsatisfactory, as
mimicking, on too small a scale, a finer thing of the
same sort. Dovedale may have a character of its own ;
I understand it is more pastoral than the English Lake-
land, yet with a portion of its wilder beauty, but Matlock
struck me as a fragrant of Borodale, without the fine
imaginative distance. Devon is a noble county, but less
distinctly charactered, I think, than the sister one ; it

NETHER STOWEY. 51

displays specimens of variously-featured landscapes, here
the river-scenery of Scotland, there a smiling meadow-land;
in one place reminding you of the North of England, in
another a wild desolate moor, or fine sea-view peculiar to
itself ; still, in the general face of the country I have felt
that there was the want of individuality and a due pro-
portion of the various features of the scene ; — in many
parts the trees, though superb specimens in themselves,
domineer, in their giant multitude, too exclusively over
the land, and prevent the eye from taking in a prospect
where the perfection of parts is subservient to the soul-
entrancing effect of the whole. Devonshire has sometimes
struck me as the workshop of nature, where materials of
the noblest kind and magnitude are heaped together. The
only defect, Henry says, in Somersetshire, is the fewness
and unclearness of the streams. With Nether Stowey he
was especially delighted ; it is indeed an epitome of the
beauties of the county ; he was much interested with the
marked original character, and gratified by the attentions of
his host, our old friend Mr. Poole ; he visited my father's
tiny cottage, where my brother Hartley trotted and
prattled, and where my unknown baby brother Berkeley, a
beautiful infant, was born ; the pleasant reminiscences of
my father's abode in the village gave Henry much pleasure.

52 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTEE II.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND AND MISS TREVENEN :

1834.

Mrs. Hannah More — Girlish view of her literary pretensions con-
firmed by maturer judgment — A group of Authoresses — Remarks
on Jane Austen's novels by the Lake Poets — Hannah More's
celebrity accounted for — Letters of Walpole and Mrs. Barbauld —
Love of gossip in the reading Public.

To Miss E. TREVENEN-, Helston, Cornwall.

Hampstead, August, 1834. — You speak of Mrs. Hannah
More. I have seen abundant extracts from her " Kemains,"
and I think I could not read them through if I were to meet
with them. I fear you will think I want a duly disciplined
mind, when I confess that her writings are not to my taste.
I remember once disputing on this subject with a young
chaplain, who affirmed that Mrs. Hannah More was the
greatest female writer of the age. "Whom," he asked, " did
I think superior?" I mentioned a score of authoresses
whose names my opponent had never even heard before.
I should not now dispute doggedly with a divine in a stage
coach, but years of discretion have not made me alter the
opinion I then not very discreetly expressed, of the dispro-
portion between Mrs. More's celebrity and her literary
genius, as compared with that of many other female writers
whose fame has not extended to the Asiatic Islands. I
cannot see in her productions aught comparable to the
imaginative vigour of Mrs. J. Baillie, the eloquence and
(for a woman) the profundity of Madame de Stael, the
brilliancy of Mrs. Hemans (though I think her over-rated),

MKS. HANNAH MOEE. 53

the pleasant broad comedy of Miss Burney and Miss Ferrier,
the melancholy tenderness of Miss Bowles, the pathos of
Inchbald and Opie, the masterly sketching of Miss Edge-
worth (who, like Hogarth, paints manners as they grow out
of morals, and not merely as they are modified and tinctured
by fashion) ; the strong and touching, but sometimes coarse
pictures of Miss Martineau, who has some highly interest-
ing sketches of childhood in humble life ; and last not least,
the delicate mirth, the gently-hinted satire, the feminine
decorous humour of Jane Austen, who, if not the greatest,
is surely the most faultless of female novelists. My Uncle
Southey and my father had an equally high opinion of her
merits, but Mr. Wordsworth used to say that though he
admitted that her novels were an admirable copy of life, he
could not be interested in productions of that kind ; unless
the truth of nature were presented to him clarified, as it
were, by the pervading light of imagination, it had scarce
any attractions in his eyes ; and for this reason, he took
little pleasure in the writings of Crabbe. My Uncle Southey
often spoke in high terms of " Castle Kackrent ; " he thought
it a work of true genius. Miss Austen's works are essen-
tially feminine, but the best part of Miss Edgeworth's seem
as if they had been written by a man. " Castle Kackrent "
contains genuine humour, a thing very rare in the writings
of women, and not much relished by our sex in general.
"Belinda" contains much that is powerful, interspersed,
like the fine parts of Scotland, with tracts of dreary in-
sipidity; and what is good in this work I cannot think
of so high an order as the good things in " Castle Kack-
rent" and "Emma." I have been led to think that
the exhibition of disease and bodily torture is [but a
coarse art to "freeze the blood." Indeed, you will acquit
me of any affected pretence to originality of criticism,
when you recollect how early my mind was biassed by the
strong talkers I was in the habit of listening to. The spirit

54 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF JSAitA COLERIDG^.

of what I sport on critical matters, though not always the
application, is generally derived from the sources that you
wot of. Yet I know well that we should not go by authority
without finding out a reason for our faith ; and unless we
test the opinions learned from others with those of the
world in general, we are apt to hold them in an incorrect,
and, at the same time, a more strong and unqualified way
than those do from whom we have derived them.

Though I think with the Spectator, etc., that Mrs.
More's very great notoriety was more the work of circum-
stances, and the popular turn of her mind, than owing to
a strong original genius, I am far from thinking her an
ordinary woman. She must have had great energy of
character and a sprightly versatile mind, which did not
originate much, but which readily caught the spirit of the
day, and reflected all the phases of opinion in the pious
and well-disposed portion of society, in a clear and lively
manner. To read Mrs. More's new book was a sort of good
work, which made the reader feel satisfied with him or her
self when performed ; and it is agreeable to have one's very
own opinions presented to one in handsome language, and
placed in a highly respectable point of view. Then Mrs.
More entered the field when there were few to make a
figure there beside, and she was set agoing by Garrick and
Johnson. Garrick, who pleased all the world, said that
the world ought to '(be pleased with her : and Johnson, the
Great Mogul of literature, was gracious to a pretender
whose highest ambition was to follow him at a humble dis-
tance. He would have sneered to death a writer of far
subtler intellect, and more excursive imagination, who
dared to deviate from the track to which he pronounced
good sense to be confined. He even sneered a little at his
dear pet, Fanny Burney ; she had set up shop for herself,
to use a vulgarism ; she had ventured to be original. I
must add that Mrs. More's steady devotion to the cause of

DRYDEN AND CHAUCER. 55

piety and good morals added the stamp of respectability to
her works, which was a deserved passport to their reception ;
though such a passport cannot enable any production to
keep its hold on the general mind if it is not characterized
by power as well as good intention.

I admired some of Walpole's Letters in this publication,
and I read a flattering one from Mrs. Barbauld, who was a
very acute-minded woman herself. Some of her Essays
are very clever indeed. I like Mrs. More's style, — so neat
and sprightly. The Letters seem to contain a great deal
of anecdote, the rage of the reading public, but that is an
article which I am not particularly fond of.

II.

Dryden and Chaucer.

ITo her Husband,
Hampstead, September, 1834. — Dryden's fables are cer-
tainly an ideal of the rapid, compressed manner. Each
line packs as much meaning as possible. But Dryden's
imagination was fertile and energetic rather than grand or
subtle ; and he is more deficient in tenderness than any poet
of his capacity that I am acquainted with. His English
style is animated and decorous, full of picture-words, but
too progressive for elaborate metaphors.

In " Palamon and Arcite " there is all Dryden's energy
and richness ; but you feel in such a subject his want of
tenderness and romance. He seems ever playing with his
subject, and almost ready to turn the lover's devotion, and
the conquering Emily herself, into a jest. The sly satire of
Chaucer suited his genius ; but there is a simple pathos at
times in the old writer which is alien to Dryden's mind.
Chaucer jested upon women like a laughing philosopher ;
Dryden like a disappointed husband.

56 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

III.

Cruelty.
To the Same.

Hampstead, September, 1834. — Man is lord of the creation,
yet his is not an absolute monarchy. There are limita-
tions which the demands of his own heart, rather than their
rights, insist upon ; but they are not very easily denned,
and the line between use and abuse has never yet been
strictly drawn. To take an abstract pleasure in sorrow of
the meanest thing that feels is the mark of a degraded
nature — to indulge in such a pleasure is to degrade it
wilfully; but how far may we justifiably consult our
pleasure or our pride, regardless of such suffering ?
Falconry and hare-hunting have their apologists among
the refined and reflective, as well as angling and shooting,
which indeed occasion less protracted misery. Bird-nesting
has not been defended, because peasant boys care not to
defend themselves from imputations on their sensibility.
All perceive that it is unworthy of a reasonable creature
to inflict pain by way of venting irritated feelings ; but
how far we may make it matter of amusement, or at least
connect amusement with it, the conscience does not so
readily determine. The contemplation of suffering for
itself alone is, in very rare instances, I believe, the source
of gratification. Cruelty is said to be natural, because
children tease and kill living creatures, but in the same
breath you are told that they do it out of ignorance, which
no doubt is united with a pleasing sense of power. No ; I
believe that positive cruelty is a mark of the utmost
corruption of our sin-prone nature, and, as in Nero and
Domitian, the result of sophistication. Even boys that
torture a mouse or a hedgehog are not delighted, I should
think, with the pain of the animal — they do not image
that very distinctly, but are amused with observing its

THE DRAMA AND THE EPIC. 57

conduct under those trying circumstances. In this case
the sensibilities are dormant, or, put it at the worst, they
are naturally torpid or obtuse, not excited and demonized,
as in some extraordinary cases, where a hard and turbulent
nature has been stimulated and trained by very peculiar
circumstances. I think we may say that the more the
excitement of any sport with animals proceeds from the
exhibition of suffering, and the more inconsiderable are
the benefit and pleasure arising collaterally in proportion
to the suffering occasioned, the more it may be reprobated
as cruel and degrading.

IV.

The Drama and the Epic.
To the Same.

Hampstead, September, 1834. — In a Drama the event is
to display character ; in an Epic the characters are to carry
on the event. Drama is biography, the Epic history.
Lear, Othello, are the subjects of those dramas, the Loss
of Eden, the destruction of Priam's power and domestic
blessing by the anger of Achilles, those of Milton's and
Homer's poems. In an Epic, only such a diversity of
characters as the event would naturally assemble, and such
qualities in the hero as would bring about the event, are
essential to the conception of this sort of poem. In the
Drama characters are chosen for the subject, because their
qualities are interesting and remarkable ; and the proof of
this is their bringing about particular events, or showing a
certain line of conduct in peculiar circumstances. The Epic
would be retarded by the exhibition of passion in all its
stages, such as we have in Othello ; it would be out of
proportion, and would engross the whole attention from the
general narrative.

58 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Miss Herschel.
To the Same.

Mrs. J says that Caroline Herschel, sister of the late

Dr. Herschel, is a person of uncommon attainments and
abilities, and is a Fellow of the Eoyal Society. She i's now
eighty-four ; her letters from Berlin, where she resides, are
full of vigour and spirit. She says : — " My brother and
I have sometimes stood out star-gazing till two o'clock,
and have been told next day that, the night before, our
neighbour's pigs had died of the frost."

Hard Words in the Latin Grammar useful to young Learners.
Those odd words, Genitive, Vocative, Prceterpluperfect,
etc., are helps to the memory. They have a quaint uniform
of their own, and are something like one another, but
unlike all other things.

Geography made Easy.

How much knowledge may be put into a child, by good
economy of instruction, without employing his mind more
than is perfectly wholesome ! To Herby the map is a sort
of game, and one that contains far more variety than any
play that could be devised. To find out Sumatra or
Owhyhee, to trace the Ganges, and follow the Equator in
every different map, is a supreme amusement; and the
notions of hot and cold, wet and dry, icy seas and
towering palm-trees, with water dashing, and tigers roam-
ing, and butterflies flitting, and his going and seeing them,
and getting into tossing boats, and climbing by slow
degrees up the steep mountain, are occupying his little
mind, and give a zest to the whole affair. And then there
is the pleasure of preaching it all over again to Nurse !

THE CHKISTIAN SPIRIT.

Right Opinions must be held in the right Spirit.

It is a fortunate thing to be induced by any circum-
stances to adopt the most edifying opinions, whichever they
may be ; but of still more consequence is the manner in
which we hold and maintain them. Indeed, even in the
most vital considerations, the manner of holding it is almost
more than the speculative, abstract creed. I never can
forget that the most (apparently) Christian-spirited creature
I ever knew was a Unitarian.

60 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTEE III.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND AND TO MRS. PLUMMER :

1834.

Note on Enthusiasm — Mischievous effect of wrong Names given to
Moral Qualities.

To her Husband.

1834. — My mind misgives me about some notelets that I
have pencilled in J— -'s " Journal of Art." .Most of them
are about facts in Natural History ; but one is on the use of
the word "Enthusiasm." Knapp says, "he must disclaim
the epithet Enthusiastic. His is not an ecstasy that glows,
fades, and expires, but a calm, deep-rooted conviction, etc."
I have said — "Must Enthusiasm expire? That of Linnaeus
survived through pain and weakness. Neither can I
think that enthusiasm precludes calmness and rationality.
That ardour which does so is fanaticism. But the en-
thusiasm of great minds is a steady heat, and though
opposite, not contrary, to sobriety, as generosity is opposed
to prudence, not exclusive of it. Enthusiasm with some
persons is a synonym for extravagance. But how other-
wise can we designate that habit of mind which impels to
the most arduous and persistent efforts in pursuit of what
must be its own reward, and the object of an abstract
devotion ? and was not this the primary meaning of en-
thusiasm ? " I do think that words from being used
in a half wrong, or wholly wrong sense, reflect upon the
things originally signified a portion of that misappre-
hension. The word enthusiasm is taken for extravagance,
and thus genuine enthusiasm is looked upon as in some

COWPEB'S " ILIAD." 61

sort extravagant. Over-strict religionists are called serious,
till undistinguishing worldlings connect superstition or
spiritual self-deception with staid reflective piety. Persons
of warm fancy and weak judgment are called romantic,
through which an elevated spiritual temper, and imagi-
native mode of viewing subjects and objects is deemed
inseparable from a certain degree of self-delusion and want
of skill in the executive government of daily life ; and
people will not perceive that true poetry is truth, and that
fiction conveys reality, because both have been falsified
and made false to their proper aim ; the vehicle itself, and
the thing to be conveyed, being both corrupted.

II.

Cowper's " Iliad and Odyssey "—Requisites for a successful Transla-
tion of Homer.

To the Same.

1834. — I hate Cowper's slow, dry, blank verse, so utterly
alien to the spirit of the poem, and the minstrel mode of
delivery. How could it have suited any kind of recitative
or melody, or the accompaniment of any music ? It
is like a pursy, pompous, but unpolished man moving
laboriously in a stiff dress of office. Those boar and
lion-hunting similes, describing swift motion, are dreadfully
dragging in this sort of verse. In Milton there is little
of this rapidity and flash to be conveyed. How meditative
are the speeches of the fallen host ! We feel conscious of
the scope of the poem — that they have ages of time before
them to work in, that they are not planning a scheme to
be executed in days, or weeks, or months. In Homer the
time of action seems to be the life of individual men, and
all is measured according to this scale. In Milton we are
reading of superhuman agencies, of times with which day,
month, or year had nothing to do.

The only sort of translation of Homer, I think, which

62 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

would be thoroughly gratifying, should be on Pope's plan,
but better executed. There should be his brilliance and
rapidity, — or rather that of Dryden's in the Fables, — with
that thorough understanding of the spirit and properties
of the whole poem which would enable the translator (he
being a person of some poetical genius) to give substitutes
for the exact physical meaning of certain passages, yet to
preserve the spirit and to maintain the rich flow of verse,
and keep the genius of the language unviolated, at the
same time that he transported us to ancient times and
distant places. Cowper's poetry is like a Camera Lucida
portrait, — far more unlike in expression and general result
than one less closely copied as to lines and features. In a
different material there must be a different form to give a
similar effect.

III.

Quiet Conclusion of " Paradise Lost," and of the Part of Shylock in
the " Merchant of Venice " — Silence of Revenge ; Eloquence of
Love and Grief and Indignation.

To the Same.

Hampstead, October, 1834. — I think the concluding verses
of " Paradise Lost " are truly sublime. There is an awful
beauty about them :

The cherubim descended ; on the ground,
Gliding meteorous, as evening mist
Risen from a river o'er the marish glides,
And gathers ground fast at the labourer's heel,
Homeward returning. "

How skilfully are the points of likeness here just pointed
at, and then the image is abandoned, just when it has
done its work, and attention is drawn off to a new one;
the flaming sword of God, the comet, the Libyan sands.
Then the pathetic gentle-heartedness of the angel, hastening,
yet leading them away ; and they looking back once more
saw their " once happy seat " waved over by that threat-

SHYLOCK. 6$

ening hand ; and then the few sad, subdued lines, so like
human life and its submission, with a sort of sad effort
after reparation, to an inevitable calamity. Just so quietly
does Shy lock go off the scene : "I am not very well,
I would go home." It is remarkable how devoid all
Shylock's language is of exaggeration. There is no am-
plifying, no playing with the subject, and waving it up
and down like a streamer to catch different lights and dis-
play itself in various fantastic attitudes, as Shakespeare's
lovers expatiate and add stroke after stroke to the picture
of their possessed fancy. Shylock's passion of revenge is
expressed, according to the view in my father's preface,
by a bare, keen reiteration of certain matters of fact ; he
seems to shrink and double himself up like a crouching
tiger, in order to shoot out all his energies when let loose
upon their prey ; when the moment patiently waited for
arrives, he thrusts forth his cutting blade in the face of
his enemy — you did thus and thus — see, you fool, what
you imagined of me, and what I have made you. It is
these sharp contrasts of neither more nor less than the
actual facts, which constitute all his oratory, and all his
feelings of hatred are shown by hugging the reality with
a fierce intensity, saying the very thing which was in every
part of his heart over and over again. Indignation that
breathes scorn, and believes deeply in the wrongfulness of
the offender, but is not transfigured into malice; strong
grief that has not collapsed into despair, are almost as
expatiative as love ; "0 that I were a mockery-king of
snow, to melt before the sun of Bolingbroke," is the lan-
guage of a wandering fancy. And the Scriptures are full
of such illustrations of sorrowfulness ; for grief rushes out
eager for a vent, and roams forth, seeking for employment,
for a change from the intolerable misery of passiveness.
Anger will talk much and strongly, but not so fancifully
as love and grief ; it stems the fancy by its violence, and

64 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

those passions which, like revenge, impel to action, employ
the energies in another way. As a watery mirror shaken
by the wind presents only the confused fragments of a
picture, the mind agitated by vehement anger reflects no
continuous imagery, like sorrow, which is still and medi-
tative. Yet there is a sort of sullen resentment, which
seems to stupify the soul, and a scorn which is unutterable ;
it fears to be dissipated in words, and imparts an energy
which facilitates restraint. Scorn argues self-possession ;
a man in a passion cannot scorn.

IY.

On the Death of Samuel Taylor Coleridge * — Details of his last
Illness — His Will, Letters, and Literary Remains — Respect and
Affection felt for him by those with whom he" lived — Probable
Influence of his Writings on the Course of Religious Thought —
Remarks on his Genius and Character by different Critics — His
last Readings and Notes.

To Mrs. PLUMMER.

Hampstead, Oct. 1834. — My dearest L., Your affectionate
and interesting letter gave me great pleasure, and gratified
my feelings in regard to my dear father, whose memory
still occupies the chief place in my thoughts. Your appre-
ciation of his character and genius, my dear friend, would
endear you to me were there no other ties between us. In
his death we .mourn not only the removal of one closely
united to us by nature and intimacy, but the extinction of a
light which made earth more spiritual, and heaven in some
sort more visible to our apprehension. You know how long
and severely he suffered in his health ; yet, to the last, he
appeared to have such high intellectual gratifications that
we felt little impulse to pray for his immediate release ;
and though his infirmities had been grievously increasing of
late years, the life and vigour of his mind were so great

* At Mr. Gillman's house, the Grove, Highgate, on the 25th of July, 1834.
—E.G.

DEATH OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 65

that they hardly led those around him to think of his
dissolution. His frail house of clay was so illumined that
its decaying condition was the less perceptible. His depar-
ture after all seemed to come suddenly upon us. We were
first informed of his danger on Sunday, the 20th of July,
and on Friday, the 25th, he was taken from us. For
several days after fatal symptoms appeared, his pains were
very great ; they were chiefly in the region of the bowels,
but were at last subdued by means of laudanum, adminis-
tered in different ways ; and for the last thirty-six hours of
his existence he did not suffer severely. When he knew
that his time was come, he said that he hoped by the
manner of his death to testify the sincerity of his faith ;
and hoped that all who had heard of his name would know
that he died in that of the English Church. Henry saw
him for the last time on Sunday, and conveyed his blessing
to my mother and myself ; but we made no attempt to see
him, and my brothers were not sent for, because the
medical men apprehended that the agitation of such inter-
views would be more than he ought to encounter. Not
many hours before his death he was raised in his bed and
wrote a precious faintly- scrawled scrap, which we shall ever
preserve, recommending his faithful nurse, Harriet, to the
care of his family. Mr. Green, who had so long been the
partner of his literary labours, was with him at the last,
and to him, on the last evening of his life, he repeated a
certain part of his religious philosophy, which he was
especially anxious to have accurately recorded. He articu-
lated with the utmost difficulty, but his mind was clear and
powerful, and so continued till he fell into a state of coma,
which lasted till he ceased to breathe, about six o'clock in
the morning. His body was opened, according to his own
earnest request — the causes of his death were sufficiently
manifest in the state of the vital parts ; but that internal
pain from which he suffered more or less during his whole

66 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

life was not to be explained, or only by that which medical
men call nervous sympathy. A few out of his many
deeply attached and revering friends attended his remains
to the grave, together with my husband and Edward;* and
that body which did him such " grievous wrong " was laid
in its final resting-place in Highgate churchyard. His
executor, Mr. Green, after the ceremony, read aloud his
will, and was greatly overcome in performing his task. It
is indeed a most affecting document. What little he had to
bequeath (a policy of assurance worth about £2560) is my
mother's for life, of course, and will come to her children
equally after her time. Mr. Green has the sole power over
my father's literary remains, and the philosophical part he
will himself prepare for publication ; some theological
treatises he has placed in the hands of Mr. Julius Hare, of
Cambridge, and his curate, Mr. Sterling (both men of great
ability). Henry will arrange literary and critical pieces —
notes on the margins of books, or any miscellaneous pro-
ductions of that kind that may be met with among his
MSS., and probably some letters will appear if they can be
collected. I fear there will be some difficulty in this ; but I
have understood that many wrritten by him at different
times exhibit his peculiar power of thought and expression,
and ought not to be lost to the world if they could be
recovered. No man has been more deeply beloved than my
dear father ; the servants at the Grove wept for him as for
a father, and Mr. and Mrs. Gillman speak of their loss as
the heaviest trial that has ever befallen them, though they
have had their full share of sorrow and suffering. Mrs.
Gillman's notes, written since his death, are precious
testimonies to me of his worth and attaching qualities. In
one of them she speaks of " the influence of his beautiful
nature on our domestics, so often set down by friends or
neighbours to my good management, his forgiving nature,

* The Eev. Edward Coleridge, his nephew. — E. C.

CONDOLENCES ON HIS DEPARTURE. 67

his heavenly-mindedness, his care not to give offence unless
duty called on him to tell home truth ; his sweet and cheer-
ful temper, and so many moral qualities of more or less
value, and all adorned by his Christian principles. His
was indeed Christianity. To do good was his anxious
desire, his constant prayer — and all with such real
humility — never any kind of worldly accommodating the
truth to any one — yet not harsh or severe — never pretend-
ing to faults or failings he had not, nor denying those he
thought he had ! But, as he himself said of a dear friend's
death, ' it is recovery, and not death. Blessed are they that
sleep in the Lord — his life is hidden in Christ. In his
Redeemer's life it is hidden, and in His glory will it be
disclosed. Physiologists hold that it is during sleep chiefly
that we grow ; what may we not hope of such a sleep in
such a Bosom ? ' ' Much more have I had from her, and
formerly heard from her lips, all in the same strain ; and
during my poor dear father's last sufferings she sent a note
to his room, expressing with fervency the blessings that he
had conferred upon her and hers, and what a happiness
and a benefit his residence under her roof had been to all
his fellow-inmates. The letters which I have seen of
many of his friends respecting his lamented departure have
been most ardent ; but these testimonies from those who
had him daily, hourly, in their sight, and the deep love and
reverence expressed by Mr. Green, who knew him so
intimately, are especially dear to my heart. My dear
Henry, too, was deeply sensible of his good as well as his
great qualities ; it was not for his genius only that he
reverenced him, and it has been one of many blessings
attendant on my marriage, that by it we were both drawn
into closer communion with that gifted spirit than could
otherwise have been the case. There was everything in the
circumstances of his death to soothe our grief, and valuable
testimonies (such as I have mentioned, with many, many

68 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

others) from valued persons have mingled their sweetness
in the cup.

We feel happy, too, in the conviction that his writings
will be widely influential for good purposes. All his views
may not be adopted, and the effect of his posthumous
works must be impaired by their fragmentary condition;
but I think there is reason to believe that what he has left
behind him will introduce a new and more improving mode
of thinking, and teach men to consider some subjects on
principles more accordant to reason, and to place them on
a surer and wider basis than has been done hitherto. It is
not to be expected that speculations which demand so much
effort of mind and such continuous attention, to be fully
understood, can ever be immediately popular, — the written
works of master spirits are not perused by the bulk of
society whose feelings they tincture, and whose belief they
contribute to form and modify, — it is through intervening
channels that " sublime truths, and the maxims of a pure
morality," are diffused among persons of various age,
station, and capacity, so that they become "the hereditary
property of poverty and childhood, of the workshop and the
hovel." Heraud, in his brilliant oration on the death of
my father, delivered at the Eussell Institution, observes
that religion and philosophy were first reconciled — first
brought into permanent and indissoluble union in the
divine works of Coleridge ; and I believe the opinion
expressed by this gentleman, that my father's metaphysical
theology will prove a benefit to the world, is shared by
many persons of refined and searching intellect both in this
country and in America, where he has some enthusiastic
admirers ; and it is confidently predicted by numbers that
this will be more and more felt and acknowledged in course

of time. My dear L , I will not apologize to you for

this filial strain ; I write unreservedly to you, knowing that
you are alive to my father's merits as a philosopher and a

ACCOUNTS OF HIS LIFE. 69

poet, and believing that you will be pleased to find that he
who was misunderstood and misrepresented by many, and
grossly calumniated by some, was and is held in high
honour as to moral as well as intellectual qualities by good
and intelligent persons. " Hereafter," says a writer in
Blackwood, "it will be made appear that he who was so
admirable a poet was also one of the most amiable of
men." The periodicals have been putting out a great many
attempts at accounts of his life — meagre enough for the
most part, and all more or less incorrect as to facts. We
have been very much hurt with our former friend, Mr. De
Quincey, the Opium Eater as he chooses to be styled, for
publishing so many personal details respecting my parents
in Tait's Magazine. As Henry says, " the little finger of
retaliation would bruise his head ; " but I would not have
so good a Christian as my father defended by any measure
so unchristianlike as retaliation, nor would I have those
belonging to me condescend to bandy personalities. This,
lowever, was never intended by my spouse ; but I believe
has some intention of reckoning with the scandal-
monger for the honour of those near and dear to us. Some
of our other friends will be as much offended with this
paper of his as we are. He has characterized my father's
genius and peculiar mode of discourse with great eloquence
and discrimination. He speaks of him as possessing " the
most spacious intellect, the subtlest and most comprehen-
sive " (in his judgment) that ever existed amongst men.
rhatever may be decided by the world in general upon this
point, it is one which, from learning and ability, he is well
qualified to discuss. I cannot believe that he had any
enmity to my father, indeed he often speaks of his kindness
of heart ; but " the dismal degradation of pecuniary embar-
rassments," as he himself expresses it, has induced him to
supply the depraved craving of the public for personality,
which his talents would have enabled him in some measure
to correct.

70 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

My next letter, my dear L., shall be of a more lightsome
and general nature, but this is dedicated to my dear
father's memory ; and I could say much more on that
subject if I had more strength and more paper, and were
not afraid of wearying even you, who are a reader and
lover of his works. When Mr. Poole, of Nether Stowey,
received his copy of the will, in which his name was
affectionately mentioned, he read it aloud to his niece, Mrs.
Sandford, who expressed her admiration with tears in her
eyes. One of the last books that my dear father ever
perused is the " Memoir and Diary of Bishop Sandford,"
which he greatly approved ; some notes pencilled on the
margin are among the last sentences he wrote.

Attachment of Mr. Wordsworth to the Church of England.

To the Same.
Hampstead, 1834. — I am always hoping, my dear L-

that the chances of life — happy ones, I trust, in your case
—will bring you to reside in the south. Of livings — of
anything connected with our dear, excellent, venerable
Church Establishment, I hardly dare to speak. I really
shudder as I turn over the menacing pages of the
Spectator, and that organ of destructiveness, Tait's
Magazine. How well do I remember Mr. Wordsworth, with
one leg upon the stair, delaying his ascent till he had
uttered, with an emphasis which seemed to proceed from
the very profoundest recesses of his soul — " I would lay
down my LIFE for the Church !" This was the conclusion
of a long and eloquent harangue upon that interesting
subject.

CHARLES LAMB AND EDWARD IRVING. 71

CHAPTEK IV.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, MRS. PLUMMER, AND
MRS, HENRY M. JONES : 1835.

Education — Cramming — Deaths of Charles Lamb and Edward Irving.

To Mrs. PLUMMER.

Hampstead, 1835. — We have been much grieved lately
by the death of our old friend Mr. Charles Lamb, of the
India House. He was a man of amiable manners, and
kind and liberal heart, and a rare genius. His writings
exhibit a rare union of pathos and humour, which to me is
truly delightful. Very interesting short memoirs of him
have already appeared, and I see new editions of his works
advertised. So soon after my father, whom, humanly
speaking, he worshipped ! Irving is also gone. He was
one whose good and great parts my father saw in a strong
light, and deeply did he lament the want of due balance
in his mind, which ended in what may be almost called
madness. Irving acknowledged that to my father, more
than to any one, he owed his knowledge of " the truth as it
is in Jesus."

II.

Union of Thought and Feeling in the Poetry of Wordsworth— The
White Doe of Rylstone : lofty Moral of the Poem, and beauty
of particular passages.

To Mrs. HENRY M. JONES, Heathlands, Hampstead.

Downshire Place, Hampstead, July, 1835. — We are expect-
ing a new set of Mr. Wordsworth's poems, including the
" Excursion ; " and I really think the murmuring river

72 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Wharfe, the grey rocks, the dusky trees, and verdant sod,
the ancient abbey, and the solitary Doe, " white as lily of
June," will be pleasant subjects of contemplation in this
hot, languid weather. The poetry of Wordsworth will give
you at least as much fervour and tenderness as you will
find in Byron or Hemans ; and then, in addition, you
will find in it a high philosophy, a strengthening and
elevating spirit, which must have a salutary tendency for
the mind.

Mr. Wordsworth opens to us a world of suffering, and no
writer of the present day, in my opinion, has dealt more
largely or more nobly with the deepest pathos and the most
exquisite sentiment ; but for every sorrow he presents an
antidote ; he shows us how man may endure, as well as
what he is doomed to suffer. The poem of the " White
Doe of Eylstone " is meant to exhibit the power of faith in
upholding the most anguish-stricken soul through the
severest trials, and the ultimate triumph of the spirit,
even while the frail mortal body is giving way.

" From fair to fairer, day by day
A more divine and loftier way,
Even such this blessed pilgrim trod,
By sorrow lifted towards her God,
Uplifted to the purest sky
Of undisturbed mortality."

— White Doe, Canto vii.

The first and last cantos are much superior in point of
imaginative power to the others upon the whole ; but the
speech of Francis to his sisters in the second is beautiful. I
remember that it was greatly admired by dear Hartley.

" Hope nothing, if I thus may speak
To thee, a woman, and thence weak :
Hope nothing, I repeat, for we
Are doomed to perish utterly.

Forbear all wishes, all debate,

All prayers for this cause, or for that,

Espouse thy fate at once, and cleave
To fortitude without reprieve."

— Canto ii.

The address of the father to Francis in the fifth canto is
a favourite of mine.

l( Might this our enterprise * have sped,
Change wide and deep the land had seen,
A renovation from the dead,
A spring-tide of immortal green.
The darksome altars would have blazed
Like stars when clouds are rolled away ;
Salvation to all eyes that gazed,
Once more the Rood had been upraised
To spread its arms, and stand for aye ! "

— Canto v.

III.

Charles Lamb, his Shyness and Tenderness — A lifelong Friendship.

To Mrs. H. M. JONES, Heathlands, Hampstead.

Hampstead, 1835. — I agree to your criticism on Lamb,
and sympathize most entirely in your preference of field,
and grove, and rivulet, to square, garden, street, and gutter.
I always feel so particularly insecure in a street. Never-
theless I can quite understand Lamb's feeling. A man is
more especially alone, very often, in a crowd. Nowhere
can an individual be so isolated, so independent as in
London. Nowhere else can he see so much and be himself
so little observed. This I think is the " sweet security of
streets " t which the eccentric old bachelor delighted in.

* The " enterprise " referred to was the " Rising of the North," in the
12th year of Elizabeth, 1569, under the Earls of Northumberland and
Westmoreland, " to restore the ancient religion." — E. C.

t I care not to be carried with the tide that smoothly bears human life to
eternity, and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with

74 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

And then he had been educated at Christ's Hospital, all
his boyish recreations, when life was new and lifesome, had
passed in streets, and we all know that the circumstances
of our childhood give the prevailing hue to our involuntary
tastes and feelings for the rest of our lives. I cannot
picture to myself a Paradise without lakes and mountains.
Our poor friend was much affected by my father's death,*
and had a fanciful presentiment that he should not remain
long behind. He must have remembered some interesting
remarks t connected with this subject in an old preface of
my father's, the preface to a volume containing united
poems of Coleridge and Lamb.

IV.

Spiders — their Webs and Ways.
To her Husband.

This day, 5th of October, I saw a large primrose-coloured
butterfly, which looked the very emblem of April or May.
Also I examined three or four spiders, and saw quite plainly
the spinnerets in their tails, and once I clearly perceived
the thread issuing from the apertures. The thread of a

this green earth, the face of town and country, the unspeakable rural soli-
tudes, and the sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacle
here. — Lamb's Essays. New Year's Eve. — E. C.

* Mr. Lamb's visit to Highgate, shortly after my grandfather's death, is
thus described by Judge Talfourd : — " There he asked leave to see the
nurse who had attended upon Coleridge ; and being struck and affected
by the feeling she manifested towards his friend, insisted on her receiving
five guineas from him — a gratuity which seemed almost incomprehensible
to the poor woman, but which Lamb could not help giving as an imme-
diate expression of his own gratitude. From her he learned the effort by
which Coleridge had suppressed the expression of his sufferings, and the
discovery affected him even more than the news of his death. He would
startle his friends sometimes by suddenly exclaiming ' Coleridge is dead,'
and then pass on to common themes, having obtained the momentary
relief of oppressed spirits." — Letters of Charles Lamb, vol. ii. p. 304. —
E. C.

f The reference is probably to the Latin motto printed on the title-page
of the second edition of " Poems by Coleridge, Lamb, and Lloyd," which
appeared in May, 1797 : — Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitice, junctarumque
Camcenarurn ; quod utinam neque mors solvat ; neque temporis longinquitas.
Charles Lamb died on the 27th of December, 1834, five months and two
days after the friend whom he loved so well. — E. C.

SPIDERS' WEBS. 75

spider's net is composed of such a multitude of threadlets
that it gives one a good notion of the infinite divisibility of
matter. A spider, when examined, feigns death, and lies
back with all his arms and legs closely pinioned to his
sides, so that he shrinks up into as small a space as
possible. In this condition he is a good symbol of some
wretched slave, stupified and collapsed into stillness in the
presence of a mighty one. I have often marvelled at the
strength of a spider's web, which offers far more resistance
to my finger, as I push and bend it, than a net made of
silken threads of the same apparent substance would do.
This firmness is procured by the multiplicity of threadlets
of which every thread is composed, which circumstance
also hastens the drying of the fluid gum, so great a surface
being exposed to the air. While we compare natural
objects or operations with artificial ones, we are so taken
up with the likeness that we forget the difference. There
is no other thing in art or nature similar to the spinning
of spiders. Evelyn would watch spiders for five hours
together.

76 MEMOIB AND LETTEES OF SAEA COLEEIDGE.

CHAPTEK V.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, MISS TREVENEN, AND
MISS ARABELLA BROOKE: 1836.

"The Boy and the Birds," and the "Story without an End"-
Defects of the latter as a Book for Children — A Critic's Foible.

To Miss EMILY TREVENEN.

Hampstead, August, 1836. — Both the children enjoy "The
Boy and the Birds." As to the " Story without an End,"*
I admire it, but think it quite unfit for juvenile readers.
None but mature minds, well versed in the artificialities of
sentimental literature, can understand the inner meanings
of it ; and I do not think it has that body of visual imagery
and adventure which renders many a tale and allegory
delightful to those who cannot follow the author's main drift.
Bees, and flies, and leaves, and flowers are talked about, but
not described, so as to give the child any clearer notion of
them and their properties than he originally had, and all
that is ascribed to them, all the sentiments put into their
mouths, as one may say, are such as can breed naught
but confusion in the juvenile brain. " That child is always
asleep, or else dreaming," I overheard Herby say to himself,
as he looked at the picture with an air of contempt. . . .

0 reviews ! if you yourselves were reviewed, how you
might be cut up and exposed. A common fault of reviewers,
and one which makes them desert good sense, is that they
are so desirous to take a spick-and-span new view of any

* Translated by Mrs. Austin from the German of Carove.

MBS. HEMANS' POETRY. 77

debated point. They smell down two roads, and if both
have been trodden before, they rush at once down the third,
though it may lead to nothing, like a blind alley. So it is
with the Edinburgh Ee viewer ; he perks up his nose, and
tries to say some third thing, which never has been said
before, and which is the worst thing of the three.

II.

" The shaping Spirit of Imagination" — Mrs. Hemans.

To her Husband.

Ilchester, Somerset, October 25, 1836. — Chemists say that
the elementary principles of a diamond and of charcoal are
the same ; it is the action of the sun or some other power
upon each that makes it what it is. Analogous to this are
the products of the poet's mind : he does not create out of
nothing, but his mind so acts on the things of the universe,
material and immaterial, that each composition is in effect
a new creation. Many of Mrs. Hemans' poems are not
even in this sense creations; she takes a theme, and this
she illustrates in fifty different ways, the verses being like
so many wafers, the same thing in blue, green, red, yellow.
She takes descriptions from books of natural history or
travel, puts them into verse, and appends a sentiment or a
moral, like the large red bead of a rosary at the end of
several white ones. But all these materials have undergone
no fusion in the crucible of imagination. We may recog-
nize the author's hand by a certain style of selection and
arrangement, as we might know a room furnished by Gillow
or Jackson, according to the same rule ; but there is no
stamp of an individual mind on each separate article.

78 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

III.

" The Remains " * — Metaphysics like Alum.
To the Same.

Ilchester, November, 1836. — How delightful are the " Ee-
mains ! " I quite grieve to find the pages on my left hand
such a thick handful. One wants to have such a book to dip
into constantly, and to go on reading such discussions on
such principles and in such a spirit, on a thousand subjects-

It does not seem as if the writer was especially con-
versant with this or that, as Babbage with mechanics, and
Mill with political economy ; but as if there was a subtle
imaginative spirit to search and illustrate all subjects that
interest humanity. Sir J. Mackintosh said that " S. T. C.
trusted to his ingenuity to atone for his ignorance." But
in such subjects as my father treats of, ingenuity is the
best knowledge.

Like all my father's works, the " Kemains " will be more
sold at last than at first. Like alum, these metaphysical
productions melt slowly into the medium of the public
mind ; but when time has been given for the operation, they
impregnate more strongly than a less dense and solid sub-
stance, which dissolves sooner, has power to do. Why ?
Because the closely compacted particles are more numerous,
and have more energy in themselves. By the public mind
I mean persons capable of entertaining metaphysical
discussions.

IY.

Abbott's " Corner-Stone," and other Religious Works — Comparison
of Archbishop Whately with Dr. Arnold, in their mode of setting
forth the Evidences of Christianity — Dr. Chalmers — The Greek
Language.

To Miss ARABELLA BROOKE.

Ilchester, November, 1836. — My dear Miss Brooke—

* Published now under the following titles :— Lectures on Shakespeare,
etc. j Notes on English Divines ; and Notes Theological, Political, etc. — E. C.

ABBOTT'S KELIGIOUS WORKS. 79

Though I am under orders to write to no one except my
husband and mother, or sister, I must thank you with
my own hand for thinking so affectionately of me in my
trouble,* as you evidently have done, and as I felt sure you
would do.

Since I saw you, I have read with great attention, and
I humbly hope, not without profit, Abbott's "Young
Christian," " Corner- Stone," and " Way to do Good." In
a literary point of view these works are open to much
criticism, though their merits in that way may be con-
siderable ; and certainly, in several points, the author is
far from being what a sincere member of our Church can
call orthodox. For instance, his view of the Atonement
seems to me below the right standard ; he dwells solely
on the effect produced in man, entirely leaving out of sight
the mysterious propitiation towards God ; and his illustra-
tion of the " Lost Hat " strikes me as inadequate and pre-
sumptuous. But notwithstanding these exceptionable
points, and several others, — his very diffuse style, and a
frequent want of harmony between his expressions and the
deep reverential feelings which he aims to excite, — I think
very highly of Abbott, as an energetic, original, and fresh-
minded writer ; and I think his works calculated to do
great good, by leading those who peruse them to scrutinize
their own spiritual state, and the momentous themes of
which he treats with zeal and fervour, if not always with
perfect judgment.

I wish I could put into your hand a book from which
I have derived great pleasure, Whately's " Essays on some
Difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul." The Ar chbishop
does not seem to be a profound, subtle, metaphysical writer,
neither does he aim at anything of the kind. What he

* A serions illness, which detained my mother for several weeks at
Ilchester on her way home from a visit in Devonshire. — E. C.

80 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

does aim at he seems to me to have well accomplished.
He reasons clearly to particular points from a general view
of Eevelation, not from the nature of things in themselves ;
and his style is vigorous, simple, and perspicuous. In this
respect it resembles that of Dr. Arnold, but the latter does
not so exclusively address the understanding ; he does more
in the way of touching the heart, at the same time that
(when party spirit is out of the question) he reasons forcibly
and clearly, as far as I can judge, I mean.

The substance of what pleases you in Abercrombie,*
I have lately read in Chalmers's Bridgewater Treatise;!
and, oh ! when the wordy Doctor does get hold of an argu-
ment, what a splutter does he make with it for dozens of
pages. He is like a child with a new wax doll, he hugs it,
kisses it, holds it up to be admired, makes its eyes open
and shut, puts it on a pink gown, puts it on a blue gown,
ties it on a yellow sash ; then pretends to take it to task,
chatters at it, shakes it, and whips it ; tells it not to be so
proud of its fine false ringlets, which can all be cut off in a
minute, then takes it into favour again ; and at last, to the
relief of all the company, puts it to bed.

I wish very much that some day or other you may
have time to learn Greek, because that language is an
idea. Even a little of it is like manure to the soil of

the mind, and makes it bear finer flowers. — My dear A ,

your truly affectionate friend,

SARA COLERIDGE.

* Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers and the Investigation of
Truth. By Dr. Abercrombie. — E. C.

f On the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual
Constitution of Man. By the Kev. Dr. Thomas Chalmers. — E. C.

PHANTASMION. 81

CHAPTEE VI.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, MISS TREVENEN,
MISS A. BROOKE : 1837.

The English Beppoists.
To Miss E. TREVENEN.

10, Chester Place, 1837.— I cannot think that the English
Beppoists have any authority among the Italians for their
style. Ariosto conceived his subject to a certain degree
lightly and sportively ; and Pulci has a vein of satire ; but
these ingredients in them are interfused so as to form a
tertium aliquid — not grape -juice and water, but wine. Their
satire and their sentiment, their joke and their earnest, do
not intersect each other in distinct streaks, like the stripes
of red and blue in the Union Flag.

II.

" Phantasmion, a Romance of Fairyland " — Defence of Fairy Tales by
Five Poets — " Mary and Florence," by Miss Tytler — " Newman's
Sermons" — " Maurice's Letters to the Quakers."
To Miss ARABELLA BROOKE.

10, Chester Place, Regent's Park, July 29, 1837.— This
little book* was chiefly written the winter before I last saw
you, when I was more confined to my couch than I am
now ; and whether any friends agree with my husband (the
most partial of them all) in thinking it worth publishing or
no, they will attach some interest to the volume as a record
of some of my recumbent amusements, and be glad to
perceive that I often had out-of-door scenes before me in a
lightsome, agreeable shape, at a time when I was almost

* Phantasmion. — E. C.

82 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

wholly confined to the house, and could view the face of
nature only by very short glimpses.* It requires no great
face to publish now-a-days ; it is not stepping upon a
stage where the eyes of an audience are upon you, but
entering a crowd, where you must be very tall, strong, and
striking indeed, to obtain the slightest attention. In these
days, too, to print a Fairy Tale is the very way to be not
read, but shoved aside with contempt. I wish, however, I
were only as sure that my fairy tale is worth printing as I
am that works of this class are wholesome food, by way of
variety, for the childish mind. It is curious that on this
point Sir Walter Scott, and Charles Lamb, my father, my
Uncle Southey, and Mr. Wordsworth, were all agreed.
Those names are not so great an authority to all people as
they are to me ; yet I think they might be set against that
of Miss Edgeworth, powerfully as she was able to follow up
her own view. Sir W. Scott made an exception in her
favour, when he protested against the whole generation of
moral tales, stories of naughty and good boys and girls,
and how their parents, pastors, and masters did or ought
to have managed them. It is not to be denied that such
stories are exciting to children, and indeed spoil their taste
utterly for works which have less of everyday life, though
not less of truth, in them. But the grand secret of their
sale seems to be that they interest the buyers of the books,

* L'ENVOY OF PHANTASMIOK

Go, little book, and sing of love and beauty,
To tempt the worldling into fairy land ;
Tell him that airy dreams are sacred duty,
Bring better wealth than aught his toils command,
Toils fraught with mickle harm.

But if thou meet some spirit high and tender,
On blessed works and noblest love intent,

Tell him that airy dreams of nature's splendour,
With graver thoughts and hallowed musings blent,

Prove no too earthly charm. — S. C.

Written in a copy of Phantasmion about the year 1845. — E. C.

NEWMAN'S SERMONS. 83

mamas and governesses, who see in such productions the
history of their own experience, and the reflection of minds
occupied with the same educational cares as their own. In
this way, " Grave and Gay," by Miss Tytler, sister of the
historian, was very interesting to me ; but I would not put
it into the hands of my children, excellent manual of
divinity as it is thought by some. It is not in such scraps,
nor with such a context, however pretty in its way, that I
should like to present the sublime truths of Christianity to
the youthful mind : " Florence put the cherry in her mouth,
and was going to eat it all up," etc., — just before or after
extracts from the Sermon on the Mount or allusions to the
third chapter of St. John's Gospel. The Bible itself, that
is, the five Books of Moses, and the four Gospels, with a
mother's living commentary, together with the Catechism
and Liturgy, appear to me the best instruments for teaching
the Christian religion to young children.

I have lately been reading, certainly with great interest,
the sermons of John Henry Newman ; and I trust they are
likely to do great good, by placing in so strong a light as
they do the indispensableness of an orthodox belief, the
importance of sacraments as the main channels of Christian
privileges, and the powers, gifts, and offices of Christian
ministers derived by apostolical succession; — the insuffi-
ciency of personal piety without Catholic brotherhood — the
sense that we are all members of one body, and subjects of
one kingdom of Christ ; — the danger of a constant craving
for religious excitement, and the fatal mistake of trusting
in any devotional thoughts and feelings, which are not
immediately put into act, and do not shine through the
goings on of our daily life. But then these exalted views
are often supported, as I think, by unfair reasonings ; and
are connected with other notions which appear to me
superstitious, unwarranted by any fair interpretation of
Scripture, and containing the germs of Popish errors.

84 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

The letters of Maurice to the Quakers should be taken in
conjunction with these discourses, to qualify them and keep
the mind balanced. Maurice is a profound thinker, a vigor-
ous though rough writer ; and I trust you would not like
him the worse for sharing my father's spirit. His divinity
seems based on the Aids to Keflection, and though no
servile imitator, he has certainly borrowed his mode of
writing and turn of thought very much from S. T. C.

III.

Definition of "Force" and "Liveliness" in Poetry — The Homeric
Mythology not Allegorical — Symbolical Character of the Imagery
of Milton and Wordsworth — Originality of Virgil.

To her Husband.

Sept. 13th, 1837. — In regard to force and liveliness, may
we not call the latter one mode of the former, rather than
a separate property ? Scott's poems afford samples of
lively force, but they contain little of that force which
seizes the imagination and obliges it to contemplate fixedly
something spiritual, which has nothing in it of a corporeal
life. The ''Leech Gatherer" is a poem which is forcible
but solemn; it arrests and fixes the mind, instead of
hurrying or leading it on. Yet the illustrations of this
poem are as lively as the main design is far removed from
bodily attributes. The stone is absolutely endued with
motion by the comparison with a sea-monster that had
crept out upon the shore to sun himself. Liveliness
expresses the motion, the action of life, that by which
life is manifested. When the lively is also sublime, as
the " Battle of the Gods," we do not apply to the mixed
effect the term of a quality which so generally describes the
less exalted movements and acts of life ; but Homer's
force, as you have observed, always consists of liveliness.
In him there is no force like that of Dante, Milton, Words-
worth, Schiller, Coleridge, where lively metaphors and life-

FORCE AND LIVELINESS. 85

like images are but to adorn or partly represent the various
realities of abstract being. Their force results from the
thing signified, together with the outward symbol, from the
union and mutual fitness of the two. Philosophers may
fancy ~that the Grecian mythology was allegorical, but the
force of Homer is not derived at all from those inner signi-
fications. His divine and human battling is sublime, from
being vast, fearful, and indistinct. It is animated, full of
animal motion ; it is a picture that strikes and pleases in
and for itself alone ; it is conceived and executed with all
the power of mature genius, inspired by the circumstances,
the wants, desires, hopes, lives of a peculiar state of human
life, a state which precluded contemplation, and demanded
action. Compare Homer's poetry with Milton's first books
of "Paradise Lost." With what does the latter possess
our minds? "With greatness fallen, and the excess of
glory obscured." It is the force with which this subject is
made to engross our contemplations, to tinge the whole of
that dark fiery region and those prostrate angel warriors
with an awful sadness, the aptness of that region so
described to shadow out eternal bale, of those vast and
dimly lustrous images to represent the warring evils of our
spiritual part, this it' is which constitutes the peculiar per-
fection of that grand product of imagination. In this it is
essentially different from Homer, life and progression are
not its characterizing spirit. They are represented by the
older poet with the greatest conceivable truth and power,
and Milton availed himself of that prototype in the em-
bodying of his conceptions. He imitated Homer in as far
as he trode the same ground with him, but the main scope
of his poem was an aboriginal of his own intellect. In
regard to Virgil, whom Dryden rather unfairly, as I think,
contrasts with Homer, it appears to me that he has been
rather misappreciated by being constantly looked at in his
aspect of an imitator, and that his having cast his poem

86 MEMOIE AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

in a ready-made mould, has prevented most critics from
observing the peculiarities of his own genius in the sub-
stance of thought, and in the external ornaments of diction.
A finer and more true criticism might be exerted by dis-
covering and expressing that which was his own, rather
than that which he borrowed.

IY.

" Parochial Sermons " by John Henry Newman — Power and Beauty
of his Style — Tendency of his Teaching to exalt the Passive
rather than the Active Qualities of Humanity — The Ordinance
of Preaching.

To the Same.

Chester Place, September %3rd, 1837. — I think your ex-
pressions about Newman quite well chosen. Decidedly I
should say he is a writer, first, of great talent ; secondly, of
beauty. The beauty of his writing is shown for the most
part in the tasteful simplicity, purity, and lucid propriety
of his style ; but now and then it is exhibited in well chosen
and brief metaphors, which are always according to the
spirit of the subject. Speaking of children, in allusion to
our Saviour's remark, that of such is the kingdom of
heaven, he observes that this is only meant of little ones in
their passive nature ; that, like water, they reflect heaven
best when they are still. However, it seems to be a point
with the Oxford writers, either for good or evil, very much
to represent, not children only, but men, as the passive
un-co-operating subject (or rather, in one sense, object) of
divine operation. They are jealous of holding up, or
dwelling much upon, grace as an influence on the conscious
spirit, a stimulator and co-agent of the human will, or
enlightener of the human intellect. That view, they think,
is insufficient, leads to an inadequate notion of Christian
ordinances, and of our Christian condition, and causes a
confusion between God's general dealings with the human

THE WORK OF GOD IN THE SOUL. 87

race, or His subordinate workings with Christians and His
special communications to the members of the New Cove-
nant. " Salvation "is to be considered (exclusively) " as
God's work in the soul." But whether it be not just as
much God's work if carried on with the instrumentality of
those faculties which He originally conferred, may be a
question. Again, the Oxford writers dwell much on the
necessity of a belief in mysteries not level to our under-
standing (of which my father says that they cannot run
counter to our reason, because they do not move on any
line that can come in contact with it, being beyond the
horizon of our earthly faculties). But the question is
whether our Saviour ever spoke of any operations on men,
the effects of which they were not enabled plainly and
clearly (if their hearts be well disposed) to judge of. The
operations themselves are not our concern, any more than
the way in which God created the earth, and all that is
therein. The operations themselves belong to that heaven
which none can understand but He that is in heaven, and
which consequently I cannot believe that God ever meant
us to understand, the symbols which the inspired writers
employ on this subject being more probably intended to
convey a notion of the desirability and accessibility of
heaven than of heaven itself. Whately truly says, in
relation to subjects of this kind, that a blind man may be
made to understand a great deal about objects of sight,
though sight alone could reveal to him what they are.

To return to my theme. It is an undoubted truth that the
manner in which God operates upon man is and must be
as unintelligible to man as the way in which God created
him at first ; but does it flow from this truth, or does it
appear from the tenor of Scripture, that Christ, who con-
stantly appealed to the reason and the will of His hearers
(as Newman himself urges against the Predestinarians) ,
ever spoke of divine operations on man, the effects of which

88 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

lie might not judge of by intelligible signs? The Syrian
was commanded to bathe in a certain river, and how it was
that bathing in that river could heal his leprosy, it was not
given him to know. But was he commanded to believe that
he had been healed of leprosy, while to all outward appear-
ance, and by all the signs which such a thing can be judged
of, the leprosy remained just as before ? Surely it is not
from the expressions of Scripture, but from the supposed
necessary consequences of certain true doctrines, according
to a certain mode of reasoning, that the non-intelligibility of
the effects of God's working is contended for. Newman
himself urges that Baptism is scarcely ever named in Scrip-
ture without the mention of spiritual grace ; that Baptism
is constantly connected with regeneration. And then I
would ask, is not spiritual grace generally mentioned in
Scripture, either with an implication or a full and par-
ticular description of those good dispositions and actions
which are to proceed from it, and which men may judge of,
as a tree from its fruits ? And is regeneration ever men-
tioned in Scripture in such a way as to preclude the notion
that it is identical with newness of life ? and is not newness
of life, according to our Saviour and St. Paul, identical with
doing justice and judgment for Christ's sake, doing right-
eously because of feeling righteously ? Are we ever led by
the language of Scripture to suppose that regeneration is a
mystical something, which, though it may, and in certain
circumstances must, produce goodness and holiness, yet of
its own nature need not absolutely do so ; which may exist
in unconscious subjects, as in infants, acknowledged inca-
pable of faith and repentance, which might, as to its own
essence (though the contrary actually is the case), exist even
in the worst of men ? In short, that regeneration is the
receiving of a new nature, a more divine, and yet not better
or more powerful nature. Surely here are words without
thoughts. What notion have we of a divine nature which

PREACHING. 89

does not include or consist of the notions of goodness and
power ? Newman illustrates the subject by the case of
devils, who, he says, have a divine but not a good nature.
To elucidate the obscure doctrine of regeneration by refer-
ence to evil spirits is like attempting to brighten twilight
by the shades of night, and is a perfect contrast to the
proceeding of our Saviour, who was accustomed to explain
"the kingdom of heaven" by parables and stories about
things which His listeners daily saw with their eyes, and
handled with their hands.

In the same spirit of being mysterious above what is
written, Newman and his fellow-labourers in the Oxonian
vineyard are wont to contend that preachers are bound to
preach the gospel, as a blind servant is bound to deliver a
message about things which he can never see, as a carrier-
pigeon to convey a letter, the contents of which it cannot
understand. They are not to preach for the sake of saving
souls, nor -to select and compose from the gospel in order to
produce a good effect, nor to grieve if the gospel is the
savour of death to those who will not hear. In short, it
would be presumption and rationalism in them to suppose
that their intellect or zeal was even to be the medium
through which God's purposes were to be effected. What
God's purposes are in commanding the gospel to be preached,
and sending His only Son into the world, they maintain
that we cannot guess (as if God had not plainly revealed it
Himself throughout the Bible). They are merely to execute
a trust, to repeat all the truths of the gospel, one as much
and as often as the other. For what practical result of
such a principle can there be, unless it be this, that a
clergyman is to preach as many sermons on the Trinity
and the Incarnation as on faith and hope and charity, and
the necessity of a good life, along with its details. Yet
Newman is the very man who would accuse such a proceed-
ing of irreverence, and too great an exercise of intellect.

90 MEMOIB AND LETTEBS OF SABA COLEBIDGE.

Graphic Style of the Old Testament Narratives.
To the Same.

September 3(M, 1837. — I think Herby is more struck with
Exodus than with Genesis, for the former is even more
strikingly objective than the latter, and the account of the
various plagues arrests the attention even of the youngest
mind. The most objective passages in Eoman and Grecian
history unfortunately are not the really important ones and
the hinges of great events ; they are biographical episodes
or anecdotes, for the most part ; as the striking off the
heads of the poppies, the death of Eegulus, and much of
what relates to Alexander, the Koman emperors and their
private follies. But in the Old Testament a great battle is
won by the Israelites because Moses sits upon a stone on a
hitt, and has his arms held up on either side by Aaron and
Hur. The whole history is a series of pictures. If you
make pictures of Eoman history, you must imagine the
postures, the accessory parts, all the detail of surrounding
objects ; but in the Bible they are made out for you. Thus
you can call to mind the main course of events in Jewish
history by means of such pictures impressed upon the
memory ; but Eoman history could not correctly be repre-
sented in any such manner. A series of its most picturable
scenes would not recall the march of the principal events.

Married Happiness.

Marriage, indeed, is like the Christian course — it must
either advance or go backwards. If you love and esteem
thoroughly, the more you see, and do, and feel, and talk
together, the more channels are opened out for affection to
run in ; and the more room it has to expand, the larger it
grows. Then the little differences and uncongenialities that
at first seemed relatively important, dwindle into nothing

THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 91

amid the mass of concord and tenderness ; or if their
flavour still survives, being thus subordinate, like mustard
or other condiments which would be intolerable in large
proportions, it adds a zest to the whole dish.

VI.

Conservative Replies to some Arguments of the Radical Party — The
British Constitution not originally Popular but Paternal —
An appeal to Universal Suffrage not an appeal to the Collective
Wisdom of the Age, but to its Collective Ignorance — " The
Majority will be always in the right ; " but not till it has adopted
the views of the Minority — Despotism of the Mob in America
regretted by many Americans — English Government not a mere
machine for registering Votes — How are the People to be trained
to a right Exercise of their Liberties ?

To Mrs. H. M. JONES, in reply to a Political Essay by Dr. PAHK.

" The British Constitution is founded on public opinion."
The institutions and forms of government in which this
idea is more or less adequately manifested have been
wrought out by public opinion, yet surely the idea itself is
not the result and product, but rather the secret guide and
groundwork of public opinion on the point in question, as
embodied in definite words and conceptions. But what
public opinion was that which moulded our admired policy,
and fashioned the curious and complicated mechanism of
our state machine ? Did it reflect the minds and intellects
of the majority ? Or was it not rather the opinions of the
best and wisest, to which our aristocratic forms of govern-
ment gave both publicity and prevalence ?

Surely we have little reason to say that public opinion,
taken at large, is necessarily just and wise by virtue of its
being public, — necessarily that to which the interests of
the nation may be safely entrusted. If we identify it with
the opinions of the majority at all times and on all subjects,
it cannot be identified with the collective wisdom of the
age. Like foam on the surface of the ocean, pure if the

92 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

waters below are pure, soiled and brown if they are muddy
and turbid, it can but represent the character of that from
which it proceeds, the average understandings and morals
of the community. How are the masses to be purified and
tranquillized ? How rendered capable of judging soundly
on affairs of state as far as that is possible to men of
humble station ? Surely not by the introduction of a vote-
by-ballot system, which virtually silences the gifted few,
and reduces to inaction the highest wisdom of the day.
Truth, it is said, must ever prevail ; but unless utterance is
given her, — nay, more, unless her voice is heard, not
drowned by the clamours of the crowd, what means has she
of prevailing ? Public opinion is consonant to reason and
goodness only inasmuch as it is influenced by the wise and
good. It is often grossly absurd, and the public opinion of
one year or month is condemned by that of the next.
There is some truth in the notion of Miss Martineau, to
which, by stress of arguments she has been driven, "that
the majority will be in the right." The only rational inter-
pretation of which seems to me to be this, that, on given
points, the majority ultimately decide in favour of the truth,
because, in course of time, the opinions of the wisest on
those particular subjects are proved, by experience and
successive accessions of suffrages from competent judges, to
be just ; they are stamped before the public eye and in
characters which those who run may read (or as Habakkuk
really has it, "he may run that readeth"), and in such
points public opinion is in fact the adoption of private
opinion by the public ; the judgment approved by the
majority is anything rather than that which the majority
would have formed by aid of their own amount of sense
and talent, for "nel mondo non e se non volgo." In time
the whole lump is leavened with that which emanated from
a few ; but what practical application should be made of
this axiom, "the majority will be in the right?" Ought

PUBLIC OPINION. 93

it to be such as would lead us to throw political power,
without stop or stay, directly into their hands, and abide
all the consequences of their blundering apprenticeship,
while in particulars in which the public interests are con-
cerned, in which immediate action is required, they are
learning to be right ? Will it console us under the calamities
which their ignorance may inflict, that they will know
better in the end? And when the Commonwealth is in
ruins, will this after-wisdom restore the shattered fabric, or
indemnify those who have suffered during its disorganiz-
ation ? This notion of a ruined Commonwealth appears no
visionary bugbear to those who believe the continuance of a
Christian and Catholic government essential to the well-
being of the state.

Before we argue about public opinion, before we decide
what this great power has already done, or what it ought to
do, it would be as well to settle what we mean by the term.
The public opinion of this country, on particular points, in
this age of the world, is perfectly just and enlightened. On
the Newtonian or Copernican system, for instance, public
opinion now is identical with that of the philosopher in his
closet. But what was public opinion on this same system
in the age of Kelper and Galileo ? (for Newton was antici-
pated in some measure by those great men). If, however,
by public opinion be meant the opinions of the multitude
taken collectively, the general body of their opinions con-
cerning all matters of which man can take cognizance, —
this can no more be the best possible, than the mass of
mankind are as able, moral, and enlightened as a certain
number of individuals in every age. But ought not a state
to be guided by the best possible opinions ? Ought it to be
swayed by the uncorrected thoughts of the multitude ?

It is not high Tories and Churchmen alone who feel that
in America public opinion is a tyrant, — because it is a
public opinion not sufficiently acted on by the wisest and

94 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

best individuals ; — their voice has utterance, and in time is
heard, but by the forms of society and of government
established there, — especially the want of a landed gentry
and influential endowed Church, — they do not enough pre-
vail over the voices of the crowd; and the will of the
majority is too much felt for the welfare of the majority
themselves. Many Americans are now admitting this, and
it appears either implicitly or explicitly in the pages of
every American traveller. Miss Martineau would have
helped us to find it out had we needed her information.

With us, goverment hitherto has not been degraded in
its character to that of a machine, the functions of those
who are engaged in it being simply this, to ascertain and
obey a popular will, like the index of a clock worked by a
pendulum. Our laws and institutions have been moulded
by the suggestions of a wise minority, which the mechanism
of our state machinery enabled to come gradually into play ;
so that the interests of the people have been consulted
rather than their blind wishes. Thus, our constitution,
considered as an outward thing, has been formed according
to an idea of perfection (never in this world to be more than
partially realized) — an idea existing equally in the minds of
all our countrymen, but most distinctly and effectively
developed in those which are aided by an acute and power-
ful intellect, improved to the highest point by education,
study, and reflective leisure.

Is it not obvious from Dr. Park's own abstract that our
government has never been popular in the sense in which
my father denies it to have been such ? Has it not ever
been a " a monarchy at once buttressed and limited by the
aristocracy ? " Was it ever popular as the American
government is so ? If not, still less has it been popular
after such a sort as our modern Liberals — our separators of
Church and State — will leave no stone unturned to make it.
On the other hand, is it not clear as noon-day — nay, gloried

THE REFORM BILL. 95

in by numbers — that, notwithstanding the prolonged dura-
tion of Parliament, the remnant of lordly influence in the
popular elections and House of Commons, the standing
army, and national debt, the British State is more demo-
cratic in this nineteenth century than at any former
period.* Ought it to be still more democratic, still more
the mere representative of the multitude, and exponent of
their will ? Are we likely to fare better under the dominion
of the people than this country did in former times, when
"government had not renounced its right to consult for the
benefit of the community, even independently of its inclina-
tion ? " On the answer to this question depends the
answer to that of Dr. Park, were the acts above named
constitutional ?

The sage Whig Hallam is of opinion that the Keform Bill
went too far in establishing democratic principles ; and as
to such politicians as Hume, Warburton, Eoebuck, and
their allies, I should imagine they sympathized but little in
the anxiety of reasoners like Dr. Park and S. T. C., for the
balance of powers, and so that they could but succeed in
overthrowing the Church and the aristocracy, would care
much less than a straw for the old and venerable idea of
the British Constitution.

A noble national character belongs to the people of
England, and grieved indeed should I be to suppose that
they wanted a "foundation of moderation and good sense.'*
But how are those good qualities to be most efficiently
improved, confirmed, elicited? Etow does a wise mother
act in regard to the children under her care, — those children
in whom she perceives with delight the germs and first
shoots of a thousand amiable affections and excellent dis-
positions? I need hardly say that she does not trust to

* We cannot surely imagine that more power and liberty were really
enjoyed by the people under the sway of the strong-headed, strong-handed
Cromwell, or that their interests were more attended to during the corrupt
reign of Charles II.— S. C.

96 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

them solely ; that she remembers of what jarring elements
man is a compound ; and that she takes care to keep the
passions and infirm tempers of her charge in due restraint,
in order that their good feelings and reasoning habits may
be strengthened and increased. Just so should a paternal
government act towards the national family which it has to
govern.

These are some of the thoughts which have been
suggested to me by the perusal of Dr. Park's instructive
abstract. I am aware that they are quite imperfect and
inconclusive ; but they give a notion of the way in which I
have been led to look on the subject of government.

SEA BATHING. 97

CHAPTEK VII.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, MRS. PLUMMER, MISS
TREVENEN, MISS A. BROOKE: 1838.

Seaside Occupations — Bathing : Childish Timidity not to be cured by

Compulsion — Letter-writing.
To Mrs. PLUMMER, Gateshead.

Herne Bay, Aug. 20th, 1838. — You ask for a letter from
Herne Bay, and I take the opportunity to comply with your
request, now that papa and the children and Ann have just
set off on the rumble of the coach for Canterbury. I have
been strolling on the beach, rejoicing that the Canterbury
visitors have so softly brilliant a day for their excursion,
yet partly regretting that they have turned their backs on
the bathing-place. This is quite a day to make Herby in
love with the ocean waters. At first he suffered much from
fear when he had to enter them, and he has not yet
achieved the feat of going thoroughly overhead; but I
think you will agree with us that no good would be done
by forcing him. Troy town, as he long ago observed him-
self in reference to the treatment of children, after all was
not taken by force. Bathing is not like a surgical operation,
which does good however unwillingly submitted to ; and we
cannot make children fearless by compelling them to
undergo the subject of their fears. This process, indeed,
has sometimes made cowards for life. There is much in
habit, doubtless, but persons who act upon this truth,
without seeing its practical limitations, often commit great
errors.*

* It -may be worth while to mention, in proof of the practical success of
my mother's indulgent system, that the early nervousness here alluded to

98 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

I must not, however, proceed to state these limitations,
and see whether or no they agree with your speculations
on child-management, seeing that my paper and my time
have their limitations too. Apropos to this last point,
however, I must digress again, to say how few people have
what I consider just and clear notions on the subject of
letter-writing ! * You are one of my few cordial, genial
correspondents, who do not fill the first page of their epistles
with as server ations of how much they have to do, or how
little news they have to tell, and how sure you are, as soon
as it is at all necessary to your well-being, to hear it from
some other quarter. Why do these people waste time in
visiting their friends of an evening, or calling on them of a
morning ? Why do they not pickle and preserve, and stitch
and house-keep all day long, since those and such-like are
the only earthly things needful? The answer doubtless
would be, " Friendships must be kept up ; out of sight out of
mind ; and as man is a social creature, he must attend to
the calls of society." Now, it is exactly on this ground, and
not, in nine cases out of ten, for the sake of communicating
news, that letter-writing is to be advocated. It is a method
of visiting our friends in their absence, and one which has
some advantages peculiar to itself; for persons who have
any seriousness of character at all, endeavour to put the
better part of their mind upon paper ; and letter-writing is
one of the many calls which life affords to put our minds in
order, the salutary effect of which is obvious.

completely passed away. My brother learned to swim as easily as most
boys as soon as he went to school at Eton, where bathing and boating be-
came his favourite amusements. — E. C.

* The lady whose letter-writing style is thus pleasantly described is the
wife of the Rev. Matthew Plummer, and author of several useful works on
Church matters. — E. C.

II.

The History of Rome, by Dr. Arnold — The Study of Divinity,
Poetry, and Physiology, preferred to that of History or Politics
— Christian Theology and Metaphysics.

To Miss ARABELLA BROOKE.

Herne Bay, September 8th, 1838. — We are reading Dr.
Arnold's "Borne," and feel that we now for the first time
see the old Eomans off the stage, with their buskins laid
aside, and talking like other men and women. They do
not lose by this : the force of the Koman character is as
clearly brought out in Dr. Arnold's easy, matter-of-fact,
modern narrative, as it could have been in the stilted
though eloquent language of their own historians. People
say how Whiggish it is, in spite of the disclaimers in the
preface. There is certainly a great deal of anti-aristocracy
in it ; but then, I imagine, if ever aristocracy showed itself
in odious colours, it must have been during the early times
of Borne; and no faithful historian could have concealed
this, though he might have manifested less zeal and
alacrity in the task of exposing it. However, I speak in
ignorance : politics and history are subjects in which I have
less of my desultory feminine sort of information than some
others which seem rather more within my compass. Divinity
may be as wide a field as politics ; but it is not so far out
of a woman's way, and you derive more benefit from partial
and short excursions into it. I should say the same in
regard to poetry, natural history in all its branches, and
even metaphysics — the study of which, when judiciously
pursued, I cannot but think highly interesting and useful,
and in no respect injurious.

The truth is, those who undervalue this branch of philo-
sophy, or rather this root and stem of it, seem scarce aware
how impossible it is for any reflective Christian to be with-
out metaphysics of one kind or other. Without being

100 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

aware of it, we all receive a metaphysical scheme, either
partially or wholly, from those who have gone before us ;
and by its aid we interpret the Bible. It is but few perhaps
who have time to acquire any clear or systematic knowledge
of divinity. When the heart is right, individuals may be
in some respects first-rate Christians without any specu-
lative insight, because the little time for study is caused
by active exertion ; and this active exertion, pursued in a
religious spirit, and converted into the service of God by
the way of performing it, is perhaps the most effective school
of Christianity. But when there is time to read, then I do
think that, both for the sake of others and of ourselves, the
cultivation of the intellect, with a view to religious know-
ledge, is a positive duty; and I believe.it to be clearly
established, though not cordially and generally admitted,
that the study of metaphysics is the best preparatory
exercise for a true understanding of the Bible. False
metaphysics can be counteracted by true metaphysics
alone ; and divines who have not the one can hardly fail,
I think, to have the other.

III.

Miracle of the Raising of Lazarus passed over by the Synoptical

Gospels.

To her Husband.

Chester Place, September, 1838. — The more one thinks of it
the more puzzling it seems that the raising of Lazarus is
only recorded in St. John's Gospel. The common way of
accounting for the matter cannot easily be set down, but
yet it does not satisfy. We feel there may be something
yet in the case which we do not fathom, and knowing as we
do, from constant experience, how much there is in most
things which transcend our knowledge, — what unsuspected
facts and truths have come to light, and explained pheno-
mena of which we had given quite different explanations

THE SENSES AND THE MIND. 101

previously, — we cannot but feel that the true way of account-
ing for this discrepancy has never yet come to light.

IV.

Connection between the Senses and the Mind— Early Greatness of great

Poets — Poetic Imagination of Plato.
To the Same.

Herne Bay, September 2lst, 1838.— Herbert is a most
sensitive child, as alive to every kind of sensation, as quick
in faculties. Indeed I believe that this sensitiveness does
itself tend to quicken and stimulate the intellect. He will
have especial need of self-control, and I trust in time that
he will have it ; but at his age the sun of true reason has
but sent up its rays above the horizon ; its orb is not yet
visible. If we are fearfully and wonderfully made in body,
how much more so in mind, and how much less can we
fathom the constitution of the latter than of the former !
But considered in a large sense they are one ; else how could
the mind act on the body, the body on the mind ? Where
the senses are active and rapid ministers to the mind, supply-
ing it abundantly and promptly with thought-materials, no
wonder that the intellect makes speedy advances ; and such
sensitiveness is doubtless one constituent of a poet. Still,
whether or not true greatness and high genius shall be
discovered, must depend upon the constitution and pro-
perties of the intellect in itself ; and this is the reason that
so many fine buds prove but indifferent flowers, rather
than the popular account of the matter, that the sooner the
plant blossoms the sooner it will fade and fall. Never tell
me that Milton and Shakespeare were not as wonderful
children as the young Eosciuses, or any other modern
prodigy, and hollow puff-ball ! How exquisitely does Plato
illustrate his subject out of his own actual history, out of
things moving, sensuous and present, filling with life-blood
the dry, though clear and symmetrical vein-work of his
metaphysic anatomy !

102 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Description of the Falls of Niagara in Miss Martineau's
"Retrospect of Western Travel."

To Miss E. TREVENEN, Helston.

October, 1838. — Miss Martineau's " Ketrospect of Western
Travel " I have read and enjoyed. It takes you through
out-door scenes, and though the politics are overpowering
now and then, it freshens you up by wanderings amid
woods and rivers, and over mountain brows, and among
tumbling waterfalls. I think Miss Martineau made one
more at home with Niagara than any of the other American
travellers. She gives one a most lively waterfallish feeling,
introduces one not only to the huge mass of rushing water,
but to the details of the environs, the wood in which the
stream runs away, etc. She takes you over it and under it,
before it and behind it, and seems as if she were performing
a duty she owed to the genius of the cataract, by making it
thoroughly well-known to those at a distance, rather than
desirous to display her own talent by writing a well-rounded
period or a terse paragraph about it.

VI.

Lukewarm Christians.
To the Same.

Chester Place, December, 1838. — I have no doubt that
- disapproves of the Catholic party just as much as of
the Evangelicals, and on very similar grounds. It is not
the peculiar doctrines which offend thinkers of this descrip-
tion. About them they neither know nor care. It is the
high tone, the insisting upon principles, to ascertain the truth
or unsoundness of which requires more thought than they
are disposed to bestow on such a subject. It is the zeal
and warmth and eagerness by which tempers of this turn
are offended. The blunders and weaknesses of warm religion-
ists are not the sources of their distaste, but the pretexts by

POPULAR RELIGION.

103

which they justify to themselves an aversion which has a
very different origin. Be kind to the poor, nurse the sick,
perform all duties of charity and generosity, be not religious
over-much — above all, keep in the background all the
peculiar cardinal doctrines of Christianity — avoid all vices
and gross sins — believe the Bible to be true, without
troubling yourself about particulars — behave as resignedly
as you can when misfortunes happen — feel grateful to God
for His benefits — think at times of your latter end, and try
"to dread your grave as little as your bed," if possible.
Such will ever be — more or less pronounced and professed
—the sum of religion in many very amiable and popular
persons. Anything more than this they will throw cold
water upon by bucketsfuL

104 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTEK VIII.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, MRS. PLUMMER, MISS
TREVENEN, MISS A. BROOKE: 1839.

Characteristics of the Oxford School of Divines — Combinations, even
for the best Purposes, not favourable to Truth — Superior Con-
fidence inspired by an Independent Thinker — Are Presbyterians
Excluded from the Visible Church ? — Authority of Hooker cited
against such a Decision — Defence of the Title of Protestant —
Luther : Injustice commonly done to his Character and Work.

To Mrs. PLUMMER, Heworth Yicarage, Gateshead.

10, Chester Place, Regent's Park, January 17th, 1839.
— The " Letter of a Eeformed Catholic," * and that on the
" Origin of Popery," I think remarkably well done, clear,
able, and popular. Such judgment as I have on such a
matter I give unto you, and this need not imply any
presumption on my part. But though I can sincerely
express my approbation of the way in which these
performances are executed, I must candidly confess that I
do not follow your husband on the Oxford road, so far as
he seems to have proceeded. On some subjects, specially
handled by Newman and his school, my judgment is
suspended. On some points I think the apostolicals quite
right, on others clearly unscriptural and unreasonable,
wilfully and ostentatiously maintaining positions which, if
carried out to their full length, would overthrow the
foundations of all religion. I consider the party as having
done great service in the religious world, and that in
various ways ; sometimes by bringing forward what is
wholly and absolutely true ; sometimes by promoting

* A controversial pamphlet, by the Eev. Matthew Plnmmer. — E. C.

PARTY SPIRIT. 105

discussion on points in which I believe their own views
to be partly erroneous; sometimes by exposing gross
deficiencies in doctrine in the religion of the day; some-
times by keenly detecting the self-flatteries and practical
mistakes of religionists. But the worst of them, in my
opinion, is that they are, one and all, party men ; and just
so far as we become absorbed in a party, just so far are we
in danger of parting with honesty and good sense. This is
why I honour Frederic Maurice, and feel inclined to put
trust in his writings, antecedently to an express knowledge
of their contents, because he stands alone, and looks only
to God and his own conscience. Such is human nature,
that as soon as ever men league together, even for the
purest and most exalted objects, their carnal leaven begins
to ferment. Insensibly their aims take a less spiritual
character, and their means are proportionately vulgarized
and debased. Now, when I speak of leaguing together, of
course I do not mean that Mr. Newman and his brother
divines exact pledges fronxone another like men on the
hustings, but I do believe that there is a tacit but efficient
general compact among them all. Like the Evangelicals
whom they so often condemn on this very point, they use a
characteristic phraseology; they have their badges and
party marks ; they lay great stress on trifling external
matters ; they have a stock of arguments and topics in
common. No sooner has Newman blown the Gospel blast,
than it is repeated by Pusey, and Pusey is re-echoed from
Leeds : Keble privately persuades Froude, Froude spouts
the doctrines of Keble to Newman, and Newman publishes
them as "Froude's Eemains." Now, it seems to me that,
under these circumstances, truth has not quite a fair
chance. A man has hardly time to reflect on his own
reflections, and ask himself, in the stillness of his heart,
whether the views he has put forth are strictly the truth,
and nothing more or less than the truth, if, the moment

106 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

they have parted from him, they are eagerly embraced by
a set of prepossessed partisans, who assure him and all
the rest of the world that they are thoroughly excellent,
(How many truly great men have modified their views
after publication, and in subsequent works have written in
a somewhat altered strain.)

These writers, too, hold the dangerous doctrine of the
" economy of truth." Consistently with these views, if
one of them wrote ever so extravagantly, the others would
refrain from exposing him, for fear they should injure the
cause, at least so long as he remained with them on
principal points. God, of course, can bring good out of
evil, and in this way I do believe that the errors of the
party will serve His cause in the end as well as their sound
tenets. Yet I cannot think that what I have described is
the truest method of promoting pure religion ; and it
seems to me that the most effective workmen in the Lord's
vineyard, those whose work tells most in the end, are they
who do not agree beforehand to co-operate, but who pursue
their own task without regard to the way in which others
execute theirs.

Well, I have looked at the "Keformed Catholic" again,
and think it as well done as I did at first ; but still there
are some points on which I am not quite of the writer's
mind.

I cannot yet bring myself to believe that the Kirk of
Scotland in no sense belongs to the Body of Christ — in no
sense makes a part of the visible Christian Church. Would
Hooker have said so ? * One Lord, one Faith, one

* But we speak now of the visible Church, whose children are signed
with this mark, " One Lord, one faith, one baptism." In whomsoever
these things are, the Church doth acknowledge them for her children ;
them only she holdeth for aliens and strangers in whom these things are not
found.— Hooker, Eccl. Pol. book iii. ch. 1.— E. C.

THE TITLE OF PROTESTANT. 107

Baptism ; these are the only essentials, I think, which he
names. A man may even be a heretic, yet not altogether
— nay, not at all — excluded from this communion, though
he can never belong to the mystical invisible Church of the
elect till he becomes a Christian in heart and mind, as well
as in outward profession. The Kirk may have deprived
herself of a privilege by losing the episcopal succession,
may have thrown away a benefit by rejecting the govern-
ment of bishops (if we only put the matter in the outward
light), yet she may still make an erring part of that
Church to which Christ's Spirit is promised.

This, however, is a difficult subject. I do not pretend
bo have very decided convictions upon it. Of one thing,
lowever, I feel pretty sure, that I shall call myself a
Protestant to the end of my days. Yes ! a Catholic
Christian, as I humbly hope, — and, moreover, a Protestant
of the Church of England. I profess that "Reformed
Protestant Eeligion " which our monarch swears to defend
on his coronation; the Protestantism of Cranmer and
[ooker, of Taylor, of Jackson, and of Leighton. These
re great names, and dear and venerable are the associa-
tions with the title of Protestant in my mind. To call
lyself such does not make me a whit the less Christian
id Catholic, nor imply that I am so ; it does not mix me
ip with sectarians any more than the latter term connects
me with the gross errors and grievous practices of
Eomanists, who, whether they are entitled to the name or
not, will always assume it. As for its being a modern
designation, — that which rendered a distinctive appellation
necessary is an event of modern times ; and that, I think,
is a sufficient defence of it on this score. "Reformed
Catholic " savours altogether of Newman and the nine-
teenth century.

In regard to Luther, I do not jumble him up with our
reformers as to the whole of his theology ; — on some points

108 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

he was less orthodox than they. But I cannot think it
altogether just to say that he "left, rather than reformed
the Church." It is the Oxford fashion to dwell upon what
he omitted, to throw into shade the mighty works which
he did ; to hold him forth as a corrupter, to forget that he
was a great and wonderful reformer. If there were
"giants in those days," the mightiest of them all was the
invincible German. And how any man who thinks deeply
on religious subjects can bring himself to speak scorn of
this brave Christian warrior, or how he can divest his
spirit of gratitude towards so great a benefactor, to whose
magnanimity, more than to any other single instrument in
God's hand, it is owing that we are not blind buyers of
indulgences at this hour, I confess is past my comprehen-
sion.

" In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible Knights of old."

Blighting breaths may tarnish the lustre of those trophies
for a passing moment ; but it is too late in the day to teach
us that Milton is not a poet, and that Luther, and Wycliffe,
and Ridley, and Latimer were not worthy champions of the
faith.

II.

A Little Lecturer — Stammering.

To her Husband.

Chester Place, Sept. 4th, 1839. — Herby preached last
night about chemical matters like a regular lecturer ; I
thought he looked quite a little Correggiesque Mercury, — or
something between Hermes and Cupid, — as he stood on
the little chair lecturing volubly, and throwing out one leg
and arm, with his round face glowing with childish
animation, and a mixture of intelligence and puerility.
The conclusion was after a list of names a league long,
"and the last is something like so and so; but the
chemist's man had a pen in his mouth when he answered

STAMMEEING. 109

my question about it, and I could not hear distinctly how
he pronounced the name." It is wonderful how clearly he
speaks when there is an impulse from within which over-
bears and makes him forget the difficulty of articulation.*
For it certainly is the pre -imagination of the difficulty of
pronouncing a word that ties the tongue in those who
stammer. F. M. could pronounce a studied oration with-
out stuttering ; I account for the fact in this way : it
was the hurry of mind, excited by the anticipation of an
indefinite field of words to be uttered, which paralyzed his
articulating powers. With a paper before him, or a set
speech on the tablet of his memory, he said to himself:
thus much have I to pronounce and no more ; whereas in
extemporary speech there is an uncertainty, an unlimited-
ness, the sense of which leads most talkers to inject a plus
quam sufficit of you knows into their discourse, and which
causes others to hesitate. The imagination is certainly
the seat of the affection, or rather the source of it. The
disorder may be defined as a specific weakness of the
nerves in connection with a particular imagination, or it
may arise and be generated during the inexplicable
reciprocal action, wechsel-wirkung, of one upon the other,
in which, as S. T. C. says, the cause is at the same time
the effect, and vice versa. The curious thing is, that there
is an idiosyncrasy in this, as perhaps to some degree in all
other complaints, and every different stammerer stammers
in his own way, and under different circumstances.

III.

Philosophy of the " Excursion."
To the Same.

Chester Place, Sept. 17th, 1839. — I am deep in the
"Excursion," and am interested at finding how much of

* The slight impediment in his speech to which my brother was subject
as a child, was never entirely outgrown, though it diminished considerably
in after years. — E. C.

110 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Kant and Coleridge is embodied in its philosophy, especially
in " Despondency Corrected." I should not say that the
"Excursion" was as intensely poetical, as pure poetry, as
ecstatic, as many of the minor pieces ; it holds more of a
middle place between poetry, philosophy, and the thoughtful,
sentimental story. But it is exquisite, be it what it may.

IV.

Lord Byron on the Lake Poets.
To the Same.

Chester Place, October 4th, 1839.—" The Lake Poets are
never vulgar." I often think of this remark of Lord
Byron. Genius is an antiseptic against vulgarity ; but still
no men that I ever met, except downright patricians, were
so absolutely unvulgar as Coleridge, Southey, and Words-
worth.

Writing to Order — Sunday Stories and Spanish Romances.
To Miss E. TREVENBN, Helston.

Chester Place, 1839. — Miss 's stories are, as you

observe, " remarkably fit for their purpose." How she can
contrive to write so exactly as a story-composer for a
Society ought to write ; how she can manage to be so
wholly and solely under the dictation of the proper sort of
spirit, I cannot imagine. I, for my part, am neither goody
enough nor good enough (and I humbly admit that to
submit on proper occasions to goodiness of a certain kind is
a part of goodness) for anything of the sort. I should feel
like a dog hunting in a clog, or a cat in gloves, or a
gentleman's carriage forced to go upon a railroad; or, to
ascend a little higher, as Christian and his fellow-pilgrim
did when they left the narrow path and got into the fields
by the side of it. I should always be grudging at the
Society's quickset hedge on the right hand and the left.
As for Herbert, he is deep in " Amadis de Gaul;" and the

MUSINGS ON ETEENITY. Ill

boy that is full of the Endriago and Andandana, and Don
Galaor, and the Flower of Chivalry himself, and his
peerless Oriana, is not quite in the right mood to relish
good charity-schoolgirls, and the conversion of cottagers
that don't go to church, which Nurse, however, think worth
all the Endriagos in the world.

VI.

Pain more bearable when its Cause is Known — Musings on Eternity
— Descriptions of Heaven, Symbolical, Material, and Spiritual —
Conjectures of Yarious Writers respecting the Condition of
Departed Souls.

To Miss ARABELLA BROOKE, Gamstone Rectory, East Retford.

Chester Place, 1839. — It is painful to be unable to under-
stand one's suffering, to translate it into an intelligible
language, and bring it distinctly before the mind's eye.
But it is already a sign that we are no longer wholly sub-
dued by its power, when we can analyze it and make this
very indefiniteness an object of contemplation. This
evinces a degree of mastery over that which has of late
been a tyrant. And if " to be weak is miserable " (oh ! how
often have I thanked Milton for that line !), to exercise any
kind of power, or have any kind of strength, is so far an
abatement of misery. To be sure, the explanation which
my father gives of this mental fact, the uneasiness felt at
the unintelligiUlity of an affection, when we cannot tell
whence it arises nor whither it tends, is not a little
abstruse, and what is popularly called transcendental.
" There is always a consolatory feeling that accompanies
the sense of a proportion between antecedents and conse-
quents. It is eternity revealing itself in the form of time."

Dear Miss Brooke, there are not many persons to whom
I should quote a metaphysical passage of S. T. C. in a
letter ; but I see you are one who like to be what the world
calls idle — that is, outwardly still from the inward activity

112 MEMOIE AND LETTEKS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

of thought — to pause and look down into the deep stream,
instead of hastening on in view of the shallow, sparkling
runnel. Dear me ! some people think more over the first
page of an essay than others do while they write a volume.
Thinking too much, and trying to dive deeper and deeper
into every subject that presents itself, is rather an obstacle
to much writing. It drags the wheels of composition ; for
before a book can be written, there is a great deal to be
done : contemplation is not the whole business. I am con-
vinced that the Cherubim do not write books, much less
publish them, or make bargains with booksellers, or submit
to the ordeal of disgusting puffery and silly censure. I am
convinced they do nothing but think ; while the Seraphim
are equally given up to the business of loving.

But I must consider t]ae limits of this letter, and the
observations which it ought to contain, and my letter-
writing strength, which is at present but small. I am truly
grieved that I cannot give a proper answer to your last, or
its interesting predecessor, which came with Abercrombie's
Essay. If I could but put on paper, without too much
bodily fatigue, half the thoughts which your reflective
epistles suggest to me, little as they might be worth your
reading, you would see that your letters had done their
work, and were not like winds passing across the Vale of
Stones, but like those gales which put a whole forest in
motion. That reminds me of another advantage enjoyed by
the Cherubim and Seraphim. I am sure they do not write
letters with pen, ink, or paper, nor put them into the post,
nor stop to consider whether they are worth postage, nor
look about for franks and private conveyances. They have
a quintessence of our earthly enjoyments and privileges :
the husk for them drops off, and all is pure spirit and
intelligence.

All this nonsense is excusable in me, because I am
poorly, out of humour with those activities in which I

VIEWS OF THE FUTURE STATE. 113

cannot share, and quite cross and splenetic because I am not
as free from fleshly ills and earthly fetters as the angels in
heaven. Apropos to which, I have not read Mr. Taylor's
book, and from your account of it am afraid I should not
be such a reader as he would wish to have, unless, indeed,
he confines himself to the statement of a few principles
which may guide our views respecting the life to come,
instead of attempting to describe it particularly, like Dr.
Watts and others. It seems to me so obvious, both from
the reason of the thing and the manner in which Scripture
deals with it, that " if one came from the dead " to tell us
all about it, he would leave us as wise as he found us. In
what language could he express himself ? In a language of
symbols ? But that we have already in the Bible ; and we
want to translate it literally, or at least into literal expres-
sions. We know that they who have pleased God shall be
eternally blessed ; that they who have sinned against the
light will suffer from a worm that never dies : and what
more can we know while we are roofed over by our house
of clay? A true account of the other world would surely be
to the inhabitants of earth as a theory of music to the deaf,
or the geometry of light to the blind.

Inquirers into the future state are all either Irvingites or
Swedenborgians, horrified as most of them might be to be
compared either with Irving or Swedenborg. They either
give us earth newly done up and furnished by way of our
final inheritance, observing that man is essentially finite,
and must therefore have a material dwelling-place ; or they
talk of a spiritual heaven, while the description they give
of it is only a refined edition of the things and goings-on of
this world. What else can it be? All conjecturers may
not talk of " wax-candles in Heaven," but the spirit which
dictated the thought is in every one of them.

I think I shall never read another sermon on the Inter-
mediate State. Newman has no Catholic consent to show

114 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

for his views on that subject, though doubtless they come
in great measure from the Fathers. The supposition that
blessedness and misery hereafter may both arise from
increased powers, reminds me of an oft-quoted passage in a
work of S. T. C., in which he conjectures that an infinite
memory may be the Book of Judgment in which all our
past life is written, and every idle word recorded in charac-
ters from which our eyes can never be averted. It was a
fine thought in Swedenborg to represent the unblest spirits
in the other world as mad. His visions are founded on
many deep truths of religion. Had he given them as an
allegorical fiction, like the " Pilgrim's Progress," it would
have been well.

CLASSICAL EDUCATION. 115

CHAPTEE IX.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, HER ELDEST BROTHER,
MRS. J. STANGER, MRS. H. M. JONES : 1840.

Love of Books and Classical Studies.

o her Eldest Brother.
January, 1840. — I have a strong opinion that a genuine
love of books is one of the greatest blessings of life for man
and woman, and I cannot help thinking that by persons in
our middle station it may be enjoyed (more at one time,
less at another, but certainly during the course of life to a
great extent enjoyed) without neglect of any duty. A
woman may house-keep, if she chooses, from morning to
night, or she may be constantly at her needle, or she may
be always either receiving or preparing for company, but
whatever those who practise these things may say, it is not
necessary in most cases for a woman to spend her whole
time in this manner. Now, I cannot but think that the
knowledge of the ancient languages very greatly enhances
the pleasure taken in literature — that it gives depth and
variety to reading, and makes almost every book, in what-
ever language, more thoroughly understood. I observe
that music and drawing are seldom pursued after marriage.
In many cases of weak health they cannot be pursued, and
they do not tell in the intercourse of society and in conver-
sation as this sort of information does, even when not a
word of Greek or Latin is either uttered or alluded to.

116 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

II.

Lord Byron's Mazeppa and Manfred — His success in Satire and in

Sensational Writing.
To Mrs. H. M. JONES.

January 14th, 1840. — I have had great pleasure in re-
freshing my girlish recollections of the " Lament of Tasso "
and "Mazeppa." The latter is the only poem of Byron's
which reminds me of Scott. I think it most spirited and
impressive in its line. Byron is excellent in painting
intense emotion and strong sensation of body or mind ; he
is also good in satire and sarcasm, though not very amiable ;
but I do not like him when he attempts the philosophic,
invading the province of Goethe and Wordsworth ; or when
he tries his hand at the wild and supernatural, in which
line I think him a mere imitator, and far outdone by Scott,
Shelley, and many others. "Manfred," I think, has been
greatly overrated, as indeed the public seems now beginning
to see — the poetical public at least. Still there are fine
things in it ; but the graphic descriptions in the journal
are better, I think, than the corresponding passages in
verse.

III.

On the Death of an Infant Daughter.
To Mrs. JOSHUA STANGER, Wandsworth.

10, Chester Place, Regent's Park, August 10th, 1840. — My
dear Friend, — Your last kind note was written in a strain
which harmonized well with my feelings. Would that
those feelings which a trial such as we have lately sustained
must needs bring with it, to all who have learned, in any
degree however insufficient, to trust in Heaven, whether for
temporary consolation or for eternal happiness, — would
that those feelings could be more lasting than they are ;
that they could leave strong and permanent traces; that
they could become " the very habit of our souls," not a mere
mood or passing state without any settled foundation. My

DEATH OF AN INFANT. 117

thoughts had turned the same way as yours, where all
mourners and friends of those that mourn will naturally
go for sure and certain hope and ground of rejoicing, to
that most divine chapter of the raising of Lazarus. " Thy
brother shall rise again." This indeed is spoken plainly,
this is "no parable," no metaphor or figure of speech.
But in the next chapter we see the same blessed promise
illustrated by a very plain metaphor. "Except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if
it die, it beareth much fruit."

Our loss indeed has been a great disappointment, and
even a sorrow; for, strange as it may seem, these little
speechless creatures, with their wandering, unspeaking
eyes, do twine themselves around a parent's heart from the
hour of their birth. Henry suffered more than I could
have imagined, and I was sorry to see him watch the poor
babe so closely, when it was plain that the little darling
was not for this world, and that all our visions of a " dark-
eyed Bertha," a third joy and comfort of the remainder of
our own pilgrimage, must be exchanged for better hopes,
and thoughts more entirely accordant with such a religious
frame of mind as it is our best interest to attain. I had
great pleasure in anticipating the added interest that you
would take in her as your godchild. But this is among the
dreams to be relinquished. Her remains rest at Hamp-
stead, beside those of my little frail and delicate twins. —
God bless you, my dear Mary, and your truly attached friend,

SARA COLERIDGE.

Note.— Bertha Fanny Coleridge was born on the 13th of July, 1840, and
died eleven days afterwards. — E. C.

118 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

TV.

" They sin who tell us love can die."
To her Husband.

The Green, Hampstead, September 13th, 1840. — Will death
at one blow crush into endless ruin all our mental growths,
as an autumnal tempest prostrates the frail summer house,
along with its whole complexity of interwoven boughs and
tendrils, which had gradually grown up during a long
season of quiet and serenity ? Surely there will be a second
spring when these firm and profuse growths shall flourish
again, but with Elysian verdure, and all around them the
celestial mead shall bloom with plants of various sizes,
down to the tenderest and smallest shrublet that ever
pushed up its infant leaves in this earthly soil. Surely
every one who has a heart must feel how easily he could
part with earth, water, and skies, and all the outward
glories of nature ; but how utterly impossible it is to
reconcile the mind to the prospect of the extinction of our
earthly affections, that such a heart-annihilation has all
the gloom of a eternal ceasing to be.

A Sunset Landscape.
To the Same

October 14th, 1840. — I was thinking lately of my days
spent in the prime of childhood at Greta Hall. How
differently all things then looked from what they now do !
This world more substantial, more bright, and clothed in
seemingly fast colours, and yet though these colours have
waxed cold and watery, and have a flitting evanescent hue
upon them, to change my present mind-scene for that one,
rich as it was, would be a sinking into a lower stage of
existence ; for now, while that which was so bright is
dimmer, wholly new features have come forth in the land-
scape, features that connect this earth ''with the quiet of

THE AET OF LIFE. 119

the sky," and are invested in a solid splendour which more
evidently joins in with the glories of the heavens. The
softened and subdued appearance of earth, with its pensive
evening sadness, harmonizes well with the richer part of
the prospect, and though in itself less joyous and radiant
that it once was, now forms a fitting and lovely portion of
the whole view, and throws the rest into relief as it steals
more and more into shadow.

YI.

The true Art of Life.
To the Same,

10, Chester Place, October 20^, 1840.— We ought indeed,
my beloved husband, to be conscious of our blessings, for
we are better off than all below us, perhaps than almost all
above us. The great art in life, especially for persons of
our age, who are leaving the vale of youth behind us, just
lingering still perhaps in the latter stage of it, and seeing
the bright golden fields at the entrance of it more distinctly
than those nearer to our present station, is to cultivate the
love of doing good and promoting the interests of others,
avoiding at the same time the error of those who make a
worldly business and a matter of pride of pursuits which
originated in pure intentions, and bustle away in this
secular religious path, with as little real thought of the high
prize at which they should aim, and as little growth in
heavenliness and change from glory to glory, as if they
served mammon more directly. Anything rather than
undergo the mental labour of real self-examination, of the
study, not of individual self, but of the characters of our
higher being which we share with all men. For one man
that thinks with a view to practical excellence, we may find
fifty who are ready to act on what they call their own
thoughts, but which they have unconsciously received from
others.

120 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTEK X.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, MRS. PLUMMER, MRS.
THOMAS FARRER, MISS TREVENEN, MRS. H. M.
JONES, THE REV. HENRY MOORE, THE HON. MR.
JUSTICE COLERIDGE: 1841—1842.

Necessity of Patience and Hope in Education.
To Mrs. PLUMMER.

April, 1841. — Patience is the most important of all
qualifications for a teacher ; and the longer one has to do
with managing young persons, or indeed persons of any
sort or kind, the more one feels its value and indispen-
sability. It is that resource which we constantly have to
fall back upon when all else seems to fail, and our various
devices, and ways, and means, and ingenuities give way one
after another, and seem almost good for nothing but to
preach about. By patience I do not mean that worthless
substitute for it which hirelings (in temper, for a paid
governess is often a much better instructor than a mama)
sometimes make use of, a compound of oil and white-lead,
as like putty as possible. With patience, hope too must
keep company, and the most effective of teachers are those
who possess most of the arts of encouraging and inspiriting
—spurring onward and sustaining at the same time — both
lightening the load as much as may be, and stimulating the
youngsters to trot on with it gallantly.

II.

The Lake Poets on Sport— The Life of Wesley.
To her Husband.

Chester Place, October 13th, 1841.— Southey and Words-
worth loved scenery, and took an interest in animals of all

SPORTING. 121

sorts ; but not one could they have borne to kill ; and
S. T. C. was much of the same mind, though he would have
made more allowance for the spirit of the chase than the
other two. Wordsworth's " Hartleap Well" displays feel-
ings of high refinement. Doubtless there is a sort of bar-
barism in this love of massacre which still keeps a corner
even in cultivated minds, but which the progress of cultiva-
tion must tend to dissipate, and perhaps with it some habits
that for some persons are more good than evil. Notwith-
standing " Hartleap Well," Wordsworth always defended
angling, and so did Dora ; but the Southeys, from the
greatest to the least, gave no quarter to any slaughterous
amusement.

What a biography the Life of Wesley is ! What wonders
of the human mind does it reveal, more especially in the
mental histories of Wesley's friends and coadjutors !

III.

Inflexibility of the French Language — The Second Part of Faust : its
Beauties and Defects — Visionary Hopes.

To the Same.

Chester Place, October 19^, 1841. — I feel more than ever
the inflexibility and fixedness of the French language,
which will not give like English and German. It has few
words for sounds, — such as clattering, clanking, jangling,
etc., — whereas the Germans are still richer than we in such.
Derwent wanted, when here, to point out to me some of the
beauties of the fifth act of the second part of Faust, which,
in point of vocabulary, and metrical variety and power, is,
I do suppose, a most wonderful phenomenon. Goethe, with
the German language, is like a first-rate musician with a
musical instrument, which, under his hand, reveals a
treasure of sound such as an ordinary person might play for
ever without discovering. Derwent has a most keen sense
of this sort of power and merit in a poet, and his remarks

122 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

were interesting, and would have been more so if the book
had been at hand. He gives up the general intention of the
piece, which he considers a failure, — the philosophy con-
fused, unsound, and not truly profound. The execution of
parts he thinks marvellous ; and as the pouring forth of an
old man of eighty-four, a psychological curiosity. . . .

Your delightful letter and the after-written note both
arrived at once. Your account of yourself is not worse,
and that is the best that can be said of it. The lane is
long indeed ; we could little have thought of all its turnings
and windings when we first entered it ; but I still trust that
it will issue out into Beautiful Meadows at last.

IY.

Reminiscences of a Tour in Belgium — Hemling's " Marriage of St.
Catherine " at Bruges ; and Van Eyck's " Adoration of the
Lamb " at Ghent — Devotional gravity of the early Flemish
Painters — Pathos of Rubens — Works of that Master at Antwerp
and Mechlin.

To Miss E. TREVENEN, Helston.

Chester Place, October 21th, 1841. — Ostend is interesting
merely from old recollections, especially military ones, and
because it is foreign ; not so Bruges, which I think the
most perfect jewel of a town I ever saw, and how completely
is the spirit of the place transfused into my Uncle Southey's
interesting poem, " The Pilgrimage to Waterloo." Here
we visited the Hospital of St. John, saw the sisters tending
the sick, and studied the beautiful and curious works of
Hemling in the adjoining parlour. Do you remember the
" Marriage of St. Catherine," with its beautiful background
of vivid light green, and that exquisitely delicate and
youthful neck of the bride Saint, shaded with such trans-
parent gauze. Mr. Mimes (whom we met at Ghent on our
return) specially admired Herodias' Daughter in the shutter
of this picture. He said she looked at the bloody head in
the charger so expressively, just as if she could not turn

FLEMISH PAINTERS. 123

her fascinated eyes from it, and yet shuddered at it. The
cathedral is large and impressive, and contains a noble
statue of Moses, — more like a Jupiter Tonans, however,
than the Hebrew Legislator. At Ghent I visited St.
Bavon's ; what a superb cathedral it is, with its numerous
chapels clustered round the nave ! I do indeed remember
that paradisiacal picture of the "Adoration of the Lamb,"
with its velvety green lawn, and hillocks, and luxuriant
rose-bushes. It is said that these old masters first opened
the way to the Italian school of landscape-painting, by the
backgrounds of their pictures. There is a very peculiar
air about them, an imaginativeness combined with lifelike
everyday reality, and a minuteness of detail which inter-
feres with anything like intense passion, but not with a
sober, musing sort of emotion. A deeply religious character
is impressed upon these pictures, and there is a mild and
chastened wildness about them (if the seeming contradic-
tion may be ventured on) which is very interesting, and
specially suits some moods of the devotional mind. I think
it is well, however, that the traveller for the most part
sees these old paintings before he is introduced to those
of Rubens ; the fire, life, movement, and abandon of his
pictures quite unfit one, for a time, for the sedater ex-
cellencies of Hemling and Van Eyck. The "Descent from
the Cross" is, perhaps, the finest and most beautiful of
all that great master's performances ; but no picture that
I have ever seen (except in another line, the Sebastiano
in our National Gallery) ever affected me so strongly as
Kubens "Christ Crucified betwixt the Thieves," in the
Antwerp Museum. That is really a tremendous picture ; in
the expression of vehement emotion, in passion, life, and
movement, I think it exceeds any other piece I ever beheld.
How tame and over-fine Vandyck shows beside Kubens !
I cannot greatly admire him as an historical painter,
especially on sacred subjects. He should always have been

124 MEMOIB AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

employed on delicate fine gentlemen and ladies, and folks
about court. Some of his Maries and Magdalens are most
graceful and elegant creatures ; but Bubens' youthful
Magdalen at the foot of the Cross, imploring the soldier
not to pierce the Saviour's side, moves one a thousand
times more than all his lady-like beauties. However, I do
not maintain, deep as is my admiration of Kubens, that his
pictures thoroughly satisfy a religious mood of mind. They
are somewhat over-bold ; they almost unhallow the subject
by bringing it so home, and exciting such strong earthly
passion in connection with it. No sacred picture ever
thoroughly satisfied me except the " Kaising of Lazarus,"
by Sebastian del Piombo and Michael Angelo. The pictures
at the Antwerp museum, I believe, you did not see ; but
were you not charmed with those at Mechlin? What a
delicately brilliant piece is the " Adoration of the Magi," at
St. John's Church, with its beautiful shutters especially !
and " St. John at Patmos," with that noblest of eagles over
his head. Eubens ranked this among his finest produc-
tions. " The Miraculous Draught," too, in the Church of
Notre Dame, painted for the Fishermen's Company, how
splendid it is ! And that volet a droite " Tobias and the
Angel," is the loveliest of all Kubens' shutter-pictures.
What " colours of the showery arch " are there ! What
delicate aerial lilacs and yellows, softening off the scarlet
and crimson glow of the centrepiece.

Prayer for the Dead.
To Mrs. J. STANGER.

Chester Place, January 12^, 1842. — Some long to pray
for their departed friends. How far better is it to feel that
they need not our prayers ; that we had best pray for our-
selves and our surviving dear ones, that we may be where
we humbly trust they are !

OXFORD. 125

VI.

A Visit to Oxford.
To Mrs. THOMAS FARRER, 3 Gloucester Terrace, Regent's Park.

Chester Place, Easter, 1842. — Yesterday Mr. Coleridge
and I returned from a very interesting excursion to Oxford.
When I was in the midst of those venerable structures, I
longed for strength to enter every chapel and explore the
whole assemblage of antique buildings thoroughly. As it
is, I have filled up the indistinct outline of imagined, but
unseen Oxford, most richly. Magdalen Chapel, as a
single object, is what pleased me the most, but the merit
of Oxford, and its power over the feelings, lies in what it
presents to the visitor collectively, the vast number of
antique buildings which it presents to the eye, and of
interesting associations which it brings into the mind.

VII.

Illness of her Husband, and Death of his only Sister.

10, Chester Place, Dec. 7th, 1842. — My dearest Louisa,—
Little did I think, when I received your last but one letter,
that I should be thus long ere I communicated with the
writer, and little did I think (and this was in mercy) what
trials were to come upon me before I renewed my inter-
course with you. I well remember beginning a letter to
you soon after I received yours — explaining some of my
theological views, about Eomish saints, or something of the
sort — (you may remember our old theological discussions).
Something prevented me from finishing it and sending it
off ; week after week went on and the begun letter remained
a beginning. Then commenced a new* era with me of
sorrow, and I humbly trust of purification. When these
troubles began, I became reserved in writing to my friends,
not from closeness of heart, but because I could not afford
to expend my mental strength and spirits in giving accounts
to them of my anxieties and troubles; it was a prime

126 MEMOIK AND LETTEKS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

necessity to keep all my stock within me. It is a bad
plan, however, to put off writing to a friend from month to
month, till we feel that only a very long and excellent letter
can be fit to make up for such a silence. You must excuse
a very poor one from me now, dear friend, not propor-
tioned, I assure you, to my interest in you, and wish that
you should continue to feel an interest in me and mine ; but
to my present epistolary powers. I heard with great
pleasure from dear E. that you had been thinking much
of my husband's prostration, and with friendly sympathy ;
on the whole he has throughout this trying dispensation
been wonderfully supported in mind. He has ever been as
hopeful as any one under the circumstances could be, and
he is quiet and resigned, and derives great comfort from
devotional reading, from prayer, and religious ministra-
tions. Our eldest brother has been a great soother and
supporter to him during the most alarming and suffering
part of his illness. J.'s company and conversation have
been a constant blessing, and, indeed, all his family have
shown him the tenderest affection during his illness. The
bonds that unite us have been drawn closer by this trial of
ours, than ever before. Alas ! one of our circle, who has
for years been the centre of it, to which all our hearts were
most strongly drawn, is removed. 0 Louisa ! hers was the
death-bed of a Christian indeed. No one could die as she
did, who had not made long and ample preparation before-
hand. She foresaw the present termination of her illness,
when the rest of us were flattering ourselves with vain
hopes that she would live down her wasting malady, and
see a green old age. Keenly sensible as she was of the
blessings of her lot in this world, and no one could enjoy
more than she did those temporal blessings — a good
husband, honoured among men, very promising, affec-
tionate children, easy circumstances, and if least, yet to
her not little, a charming country residence in her beloved

DEATH OF LADY PATTESON. 127

native county — she yet cast not one longing, lingering look
behind, when called to quit all and go to the Saviour. So
strong was her wish to depart and be with Christ, that she
even was not diverted from it by her tender love for her
husband and children — which to me, who know her heart
toward them, is really marvellous. Great must have been
her faith to realize, as she did, the unseen world.* Her
death-bed reminds me of the last days of one — a very
different person from her in many respects — my dear
father. He had just the same strong, steadfast faith —
the same longing to leave this world for a better, the same
connectedness of mind during his last illness. He retained
his intellectual powers to the last moment of his waking
existence, but was in a coma for some hours before life was
extinct. She was unconscious during the last two hours,
and, for some time previously, it was only conjectured that
she heard and joined in the prayers offered at her bed-
side.

VIII.

Religious Bigotry.

To the Rev. HENRY MooRE,f Eccleshall Yicarage, Staffordshire.

10, Chester Place, Dec. 1842. — We were amused by your
account of the Puritanical Archdeacon. Eeligious bigotry
is a dull fire — hot enough to roast an ox, but with no
lambent, luminous flame shooting up from it. The bigots
of one school condemn and, what is far worse, mutilate
Shakespeare ; those of another would, if they could, extin-
guish Milton. Thus the twin-tops of our Parnassus would
be hidden in clouds for ever, had these men their way.

* This lamented relative, both cousin and sister-in-law, between whom
and my mother there always existed a most tender affection, was the
daughter of James Coleridge, Esq., of Heath's Court, Ottery St. Mary, and
wife of the Hon. Mr. Justice Patteson. She died in November, 1842, at
Feniton Court, near Honiton. — E. C.

f At present Archdeacon of Stafford. — E. C.

128 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

IX.

" Hope deferred."
To Mrs. HENRY M. JONES, Hampstead.

December, 1842. — I try to think of that better abode in
which we may meet each other, free from those ills which
flesh is heir to. We have a special need to look and long
for the time when we may be clothed upon " with our house
which is from heaven ; " for in this tabernacle we do indeed
groan, "being burdened." Bodily weakness and disorder
have been the great (and only) drawbacks, ever since we
met twenty years ago, to our happiness in each other. It
will seem chimerical to you that I have not yet abandoned
all hope. But this faint hope, which perhaps, however, is
stronger than I imagine, does not render- me unprepared
for what all around me expect. The Lord has given ; and
when He takes away, I can resign him to his Father in
heaven ; and looking in that direction in which he will
have gone, I shall be able to have that peace and comfort
which in no shape then will the world be able to give me.

To-day I attended the Holy Communion. To be away so
long from my beloved husband was a great trial to me (of
course I did not attend the morning service) ; but I knew
he greatly wished it, and I made an effort to satisfy him.
It requires no great preparation for one who leaves the
room of severe sickness where all things point to a spiritual
world — partly here around us, partly to come.

Resignation.
To the Hon. Mr. JUSTICE COLERIDGE,* 4 Montague Place, London.

January, 1843. — I now feel quite happy, or, at least,
satisfied. Could I arrest his progress to a better sphere of
existence by a prayer, I would not utter it. When I once

* My father's elder brother, now Right Honble. Sir John T. Coleridge,
Member of the Privy Council. — E. C.

HEE HUSBAND'S ILLNESS. 129

know that it is God's will, I can feel that it is right, even if
there were no such definite assurances of rest and felicity
beyond this world. I cannot be too thankful to God, so
far as my own best interests are concerned, that He is thus
removing from earth to heaven my greatest treasure, while
I have strength and probably time to benefit by the
measure, and learn to look habitually above; which now
will not be the spirit against the flesh, but both pulling
one way, for the heart will follow the treasure. Thus
graciously does the Blessed Jesus condescend to our infir-
mities, by earthly things leading us to heavenly ones.

130 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTEK XI.

LETTERS TO HER SON, HER ELDEST BROTHER, MRS.
J. STANGER, HON. MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE, REV.
HENRY MOORE, EDWARD QUILLINAN, ESQ., MRS.
THOMAS FARRER, MRS. H. M. JONES: 1843 (continued).

Widowhood.
To her Son.*

January 26^, 1843. — My dear Boy, — My most beloved
and honoured husband, your excellent father, is no more in
this world, but I humbly trust in a far better. May we all
go where he is, prepared to meet him as he would have us !
God bless you! Live as your beloved father would have
you live. Put your trust in God, and think of heaven, as
he would wish you.

May we all meet above ! May we all join with him the
Communion of Saints, and be for ever with the Blessed
Jesus ! Your good Uncle James was with me at the last.

I make an effort to write to you, my dear boy, from beside
the remains of the dear, blessed, departed one. For you
alone could I do this ; but it is due to his son, our child. —
Your loving mother,

SARA COLERIDGE.

II.

Her Husband's Death — First meeting with him at Highgate.
To Mrs. GILLMAN.

February, 1843. — My dearest Mrs. Gillman, — You have
ere now, I trust, received an announcement of my loss, of

* Written by my mother to my brother at Eton, on the day of my father's
death.— E. C.

HIS DEATH. 131

which I cannot now speak. My sorrow is not greater
than I can bear, for God has mercifully fitted it to my
strength. While I was losing my great earthly happi-
ness, I was gradually enabled to see heaven more and more
clearly, to be content to part with earthly happiness, and
to receive, as a more than substitute, a stronger sense of
that which is permanent. I should have deferred writing
thus to you, dear friend, till I was stronger ; but I think it
right to tell you that, at my strong desire, the remains of
my beloved husband are to be deposited in Highgate
Churchyard, in the same precinct with those of my revered
father.

It was at Highgate, at your house, that I first saw my
beloved Henry.* Since then, now twenty years ago, no
two beings could be more intimately united in heart and
thoughts than we have been, or could have been more
intermingled with each other in daily and hourly life. He
concerned himself in all my feminine domestic occupations,
and admitted me into close intercourse with him in all his
higher spiritual and intellectual life. It has pleased God
to dissolve this close tie, to cut it gradually and pain-
fully asunder, and yet, till the last fatal stroke, to draw it
even closer in some respects than before. — God bless you,
my dear friend. I am ever your truly affectionate and
respectful

SARA COLERIDGE.

* My father, who was then living in London, used to walk up to Highgate
two or three times a week, attracted thither by the fascination of that
wonderful discourse of which he has left so valuable a record in the " Table
Talk." It was on one of these occasions, during the winter of 1822-23,
that he was first introduced to his " Cousin Sara," who was on«a visit to her
father at Mr. Gillman's ; and his impressions on seeing the fair girl, " dressed
all in white, and reclining upon a sofa " (for she was just recovering from
an illness), were afterwards confided to his sister, Lady Patteson. — E. C.

132 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

III.

On the same Subject — Trial of a Mourner's Faith, and how it was

met.

To the Rev. H. MOORE.

February 18th, 1843, Chester Place. — My dear Friend,—
Letter-writing is improper for me now, but I must pen two
or three lines to thank you for your last letter, and to tell
you that I accept, from my heart, all your offers of friend-
ship to me and mine. When I call your letter "most
brotherly," with such brothers as I have, it is the strongest
epithet I can use. You loved, you still love and understand
and value my departed Henry ; this would for ever make
me a friend to you, even if you had not expressed yourself
so kindly, as you have ever done, to me, and if we had not
another thought, or interest, or sympathy in common.

I must add but a line or two more, for I am suffering
very sadly from a nervous cough, which scarcely leaves me
a minute's peace night or day, except for a few hours in
the middle of the twenty-four, when I am least weak. I
caught a violent cold in attending on my husband on the
Sunday and Wednesday nights of his final trial ; but the
weak and relaxed state into which I immediately sank as
soon as the last call for exertion was over, has more to do
with my present suffering (the medical man thinks) than
this exposure. Had I strength I could tell you much that
would interest you deeply of Henry's last days and months.
His energy, while his poor, dear, outward man was half
dead, was one of the most striking instances of the mind's
independence of the body that can well be imagine'd, But
oh ! dear Mr. Moore, when I backward cast my eye, or
rather when it reverts of itself to the various scenes of his
last illness, I feel that I have an ocean of natural tears yet
to shed. At the time (except during the last fortnight), I
but half felt the deep sadness, because I looked upon all his
bitter sufferings as painful steps in the way to compara-

BEREAVEMENT. 133

tively easy health, and felt as if every one of them was so
much misery out of the way. Now that delirium, stupor,
death are at the end of them, they have a different aspect.
There is a comfort (I am speaking now of mere human feel-
ings) in thinking that the anguish I have gone through,
which will be merged, I humbly trust, before I go hence, in
that peace which the world cannot give, is probably the
heaviest part of my earthly portion, or that it must have
seasoned me to bear well what remains behind,

But in this mingled cup there are other sorrows of a still
deeper kind ; for physical evil is not evil in the most real
sense. The separation is a fearful wrench from one for
whom, and in expectation of whose smile, I might almost
say, I have done all things, even to the choice of the least
articles of my outward apparel, for twenty years. But
even that is not the heaviest side of the dispensation. It
is to feel, not merely that he is taken from me, but that, as
appears, though it is but appearance, he is not. That the
sun rises in the morning, and he does not see it. The
higher and better and enduring mind within us has no
concern with these sensations, but they will arise, and have
a certain force. While we remain in the tabernacle of the
flesh they are the miserable, cloggy vapours that from time
to time keep steaming up from the floor and the walls, and
obscure the prospect of the clear empyrean which may be
seen from the windows. The most effective relief from them
which I have found, is the reminding myself that he who is
past from my sight is gone whither I myself look to go in a
few years (not to mention all those of whom the world was
not worthy, before the publication of the Gospel, and since),
and that if I can contemplate my own removal, not with
mere calmness, but with a cheerfulness which no other
thought bestows, why should I feel sad that he is there
before me ? But these of which I have spoken are only the
sensations of the natural man and woman. I well know

134 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

in my heart of hearts and better mind, that if he is not
now in the Bosom of God, who is not the God of the dead,
but of the living, or if all these hopes are but dreams, I
can have but little wish to bring him back to earth again,
or to care about anything either in earth or heaven. In
my weakest moments, indeed, I have never wished that it
were possible to recall him, or to prevent his departure
hence. I thank God and the power of His grace, there has
been no agony in my grief, there has been no struggle of
my soul with Him. I have always had such a strong sense
and conviction that if this sorrow was to be, and was
appointed by God, it was entirely right, and that it was
mere senselessness to wish anything otherwise than as
infinite goodness and infinite wisdom had ordained it.
Forgive so much about my own feelings. Give my very
kind regards to Mrs. M., and respects to Miss H., and
believe me ever your affectionate friend,

SARA COLERIDGE.

IY.

Affectionate Kindness of Relatives and Friends — Special Gifts of a
Christian Minister, in his Attendance upon the Sick and Dying.

To HARTLEY COLERIDGE, Esq., Grasmere.

10, Chester Place, March 9th, 1843. — My dear Brother, — I
have long been wishing to renew my suspended intercourse
with you. To do this requires some resolution, after all
that has passed since 1 last wrote to you. When I have
thought of taking up my .pen to address you, a crowd of
strong emotions and deeply concerning thoughts and re-
membrances have rushed upon me, pressing for utterance,
and my spirits have sunk under the eagerness and intense-
ness of their requisitions. It is not because I anticipated
an inadequate sympathy from you that I have felt thus,
but from the very contrary. I have been answering kind
and tender letters from persons less near and dear to me,

HEE BROTHERS. 135

who could not and ought not to feel for me as I am sure you
have done, with comparative — I will not say calmness — (for
since all uncertainty was removed, and my loss presented
itself to me as fixed and inevitable, I have been more deeply
calm in spirit than ever I was before in my life) — but with
comparative lightness of feeling. Now, however, I take the
first step of renewing a correspondence with you, which I
hope will be cheerfully continued with pleasure and benefit
to us both (if I may so far assume and presume) to the end
of our lives. It is better to write little and often, than
much at a time, and in this way, without formally asking
your advice, which in a woman of my years is for the most
part a mere form, I shall learn your views and feelings on
many interesting subjects, and be, I humbly trust, improved
and strengthened thereby. The great moulder of my mind,
who was, perhaps, more especially fitted to strengthen my
weak points and supply my deficiencies, and altogether to
keep my mind straight and even, than any other man or
woman living, is gone where I cannot come, — removed out
of the sphere of my human understanding, — though not, I
trust, out of spiritual communion both with me and all
who are, or seek to be, in any vital sense Christians. On
this account I have the more need to make much of the
friendship of my brothers, — and no widow, I think, when
withdrawn from the arms of a husband, can ever have
been more affectionately sustained by those of brothers than
I have been. The sadder my prospect grew, the more
closely they circled round me ; but a thousand times dearer
to my heart than their kindness to me were the proofs they
gave of affection, respect, and admiration for him who was
soon to be taken away from our mortal sight. The expres-
sions of dear John and of Frank were especially affecting.
Of James * you have doubtless heard what he was to me

* Dr. Coleridge, Vicar of Thorverton, near Exeter, was my father's
eldest brother. — E. C.

136 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

through all the last scenes of my trial. Upon this so
important occasion, I found a brother — I may say an indi-
vidual man — in him, whom before I knew not. I now saw
for the first time what was the secret of his influence and
popularity in his own pastoral sphere. He appears by the
bed of sickness and coming death (and he could not so
appear unless his heart were interested) entirely forgetful of
self, absorbed in what is before him. His own opinions,
habits of mind, private interests, seem gone to a degree
which strikes a bystander like myself as unusual. Then,
in performing his professional part, he is the more effective
from the absence of the intellectual in his mode of thought.
There is nothing theological about James. From him you
have the pure spirit of Gospel consolation and assurance—-
conditionally expressed — as it is in the Bible itself, with as
little mixture of foreign matter as possible. This is not art
in him, or knowledge. It is the result of the simple,
though not weak, character of his intellect. He does not
reason on one side or the other, but lets the moral and
spiritual content of the inspired book produce its own effect
upon his mind, and find its own suitable utterance. His
countenance and tone of voice are highly affecting and im-
pressive, when he is thus seen in his best attitude of mind.
Frank seemed gratified by my evident appreciation of his
brother. But I cannot thus speak of them without men-
tioning dear Edward* and Derwent too. Both in their
several ways have been most soothing and helpful to me.
. . . My children are both going on well. Herbert is very
well reported of from school, where his character for general
cleverness continues ; though he fails in verse composition,
and in other more essential points, I feel hopeful and
happy about him. His letters to his sister are an amusing
mixture of pure childishness, childish pedantry, and affec-

* Rev. Edward Coleridge, Rector of Mapledurham, my father's younger
brother.— E. C.

NICHOLAS FERRER. 137

tionate ruffianism. . . . — Believe me, my dear Hartley,
your much attached sister, SARA COLERIDGE.

Memoir of Nicholas Ferrer.
To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

March llth, 1843. — I am reading a very interesting
Memoir of Nicholas Ferrer,* who lived in the times of
James I. and Charles I. Were it not for certain expres-
sions on the subject of grace, which clearly show that the
writer is no disciple of Pusey, one might suppose it a publi-
cation of the Oxford School,— the sentiments, and some of
the principles which it illustrates, being just such as Paget
seeks to recommend by his amusing Tales. Without in-
tended disparagement to Paget, how great is the superiority
of the narrative to the fiction as a vehicle of truth !—
the one bears something the same relation to the other,
when carefully criticised, as the piece of linen or lace,
viewed through a microscope, to the natural leaf or slip of
wood examined in the same way.

VI.

A Quiet Heart.
To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

March Z2nd, 1843. — ... I chat away thus to you,
my dear brother, as if I had a light gay heart, but I have
only a quiet one. When I go out of doors from the inces-
sant occupation of mind and hands, the full sense of my
widowhood comes upon me, and the sunshine only seems to
draw it out into vividness. Hampstead is a sadder place
to me than Highgate. Yet sadness is not quite the word

* The friend of George Herbert, and editor of his Poems. Izaak Walton,
in his Life of Herbert, gives a striking account of this remarkable man,
who founded a Christian Society at Gidding Hall, Huntingdon, for purposes
of devotion and charity, in accordance with the principles of the Church. —
E. C.

138 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

for my feelings, — that seems too near to unhappiness.
When I hear of happy marriages now, I do not feel that
wretched sense of contrast with my own solitary state
which I should once have felt. I rather feel a sort of com-
passionate tenderness for those who are entering on a career
of earthly enjoyment, the transitoriness of which they must
sooner or later be brought to a sense of. But for them,
as for myself, there is a better communion beyond this
present world, which, if begun here, will in the end super-
sede all other blessedness arising from union with objects
of love.

VII.

Monument of Robert Southey — Recumbent Statues.
To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

March ZSth, 1843. — I scarce know what is finally settled
about my uncle's monument. A modification of Lough's
design seems most approved. The recumbent figure is all
right in theory, but awkward in practice. Do what you will
it looks deathy, with too real and actual a deathiness. This
is one of the instances, I think, of the difficulty of reviving
old fashions ; if you alter them at all, or even take them
from amid the circumstances and states of feeling among
which they were originated, you have a spectre of the past
rather than the living past itself, a kind of resurrection.
The recumbent figures on the old tombs are rather death
idealized than death itself. The armour veiled from view
the lifelessness of the limbs, and brought the body, as by a
medium, into harmony with the sepulchral stone. The full
robe of the dame by the warrior's side did the same thing
in another way, and contrasted well with the male attire ;
and that one attitude of the hands crossed upon the breast,
or pressed together in prayer, alone perfectly agrees with
the whole design. The brasses are not open to these
remarks, because they are much further removed from life,
and therefore cannot offend by the semblance of death.

CONSOLATION AND RESIGNATION. 139

VIII.

On her Loss — Injury done to the Mind by brooding over Grief.

To Mrs. PLUMMER, Gateshead.

10, Chester Place, April 27th, 1843.— Your letter was very
welcome to me, and I will thank you for it at once, though
I cannot now write at all as I wish, either as to matter or
manner, so much am I occupied, and so unequal am I to
getting much done in a short time, from bodily weakness
and sensitiveness of nerves.

What you say, dearest, of your own particular grief in
the loss that bears so heavily upon me, that but for very
special mercy it must have crushed me to the earth, is
extremely gratifying to me. Nothing soothes me so much
as to hear his deserved praises, and to have assurances
from his friends of the esteem and affection he excited.
Few men have ever been more generally liked, or more
dearly loved in a narrower sphere. Never before his illness
did I fully know what a holy, what a blessed thing is the
love of brothers and sisters to each other. By my bereave-
ment all my relations seem to be brought closer to me than
before, for pity excites affection, and gratitude for kindness
and sympathy has the same effect. But my beloved Henry's
brothers are twice as much to me as in his precious life-
time. John is such a friend and supporter as few widows,
I think, are blest with. You will not, I am sure, dear friend,
think me boastful, but grateful for saying all this. I feel it
now such a duty, such a necessity, to cling fast to every
source of comfort — to be for my children's sake as happy, as
willing to live on in this heart-breaking world as possible,
that I dwell on all the blessings which God continues to me,
and has raised up to me out of the depths of affliction, with
an earnestness of endeavour which is its own reward ; for
so long as the heart and mind are full of movement,
employed continually on not unworthy objects, there may

140 MEMOIE AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

be sorrow, but there cannot be despair. The stagnation of
the spirit, the dull, motionless brooding on one miserable
set of thoughts, is that against which in such cases as
mine we must both strive and pray. After all, it would be
impossible for one bereaved like me to care for the goings
on of this world, but for the blessed prospect of another ;
and it is a most thankworthy circumstance that the more
agitating our trials become, the brighter that prospect, after
a little while, beams forth, through the reaction of the mind
when strongly excited. The heaviest hours come on after
the subsidence of that excitement, when we come out again
from the chamber of death and mourning into all the
common ways of life. All the social intellectual enjoyments,
new books, the sight of sculpture, painting, the conversa-
tion of pleasant friends, are full of trial to me. I turn
away from what excites any lively emotion of admiration or
pleasure, now that I can no longer share it with him who
for twenty years shared all my happiest thoughts.

IX.

Dryness of Controversial Sermons.

To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE, Heath's Court, Ottery St. Mary.
June 27^, 1843. — Dr. Arnold's sermon is all you described
it. Would that of this sort, so practical, and appealing to
the heart and religious mind, were at least the majority of
preached sermons ! Some doctrinizing from the pulpit
may be necessary. But surely it ought to be subservient
and subordinate to the practical ; whereas, nine times out
of ten, the practical point merely serves as an introduction
or a pretext for a setting up the opinions of one school of
thinkers, and a pulling down the opinion of another, with
charges against the latter almost always one-sided and
unfair. This sermon of Dr. Arnold's, and one which I
heard from Dr. Hodgson at Broadstairs on death and judg-
ment, are quite oases in the hot sandy wilderness of

DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 141

sermons which my mind's reverted eye beholds. I do not
mean that many of them were not good ; but when they
are viewed altogether, a character of heat and barrenness
seems to pervade them.

A Visit to Margate — Domestic Economy in its Right Place — An Eton
Schoolboy — Reading under Difficulties — High Moral Aim of '
Carlyle's " Hero-worship " — Joy of a True Christian — The Logic
of the Heart and the Logic of the Head.

To Mrs. FARRER.

12, Cliff Terrace, Margate, Sept. 5th, 1843.— My dear
Friend — Here we are, my children and Nurse and self, on
the East Cliff at Margate, a few miles from the spot where
I sojourned with you in June. That fortnight is marked
among the fortnights of this my first year of widowhood
with a comparative whiteness, in the midst of such deep
(though never, I must thankfully acknowledge, never, even
at the earliest period of my loss, quite unrelieved) black-
ness. I fixed upon this place, instead of Broadstairs or
Eamsgate, on account of its greater cheapness, and
because it could be reached with rather less exertion.
Lodgings certainly are cheaper than I could have got them
in an equally good situation at more genteel sea-bathing
places ; but provisions are dear enough — lamb S^d., and
beef 9d. ! I am so often twitted with my devotion to in-
tellectual things, that I am always glad of an opportunity
of sporting a little beef-and-mutton erudition, though I
cannot help thinking that, as society is now constituted in
the professional middle rank of life — still more in a higher
one — women may get on and make their families comfort-
able, and manage with tolerable economy — by which .1
mean economy that does not cost more than it is worth of
time and devotion of spirit— with less knowledge of details
respecting what we are to eat, and what to put on, than
used to be thought essential to the wise and worthy

142 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

matron. I dare say your dear C. will make her loved and
honoured S. as comfortable as if she had been studying
butchers' and bakers' bills, and mantua-making, and
upholstery in a little way, for the last seven years, instead
of reading Dante, and Goethe, and Kichter, and Words-
worth, and Tennyson. But to return to this place, it is a
contrast to Broadstairs as looked out upon from the White
Hart, where we took up our abode the first night ; but the
East Cliff, where, by medical recommendation, we have
settled ourselves for a fortnight or three weeks, is neither
more nor less than the Broadstairs Cliffery continued ; and
as we return from the gully leading down to the sands (the
very brother to that which I so often went down and up
with you), Edy and I might almost fancy that we were
returning to the Albion Street lodgings, if it were not for
the tower of the handsome new church, where we attended
morning service last Sunday, which reminds us that we are
at Margate.

We were delayed in coming hither for some days by
Herbert's prolonged stay at Kickmansworth, where he
spent nearly three weeks in a sort of boys' paradise,
bathing two or three times a day. Both Baron and

Lady A wrote about him to me in very gratifying

terms. It is perhaps not right to repeat things honourable
to our children without being equally communicative about
their faults and ill-successes. But you have been so
specially friendly with me, and shown such kind interest
about all that concerns me, that I think I should withhold
a pleasure from you in not telling you what has very much
pleased me. Herbert thinks this place very seedy, and de-
spises the bathing. The tide seems never in a state to please
him ; but the truth is, he wants companions, and does not
like to be a solitary Triton among the minnows, or rather,
as those are fresh-water fish, among the crabs and seaweed.
However, he has got " Japhet in Search of a Father " from

CAELYLE'S HERO-WOBSHIP. 143

the circulating library, reads a portion daily of Euripides,
and has begun learning French ; and it is quite right that
a little seediness should come in its turn after "jollity," and
quietness and plain fare after " splendid lark," with " sock "
of all sorts, that he may learn to cut out interests and
amusements for himself out of home materials.

I must tell tales of the vessel that brought us hither, in
order to deter you, dear friend, from ever trusting yourself
to it in future. The " Prince of Wales " does certainly
make its way fast over the water, but the vibration of its
disproportionately small frame under the energy of its
strong steam-engine is such that it fatigued me much
more than a slower voyage would have done, and gave both
Nurse and me a headache. The motion almost prevented
me too from reading. Carlyle's " Hero-worship" trembled
in my hand like a culprit before a judge ; and as the book
is very full of paradoxes, and has some questionable matter
in it, this shaking seemed rather symbolical. But oh ! it
is a book fit rather to shake (take it all in all) than to be
shaken. It is very full of noble sentiments and wise
reflections, and throws out many a suggestion which will
not waste itself like a blast blown in a wilderness, but will
surely rouse many a heart and mind to a right, Christian-
like way of acting and of dealing with the gifted and god-
like in man and of men. Miss Farrer lent me the work,
and many others. Very pleasant to me was her stay at
Gloucester Terrace, if pleasant is a fit word for an inter-
course which awakened thoughts and feelings of " higher
gladness " than are commonly so described. She is one
who loves to reveal her mind, with all its " open secrets,"
to those who care at all for the one thing which is, and
which she happily has found to be, needful ; and few indeed
are the minds which will so well bear such inspection as
she invites ; few can display such a pure depth of sunny
blue without a cloud, such love for all men, and Christ

144 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

above all — ascending from them whom she has seen to God
whom she has not seen, and again honouring them and
doing good to them, on principle, for His sake. My
doctrinal differences from her (and some doctrine we all
must have in this world) are considerable ; but I could
almost say, that were all men like her, no Christian doctrine
would be needed. She has much knowledge, too, of men
and things — has read and seen much ; and pray tell your
T. H. that I learned to thread the at first bewildering
labyrinth of her discourse, after a while, much better than
at first. Even to the last her rapid transitions confounded
me very often, and some of her replies to objections are
rather appeals to the imagination and affections than
properly answers. But she has a logic of her own ; and
though I do maintain that Christendom would fall abroad
if it were not knit together by a logic of another sort, the
want of which would be felt sorely, if it were possible that
it could ever be wholly wanting, which the nature of man
prevents, — yet this logic of the heart and spiritual nature is
more than sufficient to guide every individual aright that
possesses it in such high measure as she does.

XI.

Tunbridge Wells — Congenial Society.

To Mrs. JOSHUA STANGEB, Fieldside, Keswick, Cumberland.

Tunbridge Wells, September 26th, 1843. — I am having
every advantage here which a most agreeable family circle
and daily drives in an easy carriage, in the most inspiriting
air, through a lovely country, can give me ; and I do fully
believe that I shall be better in the end for having made
the effort to come hither, and to mix myself up with my
neighbour's concerns. I seek to take an interest in all
their little belongings, and cultivate cheerfulness as much
as possible. Enough of melancholy remembrance and

TUNBKIDGE WELLS. 145

deep, irremovable regret is sure to remain, let me do what
I may to enter thankfully and genially into the present.

The landscape here, which I believe you are well
acquainted with, continually puts me in mind of Milton's
description of Paradise, the slopes are so emerald- velvety,
and the clumps and clusters of trees so varied and beautiful.
But there is an imperfection in the prospect from the want
of water. I long to introduce dancing rills, and fairy
waterfalls, and lucid pools, into the midst of these basin-
like valleys, and to people the glades with deer, and the
villages with a freer, finer peasantry. There is a great
want of water generally in the South of England. Devon-
shire has plenty of it ; but the climate of Devon is to me a
drawback for which nothing can compensate.

The family party here consists of Judge Erskine, his wife,
two daughters, and eldest son : the youngest is at Eton.

The visitors are Miss M , a charming young woman,

most animated and intelligent, a niece of Judge Erskine,

and myself. Judge E is one of the most agreeable

men in the family circle that I have ever known. He has
the indescribable air and way of a man of high birth about
him ; and there is in his conversation that happy mixture
of seriousness, with light sportiveness and arch remark,
which everybody likes, and which is never jarring or
oppressive, whatever mood one may be in.

XII.

On her Loss — Cheerfulness instead of Happiness — Visits to Eton and
Tunbridge Wells.

To Mrs. HENRY M. JONES, Hampstead.

Eton, October 13th, 1843. — Of course I am not up to the
mark of easy, quiet enjoyment ; yet I feel that, for a time,
it is good for me to be here. I cannot withdraw myself
from the world; I must live on in this outward scene
(though it continually seems most strange to my feelings

146 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

that I should yet be mixed up in it and Henry gone from it
for ever). But since I have been doomed to outlive my
husband, I must, for my children's sake as well as my own,
endeavour to enter, with as much spirit as I can, into the
interests and movements of the sphere to which it is God's
will that I should yet belong. Ever since my widowhood I
have cultivated cheerfulness as I never did before. During
my time of union I possessed happiness ; mere cheerfulness
I looked upon as a weed, the natural wild produce of the
soil, which must spring up of itself. Now I crave to see fine
works of art, or the still more mind-occupying displays of
nature. I try to take an interest in the concerns of my
friends, to enter into the controversies of the day, to
become intimate with the mood of mind and character of
various persons, who are nothing to me (I being nothing
to them), except as studies; just as a lichen or a curious
moss may be, only in a higher manner and degree. All
this with an earnestness unfelt in former times. To a
certain extent I find my account in this ; my mind is rest-
less, and rather full of desultory activity than, what is far
better, concentrated energy ; but it does not stagnate. I
do not brood miserably over my loss, or sink into an aim-
less, inert despondency ; I have even an upper stratum of
cheerfulness in my mind, more fixed than in my happy
married days, but then it is only an upper stratum ; beneath
it, unmoved and unmodified, is the sense of my loss.

I have been interrupted, to see Dr. Hawtrey. He was
such an intimate friend of my beloved Henry. I shall
always, on this account, feel a special interest in him. And
he is in himself much to be liked and approved, most
amiable in his domestic character, as son and brother, and
full of intellectual refinement; a good scholar, and an
accomplished modern linguist.

I came hither for a holiday, but I assure you I have no
complete one. Herbert makes me read " Euripides " with

SCHOOL WORK. 147

him, and hear his Latin theme, I being as good a judge
of Latin composition as a Great Cham of Tartary is of
English.

My visit at Tunbridge Wells was a very agreeable one.
I was quite astonished at the picturesque beauty and great
variety of the country there, and found the family of Judge
Erskine quite charming in everyday familiar life. Miss

M , who was my fellow visitant, I found more than an

agreeable companion, though she is that in a high degree ;
her brilliancy and amusing humour is the mere sparkling,
polished surface of a genuine jewel, in which the ground is
invaluable. I cannot but add her to my list of friends made
since marriage, in which list you, dear friend, are so
prominent. Mama is looking anxiously for a sight of you.
Your affectionate Conduct towards her, dear Mrs. Jones,
gives me more comfort than I can well express. I do not
think she fails at all in mind, and in body her declension
is very gentle and gradual.

I must get ready to drive out and see the oak forests of
Windsor, in all the charming drapery of autumnal gleam
and shadow. — I remain your truly attached friend,

SARA COLERIDGE.

Excuse the egotism of this letter. Sorrow makes one
egotistical.

XIII.

Sympathy inspired by the Sorrows of Childhood and Youth.

To EDWARD QUILLINAN, Esq. *

Eton, October Mth, 1843. — I scarce know why it is that I
feel far more moved by the griefs of childhood and of youth
than those of middle age. One has a sense, I suppose,
that the young have a sort of right to happiness, or rather
to gladsomeness and enjoyment ; that if they ever are to be
gay and pretty then is the time. Sorrow and sallow cheeks

* The son-in-law of Mr. Wordsworth.— E. C.

148 MEMOIB AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

come to me at my time of life not unnaturally. Eeflection
has preceded them, and ought at least to have enabled the
fading mourner to look beyond them, to see a new world
wherein dwelleth righteousness, and to drown in its lustre,
superinduced over the worsening remnant of our earthly
life, all its own melancholy hues. The comparative health
and beauty of those who have fairly parted with youth is
but a poor thing at the best. But you will laugh at my
moralizing on the subject of beauty, at least if you do not
bear in mind that I am not thinking of that which we
ascribe to a beauty, the admired of the ball-room, the
celebrated toast, but rather of that general attribute which
the Psalmist must have referred to, when he complained so
heavily that his "beauty was wasted for very trouble."
We all have, or have had "beauty, though we are not all
"beauties."

XIY.

Readings in Aristophanes — Cheerfulness and Simplicity of Early

Poetry.

To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

Chester Place, December 26^, 1843. — As to Aristophanes,
I quite accede to the justice of your representations of his
not altogether fitness for the joint perusal of Herby and me.
I had clean forgotten the uncleanness, till my boy dis-
creetly observed that there was a word in the next line
which would not do to be voiced aloud. We shall only read
the " Frogs," but Herby is so delighted with this play that
it would be a pity for him not to finish it, as I believe, from
what Frere says, that there is but little, after the first
scene, to object to in it. The spirit of the humour of
Aristophanes a boy like Herbert may well enter into, when
the material is once cleared out of its concealing husk and
set before him. The temptation to read Aristophanes is,
that his plays are mirthful, and " as there's nought but
care on every hand," I am glad of every scrap of cheerful-

ARISTOPHANES. 149

ness which I can lay before my children, now in their
spring season when they can enjoy it. I feel sadly for them
that this is a widowed home. But they appear as glad as
others of their age, and the great change to me bears
lightly upon them in comparison.

..•••••

We have been laughing heartily at the " Frogs " again.
It would be a lounge to read Homer with Herby ; but I feel
a wish to get him through some of the harder, more
troublesome parts of the classical task that lies before him.
It is wonderful, — not wonderful so much as noticeable, —
how fitted the ancient classics are in general for the youth-
ful mind. They contain, indeed, the youthful mind of our
human race, are less abstract and subjective than modern
compositions.

150 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTEK XII.

.•

LETTERS TO BEE ELDEST BROTHER, MISS MORRIS,
JOHN KENYON, ESQ., MRS. EDWARD COLERIDGE,
MRS. FARRER: 1844.

" Travelling Onwards " — Differences of Mental Perspective in the
Contemplation of Truth — Doctrine of the Millennium — Sym-
bolism in the Bible — " Messiah's Kingdom" and the "Reign of
the Saints " — Literal Explanation of the latter Prophecy by some
of the Fathers.

To Miss MORRIS, Mecklenburg Square.

Chester Place, January, 1844. — " Geneva ! " and "Rome ! "
My hope and trust is that we are travelling onwards, and
shall in time leave these names, these badges of division,
behind us. So far I understand and sympathize with
Mr. Maurice, that I think there has been much of
" notionalism " among all parties ; by which I take him
to mean, in general, a losing sight, or at least a steady
view, of spiritual substance, through the perplexing and
deluding atmospheric medium of the mere understanding,
its refractions and distorting reflections ; so that differences
have arisen, not from pure perversity of heart, as believers
are so apt to say of those who disagree with them, nor
from an absolute blindness to kuth, but from difference of
position and a variableness and uncertainty in the medium
itself. I sympathize with him, too, in this, that from
being very strongly possessed with the thought which I
have just mentioned, I am a good deal isolated from all
the conflicting parties now on the arena, and cannot
agree wholly either with Tractarians or Anti-Tractarians.
For Maurice is at bottom quite as unlike any party in

VIEWS OF PBOPHECY. 151

his views as I have been led to be, though his language
would put him into the class of High Churchmen, some-
where between the old section and the new, with those who
read him but cursorily, without asking him and themselves
very strictly what that language, in his mouth, means.

If you will soon be addressing Mr. Bickersteth, pray
convey my best thanks to him for his. last gift. I think
I have read all that he says on the Promised Glory, and
know the texts which he brings to the service of his
view. Certainly, looked at in one way, they serve it
effectively. I cannot, however, help seeing them in another.
The more we look back to the development and expression
of thought in past ages, the more, I think, we find that
great spiritual and moral truths were in the earlier times
continually presented in the form of the fable or myth.
Instead of sermons and scientific treatises, they had alle-
gories and symbolical representations : all doctrines — moral,
religious, or metaphysical — were embodied and clad in sen-
suous forms. To speak of this, and draw inferences from
it in the interpretation of that old book, the Bible, is
considered a modern refinement, a piece of rationalism.
But rationalism did not invent the mythical mood of
writing : it does but point it out, and compare what it
presumes to be instances of it in Scripture with countless
others out of Scripture. I seem to myself to see plainly
that the descriptions of the Messiah's kingdom in the
Prophets are descriptions of Christianity itself, in all the
glory, and gladness, and purity of the idea, under the guise
of actual history, and with all the pomp of sensuous
imagery to render the symbol significant. In the same
way I read the Eevelation; and it seems to me that on
this plan an interpretation may be given, which, though
at first it seems bold, yet is in truth more consistent with
itself, and more accordant with the language of Scripture,
when that is tried by the proper rules, than any other. I

152 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

cannot but think that the whole theory of the earthly
millennial kingdom stands on an insecure foundation,
because I always find from writers on the subject, that at
bottom it rests with every one of them on Eev. xx. 4, as
it did from the first ; and I do verily believe that the lan-
guage of that text will not admit of the interpretation
which their theory gives to it. The early Fathers, some of
them, understood it so ; but such symbolical texts they
made sad work with, I believe, for the most part. We
should not, any of us, like to accept their Biblical criticism
all through ; and criticism it was plainly enough, not
traditional knowledge of any clear description.

II.

Critique on the Early Poems of Elizabeth Barrett (Mrs. Browning)
—Favourite Pieces — Exuberance of her Style inappropriate to
Solemn Themes — Hasty Objections made by Miss B — - to the
Ideal Philosophy of Berkeley, and to the Wolfian Theory of
Homer.

To JOHN KENYON, Esq. *

Regent's Park, 1844. — My dear Mr. Kenyon, — At last I
return with thanks the Poems of Miss Barrett, which I now
always mention in high terms to any of my acquaintances,
when the conversation affords an opportunity. I think my
favourites are the " Poet's Vow," " A Eomanee of the
Ganges, " " Isobel's Child " (so like "Christabel" in manner,
as Mama and I both thought), " The Island," " The

* A friend of Mr. Southey's, and relative of the gifted lady whose earlier
works form the subject of this letter. It is proper to add that the two con-
cluding paragraphs are only inserted here for the sake of the interesting
remarks which they contain on Berkeley's system and the Homeric ques-
tion, since the notes which originally called them forth were withdrawn in
subsequent editions. In Mrs. Browning's later publication, my mother
particularly admired the " Drama of Exile," the subject of which she
thought " more within the sphere of poetic art " than that of the " Sera-
phim," "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," "The Cry of the Children," the
"Khyme of the Duchess May," and the "lovely sonnet" called "Irre-
parableness." — E. C.

MISS BARRETT'S POEMS. 153

Deserted Garden," and " Cowper's Grave." But my con-
ception of Miss B — — 's poetical merit is formed from lines
and stanzas occurring here and there in most of the poems
— from the general impression produced by the whole
collection, rather than from any number of entire pieces.
" The Seraphim " contains very fine passages ; and perhaps
no other single poem in the volume has impressed me so
strongly with the writer's power; and yet, taken as a
whole, with reference not to what others could produce, but
with what it ought to be, I confess it does not altogether
please me. If there be a subject throughout the range of
human thought which demands to be treated (if treated at
all as the prominent theme of any metrical composition)
with a sober Miltonic majesty of style, rather than with a
wild modernism and fantastic rapture, surely that subject
is the Crucifixion of a Saviour and the Eedempticn of a
fallen world. Even in that clever translation of the " Pro-
metheus Bound " (for very clever it is), there occur some
phrases which want the Hebraic simplicity of the original.
" The faded white flower of the Titanic brow," — do you
think that quite comes up to the manly broadness and
boldness of the Greek Dramatist, or suits the awful circum-
stances of the Titan fixed upon his rock ? There is a flower
in both cases, to be sure ; but ^Eschylus meant that the
whole outward man < f Prometheus would be parched and
discoloured by the sun's heat; and this he expressed by
a plain but untranslatable Graecism. I think that your
cousin should study a noble simplicity, especially as her
poetical aims are so high, lest she should be obliged to
finish the lofty temples of imagination with brass instead
of gold. You see how easy it is to preach even for those
who cannot practise ; but Miss Barrett can practise, and
'>nn benefit, I trust, by preaching of more authority than
mine, the presumption of which will never reach her ears.
I cannot make an end of my preaching, however, without

154 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

venturing a remark or two on her summary manner of
dealing with the Homeric question, and with the opinions
of Berkeley. Surely no one, who understands what Berke-
ley's scheme of Idealism really was, would suppose that the
poor bishop was bound, in consistency with his metaphysical
principles, to let a cart run over him ! He tells us plainly,
that if by material substance he meant only that which is
seen and/efa, then is he "more sensible of matter's existence
than any other philosopher." I question whether Miss
Barrett did not confound idealism with unreality, as persons
new to the subject invariably do. Few metaphysicians
would ratify her sentence that Berkeley was " out of his
senses ; " though none now perhaps believe his system true
in fact, or look upon it as other than a platform on which
a certain number of pregnant truths were exhibited in a
strong point of view. Channing observes how it has influ-
enced the modes of thinking among metaphysicians.

Then, again, Miss Barrett's censure of all who believe in
the " Homeric speculation" is sweeping indeed. It sweeps
away, like chaff before the wind, not only almost all the
great scholars and fine critics of learned Germany, not only
" the eloquent Villemain," and numbers of French savans,
— not only men of genius and learning, such as Wolf and
Heyne, and the Italian Vico — but those of the highest poetic
feeling, who, both in this and other countries, are converts
to the system.

Before I conclude, however, let me add that I do not
quarrel with any one for sticking resolutely to the "blind old
man of Scio's rocky isle," nor pretend to have formed a
decided opinion on this puzzling point upon which great
doctors have agreed to differ ; though I incline to the belief,
that if Homer ever existed, he no more wrote all the books
of the Iliad, than one Hercules performed the twelve labours
ascribed to him. The books, to be sure, are extant, the
labours fabulous ; but I mean that the one, as the other,

CHILDHOOD. 155

may have been a nucleus around whose works those of
others were collected, but whose name remained to the
whole.

P.S. — Since writing the above, I have again read the
" Seraphim," and am more impressed with its merit than
at first. It is full of beauty.

III.

Gladsomeness of Childhood — Severe Discipline not suited to the
Period of Early Youth.

To her Eldest Brother.

Chester Place, 1844. — There is a gladsomeness generally
found in children happily circumstanced and managed by
those who understand and will to act upon the simple rules,
by observance of which these little ones are made and kept
as happy as they can be ; — keeping black care quite out of
their sight, addressing them with cheerful looks and tones,
never keeping them long at any one task, yet enforcing a
certain amount of work, with occasional half and some
whole holidays, regularly, — never letting any trouble remain
as a weight and grinding pressure upon their minds, — but
inflicting at once whatever is absolutely necessary, — and
then diverting their minds to what is easy and pleasant. A
child must also have a certain amount of health and of
intellectual activity, imaginativeness, and so forth, to be
perpetually gladsome, — but with the positives and negatives
that I have named, we shall find any child in a country or
town cottage not only cheerful, but joyous.

Of course, I am not implying that to produce and main-
tain this gladness is the great work of education — but I feel
assured that it is a true part of education, and that amid
this ease from without, and consequent happiness from
within, the affections, temper, and understanding expand
and grow more favourably, and take a better and more

156 MEMOIE AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

generous form than under other circumstances. What I
am now saying, however, applies to children as such ; this I
think the best preparatory state, because it best enables the
native powers to develop themselves ; but trial and hardship
are proper to exercise and consolidate them from time to
time as soon as they have gained a certain measure of
strength ; and to put the matter practically, I think that
parents should make their children as easy and happy as
ever they can without indulging them in what is wrong,
leaving discipline to be supplied by the ordinary and inevit-
able course of events, the sorrow, difficulty, and suffering
which life in this world brings to every individual. The
young people that are spoiled by an indulgent home are
spoiled, I think, not by over-happiness, but from having
been encouraged in selfishness, never made to understand
and led to practise Christian duty.

IV.

The Temple Church — Colour in Architecture.
To Mrs. EDWARD COLERIDGE, Eton.

June, 1844. — Yesterday, I saw with delight for the first
time the restored Temple Church. The restoration seems
to me to be in excellent taste, with the exception of the altar.
No doubt the great beauty of this interior consists in what
it always had, its general form, with the clustered pillars,
and exquisite interlacing of arches. But the decorative
part brings out and illuminates this original and essential
beauty, as I have so often seen the rich colours of sunset
illuminate the fine forms of my native hills.

VERSIFICATION. 157

Use of Metrical Rules in Poetry— Versification of " Christabel " and
" The Ancient Mariner " — Artificial Character of some of the
Greek Metres.
To Miss Mourns.

June IQth, 1844.— Have you been poetizing of late?
Mind, I do not tie you down to these longs and shorts ; but,
depend upon it, there is much use in them. The more our
ear can direct us the better, but rules help and educate the
ear. Poetry is more of an art than people in general think.
They know that Music and Painting are arts ; but they
imagine that Poetry must flow forth spontaneously, like the
breath which we breathe, without volition or consciousness.
All our finest metrists knew these rules : how far they went

I by them I cannot say ; but I know that my father, whose
versification has been greatly admired by critics, was fond
of talking about anapaests and iambuses; and if people
admired " Christabel," as it were, by nature, he was never
easy till he had put them in the way of admiring it more
scientifically. Dr. Carlyle says he never succeeded in
making him admire " The Ancient Mariner " properly. He
was obliged, after all, to go back to his own first rude im-
pressions, and rely upon them.

The manner in which the ancient verse was constructed
is a curious problem. It seems as if those very artificial
metres, dependent on syllabic quantity, could never in any
degree have been written by ear, or otherwise than as such
verse is written now. All critics, however, agree that the
best and seemingly most easy and natural styles, both in
prose and verse, are those that have been most artfully
written and carefully elaborated. Art alone will do nothing,
but it improves and educes the natural gift. Cobbett taught
wrong doctrine on this head; and so, I believe, did my
Uncle Southey.

158 MEMOIE AND LETTERS OF SAEA COLERIDGE.

VI.

The "Life of Arnold" a Book' to be "gloried in "—The Visible
Church not to be Identified with any Single System — Dr. Arnold's
View.

To THE HON. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

July, 1844. — I cannot tell you in one short day, or the
longest summer day that ever shone, what I feel and think
about the " Life of Arnold," — how I rejoice over it, how I
glory in it, what good I augur from it. Not that I can see
my way through the whole of Arnold's view, or perceive the
justice of all his practical conclusions. I cannot but think
with him that the visible Church is a human institution,
sanctioned and blessed by God, and rendered the vehicle of
His grace, just so far as it is really an efficient instrument
of the preservation and propagation of true Christianity. I
can see no sufficient reason to believe that it was super-
naturally ordained by Him in detail — that it is not in this
respect essentially different from its Jewish predecessor. I
cannot doubt that it was full of error from the first, the
Apostles during their life repressing, but not radically
removing, wrong notions of the faith. I imagine that the
Church, as a spiritual power co-ordinate with the Word
and the Spirit, is certainly realized through a visible
machinery and system of outward ordinances, but by no
means confined to one alone, and that one prescribed by
Christ Himself: so far as any one answers its great end
better than another, so far it is a more divine and a fuller
organ of the Spirit. But putting the question on the
grounds upon which Arnold himself would have placed it-
moral evidence, reason, and the plain-speaking of Scripture
—I cannot but infer that religion and affairs of policy ought
to have distinct functionaries ; and certainly the general
judgment of mankind, and not a mere sect and party of
Christians, has inclined to this view rather than the other.

BROADSTAIRS. 159

VII. .

" Nothing to do " — Isaac Taylor's Suggestion that there will be Work
as well as Rest in Heaven — Seaside Views and Walks — Fellow-
Lodgers — Idleness and Extravagance of London Shopkeepers —
Two Sorts of Diffuseness — Lord Eldon — Reflections on his Char-
acter and Portrait.

To Mrs. FARRER.

5, Nelson Place, Broadstairs, August Z7th, 1844. — Dearest
Mrs. Farrer, — I will not defer writing to you till I have
" nothing else to do ; " for I hope that time will never come.
Mr. Taylor of Ongar, in his " History of Enthusiasm,"
takes pains to show that we shall have a great deal to do in
heaven, and even have to work hard there. My remark,
however, is quite limited to the time of this mortal life ; for
I think we are scarcely qualified as yet to cut out our work
in the world to come, or determine upon the • manner in
which we shall spend eternity. Probably our present ideas
of labour and rest will not be among the things which we
shall carry along with us into the other state ; and I cannot
think Mr. Taylor is justified in accusing other Christians of
having indolent notions of heaven, because they have not
exactly his view of the exertions that are to be made there.
Be that as it may, however, the main part of my business
here at Broadstairs is to scribble on scraps of paper, some-
times on sheets ; and I am sure that after all your great
kindness to me, and concern shown for my comfort, I ought
to fill one of these little sheets, as well as I can, to you,
little indeed as I have to put into it.

I know you will be pleased to hear how very satisfactory
I find these lodgings. I never before had a bedroom with
an interesting prospect, and I undervalued to you what I
had scarce learned to prize. But nothing can be more
charming than the view which I have before me now. The
cornfield betwixt me and the sea takes off the sense of
dreariness, and occasional bleak chilliness, which a full

160 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

view of the " unfruitful ocean," and that alone, relieved only
by the not more fruitful or lifesome shore, has always
inspired me with. The sea thus viewed has something of
a lake-like aspect ; but that soft green hue was never seen
upon any of my native lakes, although their calm bosoms
used to exhibit a great quantity of hues. I take short
walks, sometimes two or three times a day; yesterday I
walked out between seven and eight in the evening, in hopes
to see the moonlight shining on the sea. But the moon,
which had bathed the landscape in tender light the night
before, was hidden in clouds ; but still I had a pleasant
walk towards Dampton Stairs, and saw the earth-si&Ys,—
the lights on Goodwin sands and others, to advantage.
For a day and a half after your departure I felt low and
unequal to walking ; but since then my mercury has risen
a little, and I feel as if the sea was (or " were " ? no, was in
this case, I think) doing me that kind and degree of good
which it generally has done, whenever I have tried it under
tolerably favourable circumstances. The only drawback
has been the noisiness of the children. Yesterday after-
noon I began to think it went beyond bounds, and all my
self-remindings that I had loud-voiced chatterers of my
own, did not bring me to feel complacently on the subject
of so much rattling up and down stairs, incessant slamming
of doors, and squeaking and squabbling. They say there
is no lane so long but it comes to an end at last. I find,
however, that my lane is a very short one, for the noise-
makers depart in a day or two ; indeed, they have been
very bearable ever since yesterday. Their "pa" and
"ma" keep a shop in Oxford Street; and now that I am
able to make some calm, disinterested philosophic reflec-
tions on all that I have observed in this family, I am
confirmed in my old opinion that the inferior London shop-
keepers are an ill-managing class. I suspect, at least,
(I will not venture to say more), that they have more

DIFFUSENESS. 161

luxury with less in proportion of real respectability, that
they partake more of the civilization of their times with less
of the cultivation, than almost any other portion of the
community. These children live on the stairs or in the
kitchen, and never take a book or needle in their hands,
and yet their parents are overburdening Mrs. Smith with
cooking attendance, dressing well, and living for many
weeks by the sea in commodious lodgings. The extra-
vagance and recklessness that go on in the families of
tradesmen in London is beyond what the rank above them
even dream of. No wonder they hate the Church and band
against her. The farmers may be still worse in grudging
their money; but shopkeepers turn against the Church,
I think, because they are better fed than taught, and
because they hate regularity, and all that is stern and
strict. Methodism and Quakerism have their own strict-
ness ; but they, many of them, stick to no sect, but go after
this or that preacher. They represent the bad spirit of this
age more completely than almost any other large class
amongst us ; but I believe they are to be pitied more than
blamed, having great temptations to all they do amiss.

I heard Dr. H — - again last Sunday, and continued to
like his manner of preaching, for its earnestness and
practicability, and aiming at the one thing needful. The
fault of his style is a verbosity and diffuseness ; he gives
you five branches of illustration, where one good solid
bough would be quite enough. It is well to be reminded
that we are better than the beasts that perish, and can give
greater glory to God; but the various particulars of our
superiority, beginning with our erect posture, etc., etc.,
might be left to our own minds to suggest. This is very
different from such diffuseness as that of Lord Eldon, who
had not, I conjecture, more words than matter, but more
matter of various kinds than he could arrange to per-
fection ; the minor matters overlaid the major, as the

162 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

muffling ivy prevents the fine figure of a noble oak, with its
well proportioned trunk and branches, from being clearly
discerned. He was perspicuous in thought, but not equally
perspicuous in expression. I read to the end of this last
volume of his life with very great interest of various kinds.
The concluding portion, containing the vindication of his
professional character, appeared to me very ably written,
and upon the whole, more than triumphant, and the
remarks on Chancery business, and the legal anecdotes
interspersed, are very good also. The perusal brought
home to me, what I have long felt, how impossible it is
that any eminently good and great and useful man should
go through life without being perseveringly and violently
misrepresented and ill-used. That review of Justice W. is
such a specimen of able, but untruthful and unfair writing !
The portrait of Lord Eldon, the more I look at it, the
more it seems to be the very man ; mild sensibility and
weight of intellect, and moral firmness and sound judgment,
are all marked in that countenance.

THE VALE OF KESWICK. 163

CHAPTEK XIII.

LETTERS TO HER ELDEST BROTHER, THE HON. MR.
JUSTICE COLERIDGE, AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ.,
MISS MORRIS, MISS ERSKINE, MRS. FARRER, THE
HON. MRS. HENRY TAYLOR : 1845.

Memories of her Native Yale— The Quarterley Review a greater
Authority on Practical than on Poetical Matters — Dr. Arnold as
a Man and a Writer — His peculiar Theory of Church and State —
Definition of Humility and Modesty, suggested by a Note in the
"Northern Worthies."
To HARTLEY COLERIDGE, Esq., Grasmere.

Chester Place, January 20th, 1845. — Your communica-
tions and comments are ever most interesting to me, partly
because they are upon persons and things in my native
land, to which I have turned since my loss with renewed
love and longing — to thoughts of the hills and the lakes,
and still more of the rivers and streamlets, my dearly-
beloved Greta rushing over the stones by the Cardingmill
Field, or sweeping past, swollen with rains ; and all the
lovely flowers, especially the yellow globe flower, which
fringe the banks, or lurk in the woods, or crowd and cluster
in the open glades. But then my remembrance of all these
things is inseparably associated with the feelings of early
youth, which lends a glow to them. Now, if I were at the
Blue-bell Bog, or on the slope of Goosey Green, I should
be sinking with fatigue, not knowing how I should get back
again. Even an easy saunter by Greta's side would be a
very different thing, now that life, or the best part of it, is
all behind me, from what it was when this same life was
before me — a vision often broken and obscured indeed by
fear and anxiety, but yet with the sun of Hope burning in

164 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

its centre. This thought prevents me from lamenting, as
I otherwise might, that I cannot look to spend my latter
years in the lovely country of my youth. Yet I never take
a solitary walk in the Park without longing that I could
turn my steps towards dear old Friar's Crag. I think, in
spite of middle age, and sickness and sorrow, I .should
still have much enjoyment in looking on the Lake, every
day differently complexioned from the last, in gazing on
the hills lit up by sunset, and all the manifold shows of
nature among my native hills. Herbert H — - seems to
miss the richness and variety of the lake-land exceedingly.
In his last letter he observed how flat countries lose all
their attractions in winter, which does but interestingly
vary those of a mountainous district. Do not think, how-
ever, from my speaking of having left the best part of life
behind me, that I am unhappy. I do not in the least wish
to be happier, in the sense of having more satisfaction and
animated enjoyment in the things of this world. It is best
for me as it is. ...

It is remarkable how strong the Quarterly Review is
in dealing with matters of fact : various as the writers in
it must be, they always shine in that department. In
abstract reasonings this " Eeview " is not great, and in
aesthetics it is generally poor enough. Its poetical criticism
is arbitrarily vague, without the slightest attempt at prin-
ciple, and in a sneering, contemptuous spirit. Its treat-
ment of Keats and Tennyson was ultra-zoilian. I admire
Keats excessively. Mr. Wordsworth used to say of Shelley
and Keats that they would ever be great favourites with
the young, but would not satisfy men of all ages. There
is a truth in this saying, though I should say that it is not
literally true, for I myself and many other medicevals can
read their productions with unabated pleasure. But yet I
feel that there is in those writers a want of solidity ; they
do not embody in their poems much of that with which

BE. ARNOLD. 165

the deeper and the universal heart and mind of man can
sympathize. To be always reading Shelley and Keats
would be like living on quince-marmalade. Milton and
Wordsworth are substantial diet for all times and seasons.

Your admiration of Arnold I fully share. I admire, and,
what is more, deeply honour him as a man, and as a writer
so far as the man appears in his writings. As a reasoner
and speculator I surmise that he was not great, though
what he does see clearly he expresses with great energy and
lifesomeness. It seems to me that he arrived at much truth
which subtler men miss, through sheer honesty and single-
ness of heart and mind, through sheer impatience and
imprudence, not through philosophy. His views of Church
and State I cannot well understand (I have not seen his
fragment on the Church) : so far as I can understand them,
I imagine (it seems presumptuous for such as I to opine
positively on such a subject) that they are incorrect and
inadequate. He was a great historian ; yet I would fain
see how he reconciled them with history, let alone philoso-
phy. By unifying the State with the Church, does he not
nullify and destroy the latter as a spiritual power, the anta-
gonist of the world, and confer privileges and functions on
the former incompatible with its proper and peculiar ones ?
I should say, in my ignorance, that this is after all but
Eomanism in disguise, at least practically. But perhaps
I do not apprehend his scheme. He was and is a burning
and a shining light in this country. His " Life and Letters "
seem to have made a greater impression on the public
mind than any book that has been published for many a
day. . . .

Beading your " Life of Mason " lately (during the height
of my illness I read the " Doctor" and your " Worthies : "
I did not want new books, but soothing ones in which I
took a special interest), I noticed that you said in a note,
" Modesty and vanity are only different phenomena of one

166 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE,

and the same disposition, viz., an extreme consciousness
and apprehensiveness of being observed." * But this
degrades modesty, methinks, into mere bashfulness, which
belongs to the physical temperament, and is but modesty's
shadow. Many a youth has both modesty and vanity ; for
modesty is directly opposed, not to vanity, but to im-
pudence. Still, modesty is surely something more than
the fear of being observed, which is, indeed, but a phase or
mood of vanity, when it is not mere nervous bashfulness.

How shall we define Modesty ? Surely it is an important
virtue, and a grace to boot. Is it not moderation, viewed in
its moral rather than its prudential aspect — ingenuous
shame, and keen sensibibility to all that is unseemly,
unfitting, disproportionate in reference to self ? It is closely
allied to Justice, for he who does not overrate himself is the
less likely to arrogate to himself more than is his due : it
borders upon Humility and Piety, for he who is not dis-
posed to exalt his own merits in his own eyes or in those of
others, though not necessarily humble on that account, is
yet far more in the way of being so than if he had a high
notion of his relative excellence, and a desire to parade and
proclaim it. Humility is not the mere consciousness of our
low estate, but the disposition to act and suffer as if we had
no high claims ; and this is different from modesty, yet, I
think, akin to it. Humility, perhaps, is the being content
with the low place and scant portion ; Modesty, a sense of
the impropriety of claiming a higher and a better.

II.

The Royal Academy of 1845— Turner's Painting.
To Miss ERSKINE.

May 18th, 1845. — It is commonly said that this is not a
striking Exhibition, simply, I think, because there is in it

* " Lives of Northern Worthies," by Hartley Coleridge, rol. ii. p. 256.—
E. C.

MODERN PICTURES. 167

no great glaring Maclise, nor the usual number of fine
animal pieces, with fur which one longs to stroke, by
Landseer. I should say, as some others say too, that it is
upon the whole a very interesting collection of specimens
of our modern English school of painting : it contains so
many sweet landscapes by Stanfield (no Callcotts, alas !),
by Collins, Creswick, Lee (one of whose pictures is almost
a Gainsborough), Leitch, Harding, and Eoberts, though
about the productions of this last there is rather a tiring
sameness.

In this list I have not included Turner, because I can find
but few persons who agree with me that he is to be
admired ; but I had the comfort of an accordant voice with
mine in dear Lady Palgrave's. I do not like Turner's
Venetian views, of which he has four in the present Ex-
hibition, so much as two pictures called " Whalers," in
which sea and sky are mixed up together in most (by me)
admired confusion. No other man gives me any notion of
that infinity of hues and tints and gradations of light and
shade which Nature displays to those who have eyes for
such sights, except Turner : no one else gives me such a
sense of the power of the elements, no one else lifts up the
veil and discloses the penetralia of Nature, as this painter
does. The liquid look of his ocean and its lifesomeness,
and that wonderful steam that is rising up and hovering
over the agitated vessel, are what one might look for in vain
in any but the Turnerian quarter.

On the other hand, I cannot admire Landseer 's " Shep-
herd in Prayer " so much as it is the fashion to do. In
this picture he aims at something in a higher line than he
has attempted before ; and, to my mind, in this higher line
he .wants power. There is doubtless a sweet feeling about
the picture : the shepherd is good, and he kneels before a
most picturesquely rural crucifix, but the sheep are de trop ;
such a quantity of dead fleece scattered around, and con-

168 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

tinned on the very horizon, I cannot away with, or rather, I
wish it away. Neither can I satisfy Derwent in the amount
of admiration which he demands for Eastlake's " Comus."
It is very pure and harmonious, and finely coloured, but it
wants intensity, and meaning, and spirit. The "Heiress"
by Leslie is a most lovely girl ; and Clater's " Bride " as
fair and vernal as the hawthorn wreath with which she is
encircling her head, in contempt of Fashion with her orange-
flowers. Etty has seven or eight pictures, all of which
have his usual merits, more or less, and some of them are
beautiful. His flesh is first-rate ; but one may look in vain
in him for the spirit — that is, the spiritual and refined.

III.

Visitors before Luncheon.
To Miss MORRIS.

Chester Place, 1845. — First, I must reply to your proposal
of coming to see me between twelve and one o'clock. My
rule is, not to let my friends visit me at that early hour
when they can with no great difficulty come at a later one ;
because the two hours before my mid-day meal are with me
the most uneasy in the whole twenty-four. Still, I do not
wish to be more subjected to my bodily weakness than
is unavoidable, and every now and then I am called
down to some old friend whom I do not like to send away
unseen. Old gentlemen especially will take their own way
in such matters, and look in when it suits them rather than
when it suits me. At first I feel faint and cross ; but when
they begin laying down the law about this and that, — the
Church and the Tract doctrines, and other such subjects, —
as if there was but one opinion in the world that was
really worth a straw, and that their own, — all other rea-
soners and thinkers dancing about after vain shadows and
will-o'-the-wisps, — I am provoked into a sort of enraged
strength, — my controversial muscles begin to plump up,—

THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 169

I lose sight of luncheon (a vision of which had been float-
ing before my dull eyes before), and as soon as a pause
occurs, I fill it up with my voice, and, whether listened to
or not, improve by exercise my small powers of expressing
opinion.

IY.

Interpretations of Scripture Prophecies by Writers of the Evangelical
School — Contents of the Sixth Vial — Shelley's Atheism — Not
Papal but Pagan Rome the real Object of the Apocalyptic
Denunciations .

To Miss MORRIS .

10, Chester Place, June Zlst, 1845. — I have felt that I
ought to have been conversing with you of late on a subject
upon which I have been venturing to write (I mean a letter
only) — the subject of prophecy.

I told Mr. B — - the impression which the different
passages in Scripture, most important in the Antichrist
controvery, and most dwelt upon by each party, as proving
their own particular views, make upon me, when I read
them without the medium of note or comment, and with no,
theory intervening betwixt my mind's eye and the text. The
" little horn " of Daniel presents to me a staring likeness of
the Pope. That it was intended for him, and for none other
than he, I will not venture to say. I do not feelsure 01
that, all things considered, so far as I can consider them.
But I say it is awfully like him, — that he is a little horn
that speaks great things, and has eyes, such eyes as no
other power in this world possesses, that he changes times
and laws presumptuously and iniquitously, and has worn
out a great many saints of God with persecutions. But
when I read the language of the New Testament on the
Man of Sin and Antichrist, instead of seeing this picture
enlarged and rendered more distinct, — on the contrary,
I see only a generalization. The mystery of iniquity is in
the Papacy; — but that popery, and popery alone, is the

170 MEMOIE AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

mystery of iniquity, I cannot persuade myself. Here, I
think, Horsley, Palmer, and a hundred others, who oppose
the theory which identifies Antichrist with the Pope or
popery, are strong. That "wicked that is 'to be consumed'
by the spirit of the Lord's mouth, and destroyed by the
brightness of His coming," is certainly no popery that has
existed yet. But it is said there is to be another manifes-
tation of popery and its corruption, and this it is which is
to be destroyed. Now, it is just this way of interpreting
Scripture, this putting into the sacred text ad libitum, and
filling up ever so great a gulf and gap with supposition,
which seems to me so unwarrantable, and a method too
which never leads to any conclusion, because every different
theorist can resort to the same expedient to justify his
opinions. See the tracts on Antichrist, and the use they
make of this argument. If all the abominations, persecu-
tions, presumptions, and impious pretensions of the Papacy,
which history records, are the characters of the Man of Sin,
then surely he has been already revealed, as he was not
revealed in St. Paul's own day. To say that we have
already witnessed these things, and that they constitute
the wickedness of the wicked one, and yet that he is still to
be revealed close before the advent of the Lord, and His
reign upon earth, is not, in my opinion, to submit our
minds to the text of Scripture, but make it say what we like.
The "powers, and signs, and lying wonders" of Komanism,
have been manifested at full. It is highly improbable that
they can ever deceive the world again as they have done.
What a crafty priesthood can contrive in one part of the
civilized world, an active press and an irrepressible spirit
of inquiry and opposition to superstitious falsity exposes
and counteracts in another part. The passage in Timothy,
on forbidding to marry, does not to my mind describe
Eomanistic errors, but religious notions of a somewhat
different kind.

THE SIXTH VIAL. 171

If such are my impressions from the Epistles, still more
strongly do I feel on going on to the Apocalypse, that
popery was not the object of the apostolic predictions and
denunciations, except so far as all falsehood and corruption
is so. I cannot pretend to assign the meaning of all the
various symbols, — I never have seen them to my mind
satisfactorily explained. The " vials " are filled, to every
man's fancy, with just those exhibitions of evil which most
strongly have excited his aversion, and alarmed his fears.

Mr. B notices Shelley's " Eevolt of Islam," under the

sixth vial. Alas ! poor Shelley ! " I'se wae to think of
him," as Burns was to think of old Nick and his gloomy
fate. He had a religious element in his nature ; but it was
sadly overborne by a impetuous temper, and a certain pre-
sumption, which made him cast aside all the teaching of
other men that did not approve itself at once to his
judgment. But to mention him under the sixth vial is to
give him an infamous sort of fame which he scarcely,
I think, deserved. As an unbeliever, he was utterly in-
significant,— made no proselytes, had no school, nor
belonged to any school. He had ceased to be an atheist
before he died, and never had any power, or excited any
great attention, I think> except as a poet. In that line he
has a station from which he cannot be moved while any
genuine taste for poetry as such exists.

To conclude my impressions of prophecy, not from com-
mentaries, but from the text, I own I can see nothing but
Imperial and Pagan Eome in the Kevelation, as the great
object of the prophet's denunciations, from beginning to
end. It should be borne in mind, I think, that the perse-
cutions under the Eoman Empire were the only warfare
that ever has been carried on against Christianity as such,
—against the religion itself under any form. The martyrs
during that warfare were the only sufferers who could
properly be said to have died for the faith for the testimony

172 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

of Jesus. There have been anti-Papal martyrs enough for
the purity of the faith ; but is it not putting the less before
the greater to imagine that these, and not the thousands
that were put to death and tortured for professing Chris-
tianity at all, are those of whom the Apocalypt wrote with
such a pen of fire ? But the whole description of this
Babylon the Great, and her downfall, this city on seven
hills, to my mind, is expressive of the great Eoman Empire,
of which Kome itself was the representative, and not Papal
Kome, which never sat upon seven hills ; and to convert
those seven hills into seven electors of Germany, seems to
me a more incredible transformation than any in Ovid's
metamorphoses. Nothing can exceed the boldness of
Scriptural metaphor ; but this boldness has its own laws,
and the same figure which fits one sentence fits not
another.

Occasional Recurrence of Millennial Preachings — Bearing of the
Parable of the Ten Virgins on this Subject — Various Styles of
Contemporary Divines.
To Miss MORRIS.

1845. — I find that there has been a very general preach-
ing of the Millennium in various parts of the country of
late years. So it will continue to be, I think, ever and
anon, till some victorious arm shall arise, or some victorious
pen shall write some book in which a real advance shall
be made in the elucidation of the subject. Hitherto there
has been nothing more than a repeated eddying round a
certain number of arguments, which contain a certain
quantity of force, and are especially striking when first
presented to the unprepared mind, but which, as I have
been led to think, are not strong enough to bring the
matter to a conclusion with the majority of the reflective
and judicious. Hence the subject is often brought forward,
eagerly enforced, makes a number of converts — some few

DR. PUSEY'S PREACHING. 173

permanent ones, others only for a season ; but then it dies
away again, without taking any deep hold of the Church at
large. I know how your brother disposes of this fact in
that judicious sermon of his on the " Actual Neglect," etc.,
which shows a clearer insight into the difficulties of the
question, I think, than most Millennial discourses do. He
observes that the wise virgins slumbered as well as the
foolish, while the Bridegroom tarried. But if the wise as
well as the foolish neglect this doctrine, what are they that
attend to it ? Our Lord leaves no room for them in His
parable at all. Looking at the structure of it, I can hardly
persuade myself that He meant by this slumber to indicate
a blameable inattention to His coming again ; for what
could the wise virgins have done, had they kept awake the
whole night, than provide oil for their lamps ? what would
they have gained more than admission to the marriage-
feast? . . .

I agree with you quite about Mr. B 's sermon and its

" dry brilliancy." It reminds me of those bright, burnished
insects whose juiceless bodies clink and rattle as they whisk
glittering along. His style wants oiling.

Newman's sermon, " Faith against Sight," one of those
addressed to the University, is an admirable specimen of
his mind and manner. I think he is the finest writer, upon
the whole, that we have at present ; but, with all his power,
he will never be able, as I believe, to establish more than
one half of his body of opinion in this land.

VI.

Dr. Pusey's Preaching.
To Miss MORRIS, Mecklenburg Square.

Chester Place, July 7th, 1845. — We have had Pusey and
Manning preaching here lately, the former three times.
Pusey's middle sermon, preached in the evening, was the
perfection of his style. But it is wrong to talk of style in
respect of a preacher whose very merit consists in his

174 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

aiming at no style at all. He is certainly, to my feelings,
more impressive than any one else in the pulpit, though he
has not one of the graces of oratory. His discourse is
generally a rhapsody, describing, with infinite repetition
and accumulativeness, the wickedness of sin, the worthless-
ness of earth, and the blessedness of heaven. He is as still
as a statue all the time he is uttering it, looks as white as a
sheet, and is as monotonous in delivery as possible. While
listening to him, you do not seem to see and hear a preacher,
but to have visible before you a most earnest and devout
spirit, striving to carry out in this world a high religious

theory.

VII.

Sunset over the Sea.
To Mrs. FARRER.

Herne Bay, August 9th, 1645. — Yesterday evening the soft
blue of sea and sky, illumined with windows of bright rose-
colour, which seemed like windows of heaven indeed, with
the Apocalyptical city stretched out in gemmy splendour
on the other side, as fancy suggested, was most lovely and

tranquillizing.

VIII.

Canterbury Cathedral, and St. Augustine's College.
To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE, Heath's Court, Ottery St. Mary.
Herne Bay, August Wth, 1845. — Last Wednesday we went
to Canterbury to see the Cathedral and St. Augustine's.
The former I admired more than ever ; and Derwent's
architectural lore made our excursion all round the outside,
and through the inside of this more beautiful than sublime
structure, all the more rememberable and interesting.
Some of the old painted glass is the very ideal of that sort
of thing, rich and gemmy with minute designs, and far
removed from the modern picture style of painted window.
We visited the precincts of St. Augustine's with very great
interest, and were pleased to see with our own eyes, how

THE UNION OF CHRISTENDOM. 175

considerable a part of the ancient structure will be woven
into the view, and what a physical continuity, as Derwent
says, there will be of the one with the other. The new
dining-hall takes in the woodwork, to a great extent, of the
old refectory for strangers ; and the antique architectural
forms (in the middle-pointed style) will be carefully repro-
duced. The old gateway will form a very imposing
entrance to the modern college.

IX.

Re-union of Christendom — The Romish Clergy, and the Roman

Church.

To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

Chester Place, August 26th, 1845. — As for desire for re-
union with the Church of Kome — I verily think that no one
can exceed me in desire for the union of all Christendom,
that all who call upon the name of the Lord, and acknow-
ledge the moral law of the New Testament, and the necessity
of obeying it, should be in communion with each other, —
the millions of Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists in
America, as well as the Komanists of Italy and Spain. But
such a union cannot be without concessions to a great
extent on one side or the other, if not on both, unless the
parties were to change their minds to a great extent, in
which case the debate and the difficulty would be at an end ;
and I for one could never give up or adopt what would
satisfy either body. I suppose, however, that you have a
desire for a re-union with Rome, of a very different kind
from any you may entertain for union with all Christians ;
you look upon Kome as a branch of the true Church, and
the others above-named as out of the pale of the true
Church. With this feeling I cannot pretend to have much
sympathy, though it may be my error and misfortune not
to have it. I think that the Congregationalists belong to
the Church of Christ, as well as the others. The Church of

176 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Eome I am accustomed to regard, not as the aggregate of
Christians professing Komish doctrine, but as the body of
the Komish clergy, together with the system of religious
administration upon which they proceed. For the former,
the multitude of Komish individuals, I have no feelings of
dislike or disrespect whatever, — I believe that numbers of
them are full of true religion and virtue, and worship God
in spirit and in truth. The Komish clergy, considered in
their corporate capacity, I cannot but look upon as full of
worldly wisdom and worldly iniquity, and I think, as you
do of the Keformation, that old Nick contemplates it — i.e.,
this body — with great satisfaction, the cockles of his heart
leaping up with delight at the view. My Uncle Southey
was abused for calling the system of the -Komish Church
"a monstrous structure of imposture and wickedness ;"-
yet I think he did a good deal to substantiate the charge ;
he certainly had far more information on the subject than
our young inamoratos of the modern Komish Church can
any of them boast, and he had no sort of sympathy with
Dissenters and Low Churchmen to inspire him with enmity
against the opposite quarter of Christendom. Still I am
endeavouring to get rid of Protestant prejudice ; of all
feelings and views merely founded on habit, apart from
reflection and genuine spiritual perception, — and to consider
quietly whether or no there be not some good even in the
Komish ecclesiastical system ; — and some good I do believe
there is, especially for the lower orders, as I also think there
is some good in the Methodist system, with which, as well
as with the religious practices of the strict Evangelicals,
Blanco White is always comparing the system in which he,
to his misery, was brought up. But I own it seems to me
that the good, whatever it may be, is inextricable from the
evil, both from the nature of the thing, and also because
the Komish body have never been known to make any real
concession of any kind or sort — none that was not meant

NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH. 177

as a mere temporary expedient, to be withdrawn on the
earliest opportunity : and looking upon them, as I do, as a
power of this world, aiming at political domination and not
inspired, as a body, with any pure zeal for the furtherance
of the truth, be it what it may, I cannot believe they ever

will.

" New Heavens and a New Earth."

The following lines may fitly be inserted here, as a poetical expres-
sion of the writer's sentiments on these high subjects. — E. C.
To A FAIR FRIEND ARGUING IN SUPPORT OF THE RENOVATION, IN A
LITERAL SENSE, OF THE MATERIAL SYSTEM.
PHILONOUS TO HYLASIA.

i.
Keep, oh ! keep those eyes on me,

If thou wouldst my soul persuade,
Soul of reasoner, bold and free,
Who with pinions undismayed
Soars to realms of higher worth
Than aught like these poor heavens and earth.

ii.

Talk no more of Scripture text,

Tract and note of deep divine :
These but leave the mind perplexed —

More effectual means are thine :
Through that face, so fair and dear,
The doctrine shines as noonday clear.

in.

Who that sees the radiant smile

Dawn upon thy features bright,
And thy soft, full eyes the while

Spreading beams of tender light,
But must long those looks to greet,
When perfect souls in joyance meet?

IV.

Who that round some verdant home

Day by day with thee hath strayed,
Through its pathways loved to roam,

Sat beneath its pleasant shade,
But must hope that heavenly bowers
May wear such hues as these of ours ?

178 MEMOIE AND LETTEKS OF SAEA COLERIDGE.

O ye fair and pleasant places,

Where the eye delighted ranges ;
O ye dear and friendly faces,

Loved through all your mortal changes ;
Are ye but stars, to shine through this life's night,
Destined, in Heaven's great Day, to vanish from our sight ?

S. 0., 1845.

To Miss MORRIS.

Eton, September 8th, 1845. — I have often spoken of you
to Mr. de Vere; and yesterday I told him that the views
which he was setting forth, in regard to the future world,
the glorified body, and the new heavens and earth, were in
spirit, and to a great degree in form, extremely similar to
those I had heard you express and warmly enlarge upon.
I am much more dry, alas ! on these subjects ; at least I
am aware that my belief must appear very dry and cold to
all but those who entertain it. We somehow fancy that we
are to have a quintessence of all that is exalted, and glow-
ing, and beautiful, in your new-world creed hereafter, only
not in the same way. Mr. de Vere cannot bear to part
with our human body altogether, nor with this beautiful
earth with its glorious canopy. He wants to keep these
things, but to have them unimaginably raised, and purified,
and glorified ! I think that they must go, but that all the
loveliness, and majesty, and exquisiteness, are to be un-
imaginably extracted and enshrined in a new, unimaginable
form, in another, and to us now, inconceivable state of
existence. He said (so like you), " But I want this earth to
have a fair trial, to have it show what it can be at the best,
in the highest perfection of which it is capable, which never
has been yet manifested."

179

XI.

Poetry of Keats : its Beauties and Defects—" The Grecian Urn " and
" Eiidymion."

To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq., Curragh Chase, Ireland.

Eton, September, 1845. — I admire Keats extremely, but
I think that he wants solidity. His path is all flowers,
and leads to nothing but flowers. The end of the Endy-
mion is no point : when we arrive there, it is looking down
a land of flowers, stretching on ad infinitum, the separate
parts indistinguishable. I admire all the minor poems
which you have marked, three of them especially. In the
"Grecian Urn" I dislike the third stanza: it drags out
the substance of the preceding stanzas — which, after all, is
stuff of fancy, not of the higher imagination — to weariness ;
and it ends with an unpleasant image, expressed in no very
good English. " High sorrowful " is Keats' English, if
English at all.

I must say that, spite of the beautiful poetry, as far as
words and images go, I've no patience with that Adonis
lying asleep on a couch with his " white arm " and " faint
damask mouth," like a/ 'dew- dipped rose," with lilies above
him, and Cupids all around him. If Venus was in love
with such a girl-man as that, she was a greater fool than
the world has ever known yet, and didn't know what a
handsome man is, or what sort of a gentleman is " worthy
a lady's eye," even as far as the mere outward man is
concerned. I do think it rather effeminate in a young
man to have even dreamed such a dream, or presented his
own sex to himself in such a pretty-girl form. And where
is the sense or the beauty of setting one woman opposite
another, for a pair of lovers, instead of an Apollo or a
Venus ? This effeminacy is the weak part of Keats. Shelley
has none of it. There is no greater stickler than I am for
the rights of woman— not the right of speaking in Parlia-
ment and voting at elections, but of having her own sex
to herself, and all the homage due to its attractions. There

180 MEMOIE AND LETTEKS OF SAEA COLERIDGE.

is one merit in Byron : he is always manly. The weak-
nesses he has are weaknesses of an imperfect man, not a
want of manliness.

You will perhaps tell me that the Greek poets have
sometimes ascribed a delicate beauty to Adonis. But I say
these poets must have been thinking of their own lady-loves
all the while, and that Venus herself would have admired a
very different swain. It is not the possession of any beauty
of form or hue that will make a man effeminate ; but it is
the presence of such beauty apart from something else to
which it is subordinated. It is the absence of this some-
thing else, and the presentation of that which in woman is
characteristic and prominent, without it, which makes this
picture of Keats so disagreeably feminine, at least to my
taste. I think I have a right to preach on this theme, just
because I am a woman myself. Men in general are- frights,
especially before and after five-and-twenty. Nothing pro-
vokes ladies more than to hear men admiring one another's
beauty. It is less affronting for each man to admire his
own ; they fancy that is for their sakes !

I must take another half sheet to quarrel with you about
the " Endymion." How could you possibly, after making
so many marks, pass over that powerful description of
Circe torturing the metamorphosed wretches in the forest,
one of the most striking passages in the whole poem. I
am afraid you like nothing that is horrid, that you are too
fond of the " roses and the thistle-down," and find such
things " too flinty hard for your nice touch." To me it is
refreshing, after the sugar upon honey and butter upon
cream of much that precedes. It is fine, too, as an alle-
gory. And is not that an energetic expression ?—

" Disgust and hate,
And terrors manifold, divided me
A spoil amongst them.''

Especially powerful is that part beginning —

181

" Avenging, slow,
Anon she took a branch of mistletoe."

The deliberate way in which she does the thing is so
fine, and their anticipation of agony, and the poor ele-
phant's pathetic prayer ! One feels the cumbrous weight
of flesh weighing one down in reading it.

Again, you take no notice of Cynthia's speech to her
lover, so Beaumont-and-Fletchery —

" O that the dreadful smiles
Had wan^d from Olympus' solemn height,
And from all serious gods ! "

Brimful of love-sick silliness, no doubt, but so is the
whole poem ; and instead of flattering the fellow in that
way, she ought to have given him a sharp dig with her
keenest arrow for having the abominable bad taste to
call her lunar lips " slippery blisses." By-the-by, what
think you of " nectarous camel-draughts " ? Is it not
enough to horrify the very genius of osculation into a
fit ? Surely, after a camel-draught of nectar, Glaucus
might have found the contents of the " black, dull, gur-
gling phial " an agreeable change, and after such a drench
of roses and ambrosia, who would not cry aloud for camo-
mile and wormwood ?

These are your omissions. Then, in the way of commis-
sion, you put a stroke of approval at these lines —

" Old (Eolus thy foe

Skulks to his cavern, 'mid the gruff complaint
Of all his rebel tempests.

Dark clouds faint

When, from thy diadem, a silver gleam
Slants over blue dominion."

Gruff is a ludicrous word ; and if we may talk about
Hue dominion, I know not what classes of words there
are that may not intermarry with every other class.

182 MEMOIE AND LETTEKS OF SAKA COLERIDGE.

You approve also this—

" While ocean's tide

Hung swollen at their backs, andjeweU'd sands
Took silently their footprints."

Ocean's tide hangs swollen from a dyke, which keeps
it back ; but does it ever thus hang from a sandy beach,
and how should sands be jewelled, and why should it be
noticed that they took footprints silently ?

It seems to me that Keats not only falsifies language
very frequently, besides making words, such as orby,
serpenting, etc., ad libitum, but that he also falsifies
nature sometimes in his imagery. He turns the outer
world into a sort of raree show, and combines shapes and
colours as fantastically and lawlessly as the kaleidoscope.
The kaleidoscope certainly has a law of its own, and so has
the young poet, but it is not nature's law, nor in harmony
with it. The old masters, in all their vagrancy of fancy
and invention, never did thus. They always placed their
wild inventions in the real world, and while we wander
in their realms of faery, we have the same solid earth and
blue sky over our heads as when we take a walk in the
fields to see Cicely milking the cow. This I think is occa-
sionally the fault of Keats, and another is that sameness
of sweetness and over-lusciousness of which I have already
spoken. Beading the Endymion is like roaming in a forest
of giant jonquils. Nevertheless, I take great delight in his
volume, and thank you much for putting it into my hands.

XII.

On the Sndden Death of her Mother.*
To Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

Chester Place, September 26^, 1845. — My dearest John,
— Thank you for your most kind letter. My soul is indeed
very sorrowful. The death-silence is awful. I had to think

* At Chester Place, on the 24th of September, during my mother's ab-
sence on a visit to the Rer. Edward Coleridge at Eton. — E. C.

LOSS OF HER MOTHER. 183

of her every minute of the day, to be always on my guard
against noise ; and she was one that made herself felt,
dear creature, every hour in the day. I shall never be so
missed by any one, my life is so much stiller, and more to
myself.

I feel more than ever the longing to go and join them
that are gone — but for my children. But the greatest tie
to earth is gone from me, for even the children could do
better without me than she could have done.

All that Nurse tells me of her last days is soothing.
She wrote contentedly, thankful for Nurse's devotion to
her, and speaking even of Caroline's desire to please her.
She had said to me, as I was going away, -"This is the
last time you must leave me." I said, " If you are in the
least ill, let me know, and I will return directly." I knew
it would only vex her to give up the visit then.

I always looked forward to nursing her through a long
last illness. I know not how it was, I could never help
looking forward to it with a sort of satisfaction. I day-
dreamed about it — according to the usual way of my mind
— and cut it out in fancy all in my own way. She was
to waste away gradually, without much suffering, and to
become more and more placid in spirit, and filled with the
anticipation of heavenly things. I thought, too, that this
would help to prepare me for my change. Now I seem as
if a long-cherished prospect had been snatched away from
me. I thank God I was not thus suddenly separated from
Henry. — Ever your very affectionate sister,

SARA COLERIDGE.

XIII.

Peculiar Sense of Solitude arising from the loss of a Parent — Editorial

Labours on the " Biographia Literaria " — A Giant Campanula.
To the Hon. Mrs. HENRY TAYLOR.

10, Chester Place, December 8th, 1845.— Your kind in-
vitation I feel quite grieved to decline, but I must decline

184 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

it, as I have done many others that have lately been made
me. I do not feel sufficiently equable in spirits to leave
home now, and cannot agree with my friends in general
that I should regain this quietude better elsewhere than at
home. But I hope to see more of you, dear Mrs. Taylor,
some time hence. The death of my mother permanently
affects my happiness, more even than I should have an-
ticipated, though I always knew that I must feel the
separation at first as a severe wrench. But I did not
apprehend, during her life, to what a degree she prevented
me from feeling heart-solitude, and the full forlornness
of a widow's state. Her age and infirmities, though they
caused me great uneasiness, had not made any sensible
alteration in her mind or heart. I lost in- her as appre-
hensive a companion, and one who entered as fully into
life, as if she had died at fifty. She had a host of common
remembrances with me and interests which my children
are strangers to. They cannot connect me, as conversation
with her so constantly did, with all my early life. But
the worst is the loss of cares and duties, due to her, which
gave additional interest to my existence, and made me
feel of use and important.

I am not, however, brooding over grief, from want of
employment. I am just now, indeed, absurdly busy. I
have to edit my father's fragmentary work, the "Biographia
Literaria," or at least to continue the preparations already
made for a new edition. To carry on these upon the
plan on which they were commenced, and to do for the
Biographia what has been done for " The Friend," and
other works of my father, I have found, as I advanced into
the first volume, for me, exceedingly troublesome. A clever
literary man, who reads and writes on a large scale, would
make nothing of the business, but it makes me feel as if
I had no rest for the sole of my feet, and must be con-
tinually starting up to look into this or that volume, or

185

find it out in some part of Europe. As little boys at
school do so wish that Virgil and Livy would but have
written easily, so I am sometimes tempted to wish that my
father would just have read more commonplace-ishly, and
not quoted from such a number of out-of-the-way books,
which not five persons in England, but himself, would ever
look into. The trouble I take is so ridiculously dispro-
portioned to any effect that can be produced, and we are
so apt to measure our importance by the efforts we make,
rather than the good we do, that I am obliged to keep

. reminding myself of this very truth, in order not to
become a mighty person in my own eyes, while I remain
as small as ever in the eyes of every one else.

Then my father had such a way of seizing upon the one
bright thing, out of long tracts of (to most persons) dull
and tedious matter. I remember a great campanula which
grew in a wood at Keswick — two or three such I found in
my native vale during the course of my flower-seeking
days. As well might we present one of these as a sample
of the blue-bells of bonny Cumberland, or the one or two
oxlips, which may generally be found among a multitude
of cowslips in a Somersetshire meadow, as specimens of

• the flowerhood of the field, as give these extracts for proof
of what the writer was generally wont to produce.

XIY.

"S. T. C. on the Body" — The Essential Principle of Life not de-
pendent on the Material Organism — Teaching of St. Paul on this
Point — The Glorified Humanity of Christ — Disembodied Souls —
Natural Regrets arising from the Thought of our great Change.
To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq.

" What did Luther mean by a body ? For to me the
word seemeth capable of two senses, universal and special ;
first, a form indicating to A. B. C., etc., the existence and
finiteness of some one other being, demonstrative as hie,
and disjunctive as hie et non ille, and in this sense God

186 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

alone can be without body ; secondly, that which is not
merely hie distinctive, but divisive ; yea, a product divisible
from the producent as a snake from its skin, a precipitate
and death of living power, and in this sense the body is
proper to mortality, and to be denied of spirits made
perfect, as well as of the spirits that never fell from
perfection, and perhaps of those who fell below mortality,
namely, the devils."*

What did S. T. C. mean by a form, not material ? A
material form is here divisive as well as disjunctive, and
this he denies of the essential body or bodily principle.
Did he conceive the body in essence to be supersensuous,
not an object of sense, not coloured or extended in space ?
Of the bodily principle we know only this, that it is the
power in us which constructs our outward material
organism, builds up our earthly tenement of flesh and
blood. Can this power, independently of the organism in
and by which it is manifested, be conceived of as a form
indicating the existence and fmiteness of some one being
to another ? I believe that with our present faculties we
are incapable of conceiving how a soul can be embodied,
otherwise than in a sensuous frame, but knowing as we do,
that our fleshly case is not a part of ourselves, but that
there is a something in ourselves which thus clothes us
in matter, I think we may infer that the human body in
the deepest sense is independent of matter, and that it
may, in another sphere of existence, be our form, that
which indicates to other beings our finite distinct individual
being, in a way which now we are not able to know or
imagine.

But what did St. Paul mean when he declared so em-
phatically, "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." Is he not to
be understood literally ? Must we suppose him to have

* Coleridge's "Notes Theological, Political," etc., page 49. — E. C.

" THE SPIRITUAL BODY." 187

meant only this, the carnal mind, or the man in whom
the lower animal nature has the upper hand cannot inherit
the kingdom ? But how will such an interpretation suit
the context ? St. Paul has been speaking not of holiness
and unholiness, but of soul and body and the state after
death, when this mortal tabernacle shall have been dis-
solved. In reference to this subject he affirms that as we
have borne the image of the earthy, that is a material body,
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly, and then
straightway adds that flesh and blood shall not inherit the
Divine kingdom. To this, indeed, he adds again, " Neither
doth corruption inherit incorruption, evidently identifying
flesh and blood with the corruptible, not introducing the
alien topic of spiritual corruption. Jeremy Taylor affirms
in reference to this passage in Corinthians, that "in the
resurrection our bodies are said to be spiritual, not in
substance, but in effect and operation ; " upon which my
father observes, " This is, in the first place, a wilful in-
terpretation, and secondly, it is absurd, for what sort of
flesh and blood would incorruptible flesh and blood be ?
As well might we speak of marble flesh and blood. In
the sense of St. Paul, as of Plato and all other dynamic
philosophers, flesh and blood is ipso facto corruption, that
is, the spirit of life in the mid or balancing state between
fixation and reviviscence, "Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death " is a Hebraism for " this death which
the body is." For matter itself is but spiritus in coagulo,
and organized matter the coagulum in the act of being
restored, it is then repotentiating. Stop its self-destruction
as matter, and you stop its self-reproduction as a vital
organ."*

St. Paul declares that in the resurrection we are to be
clothed with a spiritual body, and to leave behind the
natural body which we had from Adam. Now what is a

* " Notes on English Divines," vol. ii. p. 284.— E. C.

188 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

spiritual as opposed to a natural body ? Surely the latter
is a material and fleshly body, and no body of flesh and
blood can be otherwise than natural, or can be properly
spiritual. Make the flesh and blood ever so thin, fine, and
aerial, still the difference betwixt that and any other flesh
and blood will be one of degree, not of kind. But the
Apostle does not promise us a body of refined flesh and
blood, such as, according to some theologians, Adam had
before the fall, but sets aside our Adamite body altogether,
and seems indeed to imply that the first man had no
spirituality at any time, for he is opposed to the second
man as being of the earth, earthy, as if in his character
of tlae first man, and not as fallen man, he was the source
of earthiness, the Lord from Heaven alone being the
foundation of the spiritual.

There are some who believe that the Lord from Heaven
is now sitting at the right hand of the Father in a material
and fleshly body, such as He wore upon earth, and appeared
in after the Kesurrection, — a metaphorical right hand, as
Pearson explains it, but the body of Him who sits thereat,
of flesh and blood. It is quite natural for such believers to
expect that the bodies of the saints in the resurrection will
be fleshly too. As the first fruits, so they must think will
be all that follow. This argument, however, seems to prove
too much for those who contend that our bodies in the
future world are to be of flesh and blood, but refined and
glorified, and no longer natural. For the body in which
our Lord ascended was the same as that which He had
before He rose from the dead. It was certainly a natural
body, that could be felt as well as seen, and which ate and
drank.

But my father believed that there will be a resurrection
of the body, which will have nothing to do with flesh and
blood ; he speaks of a noumenal body, as opposed to our
present phenomenal one, which appears to the senses, " no

"WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED." 189

visible, tangible, accidental body, that is, a cycle of images
and sensations in the imagination of the beholders, but a
supersensual body, the noumenon of the human nature."*
In truth, he considered this body inseparable from the being
of man, indispensable to the actual existence of finite
spirits ; the notion of disembodied souls floating about in
some unknown region in the intermediate state, after the
dissolution of the material organism, and before the union
of the soul with a celestial, incorruptible flesh-and-blood
body, he looked upon as a mere dream, a chimera suited
only to the times when men were wont to convert abstrac-
tions into persons, and to ascribe objective reality to
creatures which the intellectual and imaginative faculty
engendered within itself. He laughed at the notion of the
separability of the real body from the soul, the arbitrary
notion of man as a mixture of heterogeneous components.
" On this doctrine," he says, " the man is a mere phe-
nomenal result, a sort of brandy-sop, a toddy-punch, a
doctrine unsanctioned by, indeed inconsistent with, the
Scriptures. It is not true that body plus soul makes man.
Man is not the syntheton or composition of body and soul,
as the two component units. No — man is the unit, the
prothesis, and body and soul are the two poles, the positive
and negative, the thesis and antithesis of the man, even as
attraction and repulsion are the two poles in and by which
one and the same magnet manifests itself." t

I continually feel sorrowful at the thought of never again
beholding the faces of my friends, or rather, about to be
sorrowful. I come up to the verge of the thought ever and
anon, but before I can enter into it am met by the reflection,
" 0 vain and causeless melancholy ! " — whatever satis-
faction ajid happiness I can conceive as accruing to me in
this way, cannot the Omnipotent bestow it upon me in some

* " Notes on English Divines," vol. ii. p. 52. — E. C.
f Ibid., vol. ii. p. 96.— E. C.

190 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

other way, if this is not in harmony with His Divine plan ?
The loss, the want, is in this life only, for whatever that
other sphere of existence may be, I shall be adjusted to it.
Still in this life it is a loss and a trial to feel that we cannot
image or represent to ourselves veritably the state and
happiness. We long to see again the very faces of our
friends, and cannot raise ourselves to the thought that in
the other world there may be no seeing with the visual eye,
but something better than such seeing, something by which
it is absorbed and superseded. The belief that the future
world for man is this world reformed, exalted and purified,
is one which I cannot reconcile with reason.

THE SENSE OF SIN. 191

CHAPTEE XIV.

LETTERS TO AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ., HENRY TAYLOR,
ESQ. , MISS MORRIS, MRS. H. M. JONES, MRS. RICHARD
TOWN SEND : 1846.

The Conviction of Sin — Exaggerated Self- Accusations of the Religious
— Substantial Agreement amongst Christians of all Denominations.

To Miss MORRIS, Mecklenburg Square.

January 14th, 1846, 10, Chester Place. — I will at once tell
you the thought or two that occupied my mind as I read
your letter, on the subject of the comparative sense of sin.
I quite agree with you that the sentiment, the feeling is
natural, and, perhaps, necessary, in an awakened or awaken-
ing state of mind, respecting sin, its odiousness, and its
danger. But, then, I think it is capable of being modified
or balanced by the representations of the reasoning mind.
This latter must tell most sinners, whose overt acts are
not of the most flagrant description, that, in all probability,
if they saw the hearts of others as they see their own, they
would behold a very similar train of goings on to that which
they discern by inward inspection. And when they hear so
many of those, who appear to be trying to please God,
express this opinion of their own superior wickedness in
terms equally strong, — as strong as human language
will admit, — how can they, without suspending the use of
reason, avoid drawing the inference that it is no more to
be relied on as absolute truth, than the unawakened Phari-
see's notion, that he is holier than other men ?

The feeling in itself I believe to be a good one, but I do
think it is plainly the intention of our Maker that man
should not be guided by feeling alone, or by his intellect

192 MEMOIR AND LETTEES OP SABA COLERIDGE.

alone, but that he should be kept in the right path by the
alternate or mingled action of the two. The sense of
being worse than any one else, if thus kept in its sphere
by reason, will be nothing more than a keen spiritual
sensibility ; if it went further and clouded that inward eye
which makes us acquainted with truth, we know not what
perversions might follow, what evil reactions and corrup-
tions, even of the spiritual mind by means of the under-
standing. How often has it appeared as if excessive
spiritual humility passed over into spiritual pride, and the
very man who was calling himself a worm, and really
fancying himself such, has shown by his acts and words,
that he considered every soul alive that did not embrace his
notions of election, justification, and such parts of theology,
as far beneath himself, in the eye of God, as a soul that is
and is to be cast out for ever, is beneath a soul that is to
be saved. Yet this same self-deceiver, as he referred to
feeling alone, felt sure that he was really humble. Had he
tried himself by all the different criteria whereby we may
arrive at a knowledge of ourselves, by the state of his heart
and by his outward course of action, by the conclusions of
his judging and comparing faculty, its well as by his
emotions, he could hardly have been thus ignorant what
spirit he was of.

My clergyman frir,nd, who is to spend this evening with
me, speaks strongly and sadly of the mutual misunderstand-
ings that prevail amongst Christians, and I own I daily
more and more lament these dogmatic differences. I know the
parties on both sides insist that they are substantial and
not merely logical (ens logicum) differences, but I do believe
that most persons, who have gone between various parties
as I have done, not merely read on both sides, that is by no
means enough, but eat and drunk and slept, and talked
confidentially and interchanged, not only courtesies, but
heart kindnesses on both or all sides, would have very

MILTON AND WORDSWORTH. 193

much the same impression with myself, that though logical
truth is one, and cannot belong equally to those who
logically differ, yet that the life and soul and substance of
Christianity may be pretty equally partaken by those who
logically differ. And to confess the truth, my own belief is
that the whole logical truth is not the possession of any one
party, that it exists in fragments amongst the several
parties, and that much of it is yet to be developed.

II.

Originality of Milton's Genius — Love of Nature displayed in his

Poetry.
To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq.

1846. — Milton " not characteristically one of nature's great
men 1 " Every great man is characteristically nature's great
man. When did art or learning ever make the most dis-
tant approximation to a Milton ? Learning may be the
form of Milton's poetry, but nature is its matter — or at most,
learning is the body, while nature inspires the soul. Book-
knowledge was more to Milton, world-knowledge to Shake-
speare ; but I believe that the latter owed as much to what
he acquired, what he took into his mind from without, as
the former. But book-knowledge, after all, was less to
Milton than observation of external nature. It is this lore
surely which forms the master charm of Comus, Lyeidae,
the Allegro and Penseroso, the descriptions of Eden, which
are the most perfect part of the " Paradise Lost." Words-
worth has humanized nature ; but Milton glorified it, out of
itself, in showing how divine a thing it is, in its own, and
none but its own loveliness, how evidently the work of God.
Here he is, as you, and Wordsworth before you, say,
essentially Hebraic, so far as the Hebraic mind appears in
the Old Testament. Hence his sublimity, — his simplicity
and grandeur, as to the nature of his theme, which the
classical ornature by no means injures or misfits. He

never is so ornamental as not to be " sensuous and impas-

194 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

sioned," for his ornaments are all, in themselves, the fresh
products of nature, and the use that has been made of them,
since they were first gathered, has deadened in no least
imaginable degree, their everlasting verdure. Milton is
more profusely, more thickly and richly poetic than Words-
worth, his felicities of diction and brilliancies of imagination
are more uniformly spread over the mass of his productions.
As for the Homeric poetry, it is perfection in its way ; but
in regard to thought, the work of the intellect -evolving
reason and the spirit, it displays the childhood of the human
race, and that under an imperfect, obscured, and broken
revelation.

III.

Unfair Criticism of Mr. Coleridge's Religious Opinions — His MS.

Notes — Care taken of them by Mr. Southey.
To HENRY TAYLOR, Esq., Mortlake.*

February %6th, 1846. — I would always invite and welcome
for my father, as he did for himself, the closest examination
of the character and merit of his writings. The sooner
they are clearly understood, both for praise and for useful-
ness, or for detection of delusive appearances of truth and
excellence, the better. His complaint always was that
nobody would question his views in particulars, that nobody
would fight with him hand to hand, but that random
missiles were discharged at him from a distance, by men
who fled away while they fought.

I do not know how any of the Notes came to be effaced,
never having seen the copy of the " Life of Wesley," in
which they were written by my father himself. He did
sometimes forget to finish a note, in some instances most
tantalizingly. Perhaps he broke off to think, and then
either did not satisfy himself, or forgot to record his
conclusions. Some of his marginalia have been cruelly
docked by binders, some rubbed out. My Uncle Southey

* Author of " Philip Van Artevelde," now Sir Henry Taylor. — E. C.

CRABBE. 195

used to ink over his pencilled notes, " that nothing be lost,"
as he said, with his usual diligence. When shall we see
such diligenee again, such regularity with such genius and
versatility ? I think if he had not been a poet, he would
have been called a plodder, and have become a respectable
and useful writer by sheer industry.

IV.

Beauties of Crabbe.
To Mrs. RICHARD TOWNSEND, Springfield, Norwood.

Chester Place, June 17th, 1846.— I am glad that you enjoy
Crabbe. Sir Francis Palgrave praised him most warmly,
and was pleased and rather surprised to have a warm
response from me the other day, at Mr. Murray's. The
" Tales of the Hall " are what I now like the best of all his
sets of poems. In my earlier days I did not perceive half
their merits, the fine observation of life, the tender sympathy
with human sorrow, the gentle smile at human weakness,
the humour, the pathos, the firm, almost stern morality, the
excellent, clear, pure diction, and the touches of beauty (as
I think) interspersed here and there. The Songs I much
admire : the descriptions of Nature are decidedly poetical in
my opinion, though they bear the same relation to Milton's
and Wordsworth's descriptions as the expression of Murillo's
pictures does to that of Eaphael's and Leonardo's.

Reflections of an Invalid — Defence of Luther — Charges of Irreverence
often unjustly made — Ludicrous Illustration found in a Sermon
of Bishop Andrewes — Education : how far it may be Secular
without being Irreligious — Mr. Keble's " Lyra Innocentium "-
Religious Poetry ought to be poetical, as well as religious.
To Miss ERSKINE.

July 23rd, 1846.— My dear A , I thought to have

answered your letter very soon ; but I have been ever
falling from one poorliness into another, each slight in
itself, but producing a general weakness in me which is no

196 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OP SARA COLERIDGE.

slight evil, or rather it is the general weakliness which
rendered me liable to those little attacks, and the attacks
make it worse. But I am making the vestibule of my letter
a doleful sick room, in which the most interesting and
refreshing objects that present themselves are bottles from
the apothecary's shop full of tonics, sedatives, liniments,
gargles, and so forth. Your letter, on the contrary, was full
of fresh air, and made me think of you both when I read itT
and from time to time ever since, riding away on a spirited
pony, with most countrified cheeks and eyes, and a very
light heart and mind less light than ever, I could wish
your heart and mind to be like two buckets, the latter to be
ever filling, fuller and fuller, with the streams of sacred and
all other lore, pure as water and rich as wine — while the
former grows constantly more and more empty of earthly
cares and troubles. I hope that your dear mother continues
well and does not walk too much. She is rather apt, I
believe, not to think of herself, when others are concerned.
There are so many depots, of the largest possible extent,
where selfishness and self-preservativeness may be borrowed
to any amount, that if she can but be persuaded of the
necessity, she might readily furnish herself with a little of
the needful article. But this I have said, as it were, with one
eye open and the other shut, for, though there are in every
street and lane and country village such vast stocks of sel-
fishness to be found, yet those who are in want of the article
never know how to get at any of it. Every particle clings
to its native place like petrifactions in marble. But all this
moral reflection is enough to petrify you by its stupidity,
and, in order to put a little life into both of us, I must e'en
turn for a while to controversy.

How say you, my A , that you are not growing in love

for Luther, but rather becoming hardened in a Tracts for
the Times-j view of that great and good man, the noblest
divine instrument, in my opinion, which the world has seen

LUTHEE. 197

after the prophets and apostles ? Coarse ? What is coarse-
ness in such a man, of such dimensions, of such mental and
spiritual thews and sinews, with such a heart and soul and
spirit, and such a mighty life -long work as he had to per-
form, and performed most heroically ? If Luther had been
a " nice man for a small tea-party," if to write a few Tracts
for the times, or publish a few volumes of sermons, or to
put a church in proper ecclesiastical order, after a modern-
ized-primitive fashion, had been all his vocation upon earth,
then truly a little coarseness would have quite spoilt him.
But he was, as Julius Hare says, " a Titan," and " when a
Titan walks abroad among the pygmies, the earth seems to
rock beneath his tread." It is vain to tell me that Luther
eould not have been spiritual-minded, because he used rough,
coarse, homely expressions. His whole life, public and
private, the general character of his writings, so far as I
know them, prove to me that he was a spiritual-minded man
and the most deeply convinced of sin that ever lived. That
Luther was profane I cannot admit. I have always thought
that the language of the Oxford theologians respecting pro-
faneness in religion had much in it that was both narrow
and uncharitable. They confound want of good taste with
want of piety, homely breeding with that irreverence which
springs from the heart ; in the mean time they are teaching
doctrines and expressing opinions which appear to many
earnest and thoughtfully-religious minds in the highest
degree derogatory to God and Christ and Christianity.
Every one is profane who does not adopt their peculiar
eeremoniousness in religion, who cannot specially revere all
that they have made up their minds to think worthy of
reverence.

Think of this comparison from the pen of Bishop
idrewes, one of their highest favourites amongst our
iglican divines: "Are they like to buckets? one cannot
down, unless the other go up." The ''buckets" are the

198 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Saviour and the Comforter ! Now, would not this be pro-
nounced highly profane by the Luther-haters, had it been
found in a book of Luther's ? Yet Andrewes is considered
the beau ideal of a reverential spirit, by the Oxford writers,
and I have no doubt that he never for a moment lost the
feeling of reverence out of his heart. Yet, with all Luther's
occasional scurrility and violence, I doubt whether an
example so unworthy of the highest of all subjects could be
found in his works. That instance from Andrewes is
brought forward in a long note in the new work of Arch-
deacon Hare, " The Mission of the Comforter, and other
Sermons." The second volume is twice as long as the
other, and full of notes. Note W. contains a most warm,
thorough, searching, resolute defence of Luther against all
his modern censors. It is not to be expected, indeed, that
they who dislike the work which Luther did can ever like
the workman; still they should not bring up again the
refuted slanders of Eomanists, and quote his writings out
of the books of his Eomish adversaries instead of out of
his own.

Yesterday I discussed with Mr. M , or rather, he with

me, Dr. Hook's remarkable pamphlet on National Educa-
tion. M— - contends that no part of education should be
dissociated from religious education, that we ought not to
divide our life or our teaching into secular and religious,
and that such a plan as the one proposed would clamp and
rivet a wrong principle of education and prevent the arising
of a higher and more deeply religious system.

I think certainly that no man could teach history in
an effective, living manner, without infusing into it the
tone and principle either of Socinianism or Trinitarianism.
But I believe that in the routine of the National School,
except where religion is formally introduced, the spirit of
Christianity is not felt at all. And certainly a man may
teach reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic without

THE " LYBA INNOCENTIUM." 199

letting it appear whether he is a Mahometan or a Christian
— nay, more, I do not see how he could keep steadily to his
business in teaching these branches, without keeping his
peculiar form of religion in the background. Still, I

believe that M is right, and that we who embrace with

our hearts the Divinity of Christ, should not allow a dis-
believer even to teach our children to cypher; though I
would by no means admit that we ought to keep out of all
intercourse with such disbelievers, and that is another point
on which I think the Oxford teaching injurious.

I meant to talk with you a little about the Lyra Inno-
centium, but have hardly left myself room. I am doing it
all possible justice, for I read it slowly, two or three poems
a day, and some two or three times over. I like best
"Sleeping on the Waters" and the "Lichgate." Still it
would be quite insincere to say that I either like or approve
of it, upon the whole, either as religion or poetry, though
there are beautiful passages. I hope you do not wholly
approve of it as religion. Surely the Marianism is far
more than our best and greatest divines would approve.
The article in the "Quarterly" is the article of a friend,
and in the main a partisan; the reviewer mentions some
important faults in the volume as poetry, but to my mind
there is a deeper fault than any he mentions, namely, want
of truth and substance, and not only of doctrine, but of
human child-nature. The incidents recorded are quite
insignificant in themselves, they add nothing to our know-
ledge, no richness to our store of reflections. They are
used as mere symbols, suggestive of analogies. They are
just so many pegs and hooks on which Mr. Keble can hang
his web of religious sentiment. The reviewer says that
to excel as a poet is not Mr. Keble's aim. This seems to
me something like goodyism. He who writes poetry surely
should aim to excel as a poet, and the more if his theme is
religion, and his object to spiritualize and exalt. Every

200 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

great poet has a higher aim, of course, than that of merely
obtaining admiration for his poetic power and skill. Words-
worth's aim was to elevate the thoughts of his readers, to
enrich and purify their hearts, but he sought to excel as a
poet in order that he might do this the more effectually.
I believe that Isaiah and Ezekiel sought to excel as poets,
all the more that their poetry was the vehicle of divine
truth, of truth awakened in their souls by inspiration.

YI.

Comparative Merits of the Earlier and Later Poems of Wordsworth —

Burns.
To AUBREY DB VERB, Esq.

1846. — Your scheme of a critique on Wordsworth would
be very noble and comprehensive, if adequately executed.
The difficulty would be to avoid obscurity and vagueness.
I agree to all your characteristics, so far as I understand
them, except those of the later poetry, of which I take a
wholly different view from that expressed in your prospectus.
You have brought me to see more beauty in them than I
once did ; but when you say they have more latent imagina-
tion, are more mellow, exhibit " faculties more perfectly
equipoised," you seem to me to have framed a theory apart
from the facts. They have more fancy, but surely not
more imagination, latent or patent. They can hardly be
mellower, for they have not the same body ; their substance
is thinner ; and some of the author's poetic faculties are, to
my mind, not there to be equipoised. What ! are any of
the later poems, in the blending and equipoise of faculties,
beyond " Tintern Abbey," "The Leech-gatherer," "The
Brothers," " Kuth " ? Did the instrument become mellower
than in "Three Years She Grew," " The Highland Girl,"
" The White Doe " ? Surely there is far more real strength
in the " Sonnets to Liberty," "Song at the Feast of
Brougham Castle," "Platonic Ode," "Bob Boy's Grave,"

201

than in anything the author has produced during the last
twenty years.

That is a good distinction of meditative and contem-
plative.

Your characteristics of Burns are excellent. I agree to
them all heartily. I am glad you are not too genteel to
like Burns.

VII.

Critique on " Laodamia " — Want of Truth and Delicacy in the Sen-
timents attributed to the Wife in that Poem — No Moral Lesson of
any Value to be drawn from such a Misrepresentation — Superior
Beauty and Fidelity of a Portrait taken from the Life — Leading
Idea of Shelley's "Sensitive Plant."

EEASON FOR NOT PLACING " LAODAMIA " IN THE FIEST RANK OF
WORDSWORTHIAN POETRY.

Laodamia is, in my opinion, as a whole, neither power-
fully conceived nor perfectly executed. I venture to say
that there is both a coarseness and a puerility in the design
and the sentiments. I see a want of feeling, of delicacy,
and of truthfulness, in the representation of Laodamia
herself. The speech put into her mouth is as low in tone
as it is pompous and inflated in manner. Would even a
Pagan poet, would Homer have ascribed such an address
to Andromache or Penelope ? Would he have made any
virtuous matron and deeply-loving wife address her lord
returned from the dead so in the style of a Medea or a
Phcedra? Surely in Ovid's "Epistle of Laodamia to
Protesilaus," there is nothing so unmatronly and unwifely,
bold and unfeminine. Not only does the poet make
Laodamia speak thus — he clenches the imputation by a
commentary. He ascribes to her passions unworthy of a
pure abode, raptures such as Erebus disdains — implies that
her feelings belong to mere sense, the lowest part of our
nature. By what right does he impute to the spouse of
Protesilaus such grossness of character, and how can he do

202 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

so without representing her as quite unworthy of that deep
sympathy and compassion which yet he seems to claim for
her? "0 judge her gently who so deeply loved." Deep
love is utterly incompatible with such passions and raptures
as Erebus can have any pretence to disdain. Even where
they existed, they would be consumed, burnt up as a scroll,
in the strong, steady fire of conjugal affection. After all,
what is the moral of this much-pretending, lofty-sounding
poem ? What is it that the poet means to condemn and to
warn against ? To judge by his words, we must suppose
him to be declaiming against subjugation to the senses,
because these things earth is ever destroying and Erebus
disdaining. Now, if Laodamia really longed to be re-united
with her husband only for the sake of his "-roseate lips "
and blooming cheeks, she would deserve censure and con-
tempt too, but the true reason of her sorrow and reluctance
to part with him is this, that she is chained to the sphere of
outward and visible things, while he is gone, Heaven knows
whither, and that, except through a sensuous medium, she
can have no communion with him, none of which she can be
conscious, not the highest and most spiritual. Love can
have no other fruition than that of union. The fervent
apostle longs to be dissolved and to be with Christ. The
poet's machinery, too, is extremely ill-adapted for bringing
out any deep or fine thoughts on such a subject. His
heaven itself is a heaven of sense, Elysian fields, with purl-
ing brooks and lilied banks, " purpureal gleams," and all
that we have here on a brighter and larger scale, where the
pride of the eye, by far the strongest and most seductive of
all the senses, is to be oceanically gratified. But is sub-
mission to the will of God, and a patient waiting to be made
happy in His way, true faith and trust in the Author of our
being, that He who gave us our hearts and the objects of
them, can and will give us the feelings and the fruitions
best adapted to our eternal well-being, if we rely upon Him

" SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT." 203

with an energy of self-abandonment and patience, what the
poet meant to inculcate ? I can only say that if this be the
case, nothing can be more circuitous and misleading than
the way which he takes to arrive at his point ; all along, if
he aims that way he shoots another.

In this poem Mr. Wordsworth wilfully divested himself of
every tender and delicate feeling in the contemplation of
the wife and the woman, for the sake of a few grand
declamatory stanzas, which he knew not else how to make
occasion for. Of course a poor woman is glad to see the
external form of her husband after a long and perilous
absence, right glad, too, to see him with a ruddy cheek,
thankful under such circumstances to receive ever so dis-
locating a squeeze — a thing to the mere sense unluxurious,
nay, painful, but comfortable to the heart within, as making
assurance doubly sure that there he is, the good man him-
self, no vision or spectre like to vanish away, but a being,
confined like herself within the bounds of space, and likely
for many a day to be perceptible within that portion of
space which is their common home ; proof also, or at least
a strong sign, — that whether or no he be as glad to rejoin
her as she is to have him back, at all events he is more
glad than words can express.

Why did Mr. Wordsworth write in this hard, forced,
falsetto style of Laodamia ? Was this a sketch taken from
very nature ? Was it drawn by the light of the sun in
heaven, or by real moonlight in all its purity and freshness?
No ; but by the beams of a purple-tinted lamp in his study,
a lamp gaudily-coloured, but dimmed with particles of
smoke and fumes of the candle. Compare with this the
thoughts and feelings embodied in that exquisite sketch,
" She was a Phantom of Delight," the fine and delicate
interweaving of the outward and sensuous with the things
of the heart and higher mind in that poem. Can we not
see in a moment that the poet had been gazing on the deep

204 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

and manifold countenance of Nature herself, of Truth and
Keality, when he threw forth those verses ; that he had been
seeing, not inventing? Yet is it not far more finely
imaginative than the other ? Would any but a great poet
have so seen the face of Nature, or so pourtrayed it ? Mrs.
Wordsworth lies, in essence, at the bottom of that poem.
How angry would the bard be to have her connected in
any way with the other, and its broad, coarse abstractions !
So long as sense is divorced from our higher being, it is,
indeed, a low thing; but may it not be redeemed, and by
becoming the minister and exponent of the other, be puri-
fied and exalted ? I have ever thought those doctrines
that seek to sever the sensuous from our humanity, instead
of retaining and merging it in the sentimental, the intel-
lectual, and the spiritual, " a vaulting ambition that o'er-
leaps itself and falls on the other side."

I have received more consolation from Mr. Wordsworth's
poetry than from any sermons or works of devotion at
different times of my life, but I must have more truth and
freshness than there is in Laodamia to be either highly
gratified or consoled. I would not have poetry always
dwell in the common world, but still it must always have
truth at the bottom. I admire, for instance, and see great
truth in Shelley's " Sensitive Plant." It is wild, but there
is nothing unreal or forced about it. I look upon it as a
sort of apologue, intended, or at least fitted, to exhibit the
relations of the perceptive and imaginative mind, as modi-
fied by the heart, with external nature.

MB. RUSKIN'S " MODERN PAINTERS." 205

CHAPTER XV.

LETTERS TO AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ., REV. HENRY
MOORE, MISS FENWICK, MRS. FARRER, MISS MORRIS :
July— December, 1846.

Mr. Ruskin's "Modern Painters."
To Miss MORRIS.

1846. — A book which has interested me much of late, is
a thick volume by a graduate of Oxford, whose name is
Euskin, on the superiority of the modern landscape
painters to the old masters in that line. The author has
not converted, and yet he has delighted me. I think him
a heretic as regards Claude, Cuyp, G. Poussin, and
Salvator Eosa ; but his admiration of Turner, whom he
exalts above all other landscape painters that ever lived, I
can go a great way with ; and his descriptions of nature in
reference to art are delightful — clouds, rocks, earth, water,
foliage, he examines and describes in a manner which
shows him to be quite a man of genius, full of knowledge
and that fineness of observation which genius produces.

II.

A Talk with Mr. Carlyle-- Different Effects of Sorrow on Different
Minds — Miss Fenwick — Milton Good as well as Great.

To AUBREY DE VERE, Esq.

Carlyle, I think, too much depreciates money as an
instrument. I battled with him a little on this point when
I saw him last. He is always smiling and good-natured
when I contradict him, perhaps because he sees that I
admire him all the while. I fought in defence of the
mammonites, and brought him at least to own that the
labourer is worthy of his hire. Now, this contains the pith

206 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

of the whole matter. The man who devotes himself to
gain riches deserves to have riches, and like Hudson, to
have a monument set up to him by those whom he has
enriched ; and if he strives for riches, to spend them nobly
or kindly, then he deserves to have the luxury of that sort
of doing good. A Burns or a Berkeley aims at, and works
for, and ought to find his reward in, other harvests. But
Carlyle seems angry because the Burns or the Johnson or
the Milton has not the same honours, or from the same
men, as millionaires and fashionists, because the whole
world — unphilosophical and unpoetical as the main part of
it is — does not fall down and worship them, and cast forth-
with into the sea or some Curtius gulf all the gauds and
playthings which they do not care about. This is overbear-
ing and unfair. Let him teach the world to be philo-
sophical and poetical as fast as he can ; but till it is so, let
him not grudge it the rattles and sugar-plums and hobby-
horses of its infancy

Your last letter, received at Herne Bay, gave a delightful
account of your mother and her consolations. Soon after
reading it, I saw a fine appearance in the sky — for then I
was always watching sky and sea and atmosphere spectacles
—the sun and moon in a mist, the latter pallid and sickly,
while the former burned through the veil, and converted all
the vapour around it into a vehicle of golden radiance.
This seemed to me an apt image of the diverse effect of
sorrow on different minds. To a warm and deeply benevo-
lent spirit it becomes the means of a more diffusive charity
and kindliness ; the sorrow itself is pierced through and
overpowered, yet serves to spread abroad and augment the
benevolence which it cannot damp or extinguish ; while to
those who have but a comparatively scanty stock of love
belonging to them it is the extinguisher of all social
amiability, it renders them dull and cold, the mere ghosts
of their former selves.

MISS FENWICK. 207

I take great delight in Miss Fenwick and in her conversa-
tion. Well should I like to have her constantly in this
drawing-room to come down to from my little study up-
stairs— her mind is such a noble compound of heart and
intelligence, of spiritual feeling and moral strength, and
the most perfect feminineness. She is intellectual, but—
what is a great excellence — never talks for effect, never
keeps possession of the floor, as clever women are so apt to
do. She converses for the interchange of thought and
feeling, no matter how, so she gets at your mind, and lets
you into hers. A more generous and a tenderer heart I
never knew. I differ from her on many points of religious
faith, but on the whole prefer her views to those of most
others who differ from her. Once she said something
against Milton, which made me feel for the moment as
Oliver Newman did, when Eandolph denounced the " blind
old traitor,"

" With that his eyes
Flashed, and a warmer feeling flushed his cheek."

" Time will bring down the Pyramids," he said, and so'
forth. Eandolph' s respondent did but defend Milton on the
score of his poetry. But I think he was great as a man
and a patriot, very noble in the whole cast of his character,
and very far from being what she thinks him, for his
writings against that weak, wily (or at least ^-straight-
forward, not ingrainedly honest) despot, King Charles I.,—
" malicious." It is seldom that so brave, so public -spirited
a man as Milton harbours malice in his heart, he too who
had " never spoken against a man that his skin should be
grazed." So, like Oliver, though I kept " self-possession as
a mind subdued," yet was I " a little moved."

208 MEMOIE AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

III.

Danger of Exclusiveness in Parental Affection.
To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

Chester Place, August 5th, 1846. — It is certainly right
that parents should form, as much as possible, a friendship
with their children, and seek mental association with them;
but it seems to me that their desire for this, and endeavour
after it, should not be without limits. Parents and
children cannot be to each other as husbands with wives
and wives with husbands. Nature has separated them by
an almost impassable barrier of time ; the mind and the
heart are in quite a different state at fifteen and at forty.

Then, too, we must consider, that though so many
difficulties attend the comfortable marriage of young people
in our rank of life ; yet, marriage, somewhere between
seventeen and thirty, is what we should look to for them, as
a possible and, upon the whole, desirable event for them in
ordinary cases. This probability alone must interfere with
our forming such habits of continual intercourse with them
and dependence upon them for hourly comfort and amuse-
ment, as it would be very painful to break off in case of
their doing what it is certainly most for their life -long
happiness that they should do, — forming a marriage
connection which may endure when we are gone to our
rest. Whatever is most natural, so that it be not of the
nature of sin, is in all ordinary cases the best and safest. I
have seen and heard of a great deal of distress and misery
arising from parents setting their hearts too much on the
society and exclusive or paramount love of their children ;
and have always felt, especially since I have been a widow,
that this was a rock which I had to avoid.

ST. AUGUSTINE'S COLLEGE. 209

IY.

St. Augustine's College — Holiday Tasks — The Evening Grey, and the

Morning Red.
To Miss FEISTWICK.

St. George's Terrace, Herne Bay, August ZQth, 1846. —
One day last week we drove to Canterbury, to visit the
rising Missionary College of St. Augustine, which will be
completed and set agoing, — made alive, as it were, before
the end of next spring, as is now expected. I was much struck
with the true collegiate air of the pile of buildings, and the
solid handsomeness and appropriate beauty of the separate
parts. I was particularly pleased with a long gallery
running between the two ranges of fifty students' rooms ;
it will be such an excellent walk for the meditative student
in bad weather, and at all times when he wishes to relieve
his sitting posture. There he may untie many a knot,
occurring in his studies, which has stuck him up, as the boys
say, while he was sitting on his chair. There he may cast
his eye over his future prospects, — though, perhaps, as to
some part of them, it may be as well not to "proticipate,"
to use Mrs. Gamp's expression, for hardships seem still
harder at a distance, I think, than close at hand.

Derwent and M., and their sweet chattering C — , who

looks, when in a madcap wilful mood, even prettier than
when she is good, — like a little wild cat of the woods, or

kitten ocelot in a playful fury, — returned to St. M some

days ago. They left their son for some time longer to be
Herbert's companion. I cannot say that I have an absolute
holiday even here, as I am bound to read Homer and
^Eschylus with these youths (of whom my son is to be six-
teen, my nephew eighteen, in October) every day, and though
their lessons at present are not long, — yet to rein them in
when they are galloping on, leaving sense and connection of
thought in the far distance; — and to have my own way
about the disputed passage, when I am in the right, and let

210 MEMOIR AND LETTERS* OF SARA COLERIDGE.

them have theirs and their little triumph when Ma has
proved to be a " verdant creature/' as my boy has the
coolness to call me when I have betrayed an ignorance of
something that he knows, — is to me some little exertion;
—but not too much, for I see very little good in entire
holidays, especially when there are so many sad remem-
brances in the background of the mind as there are in
mine, ever ready to come forward when the foreground is
not well filled up. Sad indeed they are not, by this time,—
at least, not always and wholly. They begin to lose their
blacker hue, and to be tinged with the soft though sober
grey of thought and meditation on things to come, with
which they blend, and in which they seem to sink, and at
times almost to be absorbed. Still, I am glad to have my
eyes turned for awhile towards brighter objects, and the rosy
dawn of youth, and health, and gladness. These young
ones are as hoity-toity and fantastical, and crest-perky as
boys who have never known care or want, and are full of
health and strength (if not naturally of very sedate
dispositions), usually are. They are fond of chattering about
the pretty girls they meet and fascinate. M. and I make
a point of thinking the young ladies they admire par-
ticularly plain and vulgar, and assuring them, on our own
early life experience, that young ladies seldom have any
eyes for the charms of gentlemen, but are solely intent on
the degree of admiration which their own charms excite.
Well, this is a very motherly and auntly tale ; you will
think that these young beaux have one admirer at least,
their own mamma and aunt.

" Saintism " — Untrustworthiness of Religious Autobiographies.
To Miss MORRIS.

H erne Bay, August %%nd, 1846. — Dear Friend, — I have read
a part of the memoir of the " Sisters," and have been much
interested by it ; but I think I do not feel about it quite as

211

you do. It seems to me to present a mixture of real pure
Christianity, and of Saintism, that spurious or semi-
spurious piety, which is to be found, not among Methodists
alone, but amongst Christians of all names, and sometimes
leavens the religion even of the truly religious. But why
do I feel thus ? What is there in the book that is otherwise
than pure and holy ? Dear Miss Morris, you will perhaps
think me very wrong and over-captious, but it is just this
absence of everything that is not presentable in the record,
that makes me distrust it, as not being the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. So far as my reflection, and
experience, and knowledge of life, and knowledge of
biography go (I do not say they go far, but by such as I
have I must judge), souls seen as they are, without a
glorifying mist, do not look quite as those souls do in
that book — scarcely ever, if ever. Yet, if Papistical and
Methodistical and other, religious biography be absolutely
trustworthy, and to be taken literally, there must be
thousands upon thousands of such white lambs in every
country. The very same sorts of things which I read there
are to be read in so many other volumes. There is too
little individuality about them, they do not read (like poor
Blanco White's Memoirs) like actual life, with all its
peculiarities ; for if every leaf is unlike every other leaf,
how much more is every soul unlike every other soul !
True it is that religion, like love, levels many distinctions ;
but yet, in every portrait of a living face we recognize a
thousand lines and expressions peculiar to itself. These
girls call themselves worms, poor sinners, as in reference to
their God, to infinite perfection. There is not much
humility in making this avowal. But see, after all, what
a fine character, what a noble, elevated character, with
none but noble faults, is traced of each of them in those
pages ! And by whose hands is that character traced ?
By any other than their own, and that of their memorialist,

212 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

partial and proud, as their biographer, and as their own
sister ? I cannot, and I never could, feel deeply impressed
by such representations as these. I always feel that there
may be, that there probably is, much of unconscious self-
deception about them. A man's own journal, his own book
of private confession, so far as it reports well of him, is not
to be entirely trusted ; for we cannot help drawing flatter-
ing pictures of ourselves even for ourselves, we do not give
an exact copy of our own hearts, we involuntarily soften it
off. We say we are evil, but we do not show it, and prove
it. I admire and am often deeply affected by the goodness
of many of my fellow Christians, but then it is such as I
have had the means of witnessing myself in their daily acts
and course of life, or such as is attested by persons not
interested on their behalf, or from some record that has
that life-like air about it, that natural light and shade,
those vera, and not ficta peccata, of one kind or another,
which I believe that every real life, faithfully and fully
drawn, would exhibit. Still I think that Anne and Emma
must have been girls of a very high stamp ; the whole
family of the M s appear to me to be very superior.

VI.

Human Sorrow and Heavenly Rest — "The Golden Manual" — Blue
and White, in Sky, Sea, and Land — Lander's Pentameron —
Comparative rank of Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante.
To AUBREY DE YERE, Esq. , Curragh Chase.

August 3Ist, Herne Bay. — Of all the thoughts that press
upon us, on the loss of nearest friends, that which presses
hardest and strongest is the self-question, "How have I
done my part towards him that is gone ? Is he now or has
he been the worse through any fault of mine ? " Then
how earnestly we pray, when he is in the hands of his
heavenly Father alone, in the bosom of Infinite mercy, that
he may have that perfect kindness and boundless com-
passion shown him which we failed to show him here, even

DYING HOURS. 213

humanly and as far as we might. For, then, the double-
faced glass is reversed, it magnifies all our trespasses
against him, and exaggerates our shortcomings, while it
reduces our efforts to serve and please, our bearings and
forbearings, to narrow room, or at least takes the colour
out of them, and makes them look as wan as the dear face
that used to smile and glow in our sight. But I meant to
have said something different from this, more calm and
soothing. I was going to speak of the religious peace and
firmness of your father's dying hours, the sure and certain
hope he seemed to feel of mercy through the " Merits and
Death of his Eedeemer." These are remembrances on
which the mind may repose, as on a bed of balm — more
lasting in their fragrance than any balm that ever grew in
Arabia, for they will yield fresh odours from time to time
as long as they are pressed upon. As those dying hours of
our dearest ones can never be far out of mind, it is a
blessing indeed, when they have more of the rest of heaven
in them than of the sting of the grave. Those you spoke
of to me remind me of my own father's. He, too, was
calm and clear to the last, till he fell into the coma that
so often precedes death, and neither afraid nor grieved to
depart, and he was thoughtful for others still struggling
with the world when he was leaving it. Perhaps it is
easier to die at sixty (he was near sixty-three) than at
forty. It ought to be so, if we make use of our time. A
man who reaches that age may feel that he has done a
day's work ; and then life, as it runs on, changes its colour
and aspect, just as the natural day changes from meridian
light to afternoon mellowness, and then to evening grey.
It seems right and fit to go hence in that evening grey,
when the shadows are falling on all things here to our
altered eyes, not to leave the full sun behind us when we
enter the darkness of the tomb. It is true that this dark-
ness exists but in our imagination ; we transfer to the state

214 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

of the departed the obscurity of our minds respecting it, or,
at least, our incapability of beholding it visually as we
behold this present world ; still, it has a real influence
upon our feelings, although by efforts of thought we can
dispel those shades of Hades, and bring before us that
place where there is neither sun nor moon — no need of
them, for the glory of God will lighten it, and the Lamb be
the light thereof. May we more and more dwell upon that
place and state, remembering that, whatever be the form
and outwardness of it, whatever be its relation to the
beauty of this world in which we now dwell, it is to be a
spiritual state more fully than that which we abide in here,
and yet that here we must be prepared for it, and, in part,
conformed to it. I am at this time reading a little book of
mystic divinity, the Theologica Germanica, or little " Golden
Manual," a great favourite with the Platonist divine, Dr.
Henry More. [It contains very high spiritual doctrine,
and dwells on the necessity of setting aside all " selfness
and egoity," and serving God purely for love's sake alone,
without respect to even a heavenly reward.

We are just come in from a seaside walk, driven home
by the glaring sun. Scarce a breath is stirring, sea and
sky are all one hue, and the air is heavy. The sunniest
day in last week was fresher than this, — then there was
one light wreath of white but shaded clouds rolled along
the horizon, and to match it there was a fringe of still
whiter foam along the edge of the retiring sea, — all else of
the sea and sky was brightly blue. Herbert reminded me
of Homer's expressive phrase, about spirting off the divine
sea, which sounds low in English, but is not so felt in the
Greek CLTTOTTTVU aXa $iav. The seaside plants and insects,
too, all do their part of brightness on these sunny days,
none more than that shiny blue flower, which grows upon
a shrubby stem and emulates the sky so boldly.* Veronicas

* See Postscript.— E. C.

215

make a fine show of azure in the mass, as they creep over
a bank, and beds of harebells are earth skies in the clear
spaces of the wood, but the single blossoms of this plant
are each a little sky of itself. Quite as lovely and as
lustrous in its way is the foam-white convolvulus, which
looks so exquisitely soft and innocent, as it gleams amid
the brambles and nettles which its lithe stem embraces.
Critics have made a " mighty stir " to find out what Virgil
meant by his ligustrum.

Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur.

Surely, he must have meant this snowy-blossomed bind-
weed. Privet is out of the question. It is neither very
white nor very caducous. The flowers of the bind-weed
are especially so ; they soon sink into a twisted roll, and
fall to the ground, though not wafted away so early as the
petals of the anemone and gum-cistus. Then near the sea
there are always blue and white butterflies, hovering over
these blue and white flowers.

I have just finished reading Landor's Pentameron. It
is full of interest for the critical and poetical mind, but is
sullied by some Landorisms, which are less like weeds in a
fine flower bed, than some evil ingredient in the soil,
revealing itself here and there by rankish odours, or stains
and blotches on leaf and petal. The remarks on Dante,
severe as they are, I cannot but agree with in the main. I
believe you expressed some dissent from them. I think
that Dante holds the next rank in poetic power and
substance after Homer, Shakespeare and Milton, perhaps
above Virgil, Ariosto and Spenser, but there is much in his
mind and frame of thought which I exceedingly dislike,—
and I have ever felt much of what Landor expresses on the
subject, though without speaking it all out even to myself.
It happened that just after I had been declaring to Derwent
my opinion of Milton's superiority to Homer, and he had

216 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

been upholding the paramountcy of the latter, I came upon
Landor's sentence on the subject. He pronounces Homer
and Dante both together only equivalent to Milton " shorn
of his Sonnets and Allegro and Penseroso." I suppose he
thinks that the objectivity of the one and subjectivity of the
other (which, however, is not equal to that of still later
poets) blended into one might come up to the epic poetry
of Milton; and truly in poetic matter and stuff of the
imagination, they might even surpass it : but there is to
my mind, in the latter, a tender modern grace, a fusion of
sentiment and reflection into the sensuous and outward,
which is more exquisite in kind than anything you would
obtain from Homer and Dante melted together. I must
tell you, however, that Mr. Wordsworth considers Homer
second only to Shakespeare, deeply as he venerates Milton.

VII.

Age and Ugliness—" Expensive Blessings " — ^Eschylus— Principle of
Pindaric Metre, and Spirit of Pindaric Poetry — Physical and
Intellectual Arts of Greece.

To the Rev. HENRY MOORE, Eccleshall Yicarage, Staffordshire.

Herne Bay, September 5th, 1846. — You kindly renew your
invitation, and put it in a new shape. I can only thank
you for it, alas ! and try to keep alive a hope that I may
enjoy your hospitality some future autumn. We read much
in books, amongst other things about women which to
many of our sex are altogether new and surprising, that
the softer sex are apt to toughen as they lose the graces of
youth. Keally, if this were the case, it would be such a
set-off against grey hairs, and withering roses and lilies,
and all those ugly, unflourishing dells which time gradually
introduces into our face-territory, that we might behold
those changes with at least half- satisfaction ; but I should
say from experience that, on the contrary, we grow weaker
and more sensitive in advancing life, quite as fast as we

JESCHYLUS AND PINDAK. 217

grow uglier. Then women who are so unfortunate as to
have a boy and girl growing up under their eyes, are
reminded of their age and weakness continually. It is a
miserable thing, to be sure ! and then how much money it
costs ! Why, if it wasn't for these plagues, I should be quite
rich, and should not have to cast an anxious eye towards
railways, or be tossed up and down in soul and spirit with
the fluctuations of the money-market. I need never care
whether I got 5 per cent, or only 3J. I was rather pleased,
certainly, when my fellow-lodgers expressed their astonish-
ment that I should be the mama of " that fine boy." They
expected to see a buxom dame, after seeing him first. But
matters are not always ordered so ; and, even in this way, the
race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
During Herbert's stay here, before he left us to return to
Eton, he read with me the Eumenides of .ZEschylus, and
great part of the Chocephorce, and the Olympics of Pindar.
The drawback to pleasure in reading the former is the
corruptness of so many of the choruses. You may read
Latin, German, French, English translations of those com-
positions, all different and all unsatisfactory. Pindar is
much easier ; one can make him all out at last, bring him
back from his long excursions to the spot whence he started,
though not without some trouble. But the drawback to
pleasure in reading him, for me, is the impossibility of
realizing to my ear his strange metre, so strictly regular,
yet of a regularity so varied and complex, that it seems
like lawlessness and wild extravagance to those who cannot
feel, though they may understand, the law of it. To judge
from the eye, I should say that its flow somewhat resembled
the sea with its waves, growing ampler and ampler, for a
while, then sinking back again, and that this suits well
with his style of thought and imagery, that combination of
impetuosity with a majestic gravity — a tempered enthu-
siasm, controlled and regulated by the law of reason, and a

218 MEMOIB AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

deep spirit of reverence for the Supreme and the Invisible,
— the things that are above us, and at the same time are
lying at the very depths and foundations of our nature.

What a high rank bodily exercises held in those ancient
days ! A man's feet or fists, or skill in horsemanship or
driving, lifted him to renown, and wreathed his brow with
laurel, — and yet, in those same days, the intellectual arts
had reached a point in some respects (in execution, cer-
tainly) unsurpassed. The celebrated race-hero now lives
in memory of man only in virtue of the poetry devoted to
his celebration. Pindar seems but half to have foreseen
this when he intimates that the mighty man of feet or of
fists would have had but a brief guerdon but for his glowing
strains. It is some exertion for me to keep pace with
Herbert's Greek now ; his eye is rapid, more so than mine
ever was, — I wish he would unite with this a little more of
my pondering propensities and love of digging down as far
as ever one can go into the meaning of an author; — though
this is sometimes unfavourable to getting a given thing
done for immediate use, — it takes one off into such wide
and many-branched excursions. As long, however, as I
can keep pace with the youth, I shall be able, in virtue of
my years and experience, at least for some time, to shoot
ahead of him when we come to any really hard passage, in
which it is not so much the knowledge of one particular
language, but of thought in general, that is required for the
elucidation. John often exhorts me to let my mind go to
grass ; but who can do this while their mind can do any
sort of good in harness ? After all it is a gain, even for our
own mental enjoyment, to be led back to these evergreen
haunts of the Muses, which, but for the sake of accom-
panying our children, we might never revisit ; and I am
thankful that the limbs of my mind are still agile enough for
these excursions, and that I am not aged for rambling in
those literary fields, or for enjoying myself there, which in

MISS FABKEE. 219

some respects I am able to do far more than when I first
entered them.

VIII.

Miss Fairer.
To Mrs. FARRER.

10, Chester Place, September 21s£, 1846.— My dearest Mrs.
Farrer, — Since I read the last pages of your kind and
interesting letter, I have been thinking almost continually
of dear Miss Farrer.* I feel as yet as if I could scarcely
understand or reconcile myself to her death. The event
is so unexpected, as well as unwelcome. When I first
saw her, she struck me as one full of firmness and vigour,
in rich and undeclining autumn. To say I shall never
forget her is nothing. I might remember a far less im-
pressive person ; but she will remain in my mind as one
of the most marked and interesting persons whom I have
met with in my walk through life — one of those who most
made me feel that religion is an actual reality — not merely
a system, but a vital influencive truth, which, even in this
world, can give such happiness as the world cannot give. I
am unable to remember many of her sayings, but I well
retain the spirit of her discoursings, and her deep, glad,
earnest voice will often sound in my ears. How graceful
and persuasive too she was in her gestures ! These are the
outward things, and it seems wronging her who had such
riches within, such a depth of heart and spirit, to speak of
them ; but they were a part of her here, and they bring her
vividly to mind, such as she was altogether, outwardly and
inwardly; and never was any* one's outward part, coun-
tenance, carriage, and even bodily form, more expressive
of the soul within than hers was.

How many must there be, and in what distant quarters

* This lady, whose acquaintance my mother made in the autumn of 1843,
is mentioned in one of the letters of that date, in which her interesting and
remarkable character is dwelt upon with cordial admiration. — E. C.

220 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

of the world, that will truly mourn her death ! I am sure
she must have a large interest in the heavenly habitations.
How many years she was doing good, and how steadily she
trod the path of Christian charity and bounty ! I think
she was not clear-sighted on some points, and that she
fixed her eyes too exclusively on one side of truth, though
she sought so earnestly to look upon all who call on the
name of Christ as belonging to one fold under one Shep-
herd, let them shut themselves up within walls and hedges
of partition as much as they might. She would have
embraced all believers with the arms of her charity, but
did not always do full justice, I think, to the belief. She
was, however, a sincere and bountiful Christian. Her
example has been a burning and shining light, and will,
I trust, be remembered for good long after the tears are
dried that will be shed for her. What attracted me so to
her was to see her, wide as her charities were, so warm and
liberal and loving in her own family. I mean by liberal, so
full of sympathy, so ready to see all things in the best
light, and to promote all that is gay and gladsome and
beautiful. There have been philanthrophists, and sincere
and noble ones too, who have been oppressive and incon-
siderate and morose in their own families. Some who do
good abroad from selfish, ambitious motives, are selfish,
even cruel at home. But she was so faithful and tender
and affectionate.

IX.

On the Establishment — The Church Supported by the State, not in its

Catholic, but in its National Character — Bishops in Parliament.
To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq.

What Dr. Hook says on the Establishment in his pam-
phlet on the Education of the People, I rather admire. A
correspondent of mine exclaims with indignation, " Con-
ceive his asserting that the State is no more bound to the
Church than to Methodists, etc., and asking, if it is, by

CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS. 221

what Act of Parliament ? As if the Church were not an
estate of the realm, as much as the monarch is, or either
House of Parliament." I cannot quite understand what my
friend means by this. Our Church, with the sovereign at
its head, and with its present formularies, dates only from
the sixteenth century. Dissolve its present connection with

(the State, and merge it in the Church of Eome, still the
State remains essentially the same ; but take away the
monarch, or either House of Parliament, and you, at least
organically, derange the State. It will remain, but as a
different thing, with its character quite altered. Dr. Hook
seems to mean only this, which seems to me undeniable,
that the British nation is not of one form of Christianity,
but of several, and that the State, which surely must con-
form itself to the nation, acting through Parliament, does
not, and must not, protect, support, and, so far, help to
establish one form alone, but as many as the nation em-
braces. It is true that the Church of England has some
special relations to the State, which other bodies of Chris-
tians have not. But how has she obtained these ? Is it
simply from her being spiritually the Church of Christ,
apostolically descended, while those other bodies are not
the Church of Christ, or any part of it ? It seems to me
chimerical to say so. The special relations of the Church
of England to the State, as I understand the matter, are
of a temporal character, derived from her having once been
the Church of the whole nation, still being the Church of
the majority, and consequently having a greater amount
of property than other religious communities, and that in
a more imposing and dignified form. The council of the
nation may be filled with Dissenters and Papists. It never,
therefore, can be the duty of that Council, as such, to sup-
port the Church of England more than other religious
bodies, except in proportion to numbers. The bishops do
not represent that Church in Parliament, for they sit there

222 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

as temporal peers. I believe that Christianity, religion in
its deepest form, is interwoven with the State, and every
state, in a vital and intricate manner. We know of no
civilized state that was not in alliance with religion ; but
I cannot think that one particular form of Christianity,
though it be the truest form, is a component and essential
part of the State, while the large body of Methodists, with
Quakers, Independents, and others, are in a totally different
predicament. I cannot think Dr. Hook so far wrong for
asking in what real, substantial sense is the Church of
England established here, or how has it a right to peculiar
State support and protection, to be supported as the Church
of England, not merely as a part of the Christianity of the
land. Of course it is still formally the Established Church,
and long may it be.

The Divina Commedia — Barbarous Conception of the World of Fallen
Spirits exhibited in the " Inferno " — Dante compared with
Milton, Lucretius, and Goethe — Dante as Poet, Philosopher and
Politician.
To AUBREY DB VERE, Esq., Curragh Chase.

October, 1846. — I cannot quite agree with you (yet, at
least) on the superlative merits of Dante, whom you seem
to me to view through a glorifying glass, bigger than that
with which Herschel inspected the sun; but your reflections
on the state of your country are full of that heart -poetry
and spiritual wisdom, which, methinks, you " half -create,"
and do but half, or scarcely half, " find," in the great Epic
Poem of the Middle Ages. What you say of hungry people,
that they should not be convened in multitudes, is a part of
this wisdom. The clamours of the Times, and the mingled
yells and hisses of the Dublin Review, are — a disgrace to a
Christian country. This is quite a bathos. I had some-
thing in my mind much, more energetic, which I forbore to
utter, lest you should think that I had had a little bite of

DANTE AND MILTON. 223

Cerberus myself, and that my preference of the " Inferno "
to the other parts of Dante's poem arises from a fellow-
feeling with those amiable gentlemen in the City of Dis,
who shut the gates in the face of Virgil.

How graphic all that is ! How one can enter into the
spitefulness (if Dante had not been spiteful, he couldn't
have written it) with which they proposed that Virgil
should stay with them, and Dante find his way home by
himself ; how one can see them tearing off as hard as they
could go, to bar the entrance ! Milton could not have
conceived this intensity of narrow malice ; he could not
have brought his rich genial mind, his noble imagination,
down to it. It may truly be said that Dante brings the
violence and turbulence of the infernal world into heaven —
witness his 27th canto of the " Paradiso," which is all
denunciation after the splendid introduction, yet comprises,
to my mind, with slight exceptions, almost the whole
power of the " Paradiso," on the merits of which, as at
present advised, I quite agree with Landor ; while Milton
invests even the realms below and their fallen inhabi-
tants with a touch of heavenly beauty and splendour.
And is this in an irreligious spirit ? Oh ! far from it.
This is consonant with religious trtith and with the Bible,
which leads us to look upon the world of moral evil as a
wreck, a ruin, rather than a mere mass and congeries of
hideous abominations. It is this which renders Milton's
descriptions so pathetic: sympathy with human nature,
with fallen finite nature, pervades the whole. If this be
" cotton-wool," then cotton-wool for ever, say I. But this
cotton-wool I believe to be a part of the substance of
Christianity. For pure, unmixed wickedness, we can have
no feeling ; we can but shudder, and turn away. Dante
utterly wants this genial, expansive tenderness of soul ;
wherever he is touching, it is in the remembrance of some-
thing personal — his own exile, or his love for little

224 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Beatrice Portinari, or the sorrows of his patron's daughter,
Francesca. Let him loose from these personal bandages,
and he is perpetually raging and scorning, or else lecturing,
as in the " Paradiso." How ferociously does he insult the
sufferers in the " Inferno " — actual individual men ! You
say this is but imagination. Truly, if it were not, the
author would have been worthy of the maniac's cell, chains,
and darkness ; but surely the heart tinctures the imagina-
tion. I know my father's remark upon this very point,
and admit its truth as a general remark ; but I think it is
not strictly applicable to Dante. His pictures are like the
visions of heart-anger and scorn, not mere extravagant
flights of merry petulance, or pure, high-flown abstractions,
but have something in them deep, earnest, real, and
individualizing. It is a hard turn of mind, to say the best
of it. Carlyle does Dante more than justice — rather say,
generous injustice — on this point, when he tells us of his
softness, tenderness, and pitifulness, at the same time
extolling his rigour. Eigour is all very well in the right
place ; but such rigour as Dante's could scarce be approved
by Him who said, " Judge not, lest ye be judged." It is
well enough to be rigid against the passion of anger, but not
to stick a certain Filippo Argenti up to the neck in a lake
of such foulness as few men could have conceived or
described, and then to express a " fearful joy " — or what is
fearful to the reader, rather than himself — in seeing the
other condemned ones fall furiously upon him, and duck
him in it all but to suffocation ! And he makes Virgil (who
would have been above such schoolboy savagery) hug and
kiss him for it, and apply to him the words spoken of our
Blessed Saviour — Luke ii. 27 ! Dante ought to have
looked upon the tortures of the lower kingdom with awe
and a sorrowful shuddering, not with triumphant delight
and horrid mirth. But the whole conception was barbarous,
though powerfully executed.

DANTE AND LUCRETIUS. 225

You must not think that I am wholly an armadillo or
rhinocerean, insensible to the merits of Dante, from what
I have said. I think that his " Divina Commedia " is one
of the great poems of the world ; but of all the great poems
of the world, I think it the least abounding in grace, and
loveliness, and splendour. There is no strain in it so fine
as the address to Venus at the beginning of Lucretius'
great poem ; scarce anything so brightly beautiful as
passages in Goethe's great drama. I think, certainly, that
the religious spirit displayed in it, especially in the
" Purgatorio," is earnest and deep, but far from pure or
thoroughly elevated. If you set up a claim for Dante, that
his is the great Catholic Christian mind, then a^terrajuat —
I am off, and to a great distance. The following description
of Carlyle seems to me to point at what is Dante's
characteristic power : — " The very movements in Dante
have something brief, swift, decisive — almost military.
The fiery, swift Italian nature of the man — so silent,
passionate — with its quick, abrupt movements, its silent,
pale rages — speaks itself in these things." Yes ; it is in
this fiery energy, these " pale rages," that Dante's chief
power shows itself, as it seems to me, not in genial beauty
and lovingness, not in a wide, rich spirit of philosophy.
You compare a passage in the " Aids to Eeflection " to the
conclusion of Canto I. of the "Paradiso." They are indeed
in a neighbouring region of thought ; but as neigh-
bours often quarrel violently when they come into close
contact, so I think would these if strictly compared.
S. T. C. in this passage speaks of the scale of the creation —
how each rank of creatures exhibits in a lower form what is
more fully and nobly manifested in the rank above. Of
this, Dante says not a word. How should he ? The
thought is founded on facts of natural history unknown
in his day, and a knowledge of zoology in particular, to
which his age had paid no attention. The chief beauty of

226 MEMOIB AND LETTEBS OF SABA COLEBIDGE.

my father's aphorism consists, I think, in the striking
manner in which instances of his remark are particularized,
and the poetic elegance with which they are described.
Then he proceeds to a concluding reflection, which is
spiritual indeed — no mere fancy, but a solid truth. But
Dante's passage ends with that confusion of the material
and the spiritual which my father made it his business to
drive out of the realms of thought as far as Ms eloquence
could drive it. The next canto — the Beatrician lecture on
the spots in the moon — I think now, as I thought when I
first read it, the very stiffest oatmeal porridge that ever a
great poet put before his readers, instead of the water of
Helicon. If it were ever such sound physics, it would be
out of place in a poem; and its being all "vain reasoning
and false philosophy makes it hardly more objectionable
than it is on another score.

October 29. — For saying that Dante's spots-of-the-moon
doctrine is, as the commentators say, a mere fandonia and
garbuglio, we have no less authority than Newton. Canto III.
you put your own opinions into. But I must not enter
the field of Spirit versus Matter. I only beseech your
attention to this point. God is a Spirit, and yet He is
Substance, and the Head and Fountain of all Substance,
and the Son is of one Substance with the Father. If the
tendency of the whole creation, when not dragged down
by sin, is upward to the Creator, then surely there is a
progress away from matter into spirit. This I believe to be
Platonism, and this Platonism Schelling, Coleridge, and
others have tried to revive. You oppose to them Medie-
valism, or the semi-Pagan doctrine of the primitive Chris-
tians, converts from Paganism, and both parties appeal to
Scripture. We think the Bible plainly teaches that flesh
and blood, however smartened up, cannot enter into the
kingdom of Heaven, but that things, such as eye of man
hath not seen, nor ear heard, are prepared by God for them

227

that love Him. It is true we cannot here, in this life, image
to ourselves that kingdom. God Himself tells us that we
cannot, both in Gospel and Epistle. However, few new books
would give me so great delight, as a full, wide particular
criticism from your pen, of Dante, Milton, (yes, \ would trust
you with him, you could not but do him glory and honour,
in spite of yourself, when you took him up, though you
might have thought you were going to depreciate him), and
Wordsworth.

Herbert keeps me busy. He writes continually about his
studies, asking for explanations, advice, and so forth. He
is learning Icelandic, of which he brags greatly, and is
reading Dante, Tasso, and Ariosto. I sent him a sheet of
Dantian interpretations lately. I take the political view of
the beasts in the 1st Canto, instead of the merely moral.
Dante's politics are very remarkable. Born a Guelf, he
became the most intense and vehement Ghibelline. It was
Ghibellinism that perverted his mind into that strange
judgment of Brutus and Cassius.

228 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTEE XVI.

LETTERS TO AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ., MISS FEtfWICK,
MISS ERSKINE, MISS MORRIS, MISS TREVENEN :
January — July, 1847.

Characters of Milton, Charles the First, and Oliver Cromwell.
To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq. , Curragh Chase.

Chester Place, January, 1847. — To rebel against a tyrant,
himself a rebel against the laws and liberties of his
country, and a traitor to its constitution, is no disgrace
to Milton's memory. Both parties were wrong and both
were right in my opinion — the struggle was to be, and
on either side there was much error and much wrong-
doing, from a blindness, under the circumstances, scarce
avoidable. Charles I pity, admire, but do not deeply
respect. Cromwell I respect more, but do not venerate.
He was a man of great firmness, courage, ability. Charles
had personal not moral courage — he had both. I think
he was sincere and patriotic at first, but became in some
measure corrupted, just as Artevelde became corrupted in
the course of his career.

II.

A Yisit to Bath — Her Son's Eton Successes — Schoolboy Taste — The
Athanasian Creed — Doctrine of the Filial Subordination not con-
tained in it — The Damnatory Clauses — Candour in Argument.
To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

8, Queen Square, Bath, March ZOth, 1847. — My dear John,
— Here we are at Bath, in the commodious temporary abode
of Miss Fenwick, with my dear old friends, Mr. and Mrs.
Wordsworth. Our journey on Thursday was a bright and
pleasant one. Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth were waiting to
welcome us at the station, and most affectionate was their

SCHOOLBOY TASTE. 229

greeting. Mr. Wordsworth has always called me his child,
and he seems to feel as if I were such indeed. . . .

Since I wrote the first page of this letter, I have had to
answer two notes from Edward on a very pleasant occa-
sion ; the first told me that Herbert was in the number
of the select, and also that he had gained the essay prize
in a very distinguished manner ; the second announced,
with very hearty congratulations, that he had been de-
clared the medallist, Whymper being the Newcastle scholar.
I could not help thinking with special keenness of feeling
xon those who are gone, who would have shared with me
and E. in the pleasure of this success ; but it is best, for
my final welfare at least, that all is as it is, and that the
advantages of this world and its drawbacks have ever
been mingled in my portion. It is a great addition to
the pleasure to feel that Herbert's success gives real
delight to others besides myself. Anything of the kind

is received at St. M s quite as a little triumph.

Edward says that to Latin composition and the general
improvement of his taste he must chiefly address himself
during the next year. His taste will certainly bear a great
deal of improvement during many a year to come, for
the formation of a sound literary taste is a matter of
time. His taste, taking the word in a positively good
sense, as the appreciation of what is excellent, is now
in fragments, not a general embryo, apparently, but much
more developed in parts than on the whole. He has a
much better notion of the true merits of ancient writers
than of modern ones — modern subjectivity he does not
understand in the least, hence his preference of Southey's
poetry to that of Wordsworth.

. . . Mr. Dodsworth asked me in his last call what
I thought of the article on Development in the "Christian
Eemembrancer." I mentioned to him, among some other
part objections, a statement toward the end which seems

230 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

to me rather awkward for those who hold by the Atha-
nasian Creed — I mean those who not only believe the
doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation which it sets forth,
but defend the imposition of it upon the Church and the
propriety of its expressions from beginning to end. The
statement is that the Subordinateness of the Son, as the
Son, to the Father, " an awful and sacred doctrine," taught
by the early Fathers, had been suffered " to fall into the
shade," " to become strange to modern ears," and thus
(according to the writer's own argument, that mere im-
plicit knowledge is practical ignorance) to remain unknown
to the mass of Christians, Christians who are anxiously
instructed by their pastors in all the most subtle mysteries
of the faith, except this (as for instance : that Our Lord
had two wills, against the Monothelite heresy), that on
account of its tenderness as a matter of theological hand-
ling, the Church had discouraged any handling of it at
all. It is natural to ask, can that be the Church, led and
enlightened by the Spirit of Christ, which shrinks from
the statement of any true and sacred doctrine, which is
unequal to guard it from running into heresy, and actually
sets forth a creed which virtually denies it; for the ex-
pressions of the Athanasian Creed, " none is afore or after
other," "none is greater or less than another" (although
Christ said "my Father is greater than I," and Bull
applies this to the Filial Subordination— indeed, as applied
to the human nature, it would be a truism inconceivable
for Our Lord to have uttered), unaccompanied by the
admission of any sense in which the Father is before
the Son, are to all intents and purposes a denial of
the doctrine. Nor does the Nicene Creed remedy the
defect, as the article seems to insinuate. It expresses the
Origination, as the Athanasian does also, but not the
Subordination ; and if the latter be a direct and necessary
inference from the former, is it not the extreme of faithless

THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 231

cowardice to be afraid of a direct and necessary inference ?
After all, what I most object to in the " pseudo-Athana-
sian " Creed, is the damnatory clauses, which I take
according to the common sense of mankind, and consider
to be a positive assertion of what no man now believes,
though when that creed was written the belief was com-
mon enough. To go back to Mr. Dodsworth, he agreed with
me, as I understood him, in this and some other objections
to the article, interesting and suggestive as it is, and
in some parts satisfactory. Mr. Dodsworth is remarkably
candid in discussions of this sort. Most persons, if an
objection to their view is stated, which they know not how
to meet, will oppose it by a general non-admission, waiting
in hope that something will turn up to justify that which
they hold as part and parcel of their creed ; but he always

tsays frankly at once "that is very true," to any point which
he may have at first denied, if reasons are alleged in favour
Df it which seem to him sufficient.
in.
Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth — Walks and Talks with the aged Poet —
His Consent obtained to a Removal of the Alterations made by
him in his early Poems.
To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq.

April, 1847, Bath. — I have made an effort to come hither,
availing myself of Miss Fenwick's most kind invitation,

(although it separates me from Herbert during his holiday
time ; because I felt that the opportunity of being once
more under the same roof with my dear old friends was
not to be neglected. I find them aged since I -saw them
last in many respects ; they both look older in face, and
are slower and feebler in their movements of body and
mind. Mrs. Wordsworth is wonderfully active ; she went
three times to church on the Fast Day,* and would have

* The Day of Fasting and Humiliation, appointed on account of the Irish
Famine. This occasion gave rise to the general remarks on fasting, as a
religious exercise, in the ensuing letter to Miss Trevenen. — E. C.

232 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OP SARA COLERIDGE.

fasted almost wholly, had not Mr. Wordsworth, in a deep,
determined voice, said, "Oh, don't be so foolish, Mary!"
She wisely felt that obedience was better than this sort of
sacrifice, and gave up what she had " set her heart upon,"
poor dear thing ! She is very frail in look and voice, and
I think it very possible that a real fast might have
precipitated her downward progress in the journey of life,
— I will not say how many steps. Mr. Wordsworth can
walk seven or eight miles very well, and he talks a good
deal in the course of the day; but his talk is, at the best, but
the faintest possible image of his pristine mind as shown
in conversation ; he is dozy and dull during a great part
of the day; now and then the dim waning lamp feebly
flares up, and displays a temporary comparative brightness
— but elieu ! quantum mutatus ab illo ! He seems rather to
recontinue his former self, and repeat by habit what he
used to think and feel, than to think anything new. To me
he is deeply interesting even in his present state for the
sake of the past; the manner in which he enters into
domestic matters, the concerns and characters of maids,
wives, and widows, whether they be fresh and gay, or
" withering on the stalk," is really touching in one of so
robust and manly a frame of mind as his originally was,
and, in a certain way, still is. We sit round the fire in
the evening, his aged wife, our excellent hostess, your
friend S. C., Louisa F., a very handsome and very sweet
and good girl, and my E., and talk of our own family
matters, or the state of the nation, or the people of
history, Tudor s and Stuarts, as subjects happen to arise,
Mr. W. taking his part, but never talking long at a stretch,
as he used to do in former years. Sometimes we walk
together in the morning, and one day I had the satisfaction
of hearing him assent entirely to some remarks which I
ventured to make upon the alterations in his poetry, and
even declared that they should be restored as they were

FASTING. 233

at first. I say " they," but it remains to be seen to what
extent he will do this. He promised, in particular, that
the original conclusion of the "Gypsies," should be restored
in the next edition ; he also seemed to assent to my view of
the new stanzas in the Blind Highland Boy, that though
good in themselves, they rather interfere with the effect
of the poem. I would have them preserved, but detached
from the poem, and the story of the tub retained with a
little alteration of expression if possible. One day I con-
trived to draw Mr. W. out a little upon Milton, and to hear
him speak on that subject in a to me satisfactory manner.

IV.

Fasting and Self-denial.
To Miss E. TREVENEN, Helston, Cornwall.

April 9th, 1847, Bath. — As for the sham fasts or semi-
fasts, with a great heavy supper afterwards, which some
people practise by way of obeying the Church and following
the example of the ancient Christians, I cannot believe that
they are of any great service to Christendom ; and real
fasts are so injurious to the health of a large proportion of
Christians, that I can never believe them to be an accept-
able sacrifice to God. However, on this point I differ from
many whom I deeply respect, while I agree with some
whom I deeply respect also, and I will enter into the sub-
ject no further than to say, that I believe in fasting, in a
high and spiritual sense, that of abstaining from self-
indulgence for the sake of doing good to others. Con-
tracting our wants into as narrow a compass as possible,
without injury to our body or mind, is a most important
part of Christian duty, and no one can be a true Christian
who does not practise it. They who give largely to the
poor must fast in this sense, because they diminish their
means of indulging in the pride of the eye, and all kinds
of unnecessary luxuries and elegancies.

234 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

The Irish Famine — Defects and Excellencies of the Irish Character —

"The Old Man's Home."
To Miss ERSKINE.

8, Queen Square, Bath, April, 1847. — My dear A ,—

I thank you for your kind congratulations, and for your
wish that this visit may encourage me to avail myself of
an invitation to Little Green at some future time from dear
Mrs. Erskine. I strained a point to come hither in order
to be with my dear old friends Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth.
They are aged since I saw them last, but still wonderful
people of their age, very active in body, and in mind to me
most interesting. We have many, many "mutual recol-
lections and interests and acquaintanceships, and should
have enough to converse about, even if news reached us not
here. It is impossible, however, not to dwell a good deal
on the state of Ireland. I have just received a long letter
from Adare. No one has died of starvation in his neigh-
bourhood, my friend tells me, though there is want and
trial enough. He is indignant at the abuse of Irish land-
lords in our papers, which he treats as absolute slander.
"People who cannot get rent enough to keep them in snuff,"
says he, " are spoken of as having ^610,000 per annum,
and men who are feeding their poor on the venison of their
parks are accused of living in palaces amongst beggars,
just as if they could grind down the statues in their halls
into powder, and make the poor people live on limestone
broth." He calls the English subscriptions " magnificent,"
but says that all the good-hearted people he converses with
are dreadfully incensed at not being allowed to feel as
grateful as they would wish to feel. I believe that there
are good, bad, and indifferent among Irish landlords, as
amongst other sets of people, and that some are as bad as
they have been represented. We have reports of some from

EQUIVOQUES AND PARADOXES. 235

persons resident among them, which describe them as most
selfish and unfeeling. Surely, too, there are some besetting
faults in the poor of that land ; they seem to be indolent,
improvident, not truthful. How much of this arises from
misgovernment is hard to say, but I am inclined to think
that the circumstances of the Irish would never have been
so bad as they have ever been, had their original disposition
and character not been wanting in certain elements, condu-
cive to prosperity and well-being. They have passive courage,
but they want persistent energy and activity, and steady,
effective principle, though there are many excellent, amiable
points of character in them, and they have produced some
admirable men. Bishop Berkeley I have long thought one
of the best and most-to-be-admired of mortals, and have
warmly assented to that line of Pope's in which he assigns

"To Berkeley every virtue under Heaven." . . .

I have no time, or scarce any, for reading here, but have
read by snatches Adams's " Old Man's Home," which is
sweet and pleasing in style, but in aim and import, as it
seems to me, very vague and unsatisfactory. It is difficult
to see exactly what moral or maxim or sentiment the
author means to enforce ; if you take it one way, it seems
scarce worth making a tale about, if another, then it is an
untenable falsity, such as it is scarce worth any one's while
to take the pains to refute. Equivoques and paradoxes I
never could entertain any respect for myself, though they
are often very popular ; a sentiment looks well in a mist,
and has a sublime air, like our terraces in the park, which
look like common houses of £200 or £300 a year, instead of
romantic palaces, when the vapours clear off.

236 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

YI.

Illness of Mrs. Quillinan — Answer to the Question whether Dying
Persons ought to be warned of their State at the risk of hastening
their Departure ? — Holy Living the only real Preparation for Holy
Dying.

To Miss FEITWICK.

Chester Place, May 3rd, 1847. — My dearest Miss Fen-
wick, — I return to you, with many thanks, poor Mr. Quilli-
nan's very affecting letter, which conveys the impression
that our sweet, dear Dora * has but a few weeks, perhaps
not many days, of life in this world before her.

In my reply to Mr. Quillinan, I expressed briefly my
own strong opinion against communicating to the patient
medical opinions, that destroy all hope of prolonged life.
The truth to me seems this, dear Miss Fenwick. That we
ought not to deprive our friends of a certain or even highly
probable spiritual advantage for the sake of saving them
any trial or suffering here, I most entirely agree with you ;
but I cannot help greatly doubting, as I believe James
Coleridge doubts too, that the spiritual advantage is such
as many suppose it. Have we a right to hasten death, to
destroy (as in some cases we may) a remaining chance of
recovery, to cut short what may be days of real, if not
formal preparation, to produce a state of, perhaps, unspeak-
able distress and terror, preclusive of that calmness and
self-possession, which are so indispensable to the best and
most efficacious spiritual reflection ? Every medical man
will say that such communications have generally a bad
effect upon the body ; can spiritual guides assure us that
they have a good effect upon the soul, or give us great
reason to think so ? What Mr. Wordsworth expresses seems
to me to be the simple truth ; my Uncle Southey held the
same opinion. It is very true that numbers of persons view

* Mr. Wordsworth's only daughter, whose early life was spent in sisterly
intimacy with the family at xGreta Hall. She died of consumption in the
first week of July, 1847,— E. C.

DEATH-BED KEPENTANCE. 237

the approach of death with composure, even welcome it ; this
was the case with my sister Fanny Patteson ; she had long
thought that she was death- stricken, and not regretted it ;
when her time came she knew the truth, without being told
it, and great as her blessings in this life had been, was
"glad to go." But there are other persons, equally good,
equally religious, to whom the near prospect of dissolution
is intolerable ; to persons in general, I think we may say,
the shock is awful. I fear you may not agree with me, but
I must express my doubt whether the agitated prayers which
persons offer up in this terrified state, prayers produced
more by a vague horror and dread of punishment, than a
calm, clear sense of the odiousness and unhappiness of sin
as sin, let it bring further consequences beyond itself or no,
are of such service, in a religious point of view, as persons
generally suppose. It seems a trite thing to say, that it is
the use we make of life and all our active powers, what we
make ourselves to be inwardly by the life we lead,^that our
well-being hereafter depends upon, and not the thoughts of
our final change specially occupying the mind during our
last few days, and producing a special preparation. Yet
this special preparation, if it can be brought about, well or
usefully, is by no means to be disregarded. I am inclined
to think, however, that even where there is still hope of life,
and not an absolute coming face to face with approaching
death, there is often a most salutary discipline and real
preparation : a sense of the precariousness of life, and the
weakness and liability to suffering of this our earthly state,
must be strongly impressed on any impressible mind under
such circumstances ; and to this preparation, with its
subdued yet quiet and cheerful frame of spirits, I should
trust more than to any which the prospect of speedy disso
lution brings about. I would not go so far as to say that
true penitence may not be produced by this prospect, but I
think it is best for Christians through life to feel that if

238 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

they do not repent of sin effectively while they yet may
practise it, the mere sorrow that they have practised it when
they are on the verge of a state where only the misery of it
can survive, will stand them in little stead, or at least is
nothing to rely upon.

If you ask me how would I myself be dealt with under
such circumstances, I scarce know what to say ; only I feel
now that if I do not now prepare to go, it will signify little
then. I should be resolved to have everything temporally,
as much as I can, in readiness, and as I should wish it to
be were a disabling illness to come upon me, and I always
pray to be prepared for my final change, and enabled now
to realize the short interval between my present existence
and that other state. I earnestly hope that 'I may be, as
Fanny was, aware when the time was approaching, by my
own inward feelings, so that friends about me will not have
the pain of breaking it to me. Alas ! I have neither hus-
band nor parents to be grieved; and children, however
loving and beloved, cannot feel as they feel. But, dear
friend, this is not altogether to be deplored. doubt not
you feel with me that there is a calmness, even if a sadness,
in this thought. We must, as Keble says, take that last
journey alone ; we must learn to be alone in heart here first.
I always felt that my deep losses would make it easier to
die.

YII.

A Month later.
To Miss MORRIS, Mecklenburg Square.

Margate, May 31st, 1847. — This place is very refreshing.
The larks twittering in the fields of dwarf beans, now in
fragrant bloom, and the lush green oat-crops, and the
clover-beds, not yet in blossom, but soon to be, and the
sight of the blue field of ocean beneath the blue sky, are all
very pleasant. I think of the time when I came hither first,
four years ago — a sad, sad widow. My children were with

DOEA QUILLINAN. 239

me, and their gambols and extreme vivacity were not like
what any other gaiety would have been to my feelings, as
" the pouring of vinegar upon nitre, and the taking away
a garment in cold weather." They " sang songs to my
heavy heart," without seeming to increase its burden.
Then the dying bed of my beloved husband, who had ever
been such a lover to me, his last illness and dying hours,
were all fresh in my mind ; but a little space interposed
between the present and that sorrow. Now I have to dwell
on the dying bed of one of my very earliest companion-
friends, dear Dora Quillinan, once Wordsworth, who is
sinking in the last stage of consumption. You know I was
with her parents at Bath in March. In April they were for
a week in London, were hastened home by a report that the
medical man had discovered fatal symptoms in her. Now
for the last fortnight she has known her prospect, that she
is death-stricken, and that it is only with her a question of
time, and nothing can exceed the heavenly composure,
sweetness, and piety of her frame of mind. She bore the
communication, which she solicited herself, with perfect
firmness, seemed quite happy to go, though full of love to
all around her, and no dying bed can be more full of amiable
dispositions, or more perfect in its resignation than hers.
I must write to Mrs. Wordsworth in reply to a detail of
her beloved child's sayings and doings in this her season of
death-expectancy and final weakness, which she thought
due to me as her earliest companion-friend. Scarcely a
day passes that I do not receive, either from Eydal Mount
or from our mutual friend, Miss Fenwick, accounts of the
dear sufferer. It is quite a privilege to be admitted to dwell
on such a dying bed as hers. In the day my children and
other interests share my thoughts with her, but at night, in
my sleepless hours, I am ever with her, or dwelling on my
own future deathbed, or going back to that of my dear
husband, or the last days and hours of my beloved mother.

240 MEMOIB AND LETTEES OF SAEA COLEEIDGE.

The parents are wonderfully supported, but deep, deep is
their sorrow. Mr. Wordsworth cannot speak of it without
tears. Poor Mr. Quillinan ! But I must say no more of
this, to me, engrossing sorrow.

VIII.

The Earnest of Eternal Life.
To Miss FENWICK, Bath.

Chester Place, July 1st, 1847. — Poor Mr. Quillinan's letter
increases the sad feeling with which I approach in thought
that sick room at Kydal Mount. But while the mind is so
far from sick, these are indeed, as you say, but temporary
emotions : the natural horror of continuous pain and
suffering will go ; the remembrance of the sufferer's strength
and sweetness will remain. We cannot need arguments
and sermons on immortality ; or, at least, after being
instructed in Christianity, we cannot need them to
strengthen and refresh our faith when we have such living
documents and earnests of Eternal Life before us as these.
If the mind seemed to weaken and die with the body, we
might doubt ; though even then I trust the written Word
might sustain us ; but up to the last breath, how brightly
the light shines in some ! It would be impossible to think,
even without the Word, that such a power of thought and
feeling was in a few moments to cease to be for ever !

IX.

The Sister of Charles Lamb.
To Miss FENWICK.

Margate, July 6th, 1847. — I see that Mary Lamb is dead.
She departed, eighty-two years old, on the 20th of May.
She had survived her mind in great measure, but much of
the heart remained. Miss Lamb had a very fine feeling for
literature, and was refined in mind, though homely, almost
coarse, in personal habits. Her departure is an escape out
of prison, to her sweet, good soul more especially. To put
off the clog of the flesh must be to the sanest an escape
from a body of death.

THE BIBLE. 241

Religious Tendency of Mr. Coleridge's Writings — Her own Obligations

to her Father, her Uncle, and Mr. Wordsworth.
To Miss FENWICK, Queen Square, Bath.

Chester Place, July 7th, 1847. — Dear Friend,— I have been
extremely gladdened by what you said in your last but one,
on the use that my father's writings had been of to you.
No better compliment could be paid them, than to say that
they sent you to the Bible ; and this exactly describes my
own feelings and experience. I, too, feel now, that though
I read books of divinity — especially of Jeremy Taylor and
our old divines — with delight, and a certain sort of advan-
tage, I do not want any book spiritually, except the Bible,
now that, by my father and Mr. Wordsworth, I have been
put in the way of reading it to advantage. They, indeed,
have given me eyes and ears. What should I have been
without them ! To my Uncle Southey I owe much — even to
his books ; to his example, his life and conversation, far
more. But to Mr. Wordsworth and my father I owe my
thoughts more than to all other men put together.

242 MEMOIE AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTEK XVII.

LETTERS TO AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ., HON. MR. JUSTICE
COLERIDGE, MISS FENWICK, REV. HENRY MOORE,
MISS ERSKINE, MISS MORRIS, MISS TREVENEN,
MRS. H. M. JONES, MRS. RICHARD TOWNSEND :

July — December, 1847.

Grasmere Churchyard.
To Miss FEITWICK.

August 2nd, 1847. — Your account of dear Mr. and Mrs.
Wordsworth is very consolatory. I am sure they must be
soothed and sustained by the remembrance of their blessed
child's sweet, loving, beneficent life, and of her calm, happy,
patient deathbed, so full of faith and Christian graces. I
should think that a visit to the churchyard where she lies
must, under these circumstances, be soothing. Well do I
remember Dora shedding tears when we, her thoughtless
companions, read aloud the names of her little departed
sister and brother in that churchyard. How little did I
think, full of life and strength as she then was, that she
would be laid there herself while I survived, and her own
parents still lived to lament her loss !

II.

The Installation Ode— The Triad.
To the Rev. HENRY MOORE, Eccleshall Vicarage, Staffordshire.

Chester Place, August 4th, 1847. — The visit to Bath was
very interesting, though I saw in Mr. Wordsworth rather a
venerable relic, so far as his intellectual mind is concerned,
than the great poet I once knew ; and I do not agree with
H. T. in thinking highly of his Installation Ode.* It is
only so far Wordsworthian that it is not vulgar, not decked

* Written on occasion of the Installation of the Prince Consort as Chan-
cellor of the University of Cambridge. — E. C.

243

out with a second-hand splendour that may be bought at
any poetry-mart for the occasion. But the intercourse
with my dear old friends was saddened by the bad news
they were receiving of their beloved daughter. A week after
they came to town they received a report of her which
hastened them home, and now she is in her grave, — has
been in her grave for some weeks. She is one of my
earliest friends, and her death has saddened this summer
to me. Never was there a more blessed deathbed than hers,
— one fuller of faith, and love, and fortitude, and every
Christian grace. Still, it is sad for those who knew her
from childhood to see her light go out in this world. Look
at " The Triad," written by Mr. Wordsworth four or five
and twenty years ago. That poem contains a poetical
glorification of Edith Southey (now W.), of Dora, and
myself. There is truth in the sketch of Dora, poetic truth,
though such as none but a poet-father would have seen.
She was unique in her sweetness and goodness. I mean
that her character was most peculiar, — a compound of
vehemence of feeling and gentleness, sharpness and loving-
ness, — which is not often seen.

Ill,

Intellectual Ladies, Modern and Ancient.

To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq.

Chester Place, August ZOth, 1847. — I had a very interest-
ing talk last night with Mr. H. T., who is looking remark-
ably well. He put in a strong light the unattractiveness of
intellectual ladies to gentlemen, even those who are them-
selves on the intellectual side of the world — men of genius,
men of learning and letters. I could have said in reply, that
while women are young, where there is a pretty face, it
covers a multitude of sins, even intellectuality ; where there
is not that grand desideratum to young marrying men, a
love of books does not make the matter much worse in one

244 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

way, and does make it decidedly better in the other : that
when youth is past, a certain number of persons are bound
to us, in the midst of all our plainness and pedantry ; these
old friends and lovers cleave to us for something underneath
all that, not only below the region of good looks, skin, lip,
and eye, but even far deeper down than the intellect, for
our individual, moral, personal being, which shall endure
when we shall be where all will see as angels ken, and
intellectual differences are done away : that as for the world
of gentlemen at large — that world which a young lady desires,
in an indefinite, infinite way, to charm and smite — we that
are no longer young pass into a new, old-womanish, tough
state of mind ; to please them is not so much the aim, as to
set them to rights, lay down the law to them, convict them of
their errors, pretences, superficialities, etc., etc. ; in short,
tell them a bit of our mind. This, of course, is as foolish
an ambition as the other, even more preposterous ; but it is
so far better, that even where the end fails, the means them-
selves are a sort of end, and a considerable amusement and
excitement. So that intellectualism, if it be not wrong in
itself, will not be abandoned by us, to please the gentlemen.
God bless you, and prosper you in all your labours, for
your country's sake and your own. But do not forget the
Muses altogether. Those are intellectual ladies who have
attractions for gentlemen worth pleasing, and who retain
" the bland composure of perpetual youth " beside their
refreshing Hippocrene.

IY.

Sacred Poetry : Keble, Quarles, and Crashaw.

To Mrs. RICHARD TOWNSEND, Springfield, Norwood.

Chester Place, September, 1847. — I am much pleased to
hear of your undertaking,* and feel provoked that I cannot

* A collection of sacred pieces, chiefly from the elder English poets, en-
titled " Passion Week ; " and followed by " Christmas Tyde."— E. C.

"THE CHRISTIAN YEAR." 245

aid you in it — poet's daughter, and niece, and friend, as I
am — I mean in the way of pointing out some green haunts
of the sacred Muses which you have not yet found out.
But though sacred poetry abounds, good sacred poetry is
more scarce than poetry of any other sort. I do but half
like the " Christian Year," I confess ; but this you will
think bad taste in me, though I could quote some poetical
authorities on my side. I admire some stanzas and
some whole poems in the collection exceedingly, but they
seem to me quite teasingly beset with faults, both of
diction and composition. Of these, the former annoy
me most, and most interfere with my pleasure in reading
them. I know no other mass of poetry so good, that is
not at the same time better, showing more poetic art and
judgment.

I can only mention to you Quarles, a great favourite
with my Uncle Southey, and Crashaw,* whose sacred
poetry I think more truly poetical than any other, except
Milton and Dante. I asked Mr. Wordsworth what he
thought of it, and whether he did not admire it ? to which
he responded very warmly. My father, I recollect, admired
Crashaw ; but then neither Quarles nor Crashaw would be

* Richard Crashaw, a contemporary of Herbert, Qnarles, and Yaughan,
became a Roman Catholic during the troubles of the Civil War, and died a
canon of Loretto, A.D. 1650. His poetry is marked by a dreamy, fanciful
sweetness and devotional fervour, which give it a peculiar charm. The
following elegant little poem, " On Mr. George Herbert's Book, intituled
the Temple of Sacred Poems, sent to a Gentlewoman," must surely have
been prized by the receiver, as adding to the value of the gift : —

" Know you, Fair, on what you look ?
Divinest love lies in this book,
Expecting fire from your eyes
To kindle this his sacrifice.
When your hands untie these strings,
Think you've an angel by the wings-
One that gladly will be nigh
To wait upon each morning sigh,
To flutter in the balmy air
Of your well-perfumed prayer.
These white plumes of his he'll lend you,
Which every day to heaven will send you,
To take acquaintance of the sphere.
And all the smooth-faced kiiidred there ! "— E. C.

246 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

much liked by the modern general reader. They would be
thought queer and extravagant.

The Art of Poetry — A Lesson on Metre.
To Miss MORRIS.

1847. — My Dear Friend, — I may not on Wednesday, or
before, for I hope we shall meet again before, be able to
squeeze in a word about the Art of Poetry ; and so I will
write a few lines on the subject now, only as a prelude to
much talk on such subjects, which I hope to have with you
from time to time.

I must begin with telling you that I neyer wrote blank
verse in my life, and smile at myself when I think that I
am about to attempt giving instructions, or even hints on
metre. I always, in attacking Wordsworth's later poetry
with Mr. de Vere, admit that, from his far greater practice
in verse-making and executive skill in poetry, he is more
alive to delicacies of metre and elegancies of diction than I
am. However, though I never wrote Latin verses myself, I
could often inform Herbert of the faults of his ; and so in
regard to your lines. I can perceive that some of the
lines have not quite the right metre, without too much
humouring.

You know that blank verse consists of ten feet, called
iambuses, each foot containing a short and a long syllable,
represented in the symbols of ancient prosody thus : - - ,
as forbear.

This heroic measure is called pure when the accent rests

upon the second syllable through the whole line, as —
i ' i / / i

But who | can bear | th' approach | of cer | tain fate.

Still it would be very wearying and tame if the accent was
never transposed in the course of a composition. Very
often spondees are introduced in the place of the iambus ;

THE HEROIC MEASURE. 247

—the spondee is a foot formed of two long syllables, as wax-
light ; — or a trochee, a long and a short, as daily.

/ / t i r f

Here Love | his gold | en shafts ] employs | here lights |
/ / / / ^

His con | stant lamp | and waves | his pur | pie wings —

/ /
Eeigns here |

In the second line you see the iambic measure is pure, in
the others mixed. (I should have said above, that the
ancients have syllabic quantity, their short and long
syllables depending upon the number and position of the
consonants, and the time taken up in pronunciation ; we
have only accentual quantity, at least as an absolute rule,
though some attention to the length of syllables is also
paid by every fine versifier.) Milton often crumples two
short syllables into one for the last half of his iambus at
the end of a line, as —

Your bo | dies may | at last | turn all | to spirit.

Equivalent in time to a short and a long, for two shorts are
equal to one long.
So again : —

Eter | nal King, | the auth | or of | all being

In this line there is a pyrrhic in the fifth place, and a

dactyl ( ) in the last, which forms a very agreeable

variety. Here you see the time is equal to that of the pure
iambic, if you take the two last feet together, because the
long syllable " all " is in the place of a short syllable. The
time in the two last feet is the same as six shorts, or three
longs, or two shorts and two longs, which is the usual
distribution. Only the change of arrangement, introduced
but very seldom, and in an appropriate place, is a beauty.
Do just mark the exquisite metrical variety in the passage

-Book III. 1. 344-371,— especially from "With these that

never fade," to the end of the paragraph.

248 MEMOIR AND LETTEBS OF SABA COLEBIDGE.

By way of practice you ought to scan Milton's Paradise
Lost. That is, read passages, attending principally to the
metre, and putting them on paper with the prosodiacal
marks, as —

Pavement | that like | a sea | of purp | le shone

and mark in a paragraph the varieties of accent and their
relation to the sense and the feeling of the verse. Does it
not seem brutal thus to anatomize and skeletonize poetry ?
but so painters learn to paint, and so poets must learn to
poetize, I believe.

It is the sense of the great difficulty of writing blank
verse that has always kept me from attempting it. In
rhymes and stanzas there is a mechanical- support, a sort
of framework of poetry which my weakness rests upon. But
some person's thoughts (probably yours are such) naturally
flow into that form more than any other.

I have criticised you as freely as I do many of my other
friends. I think that writing verse is useful in a secondary
way, as learning music is also ; it teaches us to feel doubly
the excellencies of the great poetic artists, as musical
practice to understand fine playing.

VI.

Modern Novels: " Grantley Manor," "Granby," The "Admiral's

Daughter."
To Miss FENWICK.

Fort Crescent, Margate, October 2nd, 1847. — We have
both read "Grantley Manor," with which we have been
rather disappointed after the ecstatic reports of it which we
received. The story proceeds languidly, though never devoid
of interest, till the middle of the third volume, and whether
or no it was Anglican prejudice, but so it was, that the
heroism and oft-repeated agonies and anguishful trials of
the Eomish heroine, were to me more wearying than

NOVELS. 249

affecting. It was so easy to give the fine, elegant,
heavenly -minded, firm-souled, poetical sister to the Church
of Kome, and the little short, half- worldly, half-coquettish,
pretty, but cross-mouthed sister to the Church of England !
The trap for admiration is too palpable. We see it afar off,
and will not walk into it. Still there is much to admire in
this book, and some scenes are extremely good. There is
every wish on the part of the authoress to be candid,
and in Ann Neville she has portrayed a character quite as
excellent and admirable as Ginevra, and given her to our
Church.

But I confess, fond of the poetical as I am, and of
reflection and sentiment, I do not like so much of this sort
of thing in a novel, as Lady Georgiana Fullerton gives us.
At least I think the best sort of novel is that which deals
chiefly in delineation of character, dialogue and incident. I
have been much pleased, more than I expected to be, with
a novel by Mr. Lister, " Granby." The ease with which it
is written throughout is admirable. This ease is quite
inimitable. It results from birth, breeding, and daily
association with that sphere of thorough gentility where the
inhabitants have little else to do than to be refined, and are
cut off from all particular occupations that give a particular
cast and impress to the manners. Dickens could as little
give this air to his dialogue by letters or narrative as the
author of " Granby " could have produced Sam Weller and
his father, or Ealph Nickleby, or Sairey Gamp. Do you
like Mrs. Marsh's books? The "Admiral's Daughter"
seems to me one of the best tales of the day. It is
deeply pathetic, and the scenes are admirably well wrought
up.

250 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

VII.

" Marriage," by Miss Ferrier — Novel Writing.
Margate, October, 1847. — I am now engaged with
" Marriage " by Miss Ferrier, which I had read years ago.
It is even better than I remembered. The humour reminds
me of that of our good old plays. Lady Maclaghlan and
Sir Simpson are excellent, and there is an easy air of high
life in Lady Juliana which makes it bearable to dwell so
long on a heartless childish creature. To read novels is all
very well; but to write them, except the first-rate ones,
how distasteful a task it seems to me ! to dwell so long
as writing requires on what is essentially base and worth-
less !

VIII.

Mrs. Gillman of Highgate.
To Miss FENWICK.

Chester Place, October 30^, 1847. — I was much pleased
to see my dear old friend, Mrs. Gillman, at Kamsgate,
looking far better, and evidently in better health than
several years ago. She is wondrously handsome for a
woman of seventy, far more interesting than I remember
her in middle age, — for she has more colour and becomes
the fine cap close to her face, all hair put away, more than
her more commonplace head costume of former days. Her
profile is quite Siddonian, and her black eye is bright ; the
only drawback is rather too keen an expression, inclining
almost to hard and sharp, when she is looking earnestly
and not smiling. She is still lame from the effects of a fall
which, I think, she had in running once hastily to my
father when he was ill. It was interesting to me to see her
surrounded with portraits of old familiar faces, now past
away from earth, and pictures that I used to know at
Highgate.

PRACTICAL RELIGION. 251

IX.

The Salutary Discipline of Affliction— Intellectual Resources— Earthly

Enjoyments and Heavenly Hopes.
To Miss MORRIS.

24, Fort Crescent, Margate, October 6th, 1847. — My dear
Friend, — Most sincerely do I thank you for your letter,*
which affected me deeply, — affects me, I may say, for I
cannot look at it, or think of it, without feeling my eyes
fill with tears. It contains a record which will ever [be
precious to me, — a testimony to the power of faith, one of
those testimonies which make us feel with special force that
Christianity is no mere speculation or subject of abstract
thought, but a blessed and glorious reality, — the only
reality, to speak by comparison. But I believe it impos-
sible for us in this earthly sphere to realize religion without
an attendant process of destruction ; while this destruction
of the natural within us goes on gradually we do not note
it, — but in great affliction, when much work is done at
once, the disruption is strongly felt ; and the body for a
time gives way.

After a while, even the body seems to gain new strength ;
it has adjusted itself to a new condition of the soul. It
remains attenuated, but firm. We seem to have passed
into a partly new state of existence, a stage of the new
birth. One coat of worldliness has been cast off; the
natural is weaker and slenderer within us, and the spiritual
larger and stronger. I seem to myself scarce worthy
to talk of such things. I have not profited by affliction
as I ought to have done. Better than I once was, pos-
sessed of a far deeper sense of the beauty and excellence
of Christianity, I do humbly hope that I am. But I have
had perhaps too much worldly support, earthly support,
I should rather say. Things of the mind and intellect
give me intense pleasure; they delight and amuse me, as

* Containing the account of a sudden and severe affliction in the writer's
family, and of the Christian resignation with which it was borne. — E. C.

252 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

they are in themselves, independently of aught they can
introduce me to instrumentally ; and they have gladdened
me in another way, by bringing me into close communion
with fine and deep minds. It has seemed a duty, for my
children's sake and my own, to cultivate this source of
cheerfulness, and sometimes, I think, the result has been
too large, the harvest too abundant, of inward satisfaction.
This is dangerous. How hardly shall the rich man enter
into the kingdom of heaven ! and these are the richest of
earthly riches. They who use intellect as the means of
gaining money or reputation, are drudges, poor slaves,—
though even they have often a high pleasure in the means,
while they are pursuing an unsatisfactory end. But they
who live in a busy, yet calm world of thought and poetry,
though their powers may be far less than those of the
others, may forget heaven, if sorrow and sickness, and
symptoms of final decay, do not force them to look up, and
strive away from their little transitory heaven upon earth
to that which is above. Bright, indeed, that little heaven
continually is with light from the supernal one. But we
may rest too content with those reflections, which must fade
as our mortal frame loses power. Hope of a higher exist-
ence can alone support us when this half -mental, half-
bodily happiness declines.

Controlling Grief for the Sake of Others.
To Miss ERSKINE.

Chester Place, October, 1847. — I have always gone upon
a plan of avoiding all excitement and agitation on the
subject of my own deep irretrievable losses. This for me
was an absolute necessity ; had I not kept sorrow at arm's
length, as it were, with my very irritable state of nerves,
I should have been perpetually incapacitated for doing my
duty to my children. In early youth one thinks it impos-
sible to keep "grief at bay. To banish it is indeed im-

FORTITUDE. 253

possible ; keep it off as far as we may, there it stands dark

and moveless, casting its shadows over our whole life,

tinging every thought and action, and every would-be sunny

prospect with at best a twilight evening hue. But this is

far better than to be for ever at close quarters with sorrow,

continually plunged in tears, and stung with keen regrets.

I take no credit to myself for what I have done in this way,

because it was not I that did it, but my circumstances. I

had children to consider and to act for ; and the sense how

cruel and selfish it would be to shadow their young lives by

the sight of a mother's tears, was a motive for exertion in

cultivating all cheerful thoughts, which I could never have

supplied to myself. Hence, as soon as possible, I did away

all the special reminiscences of my past happy wedded life

which lay in my daily path ; this was not to diminish the

remembrance of the departed ; that remains vivid as ever

without a hue faded or a line erased, but it prevented me

from continually beholding the image of the departed in

the midst of my daily work, when I could not afford to

stand still and gaze upon it, and forget the present in the

past.

XI.

" Anti-Lutherism " — Charges made against Luther of Irreverence,
Immorality, and Uncharitableness — Luther's Doctrine of Justifi-
cation adopted by the English Church — " Heroes," and the
"Worship" due to them — Luther's Mission as a Witness for
Gospel Truth.
To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq. , Curragh Chase.

Margate, October IWi, 1847. — I regret our difference of
feeling and opinion concerning Luther more than on any
other subject, but differences on persons are not such dis-
crepancies as differences on things. Did I conceive the old
Keformer as you conceive him, I should admire him no more
than you do. But a totally different person is before my
eyes, when I think of him, from what you present. I marvel

254 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

how you can admit him to be a hero, if you believe his
strength to have been "of a very physical kind," — look
upon him as a religious demagogue, a " self-intoxicated
man." It seems to me that you do by Luther what has
so often been done by my father, — that is, that you present
an exaggerated image of the mere surface of the man — the
outside of his character — for the man himself. I believe
that Luther was not that mere tempestuous struggler for
liberty, that coarse, bold, irreverent, self-deceiving fanatic
whom you present to me.

The truth is, your view of the objects of Luther's war-
fare, the things for which and against which he strove,
determines your view of his personal character. You call
him irreverent. Why? Because he did not revere much
that you look upon with veneration. But has it yet been
shown that Luther wanted reverence for the objects of faith
and religious awe to which there is a clear testimony of
reason and the spiritual sense, — which are Christian,
not mediaeval ? He had no reverence for the priesthood,
considered as the possessors of mystic gifts and ecclesias-
tical privileges — pseudo-ecclesiastical, I should say. I con-
fess I have just as little as he. I think no one can exceed
me, according to the powers and energies of my mind, in
love and respect for the Christian pastorate. I honour the
minister of Christ both in his office, and still more, when he
is what he ought to be, for his personal gifts and graces. I
look with deep interest and gratitude to God on the succes-
sion of Christ's shepherds from the Apostles to the present
day, but the Succession dogma, taught in the " Tracts for
the Times," I cannot behold with any respect whatever;
just because it seems to me absolutely devoid of evidence,
and secondly, a mere spiritual mockery, which adds nothing
to religion but a name and a notion.

It is true that Luther, in the beginning of his career,
spoke rashly of St. James's Epistle ; but I cannot permit

DEFENCE OF LUTHER. 255

this fact to nullify for me all the evidence of deep religious
feeling which I see in his writings and in his life. As for
his want of charity, I do not defend his language ; but
vehement language alone can never convict him or any
man of an uncharitable heart. Luther began with great
moderation,. but the murderous malice and violence of his
enemies, who would have martyred him ten times over, and
would be content with nothing but absolute renunciation of
what he held to be the truth of God, goaded him to a degree
which a writer of " Tracts for the Times," sitting quietly in
his study, does not fairly allow for.

What are those moral enormities, those thicks and thins
that Mr. Hare defends ? There is but one moral offence of
any magnitude that has ever been brought home to Luther,
—the affair with the Landgrave of Hesse, — and surely Hare
does not defend his part in that matter. He only shows,
very ably, as I thought, all the extenuating circumstances,
and exposes the ridiculous unfairness of the representation
of it by his adversaries. Those Eomanists, and admirers
of Eomanism, treat it as an unprecedented crime in Luther
to have done, with deep repentance afterwards, what their
infallible Vicegerents of Christ had done before, without
repenting of it at all. That Luther ever meant to defend
or recommend polygamy, he shows, I think, very clearly to
have been one of the ten thousand calumnies uttered
against him by his untruth-telling foes. He said, I think
justly, that we ought not to look upon polygamy as essen-
tially a crime. What God has once sanctioned (surely the
words of Nathan to David show that it was sanctioned)
cannot be compared with sins against which there is a fiat
of the Eternal.

Do you think that I admire Luther's doctrine for its
energy and spiritual boldness ? No ; I admire the energy
and boldness for the sake of the doctrine. What are those
most vehement assertions of his which you consider hetero-

256 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

dox ? The great assertion of Luther's life as a theologian
was justification by faith alone. Is this heterodox ? Then
is the Church of England heterodox in her Articles and
her Homilies. It is vain to say that they teach Melanc-
thon's doctrine. There is no real difference, I believe, and
I have studied the subject a good deal, between Luther's
view of the subject and that of his bosom-friend Melancthon.
But Philip was a mild, calm man. He explained the doc-
trine, and put it into language less liable to be taken by a
wrong handle, though far less calculated to make way for
it in the first instance. The Commentary on Galatians was
spiritual thunder and lightning. That it reads as well as
it does now, when we consider the sort of work it did, and
compare it with other such instruments by which great
changes are made suddenly in masses, we may see, and
ought, I think, to acknowledge, that if Luther was a
spiritual demagogue, he was of the first order of such
after inspired men. Indeed, my father, as appears in the
" Eemains," put him in the next rank after St. Paul and
the Apostles. That article of our religion which the Com-
mentary on Galatians is specially devoted to set forth, the
manner of our justification, he thought more clearly seen,
with greater depth of insight, by Luther than by any other
man after the Apostle to the Gentiles. Such are his and
my heresies.

As for hero-worship, if by Hero you mean only a strong
man, able to produce great changes and make a sensation,
and by worship such homage as Komanists pay to the
Virgin and the Saints — which I believe to be too near that
which belongs to God alone — I am as little a hero-worship-
per as you are. I mean by a Hero a great, good man,
endued with extraordinary gifts by the Father of Lights,
which he employs for the benefit of mankind. Ought we
not to worship, that is, honour and praise, and listen to
such men ? It seems to me that Luther's ends were great

SPLENDOUR OF CHURCHES. 257

and noble, and that his motives were always disinterested,
high, and pure. In some instances his means were blame-
worthy. He was embarked in a mighty and most perilous,
laborious, and difficult enterprise ; and if, in the conduct
of it, he sometimes, through fear of losing what had been
gained, departed from the strict rule of right, surely a
liberal and charitable judgment will not deny him the
praise due to a benefactor of men. That he was a true
religious enthusiast, not one who makes religion either a
source of self-glorification or worldly advancement, seems
clear from his dedication of himself at first, before the
struggle with Eome began. He was raised up, as I fully
believe, by Providence, to resist the practical corruptions of
the Church, and to bear witness to the truth that it is the
state of the heart, and not any number of outward acts
or course of observances, on which our spiritual prospect
depends.

XII.

Church-Ornamentation.
To AUBREY DE YERE, Esq.

December, 1847. — Mr. is raising a subscription for a

painted window ; and I scarce know what to do about it. I
must confess, though here again I am out of sympathy with
most of my friends, for, like Mr. M , I am ever protest-
ing against my own party, that is to say, the party which to
my mind embraces most of the truth, and with whom I can
in general concur in all that is practical, — but I must confess
that I have scruples about giving spare money for painted
windows when there is spiritual destitution still to provide
for. " Oh ! the more is given in one way, the more will be
given in the other," is the cry. This seems to me an equi-
voque. The same spirit which excites one kind of giving
will excite both ; but that any man who gave all he pro-
perly could and ought for the higher object would have
anything left for the lower I cannot believe ; and thus,

258 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

while some churches are smartened up (and there is no
limit to the expensive smartness that may be lavished upon
a single edifice), others are erected of the meanest descrip-
tion. I do not feel quite satisfied that church grandeur
was ever based on pure gospel faith, as Keble and others
maintain. Pure faith does so much else for God, so much
for her neighbour during lifetime, that she leaves not
great sums behind to build a temple, to make up for the
temple to God's honour and glory that she did not build,
while she might, with her own hands. Then our modern
church splendour is so poor, and petty, and equivocal ; so
vulgarized by patterns displayed in shops, and all kinds of
trade associations. It does not flow from any great uni-
versal spirit which will last, but is supported by an effort
of a busy section, running counter to the age instead of
concurring with it.

XIII.

Dr. Hampden.
To Mrs. H. M. JONES, Hampstead.

1847. — Hampden has offended the bigots and zealots of
all parties, Komanistic and Puritanical, by his charitable
and conciliative sentiments, by daring to say that good and
well-disposed men, with sound heads and sound hearts,
who hold in their hands the one Gospel of Christ, believing
it all to be the Word of God, cannot and do not differ
substantially, in their vital operative faith, as much as
they appear to do in dogmatical statements and intellectual
schemes of belief. This has given far more deep and
bitter offence than if Hampden had been really a disbeliever
in any of the truths generally acknowledged in Christen-
dom ; the self-styled orthodox love to think themselves up
in heaven, those who differ from them in the gulf below, —
themselves to be the soft, snowy, lovely, innocent sheep,
others the great coarse, rough, ill-scented goats. Hamp-

DR. HAMPDEN'S VIEWS. 259

den's doctrine partly fills up the gulf, the wide chasm
which they would establish betwixt themselves and all who
are not ready to swear to all their articles, and embrace
what the Middle Ages determined on matters of faith by
the mouths of uninspired Ecclesiastics, with implicit faith.

XIV.

Dr. Hampden's " Observations on Dissent."
To Miss ERSKLNE.

1847. — What is considered such a crime in Hampden is
his having dared to proclaim what are simple facts, of which
proof has been given, and which have never been disproved ;
as, for instance, that the phraseology commonly used by
Divines in theological statements has been established by
dialectical science ; that the forms of doctrine have been
determined by the psychological philosophy of the period
when they arose ; and that the doctrine of the Sacraments
(that is the Scholastic theories concerning them) is " based
upon the mystical philosophy of secret agents in nature
Christianized."

260 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTEE XVIII.

LETTERS TO AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ., REV. HENRY
MOORE, MISS MORRIS, MRS. H. M. JONES, MRS.
RICHARD TOWNSEND, MRS. GILLMAN, C. B. STUT-
FIELD, ESQ. : 1848.

Her Son's Preparation for the Newcastle Examination — School
Rivalries.

To Mrs. GILLMAJST, Ramsgate.

Chester Place, March, 1848. — Herbert is now preparing
for the Newcastle contest. On the 3rd of April it will
commence, the Scholarship will be declared on the 8th,
and on the 10th he returns home. He bids me have no
expectation of his gaining the Scholarship. His most for-
midable competitor, the eldest son of Sir Thomas F ,

is nearly a year older than he, very clever, and very
desirous to conquer, and has had much instruction during
the holidays, — more than H. has.

It is a comfort to see what an excellent state of feeling
exists between him and F— — , not a shade of jealousy, I
am sure. Indeed, I think that rivalry at public schools
and at college is not the source of evil generally. Boys
are generally inclined to like and respect those whose
pursuits are similar to their own, and who exhibit talent
in the line in which they are trying to distinguish them-
selves. They are oftener unjust to those of different habits,
pursuits, likings, and dislikings, are apt to set them down
as " brutes " and " asses," and to be perfectly blind to their
abilities and good parts.

THE TENTH OF APRIL. 261

The Newcastle Scholar— The Chartist Demonstration— Lowering of the
Franchise ; its probable Result — Moral and Material Improvement
the real Wants of the Poor, not Political Power.
To AUBREY DE YERE, ESQ., Curragh Chase, Ireland.

April 14th, 1848, Chester Place. — The news of Herbert's
success, on which you congratulate me in a manner which
adds greatly to the pleasure of it, was indeed very pleasant.
He darted in upon us like a beam of light on Saturday
afternoon, and received from us an awful account of the
Chartist preparations for insurrection and violence. You at
a distance, except by comparing our troubles with your
own, not by reports, can hardly have a notion of the alarm
and excitement that was produced all in a day or two. I
had been thinking of the matter a week or two before, and
consulted our intelligent neighbour, Mr. Scott, whose
opinion with regard to the state of the poor I thought
more important than any other. He told me that he had
been trying by private letters to rouse people in authority
to a sense of the necessity of making a determined show of
power and will to put down violence. The middle or shop-
keeping class, he said, think all these points of political
arrangements and government very much the gentry's affair.
Still, they will side with the gentry, feeling them to be
their natural protectors, and the class with whose interests,
in the present state of things, theirs are interlinked,
if they feel that the gentry can stand up for themselves,
and present a bold front to the insurgents ; otherwise,
having no principle to guide them one way or the other,
and not being given to theories or abstractions, or to go
beyond the present hour, they might throw themselves into
the arms of the mob, as did the shopkeepers and National
Guard, who are so much composed of that class, in Paris.
But then the army ? Well, he did not think we could be
certain of the army. There was no knowing how they

262 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

might act if the Chartists proved very formidable. He
thought the danger lay at present in the apathy and in-
activity of the upper classes, who carried a good principle
of not interfering with the liberty of the people much too
far. At this time no one was alarmed. Nothing was said
about the Chartists in the large print part of the 'Times.
On Saturday people began to be frightened. I was resolved,
though the maids were terrified, and we had no man-
servant, not to go away. The gentlemen of the neigh-
bourhood— several of them — called on me on Sunday
morning, to tell me all the arrangements for the defence of
the Park, to offer protection, etc. On Sunday evening I
went to St. Mark's College. The young men brought
alarming reports from the city. The Bank and other
offices were bristling with artillery, — it was reported that
the Government had received bad news. Now, for the
first time, I did feel a little alarmed. The report was
(quite false, as it turned out) that two regiments were
disaffected. I did not wholly believe this. I hoped it was
not so, but Miss T. had heard the report about the Cold-
stream Guards at Plymouth, — and it seemed to me that if
the Duke of Wellington was unpopular, as was said, and
the troops were discontented, and should refuse to act
against the people, there might be a revolution. Still, I
should have stayed in the Park (for how was one to run
away from a revolution that would reach one in Cumber-
land) had I not received a letter from Eton, pressing me to
go thither with plate, etc. I accepted this offer, because I
feared that otherwise Herbert would hardly be prevented
from coming home on the dangerous Tuesday. So we flew
to Eton on Sunday morning, and at Eton heard the happy
event of the dreaded Chartist demonstration. Now all feel
that the attempt has been a blessed thing for the country,
since it has plainly discovered the weakness of the physical-
force party and the power of that body in the State who

CHARTISM. 263

are interested in the preservation of our present constitu-
tion. I really feel with the Times that our country has
afforded a " sublime spectacle " to Europe on the late
occasion. The arrangements of the Duke for the preserva-
tion of the metropolis were worthy of the hero of Waterloo,
and how merciful thus to preclude, by the formidable and
complete nature of the preparations, any attempt on the
part of the misguided Chartists. Even if their demands
were in themselves reasonable, or such changes as they
propose could benefit the people at large, the manner of
making them is contrary to all government whatsoever, and
if yielded to must lead to pure anarchy alternating with
despotism. Some think that these events will lead to an
extension of the franchise. It does not seem at all clear to
me that there would be the slightest use in giving votes to
more and poorer men, without bettering their condition or
improving their education beforehand. They say not more
than a fourteenth part of the population is represented. I
do not see the grievance of not being represented per se.
What the poor really want is to be better off ; they care not
for more representation except as that may favour their
pockets. An extended representation cannot produce more
bread and cheese. As it is, taxation does not affect the very
poorest people. The income-tax is hard upon professional
and trading persons, who make only just enough for their
wants. Hardly any of these persons are Chartists. I
believe the Chartist body to be composed principally of
men who have nothing to lose, are not doing well in any
trade or calling, for the humblest charwoman who has
work is furious against them, and looks to the upper classes
for support. A great proportion of them are sufferers by
their own fault, Chough there may be some bodies of men
thrown suddenly out of employment, who are in great
distress through pure misfortune, and who become Chartists
in pure ignorance, with a blind hope of bettering their
state by changing the present order of things.

264 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

III.

Youth and Age.
To Miss FENWICK.

1848. — I am glad, dear friend, that you have had some
enjoyment at Teignmouth. I feel a good deal as you do,
that there is not so much greater proportion of happiness
in youth (and, I would add, still less in childhood) than in
more advanced periods of life, when thought and experience
have brought more knowledge (of all that it concerns us
most to know) and more tranquillity. Youth and childhood
are indeed beautiful and interesting to look back upon; but
I feel as old Matthew did about the lovely child, I do not
wish them mine — mine to go over again.

IV.

Early Marriage.

To C. B. STUTFIELD, Esq., Hackney.

Chester Place, 1848. — I have been much interested by
your note ; it really gives the pith and marrow of the case
in pithy language. I agree to it all without reserve, except
a partial one on a single point. You say that a " young
man much occupied, will not generally think of marriage
till past thirty." I know a good many exceptions to that
rule, I think. It seems to me, I own, that the time to
form a marriage engagement, in an ordinary case, for a
man, is between twenty and thirty. It is not so naturally,

easily, or well done, afterwards. D , who has had some

experience of youth, laments exceedingly the difficulties in
the way of early marriage for men, and my Uncle Southey
was of the same mind. But the difficulties are often in-
superable. What I like is to see a young man ready to
work hard, and ready to be married. Energy, energy, that
is the thing, if it be kept in order by a religious mind.

LONDON SOCIETY. 265

Charms of our Native Place — Country Life and Town Life — Portraits

of Middle-aged People.
To Mrs. RICHARD TOWNSEND, Norwood.

Chester Place, July 7th, 1848. — It strikes me, dear Mrs.
Townsend, that you would be better off, as regards your
health and spirits, if you resided in Eegent's Park, or some
airy part of London, than at Norwood, sweet and (for a
summer-spell) enviable as Norwood is. Your husband
seems to be much engaged, and the society of .any country
place is necessarily limited. Our native place is quite a
different affair. There every stick and stone, or at all
events, every nook and woody clump, and turn of the
well-known river, whose sounds were the first that struck
upon our infant ears, — there, all the old familiar faces,
however hum-drum or even unpleasing to strangers, are
full of interest from old association. We see in these
objects not simply their present selves, but a host of past
impressions, which, as it were, illuminate them, — impart
to them both a general luminous glow, and a rich mosaic
embroidery, which render them far more interesting in our
eyes, than new ones though infinitely more striking, as seen
for the first time.

Here I have almost too much excitement from inter-
course with interesting people. I feel the charm of London
society deeply, but my nervous system is so weak and
irritable, that I seem always on the verge of being outdone,
even though I keep quite on the outskirts of the gay, busy
world, and go out little in comparison with most of my
friends, — very seldom (never if I can help it) two nights
consecutively.

I am now sitting to Mr. L for my dear old friend

Mrs. Stanger. E. thinks that the picture promises well.
Some of my friends decline sitting because they are middle-
aged, and middle-age is neither lovely nor picturesque. My

266 MEMOIE AND LETTEKS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

objection is not the plainness of the stage of life, but the
variability of my nervous state, and consequently of my
looks. Sometimes the artist is forced to work away at the

gown (at least Mr. E was sometimes) because the face

is actually gone away pro tempore.

VI.

Teaching Work — Dickens as a Moralist for the Young.
To Mrs. H. M. JONES.

Herne Bay, August 17th, 1848. — My sister and C left

us last Monday ; young D remains with us till Friday.

He reads Homer to me, and this with H.'s readings, and
E.'s, is as much in that way as my nerves will stand; for
I can do everything that I ever could, a little, but nothing
much or long. The hundred lines with each youth, and
sometimes Pindar or Horace beside, which seems nothing
to my brother, is a good deal to me. They like to talk
with me and each other about "Harry Lorrequer" and
other military and naval novels, and above all about the
productions of Dickens, the never-to-be-exhausted fun of
Pickwick, and the capital new strokes of Martin Chuzzlewit.
This last work contains, beside all the fun, some very
marked and available morals. I scarce know any book in
which the evil and odiousness of selfishness is more forcibly
brought out, or in a greater variety of exhibitions. In the
midst of the merry quotations, or at least, on any fair
opportunity, I draw the boys' attention to these points, bid
them remark how unmanly is the selfishness of young
Martin, and I insist upon it that Tom Pinch's character, if
it could really exist, would be a very beautiful one. But I
doubt, as I do in regard to Pickwick, that so much sense,
and deep, solid goodness, could co-exist with such want of
discernment and liability to be gulled. Tigg is very clever,
and the boys roar with laughter at the " what's-his-name
place whence no thingumbob ever came back;" but this is

MR. COLERIDGE'S RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES. 267

only a new edition of Jingle and Smangles. Mark Tapley
also is a second Sam Weller. The new characters are
Pecksniff, and the thrice -notable Sairey Gamp, with Betsy
Prig to show her off.

VII.

Mr. Coleridge's Philosophy inseparable from his Religious Teaching —

His View of the Inspiration of Scripture.
To Miss MORRIS.

1848. — I doubt not that though your American semi-
Coleridgian, or rather Coleridgian only in fancy, imagines
my father a " Heretic," in his formal divinity mind, yet that
his heart and spiritual being, if he really have benefited in
any way or degree worth speaking of, by his writings, is
making a far different report. Why should a fine intellect
(and most men allow my father that), united with a disposi-
tion to believe, and strong desire to be in sympathy with the
religious, become suddenly effete and worse than useless,
when applied to the discernment of religious truth ? I
know how vain it is to argue. But I say this to show you
my own state of mind on these matters, not in any expecta-
tion of altering yours, or that of any of those who see the
subject of religious belief, or rather the theory of faith, as
you do. My father's religious teaching is so interwoven
with his intellectual views, as with all deep and earnest
thinkers must ever be the case, that both must stand or
fall together ; and in my opinion those persons dream who
think they are improved by him intellectually, yet consider
his views of Christianity in the main unsound. There are
some portions of his theology on which I feel unresolved,
some which I reject ; but in the mass they are such as both
embrace me and are embraced by me. His view of Inspira-
tion, as far as it goes, I do entirely assent to ; and it is my
strong anticipation, as far as I have any power to
anticipate, that after a time, all earnest, thoughtful
Christians will perceive that such a footing, in the main, as

268 MEMOIR AND LETTEES OF SABA COLERIDGE.

that on which he places the Inspiration of Scripture is the
only safe one, — the only one that can hold its ground
against advancing thought and investigation. I refer not
so much in this to examination of outward proof, but to
reflection on the nature of the thing in itself, the discovery
of the internal incoherency of the ordinary schemes of
belief on this subject. I think it will be found how
satisfyingly spiritual it is.

VIII.

Mr. Spedding's Critique on Lord Macaulay's Essay on Bacon —
The Ordinance of Confirmation — Primitive Explanations of its
Meaning and Efficacy.
To AUBREY DE YERE, Esq.

1848. — I am delighted and interested in a most high
degree by the vindication of Bacon. It seems to me no
less admirable for the principles of moral discrimination
and truth, and accuracy of statement, especially where
character is concerned, which it brings out and elucidates
by particular instances, which as it were substantiate and
vitalize the abstract propositions, than for the glorious
sunny light which it casts on the character of Bacon. Then
how ably does it show up, not Macaulay's character indi-
vidually and personally, so much as the class of thinkers
of which he is the mouthpiece and representative. There
are numbers who dislike and suspect that anti-Bacon
article, and would take in with avidity the refutation.

But can it be true that Bacon doubted whether Confirma-
tion were a subsequent to Baptism ? How can it be doubted
by any one who knows what Confirmation is, what are the
purposes of it ?

There can be no doubt that Confirmation was in the
beginning considered, if not a component part of the whole
sacrament of Baptism, yet certainly a sacrament in which
the regenerative Spirit was received. The two were united
in time, and formed one double rite. Confirmation, or

BAPTISM AND CONFIRMATION. 269

Imposition of Hands, was performed directly after Baptism ;
and Tertullian affirms that men are prepared for the Spirit,
or purified by the Baptismal rite, — that they receive the
Spirit by Imposition of Hands.

I think we may argue from this, and many like dogmas
of the early Fathers, that it is not possible to follow out
the primitive rationale of Sacraments on all points. The
Church afterwards separated Imposition of Hands from
Baptism, and taught that the gift of the Eegenerative
Spirit appertained to the latter. Still Confirmation is
surely a complement of Baptism, has a special reference to
it, though it be not necessary to salvation, or an essential
part of Baptism. The term " subsequent to Baptism" is
ambiguous. Confirmation is not to confirm the Baptism, but
to confirm or corroborate the baptized in the graces and
spiritual edification originally received in baptism.

IX.

Pindar — Dante's " Paradise " — " Faustina," by Ida Countess Hahn-
Hahn — Haziness of Continental Morality — A Coquette on Prin-
ciple— Lord Bacon's Insincerity.
To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq., Curragh Chase, Ireland.

Chester Place, 1848. — One feels proud of reading Pindar.
It is like being at a fountain-head, at the fresh top of a
lofty aerial mount, a wide prospect of the land of beauty
spread out before one. The Second Pythian Ode contains
one of those Scripture-like passages which one seems to
have read somewhere in the Old Testament, but knows
not exactly where, — perhaps in the Psalms, in Job, or
Isaiah. . . .

Canto V. of the "Paradiso" is in the main rather dry,
sententious, and unsensuous, but it reads impressively,
and I feel this time, more than before, how finely the light
keeps growing as one goes on in the " Paradiso," how the
splendours accumulate, the glory deepens, the colours glow
out more and more in ever richer variety.

270 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

I was very glad, however, to conclude the evening with
Countess Ida ; and now I have read her story carefully to
the end, and what do I think of it ? Why, that it is in the
style of execution very exquisite, full of grace, beauty, light
rich fancy; but that it is as strong an instance as I ever
met with of that pseudo-morality, that vague, slippery,
luminous-misty view of right and wrong, which it would be
unfair to call German, as if it belonged to the Germans
more than to the French, Italians, Danes, or Swedes, but
which we may certainly call un-English. If the plant
appears amongst us it is recognized as a foreigner at once.
Goethe's morality has been much questioned amongst us,
but there is nothing in his tales surely of worse tendency
than this "Faustina," more false and insidious. The
conduct of the heroine is that of an unprincipled coquette,
— a frail, fickle, faithless, self-indulgent, passionate creature ;
nay, more than that, heartless and cruel in the extreme.
Yet, forsooth, we are assured that these acts in her proceed
from superlative purity of heart ! the simplicity of genius,—
an innocent desire to mould her being, to take to herself
whatsoever is beautiful, noble, and excellent ; to keep it as
long as it suited her, and then fling it away like a sucked
orange, or let it fall, as she does the wild flowers, when she
is tired of them ! It is a libel, a shocking libel, on purity
of heart and genius, to lay such sins as these at their door,
or even to suppose them compatible in any way with the
former. No woman that united a fine intellect with a
generous, noble, and tender heart, or even a heart of
tolerable goodness, could have acted the part of Faustina,
even suppose her to have been ever so badly educated ; so
at least it strikes me. I complain of the whole representa-
tion as radically false, and cannot be reconciled by the
delicacy and beauty of the execution, to what is so deeply
wrong in the main conception. "Faustina" is entirely a
woman's book, a continental woman's book, as "Jane

CONTINENTAL MORALITY. 271

Eyre " is that of an English' man.* And oh ! how vastly
superior in truth and power is the latter, coarse and hard
in parts as it certainly is. Faustina is false in another
way too, I think. She does nothing but what any exquisitely
beautiful and graceful woman might do. Hers are not, as
seems to be pretended, the triumphs of genius. Jane
Eyre, without personal advantages, gains upon the mind of
the reader by what she does, and we can well understand
how she fascinates Eochester. We see that she is heroic,
we are not merely told so. " Faustina " reminds me of two
novels by women, — " The History, of a Coquette," by a
daughter of the well-known Bishop Watson, and " Zoe," by
Miss Jewsbury. The latter is less refined than Faustina,
but contains greater variety, — I should say exhibits more
power upon the whole. It has the same moral falsity that
strikes me in "Faustina," — that of uniting noble qualities
of head and heart with conduct the most unworthy and
unvirtuous. T. F. warmly defends " Zoe," declaring it to
be but a true picture of life. If I could think it a true
picture, I too would defend the representation. But I
believe that such compounds as "Zoe" and "Faustina"
are to be classed with the griffins and sphinxes of ancient
fable. Nay, those have at least subjective truth ; in these I
can see none at all.

I dissent from Spedding's defence of Bacon's slight dis-
simulation about the calling of Parliament. Silence is one
thing, but untruth, ever so slight, will never do.

* My mother's critical discrimination was at fault here. She felt sure
that the mysterious " Currer Bell " was a mam ; and used to declare that
she could as soon believe the paintings of Rubens to have been by a woman,
as "Jane Eyre." — E. C.

272 MEMOIE AND LETTEES OF SAEA COLEEIDGE.

CHAPTEK XIX.

LETTEES TO THE EEV. HENRY MOORE, AUBREY DE
VERE, ESQ., MISS FENWICK, THE REV. EDWARD
COLERIDGE : 1848 (continued).

Dr. Arnold's School Sermons — His Comment on the Story of the
Young Men who mocked Elisha — Individuals under the Mosaic
Dispensation dealt with as Public, not as Private Characters — Dr.
Hammond's proposed Rendering of 2 Peter i. xx.
To the Rev. HENRY MOORE, Eccleshall Vicarage.

1848. — I must write a line to thank you for giving to my
boy those excellent sermons of Dr. Arnold's, more comfort-
able to my spirit than most of the sermons addressed to men.
I think in his application of the judgment on the young
people who mocked Elisha, he seems not sufficiently to
bear in mind that they were punished for contemning the
character and authority of an Envoy of the God of Israel,
not for teasing an old man. The judgment would be
frightfully disproportionate if we did not look upon it thus
nationally, in analogy with the whole sacred history. In
the Old Testament individuals appear to be dealt with not
primarily in reference to their own merit or demerit in the
sight of God, or their own private destiny, but as they are
parts and instruments of one comprehensive scheme for the
advancement of the human race by their Creator. Now, I
say that Carlyle, in his History of the French Kevolution,
whether consciously or otherwise, has in some sort written
upon the Scriptural plan. He looks at the French Kevolu-
tion, in all its horrors and miseries, as an awful retribution
for the accumulated crimes of selfishness, cruelty, and
profligacy of the wealthy and powerful classes, — a long-
delayed vengeance, — to be a grand beacon and instruction

HORSLEY'S SERMONS. 273

for the ages to come, and, at the same time, the preparation
for a new and better state of things. The actors in the
Eevolution he considers principally as instruments of this
divine work, and he therefore views them chiefly in
reference to their powers. What he says of Mirabeau's
powers, his wisdom, and insight, I believe to be quite true.
There is a sketch of the life and character of Mirabeau by
my husband in a periodical work, written before Carlyle's
book appeared, which contains in substance all that Carlyle
maintains on that point. Mirabeau had, however, not only
powers, but virtues, though mingled with great vices, and it
is not true that Carlyle disguises or disregards the vices;
he speaks of them as to be lamented and wept over with
bitter tears.

I am looking at Horsley's Sermons on 2 Peter i. 20, 21.*
But he appears to me to have, to a certain degree, a wrong
notion of the drift of the text from neglecting Hammond's
explanation. Hammond says that firiXvtrig is an agonistical
word, and signifies the starting or watchword upon which
the racers set out in their course. According to him the
passage has nothing to do with interpretation whatever, no
bearing of any kind upon private judgment, as it has been a
million times quoted for or rather against. I think if you
consult Scapula or Passow, you will find that the good
doctor is right, and that tTriXvatvOai means to let loose as dogs
or hunting leopards from a leash (though it also means to
solve or explain), and this is more accordant with the
context. " No prophecy is tSme ITT/XVO-EWC — -for the prophecy
came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of
old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Now, is
it not better sense if we render the Greek, "of his own

" Knowing this first, that no prophecy is of any private interpretation.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man ; but holy men of
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." — St. Peter, 2, i. 20, 21.

274 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

starting," "without particular mission from God," than
if we understand it of private interpretation, which has
nothing to do with what goes before, or what comes after ?
St. Peter was not warning men against self-willed un-
catholic views of prophecy, but simply exhorting them to
trust to prophecy, because it was from God.

II.

Mr. Longfellow's " Evangeline " — Hexameters in German and English
— "Hyperion," by the same Author — "Letters and Poetical
Remains of John Keats."
To AUBREY DE YERE, Esq., Curragh Chase, Ireland.

Chester Place, September, 1848. — Thank you much for
Evangeline, which is full of the beautiful, and is most
deeply pathetic, as much so as the story of Margaret in the
Excursion. Perhaps you will think me paradoxical (no,
you would not, I believe, though many would), when I say
that this deep pathos is not the right thing in a poem. I
could not take the story and the poetry together, but was
obliged to skim through it, and see how the misery went
on, and how it ended, before I could read the Poem. I
think a poem ought not to have a more touching interest
than Spenser's " Faerie Queen," Ariosto, and Tasso. The
agitations of the Drama may be quoted against me. I can
but say that I feel the same objection to Borneo and Juliet ;
but then the edge of the strong interest is rubbed off after a
first perusal, and we recur to it as to a poem ; — and so we
may in any other case. But those fine old dramas contain
so much more than the mere story, even in the material;
so much wit, and display of character and humour and
manners, that they are hardly to be compared with our
modern affecting metrical tale.

It does not clearly appear why Gabriel should lose sight
of Evangeline on leaving Acadia. Perhaps we shall be
told, as we are of the story of Margaret, that it is matter of

EVANGELINE. 275

Jact. This would not excuse it, if it looks improbable ; and
depend upon it in the fact there was something different,
something that prevented the difficulty which suggests itself
in the written tale. Evangeline seems to be, in some sort,
an imitation of Voss's Luise. The opening, especially,
would remind any one who had read the Luise, of that
remarkable Idyll. It is far inferior to that, I think, both
in the general conception, and in the execution. Yoss's
hexameters are perfect. The German language admits of
that metre, the English hardly does so. Some of Long-
fellow's lines are but quasi-metre, so utterly inharmonious
and so prosaic in regard to the diction. I do not think
there will ever be a continuous strain of good hexameters in
our language, though there may be a good line here and
there. Goethe's hexameters are excellent ; those of Schiller
in Der Tanz, a poem in longs and shorts, exquisite.

You should read Longfellow's Hyperion, which is an
imitation of Jean Paul Kichter, in the same degree, perhaps,
that Evangeline is an imitation of Voss. It is extremely
refined and pleasing. It is, however, a collection of mis-
cellanea strung together on the thread of a Khine tour, with
very little of a story, only an event to begin with and an
event to end with.

The " Letters and Kemains of Keats " are highly in-
teresting. The "Eve of St. Mark" is an exquisite frag-
ment; " Otho the Great " an utter failure, in my opinion.
I do not agree with Milnes about the " splendour and glory
of the diction." There is a speech or two that might have
suited Lamia or Endymion, but nothing of proper dramatic
force or beauty, from beginning to end ; and the blank verse
is poor.

Severn's journal of poor Keats' last days is deeply
affecting. But how sadly he wanted fortitude. He was
manly in some respects; but in others he was but "five
feet high " after aU.

276 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Compare the death-bed of the Deist Blanco White with
that of poor Keats, and I think it must be admitted that
both in faith and fortitude the former has immeasurably
the advantage. It ought, however, to be recollected that
Blanco White was older, and had had more time to gain
strength of mind. But he was also of a more religious
turn from the first.*

III.

Justice and Generosity — " Vanity Fair " — The World, and the Wheels
on which it moves — Thackeray, Dickens, and Currer Bell —
Devotion of Dobbin to Amelia,
To Miss FENWICK.

November, 1848. — It is commonly thought that justice and
generosity belong to different characters, but it seems to me
that a want of both often goes together, and that people are
seldom thoroughly just, who are ungenerous. But perhaps

* [The following lines written in 1845, with a marginal note added later,
will find an appropriate place here.— B. C.

BLANCO WHITE.

Conldst thou in calmness yield thy mortal breath,
Without the Christian's sure and certain hope ?
Didst thou to earth confine our being's scope,
Yet, fixed on One Supreme with fervent faith,
Prompt to obey what conscience witnesseth,
As one intent to fly the eternal wrath,
Decline the ways of sin that downward slope !
O thou light -searching spirit, that didst grope
In such bleak shadows here, 'twixt life and death,
To thee dare I bear witness, though in ruth —
Brave witness like thine own — dare hope and pray
That thou, set free from this imprisoning clay,
New clad in raiment of perpetual youth,
May'st find that bliss untold 'mid endless day
Awaits each earnest soul that lives for Truth. — S. C.

I have never defended Blanco White, but I do insist on looking at his
virtues, and struggles, and powers of mind with the naked eyes, and not
through the glass of an opinion concerning his religious opinions. In thus
dealing I put forth no new view of Christian justice and toleration. I do
but carry out the received view consistently, and without vacillation. Men
will not believe that B. W. died a firm believer in a Moral and Intelligent
Creator and Governor, to whom our homage and submission is due, because
he rejected outward Revelation, and was unconvinced of the resurrection of
man's soul to conscious exist 3nce. — S. C.

277

the truth is that the ungenerosity to which I allude is a sort
of injustice — the temper that grudges not only the outward
things of this life, but cannot bear to bestow praise, honour,
and credit where they are due, and where perfect justice
would award them.

I believe " Vanity Fair " presents a true view of human
life, — a true view of one aspect and side of it. We cannot
live long in the world, I think, with an observant eye,
without perceiving that pride, vanity, selfishness, in one or
other of its forms, together with a good deal of conscious
or unconscious pretence^ — pretence to virtue and piety
especially, but also to intellect, elegance, and fashion, —
to disregard of praise and admiration and various other
supposed advantages, — are among the great main wheels
which move the social machine. Still, these are uneasy
reflections, and perhaps we are not in the best frame of
mind, when such things present themselves to us very
strongly. I hope that "Vanity Fair" presents but one
side of the author's own mind, else it must be a most un-
happy one. Still I must say, I think very highly of the
book. None of the kind ever exceeded my anticipations so
much. In knowledge of life and delineation of character,
it seems to me quite equal to " Jane Eyre," though it has
never been so popular, and I cannot but think that it
afforded some hints to that celebrated novel. Thackeray
is not good where he imitates Dickens, where he describes
houses, for instance. The still part of his descriptions is
often tedious ; whereas in " Jane Eyre," the landscape
painting is admirable, and Dickens shines in Dutch pieces,
descriptions of interiors, and so forth. But Thackeray has
a vein of his own, in which he is quite distinct from his
predecessor and successor in the novel-writing career, and
it is a keen and subtle one. I believe the description of
Sir Pitt Crawley is hardly an overdrawn picture of what
may have existed fifty years ago.

278 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Dobbin's devotion to a weak woman like Emmy is per-
fectly natural. That sort of devotedness is seldom bestowed
on very worthy objects, I think, for they do not excite
tenderness in the shape of pity, are more independent, and
turn the admirer's thoughts into a better and higher
direction.

IV.

Mr. Carlyle on Hero- Worship — Ceremonial, in his View, the Husk of
Religion ; Veneration its Kernel — Veneration rightly bestowed on
Mental Power as an Image of one of the Divine Attributes —
Voltaire justly Admired by the French for his Native Genius —
Association of Goodness with Wisdom, and of Poetry with
Philosophy — Mr. Carlyle's Heroes described by him as Benefactors,
not merely Rulers of Men — Instances of Voltaire, Rousseau, and
Cromwell — A True Sense in which " Might is Right " — Character
of Mirabeau — Comparison of Mr. Carlyle as a Moralist with Lord
Byron, as an Historian with Lord Macaulay — Aim and Spirit of
his History of the French Revolution.

To Rev. EDWARD COLERIDGE.

REPLY TO STRICTURES OF THREE GENTLEMEN UPON CARLYLE,

SUPPORTED BY A REFERENCE TO CERTAIN PASSAGES IN HIS

WORKS.

In order to do justice to the views of an author, especially
such an author as Carlyle, who less than most men can be
understood in fragments, a want of finish in the parts being
the characteristic defect of his style, we must take care to
place ourselves in his point of view, to possess ourselves of
his aim. Now, Carlyle's great theme in the work before
us is worship — the instinct of Veneration in man ; (but see
his limitation of the term, p. 381, — or intimation that he
has been using it in a limited sense). The religion of
nations, as to its superficial and outward part, he considers
to be, in great measure, a system of empty forms, dead
conventionalisms, and lifeless ceremonies, — the worthless
remains of a something which once had life. On the other
hand, he believes that in all religions which have ever held

HERO-WORSHIP. 279

sway over masses of men for a considerable time, there has
been at bottom a living and life-exciting principle. This
principle, which he sets up as the work of God, against the
arte-facts of men, — vain substitutes for genuine gifts from
on high, — he maintains to be Veneration — the principle or
feeling which leads men to bow down before the image of
God in the soul of man. Power is an attribute of God, —
Carlyle maintains that the instinct whereby we are impelled
practically to adore and obey mental power, wherever we
behold it, is a salutary and high instinct, whkh instru-
mentally redeems mankind from the dominion of sense and
the despotism of moral evil. (But power in God is joined
with benevolence, and so it is in all whom Carlyle sets up
as objects of " worship.")

In the first passage referred to (Hero-worship, pp. 22, 23),
Voltaire is spoken of as a kind of hero, a man gifted by God
with remarkable powers of thought and expression, and
who, whatever evil he may have done, — exceeding any good
that can be ascribed to his authorship, — was nevertheless
believed by those who " worshipped " him to have devoted
his life and abilities to the " unmasking of hypocrisy," and
"exposing of error and injustice." Carlyle's proposition
seems to me to be simply this, — The French nation being
such as they were, that is to say, in a comparatively low,
dark, unspiritual state, their enthusiasm about Voltaire was
a favourable symptom of their mental condition, — the
spirit evinced therein a redeeming spirit (in its degree) —
their feeling of admiration and veneration for one whom
they thought above them, in its own nature a noble and
blessed feeling. Poor and needy, indeed, must that people
be who have no better object of such a feeling than Voltaire.
Our author means only to affirm that Frenchmen were
better employed in " worshipping " him even for suppo-
sititious merits than in grovelling along in utter worldliness,
pursuing each his own narrow se]fish path, without a

280 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

thought or a care beyond the gratification of the senses.
Here is no intention to set the intellectual above the moral,
or to substitute the one for the other, but to insist on the
superiority of natural gifts, as means of bettering the souls
of men, to the vain shows and semblances which commonly
pass for religion in the world, according to the author's
opinion.

The second passage (pp. 166, 167) I remember noting
when I first read the work in which it is contained, as
announcing a doctrine either wrong in itself or wrongly
expressed. But I cannot see that it is erroneous by the
exaltation of intellectual power above goodness, but rather
by too bold and broad an affirmation that the former is the
measure of the latter. So far I agree with Carlyle, that I
believe the highest moral excellence attainable by man is
ever attended by a certain largeness of understanding ; not
that intellectual power is a part of goodness, but that
moral goodness cannot be evolved, to the greatest extent,
without it. Men of high virtue and piety are ever men of
insight, the moral and intelligential in their mixed nature
reciprocally strengthening and expanding each other. To
transfer these remarks to a lower subject, every great poet
must be possessed not merely of a fine imagination, a lively
fancy, or any other particular intellectual faculty, but of a
great understanding ; he must be one whose mental vision
is deeper and more acute than that of other men, who sees
into the truth of things, and has a special power of rendering
what he sees visible to others. He must be practical as
well as percipient, else he is not a poet, a maker or creator ;
— he must see keenly and (if the expression may be allowed)
feelingly, else his poetic faculty has no adequate materia^
to work upon. Shakespeare was, inclusively, a great
philosopher. Lear, Hamlet, and Othello could never have
been produced by one who did not see into the human
mind deeply, and survey it widely. But to be a Shake-

SPECIALITY OF GENIUS. 281

speare a man must have certain peculiar gifts of intellect
added to this great general powerfulness ; or, to express
myself more distinctly, his mind must be specifically
modified, and that from the first — a priori. I cannot at all
agree with Carlyle in thinking that the sole original qualifi-
cation of every great man of every description is a strong
understanding, and that where there is this common base,
circumstances alone determine whether the possessor is to
be a Caesar or a Shakespeare, a Cowley or a Kant, a
Wellington or a Wordsworth. To return to the moral side
of the subject, I think that Carlyle expresses himself too
broadly when he says, " that the degree of vision that
dwells in a man is the correct measure of the man," and
illustrates his meaning by a reference to Shakespeare.
Was Shakespeare as much better than other men as he
was deeper and clearer sighted ? The truth is, that vision
considered in the concrete, as found in this or that indi-
vidual, is always specific. The saints and servants of
God have a vision of their own — but here let me pause, for
I am at the mouth of a labyrinth. Lord Byron, to whom
Mr. A — - refers, was a very clever man ; but I think that
Carlyle would not allow him any very remarkable " degree
of vision ; " his " superiority of intellect," sensu eminente, he
would plainly deny, and, in my opinion, with justice. But
still Byron had a stronger understanding than many a
better man, though his fame during life may have been no
" correct measure " of his intellectual size (in literary and
poetical circles his fame is now fast shrinking into more
just proportion therewith). Carlyle's statement is, at best,
confused and inadequate, probably because he had not
properly thought out the subject, when he undertook to
speak upon it.

Much waste of words and of thought, too, would be avoided
if disputants would always begin with a clear statement of
the question, and not proceed to argue till they had agreed

282 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

upon what it was that they were arguing about. The pro-
position which I understand Mr. A— - to maintain (when he
censures Carlyle as a worshipper of intellect, implying that
he worships it in a bad sense), and which I venture to deny,
is this : That Thomas Carlyle, viewed in his character of
author, as appears upon the face of his writings, exalts
intellect taken apart from the other powers of the mind, —
that he sets up mere intellect as the ultimate object of
esteem and admiration, and represents a man as truly
great and worthy of all honour, purely on the score of
intellectual gifts, without reference to the use he makes of
them. In disproof of this position (or by way of attempting
to disprove it) I appeal to the fact, that all his heroes,
whom he describes as being the deserving objects of what,
"not to be too grave about it," he chooses to call "worship"
are represented by him as benefactors of the human race,
just in proportion as they were deserving objects of worship.
He describes them as men whose powers have been employed
by God's will and their own, for good and noble purposes
on a large scale, chiefly for the purpose of leading men,
directly or indirectly, from earth to heaven, from the
human to the divine. This indeed is the keynote of
Carlyle's writings, it is the beginning and the end of his
whole teaching, it is this which gives a character of eleva-
tion to all the productions of his mind, and renders him so
widely influential, as, with all his bad taste and frequent
crudity and incompleteness of thinking, he certainly is, that
in all he puts forth there is an immediate reference to
man's higher destiny, under the power of which thought all
his other thoughts are moulded and modified. His vocation
is that of an apostle, in the sense in which the title may
truly and reverently be bestowed upon uninspired men. If
it be objected to this view of his drift and purpose, that
Voltaire and Eousseau are mentioned among his heroes, I
reply that he has done this, not from blindness to their

TRUE HEROES. 283

faults and deficiencies, but from the supposed perception of
a certain degree of merit in them not commonly recognized
by admirers of goodness. This supposition may be well or
ill founded, — he may be wrong in supposing those writers to
have exerted any beneficial influence ; but the character of
his aim is to be determined by the supposition and not by
the fact. He places them very low in the scale of bene-
factors, and brings them forward rather as illustrations of
his meaning in the lowest instances, than as considering
them worthy to be placed by the side of the best and greatest
men, in the scale of moral greatness. His account of
Cromwell I think very fine as a sketch, and very well
framed as an exponent of his doctrine ; with regard to its
truth in fact my judgment is suspended. Be that as it
may, Carlyle's heroes are all men who have striven for
truth and justice, and for the emancipation of their fellow-
mortals. He represents them as having been misunderstood
by the masses of mankind, in the midst of all their effec-
tivity and ultimate influence, simply because the masses of
mankind are not themselves sufficiently wise, and good, and
perspicacious to understand and sympathize with those who
are so in an eminent degree. There is some originality in
Carlyle's opinions ; but he seems to me to be more original
in manner than in matter ; the force and feeling with which
he brings out his views are more remarkable than the views
themselves.

Carlyle has somewhere spoken as if he thought that
bodily strength gave a just claim to the possession of rule
and authority, and this passage has been quoted against
him with considerable plausibility. But is it not true that
superior strength of body and mind have ever enabled the
possessors, sooner or later, to command the herd of their
inferiors? This is a fact which Carlyle does not invent,
but only reasons upon, and his reasoning is, that, native
strength and other personal endowments, conferred directly

284 MEMOIK AND LETTEKS OF SAEA COLEKIDGE.

by God, without man's intervention, convey a better claim
to the obedience and service of men, and are a safer ground
whereon to erect sovereignty, than arbitrary human distinc-
tions and titles established conventionally, which, by a
certain theory of theologians, are made out to have been
instituted by God Himself. The only divine right of kings
which he will acknowledge is native might, enabling a man
to rule well and wisely, as well as strongly. Hereditary
sway, pretending to be divine, he looks upon as a mere
human contrivance, one that has never adequately answered
its purpose, that arose originally from false views and bad
feelings, and as it had in it, from the beginning, a corrupt
root, is ever tending to decay and dissolution. For myself,
if it is worth while to say what I think, I cannot clearly
understand the divine right of kings as taught by High
Churchmen, but neither do I believe that Carlyle has seen
through the whole of this matter, or that there is not much
more to be said for conventional sovereignty than appears
in his notices of the question. If all men were at all times
wise enough to chose the best governors, there need be no
such contrivance as hereditary sway, — but, till they are,
elective sway is no better ; and in the mean time, according
to Carlyle' s own admission, native strength has a sphere
of its own, in which it governs with more or less effect,
according to its intensity.

Carlyle's manner of describing the character of Mirabeau
is, perhaps, the most questionable part of his writings, yet
even here, I think, his main drift is quite consistent with
morality. He is not judging the eminent Frenchman as a
divine, or examining him as a moralist. His theme is the
French ^Revolution, which he regards as a tremendous
crisis, the result of a long series and extensive system of
selfishness, cruelties, and injustices, and he views all the
persons of his narrative principally in reference to the part
they acted, and the effects they wrought, in this great

MIEABEAU. 285

national convulsion. Whatever Mirabeau's private character
may have been before God, yet as far as he was a powerful
and conspicuous agent in carrying forward the work of the
Bevolution, Carlyle was justified, as it seems to me, in
setting him forth as an object of interest, and even of
admiration, proportioned to the amount and rareness of
the gifts which rendered him a potent instrument in the
hands of Providence, for a particular purpose ; and this he
might have done without calling evil good, or good evil.
But it is abundantly evident that Carlyle did not consider
Mirabeau's mind and disposition, as upon the whole, morally
bad ; he ascribes to him high purposes and public virtues,
that is, virtues specially calculated to benefit the public.
Whether his account of him be true in fact, or whether it
is a fiction, our argument does not require us to consider.
The question only is, does Caiiyle's language respecting
Mirabeau confound the distinction betwixt virtue and vice,
— does it tend to dim the lustre of the first, and to surround
the last with a false and falsifying splendour ? Now, I am
inclined to answer this question in the negative, both from
consideration of Carlyle' s general turn of mind, as displayed
in his books, and from a survey of all that he says of
Mirabeau, taken in connection with the spirit and principles
of the work in which it appears, though I admit that he
has not taken sufficient pains to prevent his sentiments
from being taken for that which they are not. The writings
of Lord Byron are really open, in some measure, to such a
charge, because they array in attractive colours imaginary
personages to whom no really good or noble qualities are
ascribed ; they are not reprehensible for that they represent
men as worthy to be admired in spite of great vices, but
because they tend to produce admiration of the very vices
themselves, — to detach it from virtue altogether, and place
it on inferior objects. Lord Byron's heroes have no higher
merits than gallantry and courage ; they are invested with a

286 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

kind of dignity from romantic situation, and the possession
of outward elegance, not dignified by their instrumentality
in great and important events. Such representations are
essentially mean and worthless, but such is not Carlyle's
representation in the present instance. He describes
Mirabeau, not only as a man of vast energy and amazing
political sagacity, but amid much personal profligacy and
unruliness of passion, as being possessed, like his father
before him, of a philanthropic spirit, high, disinterested
aims, and a zeal to serve his country. He affirms, and in
this, whatever Macaulay's opinion may be, he is borne out
by other authorities, that Mirabeau took a right view of the
political needs of the French people, that he sought to bring
in a limited monarchy, on the English model, knowing it to
be the only form of public liberty for which the French nation
was fit, and that, had God spared his life, and permitted
him to go on in the career which he had commenced, he
would have been the saviour of his country, so far as this,
that without the horrors of the Eevolution he would have
established all that the ^Revolution ultimately brought
about in so violent and calamitous a manner. Such,
according to Carlyle, was Mirabeau's aim ; such his insight.
That he was in many respects a bad man, cannot make
such an aim not to have been good, the sagacity with which
he directed it, and the resoluteness with which he pursued
it, not to have been admirable ; — and to deny this character
of excellence appears to me to be a confounding of good and
evil ; not to affirm it. Would it not be an approach to the
ill practice of lying for God, if we were to refuse all honour
to the name of Mirabeau, on account of that bad side of his
mind and actions, supposing Carlyle's account of him to be
correct ? Carlyle represents this remarkable man as a
voluptuary and a libertine. Libertinism is of the nature of
wickedness, but mere libertinism, though it may be accom-
panied by, and though it tends to produce, hardness of

MIRABEAU. 287

heart, and is a contempt of God's Word and command-
ments, does not alone constitute the man who is guilty of it
" an atrocious villain." It may be villainously pursued,
but it is not in itself the same thing as villainy ; for a
villain, according to the common acceptation of the word, is
a man basely malignant as to his general character,
incapable of generous thoughts and actions ; but libertinism
is not absolutely incompatible with generosity and benevo-
lence, however it [may tend to weaken and fret away all that
is better than itself in the mind of the libertine. Again, a
mere voluptuary is a contemptible being. But Mirabeau,
according to Carlyle, was much else beside being a
voluptuary. He seems rather to have acted the rake, as a
form of activity, than through a slavish subjection to mere
sensual appetite, and Carlyle brings forward his exploits in
this line, rather to show his multifarious energy, — how
many different kinds of things he was able to do at once,
and with the force of a giant, than with any intention of
admitting that he was a selfish sensualist in the main ; that
this was his distinguishing character. I am afraid his way
herein was made all too smooth before him, and that the
women sank before his genius with fatal facility. They are
too apt to yield their whole heart and mind to men of power
and distinction, let their other qualities be what they may,
and there was little Christianity in Paris, during Mirabeau' s
career, to keep such a disposition in check. However, I am
far from defending the tone in which Carlyle deals with this
part of his subject ; there is a something of exultation in it
highly reprehensible. As a defender of truth he should not
have referred to such things without a mark of reprobation,
nor as a pretender to refinement and elevation of feeling
should he have touched upon them without expressions of
disgust and contempt.

On one other point, however, I do think Carlyle may be
defended without sophistry or straining. It was said, as I

288 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

understood, that whereas this writer treats his own favourites
with undue indulgence, he displays a bitter and vehement
spirit against their adversaries, and generally all who are
not of his school and party. I should say, on the contrary,
that Carlyle treats all historical characters that come under
his cognizance with leniency ; he speaks admiringly and
indulgently, for instance, of Marie Antoinette ; and I can
perceive no scorn in his exposure of the weakness and
dulness of her husband, — which who can deny. In speaking
of Laud, he less decries the man than the circumstances of
which he was the creature. One of Carlyle' s opinions,
whatever his candour, could not look upon Laud as a large
and free-minded man, a martyr in a wholly good cause.

Carlyle is a satirist, but he is not given to satirize
individuals, or even parties of men. The object of his
satire, as it appears to me, is the weakness and wickedness
of mankind, — systems of opinion, not bodies of believers.
He speaks occasionally with contempt, though not always
with unqualified contempt (see his last work, " Past and
Present"), of Puseyism, as a resurrection- system of defunct
things ; but he says nothing of any of the resurrection-men,
nor has he ever joined any person or party, that I am
aware of, in impeaching the conduct of the Puseyites, con-
sidered as a party.

Macaulay's opinion of Mirabeau is cited by Mr. A .

Macaulay may be more correct than Carlyle as to the facts
of the case (though I do not see that this has been proved),
but I cannot think him fit to be trusted with the character
of any great man. He is a thorough Utilitarian and anti-
spiritualist, and though he makes judicious remarks upon
this person and upon that, yet scarcely sees at all that
element of greatness, that spark of the divine in these
marked agents of Providence, which Carlyle sees too exclu-
sively. Macaulay finishes fully, but his conceptions are on
a confined scale. Carlyle aims at something higher and

MOEAL OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 289

deeper, his views are more novel and striking, but they are
hastily and often inaccurately set forth. Carlyle writes
paradoxically about great men. Macaulay on similar sub-
jects, is liable, in my opinion, to write untruly, from defec-
tive perception of a certain side of greatness. I would refer
to Carlyle' s character of Johnson, in his Essays, as a most
interesting sample of his style and mode of thinking.

In the comparison of Byron and Carlyle, with regard to
the moral tendency of their writings, I would add, that if
the latter had invented the character of Mirabeau, or if the
character thus invented was untrue to nature, in represent-
ing high and noble qualities in combination with evil ones,
so as they never appear in actual life, he might justly be
accused of depreciating the former and varnishing over, or
softening off the latter. But Carlyle has not been found,
I believe, to have misrepresented the life and actions of
Mirabeau, nor has it yet been shown that he has mis-
represented human nature in his account of them. Neither
this nor that, indeed, is the charge against him ; but rather
that he has described him as a wicked man, and yet has
held him up to honour and admiration, on the score of
marked talents and striking qualities, apart from virtue.
This charge is unsupported, I think, by sufficient evidence ;
Carlyle has not exalted him as a man, still less as a subject
of the Prince of Life, but as an actor in a great historical
drama ; nor has he held up worse actions to positive admira-
tion, he has but given them a place beside his worthier
ones, without drawing the line betwixt them with sufficient
sharpness. But he was not called upon by the nature
of his undertaking to sum up all the points of Mirabeau's
character, and decide whether it was good or bad in the eye
of God. He had undertaken to describe and to moralize
and philosophize, implicitly rather than expressly, upon the
French Eevolution ; and this I think he does in a deeply
religious spirit, ever bearing in mind and bringing before

290 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

the minds of his readers, that there is a 'God that both
ruleth and judgeth the world, and exposing the moral bear-
ings of his subject, whether justly or not, yet with a
constant regard to the law of conscience, and the inward
revelations of the Spirit. It was not his province to censure
the private vices of Mirabeau (I mean that this was not
within the scope of his principal design, though I admit that
he ought not to have spoken of them without noting his
disapprobation of them more clearly). It was his province
to show how the selfishness and godlessness of numbers, how
spiritual wickedness in high places, gradually reared up a
pile of misery and mischief, and how this mass of evil, when
at last it exploded with ruinous violence, was at once a
remedy from God and a retribution.

HEE BEOTHEE'S ILLNESS. 291

CHAPTEE XX.

LETTERS TO MISS FENWICK, MISS MORRIS, MRS. J.
STANGER, MRS. R. TOWNSEND, MRS. PLUMMER,
AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ., HON. MR. JUSTICE COLE-
RIDGE, EDWARD QUILLINAN, ESQ., REV. EDWARD
COLERIDGE : January— July , 1849.

A sad New Year — Alarming Illness of her Brother Hartley.
To Miss FENWICK.

Chester Place, January 7th, 1849. — My dear Friend, — You
may perhaps have heard from the north of my present
sorrow and anxiety, but whether you have or not I must
write to tell you of it. On Christmas Day came from dear
Mrs. Wordsworth an alarming report of my dear brother
Hartley. Several other reports were still worse, and after
one of them I almost mourned him as dead. Then a report
that he had happily passed the crisis, as was hoped, assured
me for a while of his restoration. When the news worsened
again, Derwent went to him. The news he sent was cheer-
ing at first, but ever since the first has been worsening.
On Wedneseday night he grew faint, his countenance
changed, and Derwent thought his last hour was approach-
ing. Derwent gave him brandy and water ; ... he revived
upon this, and conversed a good deal; talked on Pindar,
Gary, Dante, on Ireland and such topics. . . . Yesterday's
report was that he was no better, weaker if anything. . . .
He has every advantage of medical skill, the most excellent
and affectionate nursing, and testimonies of love and regard
from numerous friends, more than I can express. No man,
I do think, can ever have been more beloved who had no
means of attaching men to him but his mere personal
qualities.

292 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

His state of mind in regard to religious feeling is all that
can be desired. Nothing, Derwent says, can be more devout,
more pious, resigned, simple, and loving. But he appears
at times greatly depressed, both in his mind, from itself, and
by his bodily sufferings. Dear Mrs. Wordsworth's letters
were all you could expect from her, — wonderfully clear and
strongly written, and most kind and affectionate. On
Friday Derwent wrote — "Mr. Wordsworth has seen him,
and was much affected. His own appearance was very
striking, and his countenance beautiful, as he sat by the
bedside." . . . He took the Sacrament some days ago. I
suffer greatly in being unable to be at his bedside. The
journey taken at once would render me useless, and, after
our long separation, for me to arrive at Eydal shattered
and prostrate, would do nothing but harm. . . . His illness
has brought up strongly before my mind all my past early
life in connection with my dear brother. I feel now more
than I had done before how strong the tie is that binds me
to him. Scarce any death would make me anticipate my own
with such vividness as his would do. Children and parents
belong each to a different generation, but a brother, a
few years older, who has never suffered from any malady,
in him I should seem in some sort to die myself. I trust, if
he is spared, we shall all be more serious for the future, —
not more sad, — more cheerful, but more earnestly thought-
ful of the true end of life, and desirous to make ready for
departure.

II.

His long Absence and unexpected Death — Disappointment of long-
cherished Hopes — His attaching Qualities — His Grave in Grasmere
Churchyard — His last Hours.
To Miss MORRIS.

10, Chester Place, January VJth, 1849. — Many, many
thanks, dearest Miss Morris, for your note. I am so thank-
ful that you can anticipate my deep grief! We had long

HAKTLEY COLEKIDGE. 293

been separated from each other, as to outward sight, but
oh ! how much he occupied my thoughts, and how dear he
was to my heart ! — never till now did I know how dear.

There were three who loved me best in this wide world, to
whom I was most dear, most important. Now all three are
gone, and I feel, even from earthly feeling, as if that other
world were more my home than this.

I never thought of surviving him. I always thought he
would live to old age, and that, perhaps, in our latest years,
we might cherish each other; meantime, that I might see
much of him, in some long visit to the north, when I might,
make my children known to him.

It seems as if he were snatched away from me all on
the sudden, and all the thoughts and visions of so many,
many years are swept away all at once. This has brought
my mind into a strangely agitated state. I have felt worse
since yesterday evening than I did before. Dear friend, I
cannot as yet reconcile myself to this loss. For a time I
feel resigned, — then comes back a tide of recollections which
deluge me with tears. It is so grievous to me that I could
not attend on him in his last illness. That was impossible.
The sight of me, after so long a separation, would have
agitated him, I knew, and been too injurious. I thought to
go with Nurse had the illness continued. He was the most
attaching of men; and if tributes of love and admiration
from those who knew him well, and tears shed for his un-
looked-for death, could remove or neutralize sorrow, my cup
would have lost its bitterness. Never was a man more
loved in life, or mourned in death; indeed, within the
circle of my acquaintance, I might even say, so loved and
mourned.

It soothes me to think of all the love and sorrow of the
Wordsworths, and that by their wish — it would have been
his too — his remains are laid as near as possible to the spot
where they are to lie, in the south-east corner of Grasmere

294 MEMOIB AND LETTEKS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

churchyard, near the river, amid the cluster of graves which
belong to 'the Wordsworths, — dear bright-minded, warm-
hearted Dora, who never spoke of him but with praise and
affection, — and others of the family still earlier removed.
But oh ! how little did I think that I was never to see him
more!

I should like you some day to see the letters which give
account of his state in illness, his dying hours, and then of
the funeral. Nothing could be more gentle, loving, pious,
and humble, more deeply penitent for sin. Long and severe
was his parting struggle, severe both to body and mind;
but at the very last, he went off gradually.

III.

Affectionate Behaviour of the Old Friends at Rydal Mount on this
Occasion — Mr. Wordsworth's Opinion of Hartley's Character and
Genius.
To the Rev. EDWAUD COLERIDGE, Eton College.

10, Chester Place, Regent's Park, January, 1849.- — My dear
Edward, — I think you will be glad to see the letters I enclose.
They will tell you more of my dear Hartley's last days than
you could otherwise hear. Our old friends, Mr. and Mrs.
Wordsworth, are more endeared to me and Derwent than
ever, by the love and tender interest they have shown ; not
more, indeed, than I should have looked for from them, but
all I could have thought of or hoped. "You should have
heard the old man say, ' Well ! God bless him ! ' and then
turn away in tears. ' It is a sad thing for me, who have
known him so long ! He will be a sad loss to us ; and let
him lie as near to us as possible, leaving room for Mrs.
Wordsworth and myself. It would have been his wish.' '

In another [letter, when all was over, Derwent says, —
" Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth had been at the cottage during
my absence. Mrs. Wordsworth kissed the cold face thrice,
said it was beautiful, and decked the body with flowers.
This has also been done by others. Mr. Wordsworth was

HIS DEATH. 295

dreadfully affected, and could not go in. Miss S ' had

told her father that the face was still the same — the same
countenance. ' Is it strange,' he replied, ' that death should
not be able to force a mask on him, who in his lifetime
never wore one ? ' '

It soothes me to think that my dear brother, the greater
part of whose life has been spent in our dear old friends'
daily sight, should in death not] be parted from them — the
same neighbourhood in their last homes as in the abodes
where they have lived, that his remains should rest beside
those of dear, bright-minded, kind-hearted Dora, who never
mentioned his name but to say something of praise or affec-
tion. Her father's expressions about Hartley, when I met
him at Bath nearly two years ago, have been a treasure of
memory to me ever since, and ever will be. Tributes of ad-
miration to his intellectual endowments, his winning, though
eccentric manners, were plentiful as flowers in summer.
This was more. It showed me that he was esteemed in
heart by one who knew him well, if ever one man could
know another — one not too lenient in his moral judgments.
I valued this testimony as confirming my own belief, which,
because it related to one so dear, I held tremblingly, not as
making me feel what I had not felt before. " It falls to
the lot of few," another old friend says, "to have been so
beloved and so worthy of love as poor Hartley Coleridge."
No one could be loved as he was without a great share of
those qualities to which our Saviour referred when He said,
" Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

IV.

Christian Use of Sorrow,
To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE, Heaths' Court.

January, 1849. — I am sure, dear John, this most unex-
pected death of my dear brother is a spiritual benefit to me.
Nothing has ever so shaken my hold upon earth. Our long
separation made me dwell the more earnestly on thoughts

296 MEMOIB AND LETTEKS OF SAEA COLERIDGE.

of a re-union with him, and the whole of my early life is so
connected with him, he was in my girlhood so deep a source
of pride and pleasure, and at the same time the cause of
such keen anguish and searching anxiety, that his departure
brings my own before me more vividly and with more of
reality than any other death ever has done. If thinking of
death and the grave could make me spiritual and detached
from the weaknesses of this earthly sphere, I should be so ;
for I am perpetually dwelling on earth and that other un-
imaginable state. But, alas ! more is required than the
sense of our precarious state here, to fit us for a better and
a higher.

Sensitiveness about Public Opinion.
To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

Chester Place, February, 1849. — The accompanying letter
shows a sensitiveness about any exposure of private matters
to the public, in which I cannot now quite sympathize. A
good deal of thought upon the subject, through a good deal
of experience, has brought me to think that a serious,
anxious concern on such points is hardly worth while. If
we could but overhear all that people say of us, when we
are supposed out of hearing, all their careless comments
and detailed reports of our affairs, I believe it would cure a
good deal of this anxiety, by showing us how vain it is to
aim at keeping ourselves out of the reach of observation ;
that it is but an ostrich-like business of hiding one's head
in the sand. More especially with respect to money matters
and age, it is politic to tell our own story, for if we do not,
it will surely be told for us, and always a degree more dis-
advantageously than truth warrants. The desire to be the
object of public attention is weak, but the excessive dread of
it is but a form of vanity and over-self-contemplativeness.
The trouble we take in trying not to seem, would be better
spent in trying not to be, what we would rather not appear

THE DUDLEY GALLERY. 297

to be. If a strain of thought is beautiful and interesting in
itself, I would not generally withdraw it from a collection of
poems about to be published, because it touches on private
affairs. I remember the time when I felt otherwise ; but
now I cannot help thinking that we should so order our
lives and also our feelings and expectations that we may
be as far as possible independent of the opinions and judg-
ments of our fellow-men ; and that whatever is the truth on
a subject of any sort of interest, can very seldom in the
long run be effectively or beneficially concealed.

YI.

Visit to the Dudley Gallery— Early Italian Masters, Fra Angelico and

Fra Bartolomeo — Fra Angelico and Dante.
To Mrs. PLUMMER, Gateshead.

Chester Place, February ZQth, 1849. — My nieces have just
sent a messenger to arrange with me about a visit to the
Dudley Gallery — Lord Ward's pictures — in Brook Street.

This collection I saw a little while since with the D 's,

now I wish to show it to E. and the P 's. It contains

many beautiful pictures by the older Italian masters, as
well as some, to my mind, still greater beauties by Correggio,
Guido, and Salvator Kosa. I confess I cannot feel that
enthusiasm for the pictures of Fra Angelico which some
medievalists in taste as well as in doctrine tell us we ought
to feel. I have seen the pictures of Era Bartolomeo, which
I admired exceedingly ; they struck me as uniting some of
the grace and fine finish of Kaphael with that simple,
severe, or serious air of devotion which characterizes many
of the older painters. But the productions of the earlier
school are often grotesque, feeble, wanting in richness,
grace, and beauty to my eyes ; and though I respect them
as devotional pieces, where they really do express a religious
sentiment, I cannot much admire them as works of art.
The admired Fra Angelico in Lord Ward's gallery is a
representation of the Last Judgment, and is to my mind

298 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

more curious and interesting than beautiful. On one side
is a most debased copy of a portion of Dante's Inferno,
quite devoid of the pathos and sublimity of the Florentine's
poetic place of retribution. Dante, amid all his mediseval
grotesqueness and monstrosity, is almost always elevated or
affecting. What a study his great poem is ! — what a com-
pendium of the religion, philosophy, ethics, politics, taste of
the Middle Ages !

VII.

Strong-minded Women.
Mrs. JOSHUA STANGER, Fieldside, Keswick.

Chester Place, March 6ih, 1849. — Young ladies who take
upon them to oppose the usages of society, which, as I
fully believe, are the safeguards of female honour and
happiness, and supporters of their influence over the
stronger and wiser sex, and have arisen gradually out of
the growing wisdom of mankind, as they increase in civil-
ization and cultivation, are generally found to possess, I
think, more self-confidence than thorough good sense,
intellect, and genius. Certainly all the women of firstrate
genius that I know have been, and are, diffident, feminine,
and submissive in habits and temper. For none can govern
so well as those who know how to obey, or can teach so
effectively as those who have been docile learners.

VIII.

Dean Stanley's Sermons — Study of German Theology.
To Mrs. R. TOWNSEND, Springfield, Norwood.

Chester Place, March Z7th, 1849. — I am reading with
great delight Stanley's Sermons, which, strange to say, I
never read through till now. He brings out the distinct
characters of St. Peter and St. Paul, and their different
missions, quite grandly.

He speaks of the study of German theology, in his pre-
face, in what seems to me the right spirit and the right way.

GERMAN THEOLOGY. 299

Some of the chief aids in his task had been found in "the
labours of that great nation from which we should be loth
to believe that theology alone had derived no light, or that
whilst we eagerly turn to it in every other branch of study,
we should close our eyes against it here. Until we have
equalled the writers of Germany in their indefatigable
industry, their profound thought, their conscientious love of
knowledge, we must still look to them for help. I know not
how we should be justified in rejecting with contempt the
immense apparatus of learning and criticism which they,
have brought to bear on the Sacred Writings."

In truth, this cannot be. If there is light in Germany
more than here, it will shine in upon us. In these days
light travels fast. It is not as it was centuries ago, when
light might shine in corners here and there, yet ages pass
away before it had become diffused, on account of the thick
masses of palpable cloud and smoke which occupied the
main part of the region. What a significant fact it is, that
Strauss' book was translated into French and English as
soon as ever it appeared — that four translations of it were
offered as soon as it came to England ! The worst books —
those which contain some portion of truth so presented that
it has all the effect of deadliest error, half-truths, and truths
without their proper accompaniments — are sure to penetrate
and spread fast among us. Hare, and Stanley, and Arnold
would have the German mind brought whole in amongst us,
convinced that, as a whole, it will promote the cause of
spiritual religion ultimately, and that its philosophy will
counteract its pseudo-philosophy, that German error is
more easily to be fought by arms from Germany than from
elsewhere. Those men who declaim against German the-
ology in the mass are sometimes absolutely ignorant of a
single German author, and uniformly unable to appreciate
the true meaning and value of German philosophic specu-
lations. They never really combat German opinions, or

800 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

disprove them: they do but raise a hue and cry against
them. I would be a conservative, too ; but is there not
a kind of conservatism that is self-destructive ? Such, I

think, is the conservatism of T and P , which leads

them to attempt to stifle the products of German thought,
instead of boldly accepting it, examining the mass, and
winnowing the good from the evil. It is a want of faith to
doubt for a moment that religious truth can maintain its
ground against all that the heart of man can conceive, or
the human mind imagine.

IX.

Review of Lord Macaulay's History in the Quarterly — Miss
Strickland's Life of Maria d'Este — Remarks on- Governesses in an
Article on " Vanity Fair."
To EDWARD QUILLINAN, Esq. , Loughrigg Holme, Ambleside.

Chester Place, March 31st, 1849. — I am awaiting with
some curiosity the arrival of the Quarterly, in which Mr.
Lockhart has dealt with Macaulay. I wonder whether he
will prove him wrong in any of his points with respect to
the career of James II. Since finishing Macaulay's highly
attractive volumes, the second of which has an enchaining
interest, I have perused Miss Strickland's Memoir of James
II. 's wife, Mary d'Este of Modena. The book seems to me
childishly perverted and partial in much that relates to
James II., but the account of his wife grows upon one.
Proud and impetuous she must have been, but certainly she
must have had a heart. The history of her feelings in the
first days of widowhood, and in her husband's last illness,
was to me, on reading, a mere repetition of that which is
written in my own memory of my own experience. Ma-
caulay's cool way of speaking of her person, which must
have been one of the finest in Europe, is one of the greatest
signs of party-spirit in his book, unless it is not party
warmth, but mere temperamental coldness and apathy on
the subject of female charms. Yet that it cannot be, since

GOVERNESSES. 301

he can use strong words enough about some of Charles II. 's
good-for-nothing beauties.

Miss Eigby's * article on " Vanity Fair " was brilliant, as
all her productions are. But I could not agree to the con-
cluding remark about governesses. How could it benefit
that uneasy class to reduce the number of their employers,
which, if high salaries were considered in all cases indis-
pensable, must necessarily be the result of such a state of
opinion ? Many governesses, as it is, receive £80 and £100
a year. When the butler has £40, and lady's-maid £20, or
housekeeper £30, this is surely the average. Besides, hard
and unsentimental as it may seem, I must think that the
services of the ordinary tradesman's governess are not
worth more than £30 a year. After all, let the governess'
discomforts be what they may, is not the situation in all
respects far more tolerable for a lady, or semi-lady, than
that of lady's-maid or upper housemaid, or the health-
destroying slavery of the milliner's or dressmaker's business,
or the undignifying, if not positively degrading, place behind
the counter, which really in London partakes of some of
the disadvantages of the stage, so obviously are the young
women dressed up, and selected perhaps, to attract the eyes
of customers and their lounging companions ? But to some
one of these situations must many a destitute young woman
descend, if that of governess in some family of limited
means was not to be procured.

" Une Femme Accomplie."
To E. QUILLINAN, Esq.

1849. — Did you ever meet Miss K in London ? She

is perhaps the most brilliant woman of the day — the most
accomplished and Crichtonian. She draws, takes portraits
like an artist, and writes cleverly on painting; she plays
with power, and writes most strikingly on music ; she speaks

* The present Lady Eastlake.— E. C.

302 MEMOIR AND LETTEKS OP SAEA COLERIDGE.

different languages. Her essays and tales have both had
great success, the former as great as possible. To put the
comble to all this, she is a very fine woman, large yet girlish,
like a Doric pillar metamorphosed into a damsel, dark and
striking. No, this is not the comble : the top of her per-
fections is, that she has well-bred, courteous, unassuming
manners, does not take upon her and hold forth to the com-
pany— a fault of which many lionesses of the day are guilty.
At this moment no less than four rise up before me, who
show a desire to talk to the room at large, rather than
quietly to their neighbour on the sofa. Miss K— - is
honourably distinguished in this respect. She is thoroughly
feminine, like that princess of novelists, Jane Austen.

XI.

Failure and Success — Her Son's Choice of a Profession — Metaphysical
Training a Desideratum in University Education — A General
Council of the Church to be desired for the Settlement of Con-
troversies.

To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

10, Chester Place, April 10th, 1849. — I am glad you think
it some credit that Herby obtained a second place in the
" Ireland " contest. Disappointments, interposed between
successes, are decidedly useful to a mind of any native
strength, as are all the trials of this life ; and it is a good
point in Herbert that he is never so discouraged by failure
as to lose a just confidence in himself, and become listless
and inactive. As for my boy's prospects at the bar here-
after, it is all dimness and darkness to me. Herbert will
take the law as a profession, because no other bread-making
career is open to him, not because there is any particular
eligibility in it for him. He is fitted for the profession by
his power of application and of continuous study; but I
know not whether it will suit him in all respects. I hope
he will prove to have some logical ability, but I cannot
judge at present whether his interest in the reasonings of

METAPHYSICAL TEEMS. 303

Plato is a true indication of this or no. I have thought it
a desideratum in the education of our young men, that they
should undergo some systematic metaphysical training, and*
acquire some of that learning and power of analyzing
thought, of which the schoolmen display so much. Many
debates would be cut short, and long webs of theory would
be swept away before they had wasted the time of authors
and readers, if men were regularly taught at college the
import of such terms as nature, person, matter, soul, spirit,
ivill, reason, understanding, and so forth, I mean, if they
were but taught those principles which all regular meta-
physicians of all schools admit, but which many writers of
the present day lose sight of in their arguments, simply
from being quite out of the habit of abstracting and reflect-
ing on the processes of the mind within itself. Men who
show great ability and good sense while they keep to the
practical, often commit, as I believe, the greatest blunders,
which the merest tyro in mental science could detect, when
for some practical end they set up explanatory theories
involving metaphysical distinctions. I think I could give
some instances of this ; but I must not ask your attention
to matters of this sort, exercised as you are with head-work
of various kinds. In support of my remark, I will merely
say that educated, well-principled men could hardly come to
such opposite conclusions, one among another, as we see
them do, on points which are not mere matters of taste and
feeling, but seem to be altogether within the domain of logic,
if they were better instructed in the meaning of the terms
they make use of. I often, on this account, feel a great
yearning for a General Council of the Church. Surely, if
there could be even such general discussion as took place
before the Council of Trent, when Cardinal Contarini — that
admirable Cardinal, and other good men — sought so hard to
bring about a reconciliation between the Protestants and
the rest of the Western Church, some questions must at

304 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

least be set at rest for ever, and the range of debate some-
what narrowed. Now, every man writes what seems good
in his eyes ; and if the book is eloquent, and shows some
reading, it is extolled to the skies by the party whom it
serves, even though its main arguments are such as the
reflective among them would not subscribe to were they
fairly put before them, and which, in fact, they never notice,
even though they form the pith, or at least contain the chief
point in the whole work, and that for the sake of proposing
which it was composed and published.

XII.

Modern " Miracles."
To Miss FENWICK, Bath.

Chester Place, April 13th, 1849. — The cases of L'Addo-
lorata and L'Ecstatica in the Tyrol are very interesting.*
But Mr. Allies' conclusion respecting the object and use of
the supposed miracles is, to my mind, very inconclusive. He
thinks they are intended to awe and impress a sceptical,
unspiritual age. But the worst of it is, that no one not
already brimful of what Allies calls faith, but what some
would designate superstition, would ever consider them for
a moment in the light in which he regards them, or indeed
as having any connection with religion ; and no one not
already a believer in the gospel would take the least interest
in them, except as strange physical phenomena.

* This passage refers to an account, which attracted some attention at the
time, of two peasant women in the Italian Tyrol, whose prolonged trances,
and other strange symptoms, excited the wonder of their neighbours, and
were looked upon by some persons as direct communications from heaven.
— E. C.

305

XIII.

Lights and Shadows—" Latter-Day Pamphlets '•'— " Chartism "—

" Shirley "—Walking Powers not Lost.
To Mrs. H. M. JONES, Heathlands; Hampstead.

3, Zion Place, Margate, May 19^, 1849. — I enjoy the
quietness of this place. Very few visitors are here. We
have the cliff all to ourselves for the most part, or share it
only with the carolling larks. This place is better than
Herne Bay ; it has a fuller sea, and the water comes up to
the bottom of the cliff, along which we walk, and although
the inland country is much prettier between the Kentish
coast and Canterbury, yet, as I come for refreshment and
bracing sea-breezes, I do not miss the shady lanes and
lawns and copses about Herne, but take my two walks a
day, with E— - beside me, in perfect tranquillity and con-
tentment, if not in hilarious glee. Who can be very gleeful,
for more than a few minutes at a time, in such a world as
this, dear friend, so full of sorrow and misery and crushing
want, spiritual and physical, and so surrounded by imper-
vious shadow, the awful mystery of the world to come ?

Have you read Carlyle's " Pamphlets " ? The last, called
" The Stump Orator," contains some good things, and the
Guardian cannot sneer it down, with all its talent at sneer-
ing. People affect to despise its truisms, when, I believe in
fact, at heart, they are galled by some of its bold, broad
truths, expressed with a graphic force and felicitous humour
which it is easier to rail at than to hide under a bushel.
Put what bushel over it they may, it will shine through and
indeed burn up the designed extinguisher, as the fire eats
up a scroll of paper. " Chartism," by the same author,
however, is better than any of these new pamphlets, which
repeat in substance a good deal of its contents. That book
seems to me prophetic, as I read it now. The accounts of
the poor, of the savage Irish, etc., are wonderfully powerful.

Have you read " Shirley"? We are delighted with it.

306 MEMOIR AND LETTEKS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

The review in the Edinburgh made far too much fuss
about its little faults of style and breeding. When you
read the sentences in question, where they occur, they do
not appear very shocking. The worst fault by far is the
development of the story. Mrs. Pryor's reason for putting
away her daughter is absurdly far-fetched and unnatural.
No wonder the "Old Cossack" disliked her, and thought
her a queer sort of maniac.

I think my sleeping is a wee bit improved, and I am very
active on my legs. The country folks at Keswick, when I
was a little one, sometimes called me a " lile Jenny spinner,"
and I can spin along yet, though my face is so pale and
small, and tells such a tale of sleepless nights, a weakly
wifehood, and nervous widowhood.

XIV.

Afternoon Calls — Hurried Composition — Middle-aged Looks — Sim-
plicity of her Mother's Character.
To AUBREY DB VERB, Esq.

1849. — I find it difficult to carry on literary business, all
I have to do in editing my father's books (and a long task
in that way yet lies before me), and worldly business, to see
about the various investments of our little property, besides
domesticities and social business, the last by far the hardest
to me of the three. Oh ! how I do abominate the afternoon
calling, to pay or to receive it ! To go out prepared to meet
our friends is pleasant enough, but in the afternoon, when
one is engaged, their coming is felt as an interruption.
Nothing is so fatiguing as to go through a round of after-
noon visits, to initiate half a dozen different conversations
in different styles, take up half a dozen different tunes, pitch
oneself at half a dozen different keys, and then feel obliged
to rush away just as the strain begins to have a little heart
in it. However, it is not the feminine visitations (if I were
to begin the list of exceptions of ladies I am always glad to

307

see, even in an afternoon, I should fill up too much of my
paper), it is the evening visiting that knocks me up.

I am truly sorry that you feel it necessary or desirable to
compose hurriedly and within a limited time. It is that
which makes intellectual exertion so injurious, so ruinous.
It has killed its thousands, and invalided its tens of thou-
sands. I hope you will have strength of mind to give it up,
come what may.

You ask me how I am. Eichmond asked me to sit for a
chalk drawing on my return from the sea, but my phiz, to
judge by the glass here, which, however, is always in the
shade, because the toilet-table is covered with my books
and papers, and half the only chest of drawers is filled with
the same, is not improved since my stay here. It is even
more hollow and hatchetty than it was. Middle-aged faces
are very bad and difficult subjects. The lines and sinkings
appear in them as worsenings, impairments, impoverish-
ments, deficiencies ; a few years afterwards they look like
seasonable marks of time, having a grace and a meaning of
their own. I remember Mama, at my age, put on quite the
old woman, and the Keswick people called her " auld Mrs.
Cauldridge," though her complexion was a hundred times
clearer and rosier than mine is now, and her cheeks
rounder. As for her hair, she cut it all off and wore a wig,
when she was quite a young woman, and her everyday
front (a sort of semi- wig, or wig to wear with a cap), for
she was too economical to wear the glossy one in common,
was as dry and rough and dull as a piece of stubble, and as
short and stumpy. Dear mother ! what an honest, simple,
lively-minded, affectionate woman she was, how free from
disguise and artifice, how much less she played tricks with
herself, and tried to be and seem more and better than she
was, than the generality of the world !

308 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

XY.

Early Associations with the Seasons — Yaughan, Herbert, and Crashaw.
To AUBREY DB YERE, Esq.

10, Chester Place, 1849. — My dear Friend, — I had great
pleasure in transcribing the enclosed poem, it brought
spring so vividly before me, beloved spring, which is as
closely unified, to my mind, with my childhood, as autumn
with my girlhood. I can scarce recall what I did as a child
in autumn. Winter was a glorious season ; summer heat I
well remember, and the throng of flowers in June, with the
June Pole, and all our garden and river doings in May and
June. But autumn brings no visions of childhood, except
of seeking for plums in an old worn-out orchard, where the
plum-trees were in the last stage of imbecility and dotage,
and of standing in a sweet apple-tree, eating half the apples
off the boughs, carrying on a lively dispute with my Cousin
Edith, who was swinging away, in the warmth of the
debate, on an opposite apple-tree.

And now even my children's childhood is past away !

Do you know Vaughan's " Silex Scintillans," a collection
of sacred poems, a few years younger than those of George
Herbert ? They are very sweet, some lovely, but have less
power and thought than Herbert's, less perfect execution
than Crashaw's.

XYI.
Miss Sellon at Plymouth — Lord Macaulay's History — Cruelty of

James II.
To Miss FENWICK, Bath.

Chester Place, June, 1849. — I have heard nothing of the
Sellon case at Plymouth, except at second hand. Substan-
tially the reformeresses must be in the right. But it struck
me, as I heard the case stated by one quite on her side, that
it was a pity she could not have done her good things after
a more Protestant fashion as to externals, avoiding party-
badges, however silly it may be in her opponents to consider

KING JAMES II. 309

such externals as necessarily connected with Popery and un-
soundness towards our Anglican Church in the main. The
bishop seems to have taken the lady's part with great
warmth. However, when I speak of party -badges, I may
speak on misinformation, and she may have used no
fashions but such as have been approved or allowed by
our authorities here.

Macaulay's History has had, and is still having, an
immense run. It is certainly a fascinating book, but in
some respects perhaps too fascinating and attractive to be
thoroughly good as a history. Dry matters are skipped,
and many important events are rather commented on than
narrated. And yet every true history that is to be a useful
and faithful record must contain much that is dry and
heavy to the common reader. His account of James II.
makes the profligate, unpatriotic despot, Charles II., appear
like an angel of light. For what can be more hideous in
the human character than implacable malice and revenge,
deliberate barbarity, and love of human suffering and
misery for its own sake ?

310 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTEE XXL

LETTERS TO MRS. J. ST ANGER, AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ.,
HENRY TAYLOR, ESQ., MISS FENWICK, MRS. FARRER:
August — December, 1849.

" Sacred and Legendary Art," by Mrs. Jameson — Parallel between
the Classic Mythology and the Hagiology of the Roman Catholic
Church.
To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq., Curragh Chase.

1849. — I am delighted with Mrs. Jameson's two volumes
on " Sacred and Legendary Art." It interests me doubly
from its descriptions of curious and beautiful works of art,
and even still more from the picture it presents of what
may be called the Christian Mythology. It is very curious
to see how the saints and saintesses of the Middle Ages,
after the secular establishment and worldly enrichment of
Christianity, succeeded to the places of the Pagan Deities,
and inherited their honours, in some cases were invested
with their attributes. There are the four great Catholic
Saintesses — St. Catherine, St. Barbara, St. Ursula, and
St. Margaret. One can plainly see that the first corres-
ponded to Minerva, as Mrs. Jameson suggests, and the
second to Pallas or Bellona. The Virgin Mary, as Eegina
Coeli, is a purified, elevated, glorified Saturnian Juno, the
spouse of Jove, and Queen of Heaven. St. Ursula rather
resembles one of the protective matron goddesses. " Mild
Maid Margaret," that loveliest conception of them all, in
her purity and courage may be compared with Diana ; in
her lovely gentleness and humility has no prototype out of
Christianity. Mrs. Jameson's way of treating these subjects
will not please religionists of any kind or class-, except the
very Latitudinarian, whom some will call the Jr-religionists.

311

Antiquarians, and Medievalists, and Komanizers will feel
indignant at her treating the legends as cunningly devised
fables, highly as she praises their devout religious spirit,
and effective embodiment of moral and spiritual truth;
while zealous Eeformists will frown at the favour with which
she regards them, and her indifference to the large amount
of superstition and idolatry which they have suggested and
fostered. The legends are, many of them, full of beautiful,
picturesque incident, and expressive allegories and emblems.
Many of them I knew before, but, like ribbons in a shop, or
the different stripes in the rainbow, they set one another
off, and the whole is a most interesting panorama of
Devotional Art and of Christian semi-evangelical Poly-
theism.

II.

Hearing and Reading — Facts and Opinions.
To HENRY TAYLOR, ESQ.

10, Chester Place, 1849. — If it is not too greedy, what I
should like is to read the play first, and then to hear it read
by you. I do not catch very quickly by the ear, and I have
got into such a slow, musing way of reading that I cannot
easily follow a reader aloud of anything interesting. I am
staying behind, picking flowers and finding nests, and ex-
ploring some particular nook, as I used to be when a child
walking out with my Uncle Southey, whom I found it hard
to overtake when thus tempted to loiter. . . .

How the Quarterly and Edinburgh contradict each other
about the Dolly's Brae affair ! I believe there is nothing
so uncertain and slippery as fact. Theories and opinions,
much as they differ, are scarce so different as the reports of
what purport to be the same facts by the different parties.

312 MEMOIB AND LETTERS OF SAEA COLERIDGE.

III.

Judgment of the Privy Council in the Gorham case — Depreciatory
Tone of the "Latter-Day Pamphlets" — Pictures belonging to
Mr. Munro of Hamilton Place.

To HENRY TAYLOR, Esq., Mortlake.

1849. — My dear Mr. Taylor, — I was horrified when late
yesterday evening my eyes fell on the enclosed preface as I
was searching in a drawer for the Key to Cattermole's great
Picture of the Protest at the Diet of Spires, my print of
which I have had framed and hung up, partly in honour of
the late triumph of toleration and moderation, grand
characteristics of the Eeformed Eeligion, in the decision of
the Privy Council in the Gorham case. I believe two-thirds
of the clergy, had the decision been in the Bishop of
Exeter's favour, must either have given up their livings or
cures, or have retained them with peine forte et dure of
conscience. Now, where is the practical difference in the
affairs of the Church and interests of Churchmen ? The
judgment has but declared that to be an open question
which has always in fact been so. As for Lord John
Kussell being the " Pope of our Church, 'y in one sense he
is so, and, as I believe, very properly and profitably for the
country ; in another sense, the only one that concerns truly
spiritual matters, he is not aught of the kind. Infallible
guide we have none, and do not think it possible to have
upon earth, but the doctrine of the Church of England has
always been settled by the Church interpreting Scripture.
This ^judgment does but declare what the law of the Church
is, what our formularies mean, and to make such a declara-
tion is quite within the province of the learned body of
which the Privy Council is composed. There were three
Bishops for the supply of theological information, and that
all the body were not divines was in favour of truth and
impartial justice.

MR. MUNEO'S COLLECTION OF PICTURES. 313

... I wonder what you think of the "Latter-Day
Pamphlets"? They are much to be admired, especially
for felicity of particular expressions, and they please some
persons whom the author never pleased before. But I, for
my part, like all his former works better than these. The
drift of "Hero -Worship," and most of his other writings,
was to defend and exalt, to set in a clear light, neglected
merit. In the present publications I feel as if the drift
were depreciatory. I do not see why we should try to make
anything from the good name of Howard. Nobody ever
said that he was a brilliant man, but it was to his credit
that he found his Bedfordshire estates insufficient to fill up
the measure of his mind, and to satisfy his aspirations.

E— - and I have lately seen such a fine collection of
Italian pictures at the house of Mr. Munro, Hamilton Place.
The Candelabra Virgin, by Kaphael, most exquisite. One
most lovely Claude, with a mountain which Euskin would
criticise, but which (i.e. the picture) you ought to have
engraved as an embellishment for your new play. A space
in a wood with a lovely pool, a clump of tufty, waterish-
looking trees, goats roaming in the afternoon sunlight under
the trees, and figures in front. There was also a splendid
Venice by Turner, and Watteau's darling little town-girls, a
famous picture.

IV.

Scotland and Switzerland — Historical Interest attaching to the former
— Bathing in the river Greta.

To Mrs. FARRER, Greenway, Dartmouth, Devon.

12, St. George's Terrace, Herne Bay, August, 1849. — How
I long to visit Scotland ! I think there is more romantic
interest attached to it than even to poetic Switzerland. The
latter puts me in mind of my father's " Ode or Hymn in the
Vale of Chamouni," and of the poem of the beautiful

314 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Duchess of Devonshire on crossing Mont St.Gothard,* verses
that might almost have been admired for their own sakes,
and not merely as coming from the pen of a popular
Duchess and Beauty. But Switzerland has no historical
associations in my mind higher than Aloys Keding, or at
most William Tell, celebrated by the modern Schiller,
while Scotland is connected with history, from Macbeth, as
he appears in Shakespeare's play, to James L, and from
him down to the romantic, foolish, wrong-headed times of
the Jacobites. That wild heath on which the witches met
Macbeth almost symbolizes Scotland for me, or at least,
that, with the " Lady of the Lake " to fill up the picture, or
to present the picturesque of the land in another aspect.

That wooded bank of the Dart which you speak of, over-
looking Torbay, takes especial hold of my fancy. I am
pleased to hear of the primitive river-bathing. It reminds
me of my Greta Hall days.

Tunbridge Wells.
To Miss FENWICK.

August 28^, 1849. — I do not wonder that you are not
fascinated with Tunbridge Wells. It is a fine place to drive
out from in various directions. But there is far more
refreshment and change in a sight of the changeful ocean
while we are stationary. The lie of the country is beautiful
at Tunbridge Wells, the terrace-roads and rich, green glades,
and basin-like valleys want only running streams and herds
of deer, and kine, and sheep and goats to be delightful. But

* This poem, entitled the " Passage over Mount Gothard," forms the sub-
ject of the " Ode to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire," by S. T. Coleridge,
beginning —

" Splendour's fondly-fostered child !
And did you ' hail the platform wild,'
Where once the Austrian fell
Beneath the shaft of Tell ?
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure,
Whence learned you that heroic measure ? "

— E. C.

THE CHOLERA OF 1849. 315

they do want life and movement. There is something to
me quite depressing in their stillness. The beautiful trees
seem made in vain, with no living things to frolic around
them or lie under their shade, and the eye quite thirsts for
water. How oddly, too, the stones and rocks are seated on
the turf, as if they had been taken from their native bed,
and placed there by some giant who had been playing at
bowls with them.

VI.

Cholera and Infection — Need of Sanitary Improvements — Evening
Walks at Herne Bay — Sisterhoods — Remarks of Sir Francis
Palgrave on the Resurrection of the Body, and on the Gospel
Narratives of the Healing of Demoniacs — A Last View of Herne
Bay — Home and Social Duties — Archbishop Trench on the
Miracles — Associations with Places — Love and Praise.
To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq.

Herne Bay, September 18th, 1849. — Here I am still, kept
here for a week longer than I intended by the encroach-
ments of that fiend cholera, and the advice of our careful

medical friend, Mr. N , who expressed his regret to my

servants that I should return to town when the disorder was
on the increase. I, for my part, believe that the cholera
atmosphere is all over England, and that the complaint
kills off most people where there are most people to kill,
and in the most unfavourable circumstances in regard to
diet, clothing, and the air of their dwellings. I strongly
suspect that the disorder is in some degree infectious, since
one hears so often of many dying in one house, and some-
times when there seems to be no special cause of malaria. I
have been saying to John that it is an ill wind that blows
no sort of good, and that it is to be hoped the present pesti-
lence will improve the drainage of England. Yet how little
is done and doing in this way compared to what ought
to be ! If men would but expend as much energy and
ingenuity upon this subject, or half as much, as they do
upon making money fast, or adding to the sum of amuse-

316 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

ments and luxuries, what a blessed, odoriferous nation we
should be ! I speak feelingly, dear friend, and beg you will

feel for me, and for my E and our good Nurse, for

Herne Bay, in a high wind blowing inland, as at present,
resembles a certain compartment in a certain circle of
Dante's " Inferno " in point of olfactory horribleness.
E— - and I have to fly like chaff before the wind, when we
pass certain parts of the town, which we must pass daily to
post our letters, and to strike into the two best walks of the
neighbourhood. I wonder whether the drainage of this
good land, and the sewerage, and all that sort of thing, will
ever be so perfected as to prevent all escape of noisome
mrs. I often day-dream what England will be five
idred years hence, whether it will be free from coal-
smoke, from butcher's meat exhibited openly in the street,
from the abominations of Smithfield market, from rookeries
like St. Giles, from nuisances affecting the atmosphere of
every sort and kind, and I am sure if there are seventy
different species in Cologne, there must be seven thousand
in London. But stop ! let me turn the current of my
thoughts into a better channel, or rather, let me open a
different spring and display a clearer, fresher stream, which
will make its own banks green and flowery, and fit for your
eye to rest on.

Imagine us on our evening walk out upon the East Cliff,
a mile and a half from our present abode. We have passed
a rough pathway, and weary of a long, low hedge, the very
symbol of sameness and almost of nothingness, have struck
in by a breach which the sailors, who sit there with their
observatory telescopes, have made upon the grassy cliff, and
are looking upon the sea and sky and straggling town of
Herne Bay. The ruddy ball is sinking, over it is a large,
feathery mass of cloudage that was swansdown, but now,
thrilled through with rosy light, resembles pinky crimson
flames, and the dark waters below are tinged with rose-

HEKNE BAY AT SUNSET. 317

colour. In the distance appears the straggling town with
its tall watch, or rather, clock-tower, and its long pier like
a leviathan centipede walking out into the waves. This
time we are home before dark. Another evening we set out
later, and by the time we descend the cliff it is dark, and as
we are pacing down the velvet path, as we call the smooth,
grassy descent, which leads to the town, there is Nurse in
her black cloak waving in the wind, moving towards us
through the dusk like a magnified bat. As we pass the
town, what a chrysolite sky is before us, passing off above
into ultra-marine, spangled with one or two stars, and
below into a belt of straw-colour and orange above the
horizon, over the oivoira TTOVTOV. Then we enter our lodging
and begin to feel —

" Com 'e duro calle.
So scendere e il salir per le altrui scale." '

Thirty-six steps, steep ones, too, have we to ascend to our
sleeping apartments.

Then see us on the West Cliff. Just below us is a collec-
tion of huts, where live a set of people who gain a poor
maintenance by picking copperas from the beach and cliff.
When I first looked upon this hovelage, think I, this is like
an Irish hamlet, and the people have an Irish look about
them. Afterwards I heard that they were Irish, and that
the old Nelly, who so gladly received the scraps and frag-
ments from our not very extravagant repasts, is from the
good town of Cork. It seems that she went not long ago to
her mother-land, and there received such unnatural treat-
ment that she was very fain to turn her back upon it. And
now she applies a transitive verb that begins with d, the
harsher form of the verb condemn, both to Ireland in
general, and to Cork in particular.

Wednesday evening. — Eight glad were we this evening on
the East Cliff to welcome back the moon from her " inter-
lunar cave." Lovely gleamed her crescent in the chrysolite

318 MEMOIR AND LETTEES OF SAEA COLEEIDGE.

depth above the crimson, yellow border of the vault serene.
The sea was darkly steel coloured, and all the vessels upon
it looked black. How much do they lose who walk out only
in the full daylight !

I am writing to dear Miss Fenwick, and wish to interest

her for poor M. S , who has lately lost her mother, and

is left quite desolate and destitute. She tried a religious
establishment, but found the life too hard, and fell ill there.
Now she is trying another. But she complains of want of
fresh air, it is evident she only remains there for a home.
She has sent me a plan of hours, showing how the time of
the inmates is to be spent, and indeed it must require a
burning zeal to render such a life tolerable. It is not so much
the hardness and laboriousness that must be trying, though
it is hard and laborious, but the dryness, the monotony, —
nothing but private devotions and public, parish visiting
and teaching. The only relaxation almost is reading aloud,
with the needle. It is a pity that the bow is bent so tight ;
or at least it is a pity that there cannot be an honourable
retreat of this kind, where persons who have no home of
their own, no domestic duties to fulfil, might take refuge
and be useful, without being worn out by requirements more
than can be well complied with by any one but the very
strong, or those who gain an unnatural feverish strength
from zeal, and what some will consider fanaticism. I
believe that worldly people much misjudge the zealous
members of these institutions, but still I think that such
systems cannot answer in the long run, except by aid of
superstition, if to succeed by superstition is to succeed at all.
Whenever they withdraw active, earnest-minded women
from home duties, or service to those with whom they are
connected by blood or early intimacy, or claim of gratitude,
they are doing, I think, most serious mischief, for which
they never can compensate.

September Zlst. — A note from Sir Francis Palgrave this

DEMONIACAL POSSESSION. 319

morning. He says " The Antiquarian theologian will tell
you what he means by a celestial body, when the scientific
philosopher of the nineteenth century shall have explained
the nature of the ultimate atoms of which the matter con-
stituting a terrestrial body is composed." Now, I had not
been complaining of the Antiquarian that he does not
attempt to explain the celestial body. I remarked that he
does attempt, not to explain, but to describe the celestial
body, or rather takes it for granted that it is describable
and conceivable by our present senses and faculties, — that
it is a sort of improved, brightened, subtilized, glorified,
earthly body, having the same form and lineaments, visible
and tangible, as our present body. The question is, whether
this notion is not disclaimed by St. Paul, and negatived by
reason and by philosophy.

Sir Francis says too, " The theologian of the nineteenth
century, who explains away narratives of demoniacal pos-
session in the Gospels, is on the verge of explaining
away the Gospels altogether." The subject often causes
me anxiety, because I feel that it is going very far to
believe that our Lord spoke as if He entertained the popular
belief, while the popular belief was a delusion ; — going far,
though only on the same road that all must enter who
would reconcile the language of Scripture on many other
subjects with truth of science. Still the case is not so bad,
not at all such as Sir Francis says it is, if by " explaining
away" he means understanding the demoniacs to have
been madmen possessed with a belief that they were pos-
sessed by evil spirits, or, what is common with the insane,
that they were evil spirits themselves. All that is related
by the Evangelists may have taken place, — a miracle been
performed of which the moral purport, the use and aim, is
the same as it would be on the popular supposition. Our
Lord healed a madman, and sent the spirit of madness into
the swine, probably in order to render the display of His

320 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

power the more striking and impressive. It is unfair to
call such a view an explaining away of the miracle, it is but
another interpretation of the nature of the miracle, — all
the moral effect and the exertion of superhuman power
remaining the same. This is a subject that has given me
anxiety ; I can only say that the popular view is obviously
a part of the old false philosophy, which confounds the
material and the spiritual, a philosophy now obsolete,
except where it is retained for the sake of retaining certain
ancient interpretations of Scripture, involving not mystery,
but plain contradictions, which no human mind can really
receive, however the owner of the mind may blink, and
fancy that he is believing. As for the view substituted by
Trench and others, namely, that the afflicted persons were
influenced by evil spirits, as the sons of God are influenced
by the Holy Spirit, I own it does not satisfy me, because it
is, in fact, as irreconcilable with the language of the
Evangelist, and the reported words of our Lord, and the
manner in which His words were understood at the time,
as the other modern interpretation, or at least, it is quite
irreconcilable by fair methods with them. I confess I
have other objections to it, relating to the general view
which it involves of the existence of personal evil spirits ;
but it is sufficient to say, that to my mind, it does not
accomplish what it undertakes, that is, to reconcile the
Scripture narrative (understood as we may suppose the
narrator understood it) with that view of the state of
the demoniacs which Trench deems preferable to the
ordinary ancient notion of possession. But no belief that
is irreconcilable with reason will stand its ground among
reasoners, upon whom ultimately the form of the popular
religion depends. In all ages the learned and thoughtful
have given to religion a framework accordant with the
philosophy of their times, and with the highest reason
which, in their times, had manifested itself. The Antiqua-

TRENCH ON THE MIEACLES. 321

rian must show the reasonableness of his creed, if he
seeks to defend it. If he fails in this he loses the game.
But you perhaps think that he will not fail.

Friday night. — "We have looked from the East Cliff down
upon the sea, on one side, and the quiet inland view, with
the village of Herne, upon the other, perhaps for the last
time. The bright crescent of the moon was shining in the
white depth, above a bank of soft blue clouds, broken into
vultures' heads, and many bold promontories, and the
waters looked bluish grey, while swansdown clouds, shaded
as with Indian ink, were overhead.

The rapidity of agricultural operations, and continual
changes going on upon the surface of the earth, give a
spirit to the country. The canary, which, I believe, is
raised chiefly in Kent, is a very pretty crop, looking at a
distance like wheat. The ear is of the form of the hop
blossom, but yellow. The grain is used for birds, and is
very dear, as dear as wheat, nine pounds a quarter, I think
I heard. There is more canary in this neighbourhood than
any other grain.

Monday. — As soon as one returns home, even in this
season of London desertedness, one is dropped in upon in
such a way that leisure goes away as fast as a plumcake
under the maw of a hearty, munching child. One young
gentleman drowned half yester afternoon, and another took
a large slice out of the evening. In the night I read Trench

on the Miracles, a book with which E and I are

delighted. The author is High Church, but in point of
doctrine follows very closely the early Keformers, as, for
instance, on justification by faith, and is in decided oppo-
sition to the Eomish views on the Virgin Mary, on the
superior sanctity of a retired and celibate life, etc.
He does justice to Spinoza, even in arguing against his
views, refuting the charge of atheism and impiety brought
against him, but deals with Woolston, Paulus, Strauss, and

322 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

the other misnamed Eationalists, with all due seventy. In
his interesting section on the water made wine, he sets forth
a metaphysical view which you and I anticipated in one of
our searching, lengthy discussions. "He who does every
year prepare the wine in the grape, causing it to drink up
and expand with the moisture of earth and heaven, did now
gather all those his slower processes into the act of a single
moment, and accomplish in an instant what ordinarily He
does not accomplish but in many months." This comes
from St. Austin, as so many fine-spun speculations do.

Yes, Curragh Chase must indeed be full of pensive recol-
lections. So was Herne Bay to me. It brought back my
children's early childhood, and my own anxious, yet on the
whole happy, wifehood. You can scarce imagine the
change from wife to widow, from being lovingly flattered
from morn to night, to a sudden stillness of the voice of
praise and approbation and admiration, — a comparative
dead silence it seems. Vanity and the affections have such
a mixed interest in this that it is hard to disentangle them,
and the former during a happy state of marriage grows up
unperceived under the shadow of the latter, and absorbs
some of its juices.

YII.

Kentish Landscapes — Scenery of the Lakes.
To Miss FENWICK.

September ~L9th, 1849. — Strode Park, near Herne Church,
is very interesting in its quiet Kentish beauty. There is a
stillness in the landscapes of this county, owing to the want
of water, and moving objects, which is to my feelings almost
melancholy. I can admire other counties beside my own
native lakeland, other sorts of nature-beauty, abundantly,
but I cannot thoroughly like and enjoy any but that in which
I was born. When in the country I am full of thoughts
and longings for my native vale. Friars Crag, and Cock-
shot, and Goosey Green, and Latrigg Side, — all my old

A POETICAL REVIEW. 323

haunts, I long for. Yet, if I were there, I should find that
my youth was wanting, and the friends of my youth, and
that I had been longing for them along with the old scenes,
the old familiar faces, and the old familiar places together.

VIII.

Remarks on an Article on " Tennyson, Shelley, and Keats," in the
Edinburgh Review — Inferiority of Keats to Shelley in point of
Personal Character — Connection between Intellectual Earnestness
and Moral Elevation — Perfection of his Poetry within its own
Sphere — Versatility ascribed by the Reviewer to Keats in Contrast
to Coleridge — Classification of her Father's Poems, showing their
Variety.
To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq. , Curragh Chase, Adare.

10, Chester Place, November 4th, 1849. — My dear Friend,
—I have just read your article on Tennyson, Shelley, and
Keats, and can no longer delay expressing to you my
delighted admiration. I think it quite your finest and most
brilliant piece of prose composition. It is full of beautiful
sayings and pithy remarks, and it does a justice to Keats,
not only which was never done to him before, but I should
almost say a higher justice than any poet of this age has
ever yet received from the pen of another. Nothing can be
more admirable than your characterization of Keats ; I was
quite excited by it. What you say of Shelley is excellent
too ; but this is more entirely new, and the whole article is
worthy of you, which I think a good deal to say, for you
have been rather tardy in bringing out your mind in prose
writing. However, it is all best as it is, and I am sure the
richest products are those which are delayed, so that they
unite the peculiar qualities of the youthful mind carried
forward with the greater force of a maturer age. I must
some day soon talk with you about the article at large in
detail. I wish you could see the copy I have marked.

One general criticism I must make, which you will not
admit, because the effect I shall notice flows from your
general temper and mental complexion as its cause. You

324 MEMOIB AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

have a propensity to aggrandize and glorify ; you over-
praise, both negatively and positively, hy omission of faults
and drawbacks, unless they are of a kind (such as Shelley's
want of reverence, and Cromwell's antagonism to bishops
and kings) especially to excite your disapprobation and
dislike, and by the conversion of certain deficiencies into
large and glorious positives. You are more displeased with
Shelley's wrong religion than with Keats' no religion. That
very deficiency in the mind of Keats, which prevented him
from being a very good man, and must, I think, for ever
prevent him from taking the highest rank as a poet, want of
power or inclination to dwell on the intellectual side of things
or the spiritual organized in the intellect as soul in body, or
indeed to embrace things belonging to the understanding at
all, do you contrive to represent in the light of a very sub-
lime, angelical, seraphical characteristic. It is all very
well to distinguish meditation from contemplation, and to
intimate that the mind may feed on deep thoughts and soul-
expanding spiritualities, when it is quite apart from the
region of logic and intellectual activity. But is it not the
fact, and a painful truth which must forcibly strike every
reader of Keats' letters and life, together with the mass of
his poetry, that Keats never dwelt upon the great exalting
themes which concern our higher peace, in any shape or
form? "Oh, he was dark, very dark," said Miss Fenwick
to me one day about Keats, and I heard her say it with
pain. "He knew nothing about Christianity." You say
he had no interest in the intermediate part of our nature,
"the region of the merely probable." You give him "in-
tuitions " (of the highest things which humanity can behold
implicitly), and call his nature "Epicurean on one side,
Platonist on the other." I wish I could see the matter as
you do, or rather I wish the matter really were as you
describe. But the truth seems to me to be rather this, that
by means of a fine imagination and poetic intellect, Keats

KEATS AND SHELLEY. 325

lifted up the matter of mere sensation into a semblance of
the heavenly and divine, while the heavenly and divine
itself was less known to him than to the simplest Bible-
reading cottager who puts her faith in Christ, and bears the
privations and weaknesses, or even agonies of a lingering
death with pious fortitude. The spectacle of Keats' last
days is a truly miserable one, and I must say I think that,
beautifully gentle as is your treatment of Shelley, if viewed
in itself, yet taken together with your judgment of Keats, it
is hardly fair. Surely Shelley was as superior to Keats as
a moral being as he was above him in birth and breeding.
Compare the letters of the two, compare the countenances
of the two, as they are imperfectly presented to us by the
work of the graver, see how much more spiritual is Shel-
ley's expression, how much more of goodness, of Christian
kindness, does his intercourse with his friends evince !
Shelley, in his wild way, was a philanthropist ; Keats was
social, but the same spirit which led him to turn away from
earnest questions which agitate the religious world, which
agitated Augustine and Pelagius, Luther and Calvin, Hooker
and Taylor, some of the greatest and best men that have
ever lived, rendered him careless of promoting the good of
mankind, or any but those individual felicities of the pass-
ing hour which added to his own earthly sensational enjoy-
ment. He showed a pettish jealousy respecting the estima-
tion of his works in his intercourse with contemporaries,
and in his love affair he betrayed all the weakness, all the
passive non-resistancy of a passionate girl of eighteen,
together with the impetuosity of a young man and the sen-
sitiveness of a poet. Again, I must say that it is a miserable
spectacle. I have read of late numberless lives of poets,
philosophers, and literary men, not one that upon the whole
inspired me with so much contempt as that of Keats. His
effeminacy was mournful, and his deliberate epicureanism,
with the light of the Gospel shining all around, even worse

326 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

than mournful. I quite agree with you as to the excellence
of his poetry, and that he was even, upon the whole, more
highly gifted in that way than Shelley. There is even a
greater intensity in his productions, a perfection in the
medium of repose. Upon all that part of the subject you
are as just and discriminating as you are eloquent and
inwardly poetic. But when you go on to endow Keats with
all the nobler qualities of a man and a writer, and not con-
tent with showing him to be an exquisite, sensational poet,
must exalt him into a poetical seraph ; why, either I am too
narrow and ill-natured, or I am too simple and straight-
forward and truth-requiring to accompany you to the far
end of your eulogium.

Shakespeare as little preached and syllogized as Keats
does. But Shakespeare was a great philosopher, implicitly.
Shakespeare furnished material for the contemplative, in-
quiring, discriminating intellect, and consequently intellec-
tualists like Goethe, Schlegel, and S. T. C., find a perpetual
feast in his writings, and are for ever converting into the
abstract what he presented in a concrete form. Not so will
any great thinker ever be able to do with the writings of
Keats. His flight was low, his range narrow ; he kept on a
lower level; and in that poor rejected critique of mine
which Lockhart cut out of my article on The Princess, I
endeavoured to show what advantage he derived from his
unity of purpose, from his confining himself so entirely, and
with such a faith and complacency in his own genius,
within his native range of power and beauty. I did not
attempt to do justice to Keats, I knew that would not be
allowed in the Quarterly, even if I had been equal to the
subject, which I am not, for no woman can give the portrait
of a man of genius in all its masculine energy and full pro-
portions. I did not present him with a grand chaplet of
bays, as you have done in your noble criticism, but culled
a nosegay of sweet flowers out of his own poems, and bound

POETIC VERSATILITY. 327

it about with a silken band of subdued praise and temperate
characterization.

But this is a digression. I must make an end about
Keats. I was astonished at your calling the last act of
that, to my mind, wretched tragedy of his " very fine." I
thought, as I read it carefully more than once, that any-
thing so poor and bad from a man of real, great poetic
genius, never proceeded. I do not quarrel with it for not
having the slightest merit as a drama. It has scarce any
merit, as it seemeth to me, in any other way. It is as
vapid as the little fragment "The Eve of St. Mark" is
exquisite. Lastly, to conclude my objections on this part
of the article, I do not understand why you ascribe versa-
tility to Keats, and deny it to my father. What you say of
my father on this head I think a deserved compliment, by
which I mean, of course, not a flattery, but a just recog-
nition of excellence. But it seems to me that you should
have commenced with a definition of versatility, if not
explicit to the reader, yet at least in your own mind. I
should say that my father had shown a greater range of
poetic power, that he had exhibited more modes of the poetic
faculty than Keats has done, or Tennyson either. Let us
enumerate them : —

1. The love poems, as "Lewti," and " Genevieve," which
Fox thought the finest love poem that ever was written.

2. The wild, imaginative poem, treating of the super-
natural, as " The Ancient Mariner " and " Christabel."

3. The grave strain of thoughtful blank verse, as "Fears
in Solitude."

4. The narrative ballad, homely, as " The Three Graves ; "
or romantic, as "Alice du Clos."

5. The moral and satirical poem of a didactic character,
as the lines on " Berengarius," and those lines in which he
speaks of seeing " old friends burn dim like lamps in
noisome air," and " Sancti Dominici Pallium."

328 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

6. The high, impassioned lyric, as "The Odes to France,"
and on " Dejection."

7. The sportive, satirical extravaganza, as the "War
Eclogue," " The Devil Believes," etc.

8. The epigram and brief epitaph.

9. The drama.

I must say good-bye to you, though I shall chat with you
again soon about your splendid article, which contains
matter enough for four such as the Edinburgh has
usually favoured the world with. Think of the Edin-
burgh beginning in her old age to criticise poetry poetic-
ally ! " Age, twine thy brow with fresh spring flowers ! "

IX.

Personal Likeness between Mr. Coleridge and Lord Macaulay.
To Miss MORRIS.

Chester Place, November 16th, 1849. — I met Mr. Macaulay
on Tuesday at a very pleasant party at Sir Kobert Inglis's.
He was in great force, and I saw the likeness (amid great
unlikeness) to my father, as I never had seen it before. It
is not in the features, which in my father were, as Laurence
says, more vague, but resides very much in the look and
expression of the material of the face, the mobility, softness,
and sensitiveness of all the flesh, — that sort of look, which
is so well expressed in Sir Thomas Lawrence's beautiful un-
finished portrait of Wilberforce. I mean that the kind was
common to Wilberforce, but the species alike in Macaulay
and S. T. C. The eyes are quite unlike — even opposite in
expression, — my father's in-looking and visionary, Ma-
caulay's out-looking and objective. His talk, too, though
different as to sentiment and matter, was like a little, in
manner, in its labyrinthine multiplicity and multitudinous-
ness, and the tones so flexile and sinuous, as it were,
reminded me of the departed eloquence.

THE POOR. 329

CHAPTEE XXII.

LETTERS TO EDWARD QUILLINAN, ESQ., AUBREY DE
VERE, ESQ., MISS FENWICK, MRS. T. M. JONES,
MISS MORRIS, MRS. R. TOWNSEND, PROFESSOR
HENRY REED: January— July, 1850.

Chinese Selfishness — The Irish Famine — Objects of Charity — Church
Decoration, and the Relief of the Poor — Butchers' Prices — Sudden
Death of Bishop Coleridge.

To AUBREY DE VERE, Esq., Curragh Chase, Adare.

10, Chester Place, .Regent's Park, January 4th, 1850. —
Some philosopher observes that not a man in Britain
would make a worse dinner if he heard that the whole
Empire of China was swallowed up quick. Of all people
on the face of the globe the Chinese are those I should feel
the least inclined to cry about, whatever befel them ; and I
think the reason is because I have a strong impression
that less than any other people do they care what becomes
of the rest of the world, that their sentiments and sympa-
thies are of the dullest possible description. But this
starving state of the Irish does occupy my mind a good
deal. Here we are much better off, and yet it is dreadful
to walk the streets of London, and to think that the poor
wretches who moan for alms are by no means the worst off
class of the community. If I happen to have left my purse
at home, I am almost sure to come home unhappy about
some object whom I would fain have relieved. One day I
was quite upset by the piteous cry and pale sickly face of
a little old woman. I had no money, and felt ashamed to
ask Herbert for a shilling, knowing that there were hun-

330 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

dreds whom he would think as deserving of charity. You
must know that ever since I lost my dear mother, the sight
of any feeble old woman agitates me. I felt quite glad that
Lady Inglis was out, and that I had not to present my
nervous visage to her. Soon afterwards I walked the same
way, and luckily found the old woman. I gave her 6cZ.,
and had to give 3d. away hefore I got home. I will never
go out again without a pence purse.

My niece Mary was talking the other day of the beautiful
Ottery Church, with its groining, and arches, and painted
windows. The siren drew me on, and on hearing that
some of the small windows cost only £5, I cried in a fit of
enthusiasm, "I will give a window myself," though I had
signified to her father that a sovereign for the eagle lectern
in our church was the last money I meant to give for
church decorations. I think I shall tell her that the £5
she shall have, but that I would rather she gave it among
those poor distressed underfed slaves, whose condition she
had been describing to me when we last went out together
to dine at Baron Kolfe's, than spend it on the coloured
window.

Then what a shameful conspiracy there is among the
butchers against the poor ! — for such it may be called—
when they are selling the inferior parts of animals to poor
creatures by gas-light for 6d. per Ib. My cook overheard a
butcher extorting that price from a poor creature for shin
of beef (mere shin) a few days ago. The farmers complain
that they cannot obtain a decent price for their stock, —
nay, sometimes cannot sell them at all, — and these
butchers are putting into their abominable pockets all the
profit, instead of lowering the price proportionably to the
consumer. I have been writing notes about this to many
of my friends, and all agree to make a stand. But I wish
when we make a stand for ourselves, we could do some-
thing in this matter for the poor.

BISHOP COLEKIDGE. 331

Our Christmas has been saddened, as you may suppose,
by the sudden and most unexpected death of William Cole-
ridge, the only son of my never-seen uncle Luke Coleridge.*
He was conscientious in public and in private, doing
scrupulously whatever he thought right, and in his own
family he was most loving, even-tempered, and amiable.
William, in person, was just fitted for a Missionary Bishop.
He was six feet in all his proportions, not merely in height,
with a stentorian voice, fit to preach on a mountain, which
he has been known to do in the Leeward Isles, and with a
stout, robust, but not corpulent frame. We thought he
had twenty years of vigorous life in him yet. He shone in
the practical more than in the exercise of the speculative
intellect ; he managed the clergy under him admirably,
and was much beloved in Barbadoes, spite of the war he
had to carry on against selfishness and prejudice.

* Luke Herman, seventh son of the Reverend John Coleridge, of Ottery
St. Mary, was a surgeon at Thorverton, where he died at the early age of
four-and-twenty. His wife, daughter of Mr. Hart of Exeter, was a woman
o; much feeling, united with firmness of character. It is related that when
her only son, William, asked the consent of his widowed mother before
accepting the appointment of first Missionary Bishop of Barbadoes and the
Leeward Islands, she replied to him in the following letter : — " MY SON —
Abraham's faith can be imitated. Go. — I am your mother, SARAH COLERIDGE."

Bishop Coleridge left England in 1825 for his tropical diocese, where his
evangelical labours among the negroes, and untiring advocacy of the cause
of justice and humanity, are well described by my father in his " Six Months
in the West Indies," which contains an account of the Bishop's first
visitation-tour among the Islands. Some time after his return to this
country, he undertook the office of Warden of St. Augustine's College,
Canterbury, a post for which his missionary experience rendered him
peculiarly fitted. He had not been there more than a year and a half when
the tidings of his sudden removal, with no warning of previous illness,
caused a shock of grief and surprise through a wide circle of friends and
relations.— E. C.

832 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

II.

Various Occupations of S. C. — Fatigues of Chaperonage — Barry
Cornwall at a Ball — Waltzing — Invitation to the Lakes — Effect of
Railway Travelling on her Health.
To E. QUILLINAN, Esq., Loughrigg Holme.

February 9th, 1850. — My dear Friend, — I must give you
an instalment of my letter debt to you at once, because
your last contains a very kind and agreeable proposal,
which should be noticed at once. A proper response I
must defer. I have all my life been rather a busy person ;
but I now have more work of various kinds to perform than
ever before. There is first the domestic business. I
cannot spin this out, as some ladies do, ladies in the country
more than in town. Still the inevitable part consumes a
good bit of time of every year. Changing servants is
specially troublesome ; I have had to give Martha's character
three times, and Caroline's twice, and to see nine or ten or
more servants and write about others, in order to fill their
places.

Then, 2ndly, there is the care of my father's books,
new editions and publications, and of this work the unseen
part, which does not appear, is more than that which does
appear. I might have written many volumes in the time,
of a certain sort, with far less trouble.

3. Beading with my children. This, I am sorry to say,
has come to very little of late. But I shall resume my
studies with E in a few days.

4. Money managements, letters of business, and all that
relates to the care of my income. A wife knows nothing of
this. But a widow, even with fellow-executors, has some-
thing to do in this way every year.

5. Business of society. This is the hardest, in one
sense, of all the work I have to attend to. It is always
beginning, never ending. For the sake of the children I
keep up the game more than I once thought I should ever

333

have attempted. I go sometimes to evening parties, and
twice, nay thrice, of late, have chaperonified at balls ! I
do think, of all the maternal self-sacrifices and devotednesses
that can be named, that is the greatest. If it was not for
the supper ! — actually I have gone down to supper twice,
in the course of the evening, out of sheer exhaustion. On
the last occasion I fell in with Barry Cornwall. It was
like getting into an oasis with a clear stream bubbling
along under beeches and spreading planes and rose-bushes
and geranium tufts, and an enamelled flooring of crocus,
auricula, and violet, to be taken care of by a literary man,
and have a bit of poetical and literary talk, after the
weariness of witnessing for hours that eternal scuffle and

whirl, H whirling round the room for ever and ever,

with first a black-haired, and then a brown-haired, and
then a flaxen-haired damsel in his arms. (What queer
indecorums those waltzes are ! If twenty years ago one
could have seen a set of waltzers of to-day through a time-
telescope or future-scope, how we should have turned up
the corners of our eyne ! )

I have been interrupted, and forced to write notes of
sociality and domesticity, till all the edge of my epistolary
zest is rubbed off. I have seen friends, and hired a satis-
factory damsel, as well as transacted lunch, since I began

the letter. I dine out homislily with E at six, and so,

instead of translating from my brain to the paper the
letter, or an abridgment of the letter which I have been
writing to you in thought (" How swift is a thought of the
mind," and what pen can more than toil after it a measure-
less distance), I must speak of your kind invitation, and
then say farewell for the present, though with an intent of
renewing intercourse by pen and be with you ere long.

I can hardly describe to you my longings to revisit my
native vale and dear Eydal. But there are difficulties in
the way. Twelve hours by the railroad at a stretch I could

334 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

quite as little accomplish as I could walk twenty miles.
Indeed, I think the latter would not disorder me more than
the former. I can by the sea-side walk ten miles, five in
the morning and five in the evening, on a strong day,
without disorder or any injury or exhaustion. But three
hours of passive motion, or if that is an incorrect ex-
pression, of suffering motion, the muscles unexerted, is
enough to set up nervous irritation in me ; and this goes
on at an increased ratio from that time till the journey's
end. I should arrive a shattered creature, unable to enjoy
anything for six weeks or more. The journey might be
managed by stoppages on the road, and I am always
visionizing on the subject. But there is much to be
thought of before it can be effected. I can hardly bear to
think of the changes I shall witness. Keswick will be a
place of graves to me ; but there would be a melancholy
pleasure and interest in thinking of the departed. The
changes in things and persons that remain are far more
unwelcome. — I am yours, very affectionately,

SARA COLERIDGE.
III.

" Telling " Speeches not always the Best.
To -Miss FENWICK, Bath.

February 15th, 1850. — Derwent was full of the great
Educational anti-Government Meeting at Willis's Eooms.

S 's was the grand speech of the evening. His oration

must have been very lively and ingenious and impressive,
from Derwent's report. But I have little respect for speeches
that tell in assemblies of this kind. The probability always
is, I think, that a speech accurately true and just, entering
into the depths and intricacies which really exist in great
questions and doing justice to the views of all parties,
would not tell half so well as a superficial harangue, full
of half truths and bold assumptions and affecting irrele-
vancies, which call down a thunder of claps and " hear,

JOANNA BAILLIE. 335

hears ! " yet if read in the closet would not convince a
single soul who was sincerely seeking the truth, and was
not decidedly of the speaker's mind beforehand.

IV.

Death of Mrs. Joanna Baillie.
To Mrs. H. M. JONES, Hampstead.

February 24th, 1850, Chester Place. — Your note has
affected me very much. Dear Mrs. Joanna Baillie, that
unique Female Dramatist, thorough gentlewoman, and
(last and best) good Christian, gone at last, leaving not
her like, in some remarkable respects, behind her ! You
were privileged, dear friend, to have that sight of the dear
face after death, and to see that " friendly look," so con-
solatory to survivors, and so precious a treasure for
memory. Her aged sister must feel desolate indeed.
Blessed are they, says a famous old poet, whom an un-
broken link keeps ever together. But this is not the lot
of humanity, for death comes at last to break every chain,
whether a hated or a loved one.

Mr. Carlyle's "Latter-Day Pamphlets " compared with his "Chartism"

— Ideal Aristocracy — English Government.
To Rev. HENRY MOORE, Eccleshall Vicarage.

March 15th, 1850, Chester Place.— Carlyle's "Latter-Day
Pamphlets," I own, I like less than any of his former
works. It has all his animation and felicity of language
in particular expressions, and there is much truth contained
in it. But the general aim and purpose is, to my mind,
less satisfactory than in any of his former writings. It
has all his usual faults in an exaggerated form. His faults
I take to be repetition, and the saying in a roundabout,
queer way, as if it were a novel announcement, what every-
body knows, without any suggestion of a remedy for the
evils he so vividly describes. " Chartism " had finer pas-
sages than any in these papers. Yet that was decried, and

336 MEMOIB AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

these are almost universally received with favour. The
address to the horses in " Chartism," beside being new, was
far better turned, more seriously pathetic in its humour,
than the repetition of the thought in " The Present Times."
Then I cannot bear the depreciation of Howard, and the
sneers at the Americans. His former works have all been
devoted to exalting and elevating, defending and raising
from the dust. The great drift of these is of a deprecia-
tory, pulling-down character. As for the Irish, I would be
right glad to see them coerced for their good, only they
should be treated as children, not slaves, and the great
mass of the barbarous English, too, especially the class of
little, prejudiced, pig-headed, hard-handed, leather-hearted
farmers, who are grinding the poor labourers, and grinding
their own nobles to ninepence by mismanagement and
asinine methods of tilling the ground. But who is to do
these things. Who is to bell the cat ? Then Carlyle tells
us, as he told me in conversation long ago, that the few
wise ought to govern the many foolish. But who doubts
that ? This is a kind of aristocratic sentiment which is
common to all mankind who think at all. But we shall be
none a bit the nearer to this millennial state of wise-man
government, by sneering, as Carlyle does, at the attempts
of mankind to do things carefully, and justly, and methodic-
ally, sneering at all that by introducing the words " bom-
bazeen, horse-hair, red tape, periwigs, pasteboard," and so
forth.

I, for my part, believe that the English government does
approximate to this nearer than any other, that Pitt and
Percival, Peel and Eussell, upon the ivhole, have governed —
so far as they individually governed — as well as any man
in the country would have done. Among men of letters
have been many wiser, speculatively, and cleverer for some
things. But it does not follow that they would have done
better as Premiers, or could have filled such a place.

MR. WORDSWORTH. 337

YI.

Illness of Mr. Wordsworth.
To E. QUILLINAN, Esq.

March 25^, 1850. — My dear Friend, — I have just heard
from dear Miss Fenwick of our beloved Mr. Wordsworth's
illness. It is most painful to hear of this trouble, and not
be able to be of use in any way. I am full of anxiety and
sorrow. I have been dwelling much of late on dear Mr.
Wordsworth and his state of health and spirits. My
thoughts hover around him. He is the last, with dear
Mrs. Wordsworth, of that loved and honoured circle of elder
friends who surrounded my childhood and youth ; and I
can imagine no happiness in any state of existence without
the restoration of that circle.

But I must not write more to you now. My earnest
prayers for dearest Mr. Wordsworth's restoration will be
preferred, both in selfish feeling and in sympathy.

Believe me, with most affectionate regards to dear Mrs.
Wordsworth, and dearest love, whether it can be given or no,
to the beloved sufferer. — Yours, in much friendship and
sympathy, SARA COLERIDGE.

YII.

Hopes of Mr. Wordsworth's' Recovery — His Natural Cheerfulness —

Use of Metaphysical Studies.
To E. QUILLING, Esq.

Good Friday, 1850. — My dear Friend, — I must write a
few lines, though in haste, to thank you for your welcome
letter, and tell you of my joy in dearest Mr. Wordsworth's
safety and his beloved wife's happiness. May he be
restored to his former measure of strength, and may this
crisis work a change for the better in his spirits ! I have
often mourned to think that he was no longer glad as of
yore. He used to be so cheerful and happy-minded a man.
No mind could be more sufficient to itself, more teeming
with matter of delight, fresh, gushing founts rising up

338 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

perpetually in the region of the imagination, streams of
purity and joy from the realm of the higher reason — joy
and strength and consolation, both in his own contempla-
tions for his own peculiar satisfaction, and in the sense of
the joy and strength and solace which he imparted to
thousands of other minds. No mind was ever richer
within itself, and more abundant in material of happiness,
independent of chance and change, save such as affected
the mind in itself. I felt with grief that his powers of life
and animal spirits must have been impaired from what I
heard of his fits of unjoyousness.

A visitor has taken away all my letter-writing time, so that
all I meant to say must be screwed up into narrow room.

But one thing I must disown. Where upon earth, or
under the earth (in the apartment of some gnome, I sup-
pose, that lives under Loughrigg, in a darksome grot), did
you learn that I supposed that you " who do not study
metaphysics all day long" cannot understand S. T. C. ?
All the most valuable part of my father's writings can, of
course, be understood, as the writings of Jeremy Taylor, or
Milton, or Gibbon, or Pascal, or Dante, or Shakespeare,
without specific study of mental metaphysics or any other
science. Still, I do think that .some careful study of
psychology, some systematic metaphysical training, ought
to form a part of every gentleman's education, and more
especially of every man who is destined for one of the
learned professions, and still more especially for men who
undertake to write on controversial divinity. A writer on
doctrine and the rationale of religious belief ought at
least to know those principles of psychology and other
branches of metaphysics in which all schools agree, and to
have had some exercise of thought in this particular
direction, and of course such a study must improve the
faculty of insight into all works of reasoning which treat of
the higher subjects of human thought.

HIS LAST ILLNESS. 339

VIII.

A Relapse — Regeneration in the Scriptural Sense implies a Moral

Change.
To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq.

10, Chester Place, April, 1850. — My dear Friend, — I am
much pleased at your wishing me to send invitations to
Mr. and Mrs. T. and Mrs. J. M., and at your intention of
attending at St. Mark's on the 18th yourself, and of what
you say of the Institution, that it is one of the signs of life
in the times. All this is saddened to me by thoughts of
dear Mr. Wordsworth, and of his dear afflicted wife, his
partner for nearly fifty years. How she will seem to live
in waiting for death and to rejoin him and her beloved
Dora ! — if he goes now. For myself, I feel as I did in my
own great bereavement and affliction, the thoughts and
feelings which the event and all its accompaniments induce
are, in the poet's own words, too deep for tears ; they are
deeper than the region of mere sorrow for an earthly loss
or temporary parting. Sorrow for the death of those
nearest to us, in whom our life has been most bound up, is
absorbed in the gulf of all our deepest and most earnest
reflections — thoughts about life and existence here and
hereafter, which are more earnest, more real, and perma-
nent, and solid, and enduring, than any particular thoughts
and sorrows and troubles which our course here brings with
it, or which contains them all virtually. The particular
becomes merged in the general, happily, and when we
seem most bereft, most afflicted by the inevitable law of
death and corporeal decay, we are only led to feel that this
is but a part of the universal doom, that the loss and
calamity which has come upon us at this time is but what,
in a very short time, and in some form or other, we must
bear. My grief respecting my dear old friend has been to
see him grow old. To my mind he has been dying this
long time — not the man he was. I see in this, his final

340 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

struggle, if such it prove, but the termination of that career
of mortality. My tearful feelings are more for Mrs. Words-
worth than for his departure. The stupor and dejection
which have long been upon him, when he was not roused
by the presence of strangers, have been the precursor of
dissolution and beginning of the stage of final decay.

I have read your reflections on Baptism with deep
attention and interest, and shall read them again and
often. They come home to me more than other remarks
ever did. Still, they cannot, and I think never will, move
me from my standing-place, because indeed that has been
chosen with all the powers of my heart and mind, after the
deepest and fullest consideration which I can give to the
subject. It seems to me that the tendency of your reason-
ing is rather to withdraw the mind from what, after all,
must be the foundation of all reasoning in religion, from
the real sense of Scripture, interpreted according to the
generally admitted rules of human language, and from the
spiritual ideas, of which all true religion consists, combined
and arranged according to the laws of thought. I hold the
very highest doctrine of Baptism which is consistent, as
I think, with a right, scriptural, spiritual, substantial view
of regeneration, with that view of regeneration which
Scripture presents. The mystical view involves the belief
that a soul in which the heart and understanding, the will
and moral being, are wholly unaltered from the state in
Adam, a soul which passes from the neutral state of
unconscious infancy into positive immorality and ungodli-
ness, pervading the whole character, has in baptism
undergone that regeneration, that new birth in the Spirit, of
which our Lord spoke to Nicodemus, that such a soul is
really and inwardly incorporated into Christ, and a branch
of the true Vine. Now, it needs not long discussions. If you
can look at this belief, and not feel shocked by it, if it does
not seem to you contrary to the moral sense, contrary to

HIS DEATH. 341

the tenor of Holy Writ, and a profanation of sacred
language, the direct and obvious sense of which denotes
something essentially different, namely, a cordial, earnest,
and unalterable acceptance of the Gospel of Christ, or of
what the Gospel contains virtually and substantially, with
such a spiritualization of the heart and life as constitutes
the good Christian in character and conduct, I think we
never can see alike on this point. There is a world- wide
difference between a converted and an unconverted spirit :
it is the greatest soul-difference conceivable. Now, I think
the former alone, and not the latter at all, is internally,
and in the primary sense, regenerate. No other view of
regeneration than this appears to me reconcilable, fairly,
with the declaration concerning being " born of God " in
the Epistle of St. John, and indeed with whatever is said on
the subject in the Bible.

IX.

Death of Mr. Wordsworth — Sense of Intimacy with her Father,

produced by her Continual Study of his Writings.
To E. QUILLINAN, Esq.

1850. — My dear Friend, — Your letter of this morning
has made me but a little more sad and serious than I
felt before, and have been feeling since the later reports.
Thank God, that our dear and honoured friend was spared
severe suffering ! For days I have been haunted and de-
pressed with the fear that he had to go through a stage
of protracted anguish. He could afford the torpor of the
dying bed. His work was done, and gloriously done, before,
and will survive, I think, as long as those hills amid which
he lived and thought, at least if this continues to be a land
of cultivated intellects, of poets and students of poetry.

Still, though relieved and calmed, I feel stunned to
think that my dear old friend is no more in this world.
It seems as if the present life were passing away, and
leaving me for a while behind. The event renews to me

342 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

all my great irremediable losses. Henry, my mother,
Fanny, Hartley, my Uncle and Aunt Southey, my father
—in some respects so great a loss, yet in another way
less felt than the rest, and more with me still. Indeed,
he seems ever at my ear, in his books, more especially
his marginalia — speaking not personally to me, and yet
in a way so natural to my feelings, that finds me so fully,
and awakens such a strong echo in my mind and heart,
that I seem more intimate with him now than I ever was
in life. This sort of intercourse is the more to me because
of the withdrawal of my nearest friends of youth, whom
I had known in youth. Still, the heart often sinks, and
craves for more immediate stuff of the heart. My children
are much. I trust that dear Mrs. Wordsworth will find
hers, those still left to her, sufficient to make life dear
and interesting to her.

He is "gone to Dora ! " * Yes ; may we all meet where
she is ! She has been spared this parting. Would it have
come so soon, had she not been severed from his side ?

Will you convey to dear Mrs. Wordsworth, when it is
desirable, my deep sympathy and assurance of my earnest
prayer for her support and consolation, and in respect of
the revered departed all the blessedness that our Father in
heaven has to bestow on His faithful servants that are
returned to His house of many mansions. Believe me,
dear friend, yours in deep sympathy and most faithfully,

SARA COLERIDGE.

Archdeacon Hare says to me, in a letter of late date : —
"I have a letter saying that his remaining days are few.

* Mrs. Wordsworth, with a view of letting him know what the opinion of
his medical advisers was concerning his case, said gently to him, " William,
you are going to Dora ! " More than twenty -four hours afterwards one of
his nieces came into the room, and was drawing aside the curtain of his
chamber, and then, as if awakening from a quiet sleep, he said, " Is that
Dora ? " — Memoirs of Wordsworth, vol. ii. p. 506. Mr. Wordsworth died on
the 23rd April, 1850.— E. C.

HIS POETRY. 343

If it is indeed so, a glory is passing away from the earth.

0 what sweet odours of thankful love will mount with his
departing spirit from thousands of hearts whose affections
he has enlightened, and enlarged, and purified ! This
world will seem so much poorer without him ; and yet his
mind will still live in it as long as our language lives ; and
the treasures which he has been hoarding up for so many
years will be found out amongst us ! "

" Now we see through a glass darkly ; but then face to face."

To Miss FENWICK, Bath.

10, Chester Place, May 6th, 1850. — Dearest Miss Fenwick,
— I shall be thankful to see any letters from Eydal that
you can forward. How dear Mrs. Wordsworth is to bear
the trial of separation, and parting sorrow, and fatigue
undergone in the last illness, is perhaps yet to appear.

1 trust we may augur well from the long-prepared state of
her mind, and her living faith in the resurrection, and our
reunion with departed friends.

Still, in some respects, the more we dwell upon that
prospect, the more we strive to realize it, the deeper is the
trial to our weak bodily frame. We know that another
state of existence must be far other than this — that a
spiritual world cannot be like an earthly world. We cannot
penetrate the shades that hang over the state of souls
on their departure. The subject that is spoken of under
the name of the " intermediate state," of this what brief
notices we have, and how ambiguous ! How the best and
wisest men differ about the interpretation of them ! The
more we think of the state after death, the deeper is the
awe with which we must contemplate it ; and sometimes,
in weakness, we long for the happy, bright imaginations of
childhood, when we saw the other world vividly pictured,
a bright and perfect copy of the world in which we now

344 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

live, with sunshine and flowers, and all that constituted our
earthly enjoyment ! In after years we strive to translate
these images into something higher. We say, All this we
shall have, but in some higher form: "flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, neither shall cor-
ruption inherit incorruption." All this beauty around us is
perishable : its outward form and substance is corruption ;
but there is a soul in it, and this shall rise again ; and so
our beloved friends that are removed, we shall see them
again, but changed — altered into what we now cannot
conceive or imagine, with celestial bodies fit for a celestial
sphere.

XI.

Breaking of Old Ties— The Times on Mr. Wordsworth's Poetry-
True Cause of its Different Reception on the Continent, and in
America.
To Mrs. H. M. JONES, Hampstead.

April, 1850. — I have been feeling and thinking much,
as you will have anticipated, about the last days and hours
of my dear and honoured old friend Mr. Wordsworth.
I feel as if life were passing away from me in some sort ;
so many friends of my childhood and youth removed, so
few of that generation left. It seems as if a barrier betwixt
me and the grave were cast down. Happily for me, friends
of my married life and children have risen up to prevent
me from feeling solitary in the world. Still there is some-
thing in the breaking of these old ties that specially brings
the shortness and precariousness of our tenure here before
us. Hartley and Mr. Wordsworth were great figures in my
circle of early friends, and leave a large blank to my mind's
eye.

Many thanks, dear friend, for sending me the Times.
The article on the departed dear and revered poet, the great
poet, I think, of his age, is respectful, though not up to the
measure of what his warmest admirers think and feel.

POPULAR POETS. 345

The remarks on his non-popularity on the Continent I
consider mistaken; they ascribe, in my opinion, the
ignorance of French and Germans of Mr. Wordsworth's
poetry not to the true cause. If he were so peculiarly
"English " that he could not be relished out of England,
why is he so great a name in British America ? There he
holds even a higher place, or at least his claims are more
fully and universally admitted among our ^Transatlantic
brethren than in England ; and his poetry has moulded
that of the Americans far more than that of any poet of
this age or of any other age. I was assured by Mr.
Bancroft, the American minister, what I had often and
often heard before (and he spoke it before a whole company
at the Chevalier Bunsen's table), that my father's and
Mr. Wordsworth's reputation in America was — I cannot
recall the expression, but I know he used the strongest and
most energetic language on the subject. The Chevalier had
just been saying that Wordsworth was not understood or
cared for in Prussia. Moore and Byron were the great
English poets there.

The reason to me is plain. Moore, and Byron, and
Campbell are poets of a popular cast, and are admired by
thousands who cannot appreciate very refined and elevated
poetry. This popular sort of writing sooner makes its way
among foreigners than that which students would consider
to be possessed of higher merits. Shakespeare is now read
in Germany ; but he did not make his way there till during
the course of this last century. He was never admired in
France or Germany before the time of Lessing, nor
generally appreciated before the lectures of Schlegel asserted
and explained his immeasurable superiority to all other
dramatists. While Shakespeare was neglected and called a
"barbarous writer," the novels of Kichardson and of
Goldsmith were read and admired all over the continent,
not long after their appearance here. Why was this differ-

346 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

ence, but because they were far more easily understood
than the great dramatist, and were, both in stuff and manner,
such as would be relished by less cultivated minds.

XII.

"The Prelude."
To E. QUILLINAN, Esq.

Margate, June 13Z/&, 1850. — All you tell me about the
Poem * is delightful. How wonderful it seems that the
great man, our dear, departed great one, should have
deferred the publication till after he had passed from this
world ! How satiated he must have been with praise and
fame ! And what a glorious existence must his have been
to be the composer of such strains, of such noble poetry, if
indeed this poem is all that my father ever thought of it
and you now say !

It is great pride and pleasure indeed to me that it is
addressed to my father. They will be ever specially
associated in the minds of men in time to come. I think
there was never so close a union between two such eminent
minds in any age. They were together, and in intimate
communion, at the most vigorous, the most inspired period
of the lives of both.

XIII.

The Prelude a greater Poem than the Excursion — Collection of
Turner's at Tottenham — Lycidas, by Fuseli.

To Mrs. R. TOWNSEND, Springfield.

1850. — I have found your critique on the Prelude. I tell
you, as I do another friend, who is blind, as I think, to its
merits, that she must read again, and not run away from it,
on account of the unusual, seeming-prosaic sound of many
parts. It is the production of a great poet in his vigorous
period, and I think it will be felt on full consideration to be

* The Prelude.— E. C.

347

a pregnant and most energetic efflux. The Eesidence at
Cambridge, which my friend cries down, will live and
command attention, when we are passed away. I agree
with those who say that it is a greater poem than the
Excursion. But there will always be readers, and even
lovers of poetry, who will never enjoy Wordsworth or
Milton. How many there are who cannot understand or
relish Pindar, Petrarch, Dante, Spenser, not to speak of
their scorn of Keats, and indifference to Shelley.

I wish you could have had the treat we had to-day, in
seeing a splendid collection of Turner pictures* at the nice
country house of Mr. Windus, at Tottenham. I much
admired a Fuseli, Lycidas lying asleep in the moonlight
at earliest dawn, his dog baying the moon beside him.
Lycidas, in throat, cheek, and figure wonderfully like my
Uncle Southey. A most striking and poetically sublime
production.

XIY.

A Staffordshire Country House.
To Miss MORRIS, Mecklenburg Square, London.

T Wood, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, July 1st,

1850. — This beautiful domain, — the house, which is built
and furnished in the antique style with consummate
elegance, and the grounds, which are in some respects the
most to be admired of any that I have seen, especially in
the velvet smoothness of the turf, and the fine effect of the
endless-seeming vistas, and clusters of tufted flower-beds,

seen from the windows, is the creation of Mr. M .

Twenty years ago an ordinary old mansion, amid ordinary

pleasure-grounds, the abode of Miss H 's father, stood

where now stands a show residence, which is as fine a
specimen of modern taste and ingenious arrangement as
any I know. Perhaps I am the more struck because I have

* Now dispersed, since the death of Mr. Windus. — E. C.

348 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

not ventured from my own home for several summers, and
have never left Chester Place except for seaside lodgings.
When I compare, however, with this place, any of the seats
I have formerly visited, they seem to my remembrance
almost rough and unkempt in comparison. The only want
is of water. We have no lake, no river, no streamlet here
to give an eye and a smile to the " sylvan scene," only a
sprinkling fountain. The cedars scattered here and there
among trees that sweep the green floor with their ample
robes, in this leafy month of June, and others that tower
upward in finest majesty, form a beautiful variety, the
horizontal growth of their boughs contrasting with that of
all the rest.

We have had a succession of gay parties, not only dinner
company, but sets of guests coming to spend a few days,
and soon after their departure, succeeded by fresh sets,
since we arrived here on June 22nd.

XY.

Critique on Mr. Ruskin's " Modern Painters " — Figures and Land-
scapes painted on the same Principles by the Old Masters —
Instances of Generalization in Poetry and Painting — Turner " the
English Claude " — Distinct kinds of Interest inspired by Nature
and by Art — Subjective Character of the Latter — Truth in Paint-
ing Ideal, not Scientific — Imitation defined by Writers Ancient and
Modern — Etymology of the Word — Death of Sir Robert Peel-
Vindication of his Policy.

To Professor HENRY REED, Philadelphia. *

T— - Wood, Staffordshire, July 3rd, 1850.— We have
had several discussions of Buskin's theory of the superiority
of the modern landscape painters over the Cuyps, Poussins,
and Claudes of old time. Wrong as I believe that theory to
be, on the whole, and as to its conclusions, both from my

* Mr. Reed was a Professor at the University, Philadelphia, and author of
" Lectures on English Poetry and Literature," and other works. This
lamented gentleman, as will doubtless be remembered, perished in the loss
of the Arctic, on the return voyage, in 1854. — E. C.

" MODERN PAINTERS." 349

own observation and from the remarks of artists and pictorial
critics unprofessional with whom I have talked on the sub-
ject, I do not wonder at all to find you and other corre-
spondents of mine in America warmly admiring and
believing in his book, at a distance, as you are, from the
works of genius which he disparages. It is a book of great
eloquence, though the style has the modern fault of diffuse -
ness, and the descriptions of nature with reference to art
which it contains are full of beauty and vivacity, evincing
great powers of observation, and a mind of great anima-
tion ; and no doubt there is some portion of truth in what
he throws out concerning the defects of the old landscape
paintings. But I think he is far from having perceived
clearly and fully either the nature of the art of painting, or
the true relations between the state of that art, as exhibited
in the old landscape paintings, and as it appears in our
modern English school. As that accomplished artist,

K , a great friend of Euskin, observes, he ought, by the

same principles upon which he condemns the old landscape
pieces, to condemn the historical and sacred paintings of
the same and an earlier age, and to these he attributes the
same merits that the world has agreed to think they possess.
I have heard that grand solemn picture, the Eaising of
Lazarus, by Sebastian del Piombo, designed by Michel
Angelo, declared unnatural, and an inferior production to
what modern art could produce, by an accomplished artist,
who applied to it the same tests of pictorial excellence as
those with which Kuskin detects the vast inferiority of Claude
to Turner. Now, that picture (it is in our National Gallery
in London) is pronounced the most sublime composition of
the kind in the world by the first connoisseurs in Europe ;
and yet its merits are appreciated by persons of taste and
sensibility in general, even those who have no particular,
or what may be called technical, knowledge of painting.
Then Kuskin laughs at the notion of generalizing — but he

350 MEMOIB AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

says nothing that shakes my faith in the slightest degree
in the common creed of critics on this point. Milton
generalizes in word-painting in the fourth book of " Paradise
Lost ; " his description of the Garden of Eden brings together
all the lovely appearances of nature which are to be found
in all beautiful countries of the warm or temperate zones,
not a single object which is peculiar to any one place in
particular. His Eden is an abstract, a quintessence of the
beautiful features of our mother Earth's fair face ; and who
shall say, or what man of sense and sensibility has ever yet
said, that this generalized picture was painted on a wrong
principle ! Now, what Milton has done in words, Claude,
to my thinking, has done with the pencil, and all Turner's
finest and most famous pictures are offsprings of Claude's
genius. Turner was called " the English Claude " when he
was at the height of his fame, and his beautiful " Dido and
Eneas," or " Eise of Carthage," never would have been
painted as it is painted but for the splendid prototypes, as I
think they may be called, from the hand of Claude, in
which sea, sky, and city are combined after a manner of
his own, which, I scruple not to say, reports of the com-
biner's mind as much as of the material furnished by the
world without. What Kuskin meant, I undertake not to
say ; but he says what I believe to be as great a mistake as
can be entertained on this particular point, — that a painter
has nothing to do but to produce as close a copy as possible
of particular objects, and combinations of objects, in nature.
The fact is that the works of every great painter are recog-
nized as the product of an individual mind. If it was not
for this individual subjective character, I believe they would
be utterly uninteresting. May we not arrive at the truth
of the matter by ascertaining what is, and ought to be, the
painter's aim whenhe employs himself in imitating thenatural
landscape on canvas. Surely it is not to make the spec-
tator acquainted with some particular spot or set of objects;

ART AND NATUEE. 351

it is to produce a work of art ; not to present a camera
lucida copy of nature. It is not merely to call up the
identical feelings which the very contemplation of the natural
landscape itself is apt to excite ; but to remind us of those
feelings in conjunction with the sense of the presence of an
individual mind and character pervading and presiding over
the whole. We may not, in looking at a Cuyp, or Hobbima,
a Claude, or a Salvator Eosa, explain to ourselves the
source of our interest in the picture, and its peculiar char-
acter, and yet it may be the impress of an individual
genius, of this man's or that man's frame of intellect and
imagination, that delights us when we contemplate a fine
landscape painting far more than anything else. The old
painters were superior to the moderns, in my opinion,
because an individual mind was stamped upon their works
more powerfully and impressively. Their paintings have
more character ; it is that which I look for in these works
of art. I do not go to them to improve my knowledge of
nature. This is a difficult subject, and I am aware that I
have been expressing myself broadly and laxly, and perhaps
have gone as far from the exact truth on one side as Euskin
on the other. But this I do deliberately think, or at least
strongly suspect, that as the power of representing nature
on canvas must necessarily be very limited, and is rather
suggestion than representation, the attempt to imitate the
outward object beyond a certain point may injure the
general effect of the work as a whole, and that the departure
from truth which Euskin points out in the old masters as
faults and deficiencies may be part of the power and merit
of their works as suggestive compositions. I believe that
they did quite right to address themselves to the common
eye of mankind, not to the eye of the painter. They
present clouds and woods as we see them, when we rather
feel their loveliness than think about it, or examine into it.
Turner has aimed at cramming into a piece of canvas or

352 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

paper a foot square, or less, as much as possible of all that
he sees in an actual sky on a certain day of the year, and
has succeeded so well that critics complain of his skies as
top-heavy. I have heard a clever engraver say that some
of them might be turned upside down ; that they are solid
enough to stand upon. It is impossible, in the too eager
devotion to truth, to all the truth of the sky and her appur-
tenances, to do justice to earth, and exhibit the due relation
of solidity between her and the firmament above her.

I have ever been a very warm admirer and ardent
defender of Turner against his ordinary assailants. He is
a poetical painter, and gives me more delight than any
other modern artist. But Kuskin is extravagant, and
defends him, in part, I think, on wrong grounds. If Kuskin
is right, none can appreciate Turner but Turner himself.
No doubt, every great creator must teach the world how and
what to admire ; but if he does not succeed in being admired
in the end, he has not done the work he pretended to do.
No doubt, Kuskin says rightly, that a painter must aim at
truth in his representations ; but the question is how much
truth he can obtain without sacrificing the general effect—
the emotions which the whole is to produce ; and I think he
goes upon wrong, because one-sided principles, when he
argues as if the only merit of a painting were its truthful
representation of the outward object. A certain mode of
doing this, derived from the painter's individual mind, is
that which interests beholders more than aught besides,
and I think I am referring to fact when I say it is this
principally which assigns value to the picture. The pictures
of Claude are not so true as those of many a painter whose
works are not worth anything in the market, — Glover's, for
instance, which people bought eagerly on their first appear-
ance, because they were like the places of which they were
portraits. Kuskin is quite mistaken, too, I think, in his
remarks on the distinction made by my father and others

IMITATION AND COPYING. 353

between the terms "imitation" and "copying." Aristotle,
in the " Art of Poetry," a standard authority, has used the
former in the broad general sense, which Buskin seems to
suppose was the proper one, to produce a likeness of some
object of observation by art, the intention of which is not
that it should pass for the original by way of delusion, but
to delight the spectator by the very sense of the art exercised.
" Othello " is an imitation of a domestic story, in which the
passion of jealousy was the principal feature, and the chief
mover of the event. Mr. Burke says, quite in accordance
with this usual meaning of the terms — " Whenever we are
delighted by the representation of things which we should
not delight to see in reality, the pleasure arises from imita-
tion." I have not Buskin's book at hand ; but I remember
he says upon this — " the very contrary is the case ; "
because he determines that imitation properly means no
more than copying — the mere production of a duplicate or
fac-simile of the original. Usage determines the meaning
of terms, and I think it is against him. Even etymology,
as far as it goes, is against him ; for imitation comes from
the Greek word which we render by "mimicry; " and he
who mimics another man never means to pass for the man
he mimics by disguise ; the pleasure he gives rests upon
the spectator's sense that the likeness is presented in a
medium of diversity.

It is time to conclude this rambling epistle. Before you
receive it you will have heard of the sad event which puts
our papers in mourning — the death of Sir B. Peel, by a fall
from his horse. I am one of those who honour Peel as a
practical statesman. I am no politician, and always speak
on such subjects with a reserve on account of my inadequate
insight. But we cannot help seeing, or seeming to see,
some broad facts and acts in connection with them. It
seems to me that Peel had the sagacity to see, when the
time had arrived, what his country required, and ivould

2 A.

354 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

have, either from him or some one else, with more or less
of struggle and commotion ; and that he had come to the
resolution to do what he had come to think, under the
circumstances, necessary, let them say what they might,
let him lose office or retain it. If he acted upon self-
interest, it is not of the vulgar kind, but of that which was
one with the good of the country ; he could preserve the
character of a statesman who would not sacrifice the public
advantage to his own reputation for consistency. To say
he should let others do what he would not do himself, with
all the chances of their omitting to do it, or deferring to do
it, seems to me a superficial, unpractical way of putting
the matter.

XVI.

The Black Country— T Wood ; The Dingle ; Boscobel ; Chillington

— Liberality and Exclusiveness — The Wolverhampton Iron Works

— Trentham — B Park — Leicestershire Hospitality.

To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq.

T Woody Wolverhampton , July 9th, 1850. — When we

had passed Birmingham and entered the region of cinders
and groves of chimneys, I thought it almost equalled the
hideousness of a certain manufacturing portion of Lan-
cashire. On the side of Tettenhall and Penn, Staffordshire
has its share of sylvan beauty. The Worcestershire hills
rise in several ranges, faintly blue on the horizon. This
house is all built (by Eickman) and furnished in the olden
style, with great elegance and harmony of effect ; the
painted glass and old carved oak furniture are fine in their
way, and the prospect from the windows reminds one of
pictures of the garden of Boccaccio, the vistas are well
managed, so as to seem ended only by the Wrekin in
the distance ; the turf is in high perfection, such an
expanse of emerald velvet I scarce ever saw before ; and the
cedars scattered among the other trees delight me
especially. I have been so long shut out from scenes of

LANDED PROPRIETORS. 355

this kind that the place appears to me a finer one perhaps
than it does to those who go from one smooth, ornate
country-seat to another year by year. I do feel, however,
the want of water. In the Dingle, a picturesque glen in the

grounds of Mr. C , of Badger, water has its due part in

the scene, now in the foamy waterfall, now in the wide,
quiet, gleamy pool, that reflects the sky and the branching
of the tall picturesque trees around. Yesterday we visited

Boscobel, and E crept down into the hole where

Charles II. is said to have hidden himself. I tried to go
too, but felt too much stifled to proceed. I was pleased to
see, in returning by the artificial lake at Chillington, which
made me think of Curragh Chase and a certain poem of

yours, that Mr. G , the owner, allows the people of the

neighbourhood to disport themselves there on a certain day
every week. How much more lively enjoyment he must
have in seeing a crowd of people, whom his bounty has
refreshed, than in keeping the whole spacious domains to
himself all the week round, closed up in silent, melancholy
state, no one going near that fine sheet of water embosomed
in woods, from hour to hour. Surely men will, in the
course of time, become wiser about such matters than they
have been, and frame for themselves deeper and keener
pleasures, more stirring and expansive enjoyments than
wealth and large possessions have hitherto brought to our
grandees for the most part. There is something to my
feelings always deeply sad and sombre in the sight of a large
domain belonging to some stately reserved proprietor,
living alone there with but few inmates except domestic
servants. It puts me in mind of the poor bounded nature
of our existence here, when it is regarded in a worldly point
of view. There is great amusement in constructing a fine
house and superintending the laying-out of a large pleasure-
ground, such as my friend Mr. M — - has had here ; but
when all is done, and the place perfect in its way, I fancy

356 MEMOIE AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

the lawns and groves breathing sadness to the spirit of a
proprietor, which is never felt when we gaze upon the
wild woods and fields with a sense that we are not bound to
enjoy them because they are ours.

From these reflections I was called away yesterday to go
and see the Iron Works, a stirring spectacle strongly
contrasted with the scenes which were in my mind's eye on
my return from Boscobel and Chillington. First, we saw
the rolling mills and all the glowing processes of hammer-
ing down the masses, and shaping the metal ; then we
proceeded to the huge furnaces, were hoisted up to the top
of those enormous chimneys on a movable floor, inspected
the craters of the artificial volcanoes on the platform at the
top of the edifice, looked out over the land of iron and coal,
and paid a visit to the engine which cost over ^£2500.

Regent's Park, Monday, July 23nZ. — Dear Friend, — From
my account of the furnaces, just as I was about to describe
the red-hot river of melted metal, like Phlegethon bursting
upward from Pluto's realm and rushing on under the light
of the day, while a blast was let forth from an orifice above,
and forth went the two impetuous elements, fire and air,
flaming and roaring together, — I was called away, and from
that hour to this have never had time to write aught but
necessary letters, accounts, etc. Before my return home
on Saturday last I saw a great deal more of Staffordshire,
and gained a strong impression of its richly sylvan beauty,
enhancing a regret that those green lawns and fields, and
full foliaged banks of wood, are not enlivened with clear
waters, living sparkling streams, and have no opportunity
of mirroring their own charms in any but the sluggish,
unclear, seemingly reluctant floods of made lakes and
rivers. We visited Trentham, saw Broughton, Sir Henry
Broughton's Staffordshire abode, and, lastly, went to stay
at B Park, Mr. H 's seat near Loughbo rough,

TRENTHAM. 357

which is as good a specimen of modern magnificent
comfort, which is the proper phrase rather than comfortable
magnificence, which, however, may be fitly applied to the
grand and imposing hall. At Trentham the ministrative
part of the establishment, the offices, and kitchen, and
fruit -gar dens, are on a princely scale and in a princely
style. The useful is nowhere abroad, I apprehend, so
extensively and elegantly maintained, and this is truly
characteristic of the English nobleman. The show-part
of the house ,and grounds may be found fault with. Ten
acres of flower-garden defeats its own object by dispropor-
tionateness. Some compare it to fairyland ; but fairyland,
so far as my travels have gone, includes more of the
inimitable charms of nature, lucid streams, glittering lakes,
basins of water in which, by optical alohemy, liquid crystal
is transmuted into beryl and emerald, forming rainbowy
waterfalls, and splendid masses of blossom, all of one hue,
opposed to others, such as you describe in the Delphic
region, instead of that endless succession of flower fan-
tasticalities, and lawn and shrubbery artificialities. The
park with its deer is good ; but I like not the Arabian desert
of gravel extended far as eye can go before the house, with
the dull series of clipped laurel clumps to imitate the
Versailles orange-trees, which seem intended to illustrate
the stupidity of identity. The house is full of elegant
apartments, but has no grand room ; and abounds in
pretty paintings without any fine pictures. It seems a
show-place for pretty chintzes and Derbyshire ware. Some
of the statues are to be admired, especially a bronze cast,
in the garden, of the Perseus of B. Cellini, a sort of
mediaeval Apollo ; a marble sitting statue of Paris listening
to the prophecy of Nereus, which is most graceful, and
listens all over. The Perseus has this defect, it wants the
repose and decorum which characterize ancient art, not in
the figure of the hero, which is but a variation of the

358 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Apollo, but in the victim. Under his feet is the death-
stiffened figure of what, to the eye, appears no noxious
monster, but only a beautiful woman distorted in the last
agony ; and the blood bursting from the neck looks like
large ringlets of hair. Thus the Perseus seems a horrid
murderer, rather than a dauntless conqueror.

But I must run on to B — — Park, and tell you of that
noble hall, which certainly is the most imposing house-
interior, from the size and proportions of the whole, the
rich, carved oak balustrades, etc., that I ever beheld, not
even excepting the hall at the Duke of Sutherland's town
mansion. There is a gorgeous window emblazoned with all

the H heraldry. Mr. M criticises this, and

maintains 'that it is too much covered with deep colour,
that a hall-window ought to admit a silver light ; and again
he criticises the formal garden, and objects to the abrupt
transition from that artificialism into the park. But this
criticism seems to me founded on too narrow a principle.

The soul of B Park is heartsome ease, luxury, and

comfort. T Wood is more poetical and picturesque,

with its silver light and rainbow reflections on the white
stone staircase. But for a dwelling-house give me the
comfortable brown light, which looks warm when you come
in from a cold, wintry sky, and wraps you in cosy shadow
when you enter weary with the heat, and eye-oppressed
with the glare of our sudden summer sultriness and sun-
shine. Give me, too, the richly-carpeted staircase, instead
of cold stone. As for the garden, when you are in it, and
look back upon the house (late Elizabethan, early James L),
you feel that it is the necessary adjunct to such a mansion,
and that a picturesque Boccaccio garden, a sort of imita-
tion of Armida's pleasure-ground, would be quite incongruous
in such a place. But I must not go on describing at this
rate. And, after all, the magnificent oaks of the park are
the great boast of B , for the oak is the weed of that

A VISIT TO B PAKE. 359

district, as the elm in England generally, and Mr. H

had only to clear judiciously. The owner of all this
accumulation of showy luxury is, or will be, one of the
richest commoners in England, and is as rich in amiable
qualities as in worldly possessions. From the testimonies
of those who know him well, and from his conversation, I
judge that he is as faithful, generous, and affectionate in
heart as he is frank, simple, and cordial in manner. His
sister is a feminine copy of him ; and I do trust they will
live long together, like Baucis and Philemon. They were

all kindness to me, and Mr. H said I must come again

to make a longer stay ; and I am sure he paid me twice as
much attention as he otherwise would, with so many guests
to entertain, because I seemed weak and delicate, and
suffered dreadfully from an accident, a minute grain of
metal getting lodged in my eye, between Derby and Lough-
borough, and causing me great misery, till after I don't
know how many searchings of the afflicted orb and its
coverings, and assurances that whatever I might feel or
fancy, nothing was in it, the tormentor walked out of its
own accord. There was an archery-meeting near the rocks

a mile from the house in Mr. H 's grounds on Friday,

and our party was met by a select set from the neighbour-
hood. Mr. H 's little speeches at the dinner had an air

of grave playfulness and business-of-society straightforward-
ness about them which pleased every one. Indeed, his
whole manner is calculated to put all persons at their ease,
and to excite nobody's vanity. Such blandness is like oil
on the waves of society.

360 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

CHAPTER XXIII.

LETTERS TO MISS FENWICK, AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ.,
PROFESSOR HENRY REED, REV. EDWARD COLE-
RIDGE, MISS MORRIS, EDWARD QUILLINAN, ESQ.,
HON. MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE: July— December, 1850.

Rain, Roses, and Hay — Experiences of Wesley as a Preacher among
the Agriculturists and Manufacturers — Influences of Society,
Education, and Scenery, on the Development of Poetic Genius.
To Mrs. MOORE.

Chester Place, July %6th, 1850. — I have had a most

agreeable letter from dear Miss H this morning. She

tantalizes me with an account of the flood of sunlight

which has been pouring into B Park, to illuminate all

its beauties and glories within and without, since our
departure, and she almost brings tears into my eyes by
reminding me of the roses "laughing and singing in the
pouring rain," a touch worthy of Shelley, the Poet of the
"Sensitive Plant;" and in the thought of these darlings
rejoicing in the dews of heaven, which they think, I
dare say, made on purpose for them, she magnanimously
adds, "never mind my hay." Now, where is the farmer,
or any masculine professor of hay, from the Land's End
to Johnny Groat's House, who would have said, or felt,
"never mind my hay"? All that set of men think their
hay and stubble far more important than other men's gold
and silver, and precious stones. So Wesley found, and
Whitfield too. All their diamonds and pearls did the
farmers set at nought, and they were harder to be taught
to prize the great pearl of the Gospel itself, than even the
poor benighted sinners and gin-socldened manufacturers.
All this is very uncharitable and narrow, perhaps you will

361

think, with a more fortunate race of husbandmen around you
than those I am thinking of. In truth, these field-preacher
experiences impeach particular circumstances rather than
men. I suppose if the farmers are more prejudiced and
less ready to give than manufacturers, and agricultural
labourers more like clods, than operatives of the loom and
the mill are like lumps of greasy wool, it is because they
have a less brisk intercourse with their fellow-men, and
the Promethean sparks of their minds are not elicited so
constantly by mutual attrition. "A parcel of auld fells"
will leave the men who live around them as hard and
savage as their own rocks and wild woods, if a book-softened
mind is not brought to bear upon them ; and this thought
comes strongly upon me in reading Mr. Wordsworth's great
posthumous poem. He ascribes his poetry to his poetical
mode of life, first as a child, and then as a schoolboy.
But whatever he might or might not have been without
that training, certain it is that of the many companions of
his early years who shared it, none proved a poet, much
less a great poet, but himself. And there was my father,
as the author remarks at the end, city -bred, yet ready with
an Ancient Mariner, and Christ abel, as he with his volumes
dedicated to Nature. And Milton was city-born and bred
too. I suppose, however, that the detailed observation of
the forms of nature exhibited, as Euskin remarks, in the
works of Mr. Wordsworth, could not have been but for his
mountaineer education. How I should like to ruminate
over this new feast with Mr. Moore !

II.

Domestic Architecture, Mediaeval and Modern.
To Mrs. MOORE, Eccleshall Vicarage, Staffordshire.

Chester Place, July %ltli, 1850. — Mr. S is coming to

see me this evening. He appears charmed with my
descriptions of T— - Wood, Eccleshall, and B— - Park.
He concludes with, "An old manor-house is to me only

362 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SAEA COLERIDGE.

less sacred and venerable than a church, and many degrees
more so than a Dissenting chapel ! " I love and admire
genuine remains of antiquity in every way; and there
certainly was a practical poetry in old times, both ancient
and mediaeval, which showed itself not only in books, but
in pictures, and statues, and buildings. All we can now
do, for the most part, is to reproduce this old poetry, to
make likenesses of it in a new material.

I must say, however, in regard to dwelling-houses, that
the imitation is vastly better than the original, and that no
houses of our ancestors could have approached in enjoyable-
ness to T Wood and B Park. The lowness of the

rooms is, to our modern feelings, the greatest possible pre-
clusion of comfort. The loftiness of the sleeping rooms at

B Park is one of their greatest advantages, even more

than all the sumptuous and elegant upholstery and pottery.
At the house of Sir Thomas Boleyn (father of the unfor-
tunate consort of Henry VIII.), though it is called Castle-
something — with much state, or pretension to it, and much
that indicates stately living for those times, there is a rude-
ness in the whole fabric and a stifling want of height in
the rooms, which made me feel that our ancestors' way of
daily life must have been what we should now pronounce
worthy of Gryll, who had such a "hoggish mind," in the
days of Spenser.

III.

First appearance of Mr. Tennyson's " In Memoriam " — Moral Tone of

the "Prelude" — Neuralgia, and Dante's Demons.
To AUBREY BE YERE, Esq.

10, Chester Place, August 6th, 1850. — I have just received
your kind present ; * many thanks. What a treasure it
will be, if I can but think of it and feel about it as you do,

and as Mr. T does ! You said, " the finest strain since

Shakespeare ; " and afterwards that you and Mr. T

* "In Memoriam." — E. C.

363

agreed that it set the author above all modern poets, save
only W. W. and S. T. C.

My impression of the pieces you recited was that they
expressed great intensity of feeling, — but all that is in such
poetry cannot be perceived at first, especially from recita-
tion. The poetry of feeling gains by impassioned recitation,
but where there is deep thought, as well as emotion in the
strain, to do justice to it, we must adopt the usual attitude
of study and dwell with our eyes upon the page ; for the
mind is a creature of habit, and moves but in the
accustomed track.

Evening — I have read " In Memoriam " as far as p. 48.
I mark with three crosses —

" One writes that other friends remain."
which you recited ; — with one cross the next —

" Dear house," etc.
ditto the next —

"A happy hour," etc.

Most beautiful and Petrarchan is —

" Fair ship, that from the Italian shore."
Very striking is XIV. — p. 22 —

" If one should bring me this report."

XIX. and XX. I specially admire; and XXI., and still
more XXII.—

" The path by which we twain did go."

There is a very Italian air in this set of mourning poems
throughout, as far as I have read. It is Petrarch come
again, and become an Englishman.

Morning — I read " In Memoriam " in the night, and was
much affected by XXX.—

"With trembling fingers," p. 48.

The last stanza but one is to me obscure, and obscurity
mars pathos. At present, many passages are to me not
clear, and some, which I do understand, strike me as too
quaint. For instance, p. 43, last stanza. My father used

364 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

to complain of Petrarch's eternal hooks, and baits, and keys,
which " turned the lock on many a passage of true passion."
" A shadow waiting with keys, to cloak him from his proper
scorn," is to me all shadowy and misty, like some of
Turner's allegorical pictures, the wantonness and wilfulness
of a mist-loving genius, who yet could clear off the mist,
and display underneath a bold and beauteous plan, to
delight the engraver and the lover of engravings.

This poem, and page 14, and the betrothed tying a
riband or a rose, are in his old vein, of bright, fanciful
imagery, vivid with detail. But the poems, as a whole,
are distinguished by a greater proportion of thought to
sensuous imagery, than his old ones; they recede from
Keatsland into Petrarchdom, and now and then approach
the confines of the Dantescan new hemisphere.

I must tell you that the posthumous Poem* gains to my
mind by reperusal. That is a fine passage at page 306.
Did you note the explicit recognition of eternal life, eternity
and God, at p. 361 ?

Perhaps one of the most striking passages of those that
had not been printed before, is that in the Eetrospect,
describing the shepherd beheld in connection with nature,
and thus ennobled and glorified. And, oh ! how affectionate
is all the concluding portion ! I do feel deeply thankful
for the revelation of Wordsworth's heart in this poem.
Whatever sterner feelings may have succeeded at times to
this tenderness and these outpourings of love, it raises
him greatly in my mind to find that he was able to give
himself thus out to another, during one period of his life, —
not to absorb all my father's affectionate homage, and to
respond no otherwise than by a gracious reception of it.
There are many touches too of something like softness, and
modesty, and humbleness, which, taken in conjunction with
those virtues of his character which are allied to confidence

* "The Prelude."— E. C.

365

and dignified self-assertion, add much to his character of
amiability. To be humble in him was a merit indeed ; and
this merit did not appear so evidently in his later life, as
in these earlier manifestations of his mind.

Some friend has sent me the Examiner, which con-
tains a review of the " Prelude," very exalting upon the
whole, and in the main, I think, very just. I should not
say, however, that the poem " will take a place as one of
the most perfect of the author's compositions," although I
agree with the critic in preferring it greatly to his later
performances. The review is vigorously written, and worth
your glancing your eyes over.

How wonderfully the wheel has turned ! This poem,
which you and I, strong Wordsworthians, do not think
equal to his poetic works in general of the same date, is
now received with such warm welcome, such high honour
and hearty praise ; while those greatest works of his, when
they first appeared, met with only ridicule from the critical
oracles of the day, scorn or neglect from the public, and
admiration and love only from the few.

The diffuseness, want of condensation, is just noticed,
but I am pleased, I own, at the warmth and high style of
the praise. I think you and I had not quite done justice to
the poem, from comparing it with the author's most finished
and finest compositions, rather than viewing it by itself, or
as compared with other men's productions. . . . Passages
are quoted from the Eesidence at Cambridge, not as best
and noblest in themselves, but, I suppose, as most suited
to the Examiner newspaper, and certainly they are
energetic, and contain strong thoughts in strong language.
The passage on Newton I had stroked for admiration
myself. The reviewers emphasize several passages, among
the rest those on Milton,

" With his rosy cheeks,
Angelical keen eye, courageous look,
And conscious step of purity and pride."

366 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

That noble line —

tf Uttering odious truth,
Darkness before, and Danger's voice behind,
Soul awful "

I never knew the birthplace of before.

But I must say good-night. This fierce pain clings to
me. Oh ! how well can I imagine that all the frightful
shapes with which the infernal realms have been peopled,
the demons with their prongs and pitchforks, may have
been mere brain images, — the shaping forth, by way of
diversion and relief, in order to send it off from self, of
these sharp pangs and shattering, piercing, nerve tortures !
The vulture of Prometheus is more mental, but Dante's
demons are personifications of Neuralgia and Tic Douloureux,
or at least the latter, if they sat for their pictures, would
come out just like them. I don't wonder that Dante begged
Virgil to dispense with their company, and would rather
wander through the horrid circles without guide, than with
those fierce ones,

" deh ; senza scorta andiamci soli,
Se tu sa 'ir, ch'i per me non la cheggio."

I always fancy I see Dante's piteous, frightened face, and
hear his tremulous, eager tones, when he makes this
petition.

Don't you observe how much less of sturdy independent
pride and reserve there is in Italians and all foreigners,
than in us Englishmen ? An English poet would not have
written this of himself — he would have thought it babyish ;
and still more, much of Dante's behaviour with Beatrice,
which I always have thought has a touch of Jerry Sneak in
it. Indeed he actually compares himself to a baby, fixing
its eyes on its ma.

TENNYSON AND PETEARCH. 367

IV.

" In Memoriam : " its Merits and Defects — Shelley's Adonais.
To EDWARD QUILLINAN, Esq., Loughrigg Holme, Ambleside.

Chester Place, August 15th, 1850. — I agree with Mr.
Kenyon and Lady Palgrave, who are not mere friend-ciiiics,
that "In Memoriam" is a highly interesting volume, and
worthy to be compared with the poems of Petrarch. I
think it like his poems, both in the general scheme, and the
execution of particular pieces. The pervading, though not
universal, fault, as you, I think, say too, is quaintness and
violence, instead of force ; in short, want of truth, which is
at the bottom of all affectation, an endeavour to be some-
thing more, and higher, and better, than the aspirant really
and properly is. The heaven of poetry is not to be taken
by these means. It is like the Elysium, described to
Laodamia, whatever is valuable in that way flows forth
spontaneously like the products of nature, silently and
without struggle or noise. How smoothly do all the finest
strains of poetry flow on! the noblest passages in the
Paradise Lost, and in Mr. Wordsworth's and my father's
finest poems ! The mind stumbles not over a single word
or image.

Shelley's great fault is occasional obscurity, I think. I
find this, even in Adonais.

Public Singers — Lovers at the Opera.
To Mrs. MOORE.

Chester Place, August, 1850. — I made a great effort last

night to take advantage of Mrs. W. B 's offer of a seat

in her opera box, or one lent her, for myself and Herbert.
We heard Sonntag, and for the first time I was thoroughly
entranced by a woman's singing. There is a softness and
tenderness in the very highest warble of this lady-like
singer, a combination of delicacy and brilliancy, which

368 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

distinguishes her singing from that of all other, women
whom I have ever heard.

I delight in a man's tenor and contralto voice, but the
fine, powerful, high-toned singing of women in general gives
me little pleasure, wearies me in less than ten minutes. It
wants body, to my feelings ; with a masculine background I
like it well. Catherine Hayes, in " Lucia," moved me not
in the least, and tired me very soon. Coletti, in the
"Barber of Seville," the huge Lablache, the pretty-hand-
some Gardoni, all pleased me greatly. But, oh ! how
comical it is to see those opera lovers without a particle
of love, grief, or any other emotion in their faces, evidently
full of their song, and not a bit of their middle-aged or un-
pretty sweetheart, feign to stab themselves in desperation,
plump down most inelegantly, warble away to the last, and
two minutes afterwards, pick themselves up, and appear
before the curtain to bow, and receive the claps and com-
pliments of the audience !

YI.

Mr. Coleridge's Influence as an Adviser.
To Rev. HENRY MOORE.

August 25f/t, 1850. — In order to a good practical judgment
two things are required — a clear, strong understanding,
and still more, perhaps, a generous, loving, sympathizing
nature, which makes the state of another person's affairs,
thoughts, feelings, present to the imagination. It was from
the possession of these properties that my father's advice
in matters of life and action was valuable, that his counsel
to men in religious difficulties was felt to be of real service,
as many have declared to me since his death. Men who
are confined in their thoughts and affections to the narrow
circle of self, and self at second hand, cannot give valuable
advice to those who are out of that circle ; and the world is
very apt to confound moderation in discourse, and prudence,
with deep and comprehensive judgment, which rests on a
very different basis, and results from far deeper qualities.

FAITH AND EEASON. 369

VII.

Spiritual Truths beheld by the Eye of Faith in the Light of Reason —
The Gospel its own best Evidence.

To EDWARD QUILLINAN, Esq.

Chester Place, September 10th, 1850. — What I said to you
the other day about the inseparability of faith from reason
was only an attempt to express a characteristic doctrine of
my father's, which has planted itself firmly in my mind. I
spoke of reason, not as the faculty of reasoning, of reflecting,
weighing, judging, comparing, but as the organ of spiritual
truth, the eye of the mind, which perceives the substantial
ideas and verities of religion as the bodily eye sees colours
and shapes. It seems to me, that a tenet which does not
embody some idea which our mental eye can behold, is no
proper object of faith. St. Paul says that we are to know
the things that are given us of God, that they are to be
spiritually discerned, that God reveals them to the faithful,
yea, the deep things of God. Our saving faith consists, I
think, in a spiritual beholding, a perception of truth of the
highest order, which purifies the heart, and changes the
soul from glory to glory, while it gazes on the image of the
divine perfections. The holy apostle prays that "the eyes
of our understanding being enlightened," we may know
Jesus Christ, and what is the hope of His calling. The
doctrine of implicit faith, that men are saved by believing
something to be true of which they have no idea or know-
ledge, I cannot find in the Bible. My not finding would be
nothing if others could find and show it me. But who can
show it there ? It seems to me to be a doctrine of fallible
men, not of Christ Himself, who always speaks of His
teaching as being in accordance with the constitution and
faculties which God has given us, as having its witness in our
own hearts and minds, if they are not darkened by clouds
of prejudice and passion. Keason is alike in all mankind,
I therefore arrogate nothing to myself in particular when I

370 MEMOIB AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

express my agreement with the maxim of my father and
many other thoughful men, that faith consists in a spiritual
beholding, " the evidence of things not seen" with the bodily
eye. "By faith we understand" says the writer to the
Hebrews, "that the worlds were framed by the word of
God."

The Divinity of our Saviour, His Atonement, Justification
by Faith, all the great doctrines of our religion, have been
shown by the great fathers and doctors of the Church to be
doctrines of reason, which may be spiritually discerned. If
it were not for the witness of our hearts and minds to these
great truths, I can hardly imagine that they would be
generally received. The outward evidences are not appre-
ciated by the masses, and by themselves would never suffice,
I think, to a hearty reception of the Gospel. We are early
told that the Bible is the Word of God, and believe it im-
plicitly. But if we did not find and feel it to be divine, as
our minds unfold and we begin to inquire and seek a reason
for our beliefs, surely this early faith would fall from us as
the seed-leaves from the growing plant, the husk from the
blossom and fruit.

I cannot think that there is any outward proof of the
divinity of the Bible at all adequate to its general reception.
People do not always theorize rightly on their faith ; but
many think they have had proof of their religion ab extra,
when in reality it clings to them from its direct appeals to
their heart and spiritual sense.

YIII.

Character of Christian in the " Pilgrim's Progress."
To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

October 9th, 1850. — I have been reading right through
the " Pilgrim's Progress," with as much pleasure as if it
was the first time. The only fault I feel, or care about, is
that Christian, in his discourse with Talkative and with

SCOTT'S NOVELS. 371

Ignorance, appears somewhat captious, peremptory, and
overbearing. And, indeed, I must ever think that poor
Ignorance had rather hard measure from first to last. The
conclusion is sadly kill-joyed by the lugging of him off and
poking him into that horrid hill- side. Many a good
Christian would be willing enough to adopt Ignorance's
declaration of faith just as it stands.

IX.

Comparative Merits of Sir Walter Scott's Novels — Severity of Satirists

on the Faults of their own Country or Class.
To AUBREY DB VERB, Esq.

October, 1850, Chester Place. — I am re-perusing some
of the earlier Walter Scott novels, with great delight.
" The Antiquary " is one of the very best, the fullest of
genuine original matter. Oldbuck himself is a Sternean
character. Elspeth is Macbethish, but Edie Ochiltree is
the charm of the work. He is true poetry, a conception
between Scott and Wordsworth, or at least with a
third part of Wordsworth. The marrow of Scott's genius
was put into this old Gaberlunzie and Bluegown. "Bob
Boy" is very good, but not so good, more manufactured
and will- wrought, in part. How admirable, though, is all
that description of the Sabbath and the Laigh Kirk con-
gregation at Glasgow. The Bailie, too, is very amusing.
Andrew Fairservice is a satire on the Scotch of the keenest
description. Do not we always find that the sharpest,
most home strokes of satire come from those who are near
to the subject of it, or even identified with it. Hook showed
up the lords and lordlings of his day. Mrs. Gore exposes
the follies of her fellow-fashionists. Berkeley and Swift
have published all the characteristic faults of their country-
men to the world ; and Scott, and Gait, and Miss Hamilton,
betray all the meanest and most odious peculiarities of
theirs. Miss Edgeworth, too, in her "Absentee" and
" Castle Back-rent," has drawn as dark a picture of Ireland

372 MEMOIB AND LETTERS OF SAEA COLERIDGE.

as the most decided enemy could have exhibited ; and the
author of the " Collegians " has written ahout Irish middle-
men what, from an English pen, would have been con-
sidered a libel.

Sympathy of Friends— Collection of her Brother Hartley's Works —
Article in the Quarterly on the Homeric Controversy — Infidelity —
Attacks on Revelation.
To the Rev. EDWARD COLERIDGE.

1850. — Your letter is, what I expected from you, kind
and comfortable. Since my trial* began (and it is not
light, all circumstances considered) I have received so
many marks of warm sympathy and active kindness from
friends, and from dear Derwent and Mary such affectionate
treatment, that some good has grown out of the evil. My
estimate of the kindliness of my fellow-creatures, and the
goodness of my own set of friends in particular, has been
raised some degrees higher. The collection of our dear
Hartley's Eemains, with Derwent 's Memoir, is in the press,
and I confess I have warm expectations from both, that
they will at least deeply interest and delight a certain
circle, if not a wide, yet a refined and genial one.
. If we could but obtain the Worthies, and had encourage-
ment to publish a collection of the printed essays, with the
beautiful critique on Hamlet in Blackwood, there would be
a compact little set of works, doubly gratifying to us as
evidence that poor Hartley did not wholly waste the gifts
with which he was entrusted, or dream away his genius
without an attempt to benefit his fellow-creatures by it, by
affording them refined amusement, and in some sense
enlightenment.

The article in the Quarterly on Mure's book and the
Homeric Controversy is able, and contains much truth;

* It was during the summer of 1850 that serious anxiety first began to be
felt about my mother's state of health. — E. C.

INFIDELITY. 373

but it is also full of unfairness, misrepresentation of argu-
ment, and plausible, but not deeply considered, positions.
This I cannot but think, though I never pretended to a
positive general opinion on the authorship of the Homeric
poems ; and while I entertained Wolf's idea of the possibility
that the poems were national and the work of a school, as
did also Mr. Wordsworth, Southey, and, I believe, Scott
(and they may be supposed to have a poetic intuition), I
have always seen unity in the plan of the " Iliad," what
seems to me a true Achilleid. The unfairness of the article
to the Germans is gross, and to lay on their shoulders those
opinions about Titus Andronicus and The Two Noble
Kinsmen, which were English before they were German, is
ridiculous. The proof from internal evidence, the delinea-
tion of character, knowledge of the human heart, etc., seems
to me very doubtful. You may see the tenderest touches of
pathos, of very similar character, in our old ballads, which
none deny to be by different hands.

Did you mark what is said in the beginning of that
article (p. 438) on the subject of the common foe to
Christianity ? No attempt at answering Strauss amid all
the thousand pamphlets upon theories of doctrine, the
practical result of which is insignificant. That is indeed a
fearful subject ; that way the danger lies ; and as there are
sorrows too deep for tears, so are there perils and ills too
real and serious for noise and agitation.

Infidelity creeps on in silence. Men whisper it to each
other ; no man boasts of it, or parades it ; few even argue
for it. Dr. Newman said the other day to some controver-
sialist, "Let us talk about the prospects of Christianity
itself, instead of the differences between Anglican and
Catholic." Why does not he answer the adversary?
Silent contempt is not politic in such a case. It is too
ambiguous. Let our churchmen conquer first and contemn
afterwards. So our doughty old divines proceeded ; and

374 MEMOIR AND LETTEES OF SABA COLERIDGE.

every age needs its own evidences and arguments against
infidelity, as in every age the attack upon revealed religion
takes a form suited to the time.

P.S. — What I have said about infidelity is from the in-
formations and lamentations of truly religious men. I talk
with none but such. It is not the mere boasting of the
foe.

XI.

Her native Yale of Keswick ; and the Valley of Life — " Alton Locke."
To E. QUILLINAN, Esq.

10, Chester Place, November I4dh, 1850.— The sight of
your handwriting this morning gave me great pleasure :
first, as coming from you, — secondly, as coming from a
place and neighbourhood in which, to the end of my mortal
pilgrimage, my heart and imagination will ever be most
deeply interested. Keswick, and Eydal, and Grasmere—
then Netherhall and its neighbourhood — but the two first
far before the last, will ever be the scene of the millennial
reign for me. They are my Eden — watered with my tears
as they were. But how truly says the Poet, —

" Dewdrops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve."

Now there is a knock at the door ! Oh ! how I hate these
peremptory knocks, now I have no goodman to expect,
either morning, noon, or night. Well, well ! it is one
comfort in sorrow that he and my dear mother had not to
share my present trouble. Poor Nurse has accompanied
me all through this thorny valley, step by step ; indeed, she
has her own thorns and stones on her side of the way, and
we mutually pity and seek to console each other.

Have you read " Alton Locke " ? Sir F. Palgrave thinks
"poetry, and of a high order of conception."

MEMOIBS OF GKAY. 375

XII.

Early and late Periods of the Wordsworthian Poetry compared with
Ancient and Modern Art — Mr. Ruskin's " Modern Painters " —
Scott'sVovels— Character-drawing in the "Black Dwarf "—The
Anti-Papal Demonstration — Aversion to Popery in the English
Mind — The Pope's Move political not religious — Intolerance of
Romanism.
To Professor HENRY REED, Philadelphia.

10, Chester Place, Eegenfs Park, November 29^, 1850.—
My dear Friend, — Many thanks to you for two most inte-
resting volumes. The " Descriptive Sketches," with your
inscriptions, is a very gratifying present to me. I have
always wished to possess early editions of Mr. Wordsworth's
works, but have not been able to lay hold of many. I
cannot bear the arrangement of his poems in the later
editions by subject, without regard to date. The tone of
the productions of the poet's second and third eras is as
unlike that of his great vigorous day as a picture of Stan-
field to one by Claude or Poussin ; and who would mix
modern painting in a gallery with those of the old hands ?
I remember seeing an exhibition of Calcott's landscape
painting in the third room of the British Gallery, ancient
masters occupying the first and second. You can hardly
imagine the deadening effect upon them. They were
reduced to chalk and water. Any believer in Kuskin, I
think, must have been staggered by that most odious, or at
least injurious, comparison and contrast. Not that I do
not admire Buskin's first book : it has great merits ; but it
never converted or perverted me from Claude, and Cuyp,
and S. Eosa, though it made me more than ever, if possible,
a worshipper of the great mistress of all painters — Nature.
The edition of Gray and your Memoir are a valuable
addition to my library. I possess the Eton edition, and
had lately been reading Mitford's Memoir, which rendered
yours all the more interesting. Yours ought to supersede
every other. I think your conclusion about Gray's poetic

376 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

power is the truth of the matter. The author of the
"Elegy," admirable as his poetry is, in its line, would
never, I think, under any circumstances have Jielped to
found a new school of poetry. His mind did not present a
broad enough surface for the spirit of the age to operate on,
even if the new age, which moulded, and was moulded by,
the last generation of poets and romancers, had set in
while he was in his vigour. No new aspect of humanity or
nature is exhibited in his writings. Even Cowper was, in
my opinion, far more original as to thought and way of
viewing things ; and the personal character of Cowper was
more broad, bold, and interesting than that of Gray. I am
re-perusing with great delight the Scotch novels of Walter
Scott. I do not think " Ivanhoe " and the latter works, not
on Scottish ground at all, to be reckoned among the great
influencive literary productions of the age — productions of
genius — along with " Waverley," " Guy Mannering," " The
Antiquary" (perhaps the best of all), "Bob Eoy," "The
Black Dwarf" (which has been underrated), "Old Mor-
tality," " The Heart of Mid-Lothian," and " The Bride of
Lammermoor." " The Black Dwarf" has an especial merit
in exhibiting the odd mixture of feelings and opinions on
particular subjects which may exist in uneducated, unre-
flective minds. Hobbie is persuaded that Father Elshie has
dealings with the Evil One, and would try to prejudice his
salvation if he had an opportunity, yet is willing to receive
a benefit at his hands, and is grateful for it, and is affec-
tionately disposed toward the donor, as if he believed him
as " canny " as other folks. The tale, however, was over-
shadowed by the superior merit of " Old Mortality ; " and no
doubt it has more than the ordinary amount of absurdity in
the foundation.

I own I rejoice in the anti-papal demonstration. The
fear and anger of this crisis will, of course, subside; but
what has taken place proves, and will show the Komanists

THE ANTI-PAPAL DEMONSTRATION. 377

and Komanizers, that there is a deep-seated and wide-
spread aversion to Popery in this fair realm of England,
which will come into effective action whenever any attempt
is made to re-introduce a form of religion which is the
natural and necessary enemy to liberty in all times and in

every place. I cannot agree with C S , who thinks

we are straining at a gnat after swallowing the camel of
Emancipation. There was nothing that directly endangered
our Church in a Eomanist's sitting in Parliament ; and the
principles of toleration and equal dealing with all religions,
as such, seemed to demand the concession. But this act is,
in reality, a political movement, and ought to be politically
resisted. My Uncle Southey would have refused Emanci-
pation in the foresight of this and similar aggressions ; but
it was better to give them rope enough to strangle their own
cause in the hearts of the whole nation. Now, no man can
say that the intolerance and ambition of Komanism are
obsolete : all must see that it is a born Ishmael ; its hand
is against every other form of religion, and every other
form must keep a controlling hand upon it.

NOTES ON PROFESSOR REED's MEMOIR OF GRAY.

1. Liberality of Military Men — Mathematics opposed to Poetry,
Professor Sedgwick on Newton and Milton. 2. Hereditary
Genius — Her Father and his Son Hartley. 3. A Point of Style
discussed. 4. Salutary Effect of Early Happiness on the Mind.
5. Horace Walpole and Gray — Frivolity of the Former. 6. Gray's
Genius and its Limitations — Keats' Hyperion. 7. Handwritings
of Men of Genius. 8. Talf ourd's " Ion. " 9. Landor as Scholar,
Critic, and Poet. 10. De Quincey's Opinion of Dr. Parr. 11. Mr.
Coleridge's Criticism of " The Ode on Eton College." 12. Causes
of the Popularity of Gray's "Elegy." 13. Speaking of Ail-
ments, a Relief. 14. Gray at Keswick. 15. " Tintern Abbey. "
16. Powers Measured by Results. 17. High Spirits.

To Professor HENRY REED, Philadelphia.

1. "Now, gentlemen, I would rather be the author of

378 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

that poem than take Quebec." * This is indeed a most
interesting anecdote. Query, is it characteristic of military
men to be thus liberal and unappropriative ? I certainly
think that no class of men are so antipathetic to poetry as
men of science, mathematicians, and students of the par-
ticular sciences to which mathematics are applied. The
wider study which we call philosophy, the science of mind
and of being, metaphysics at large, is not thus antagonistic
to poetry, which it embraces in the compass of its analysis.
A metaphysician like Kant is too knowing, too all- sided in
knowledge, to despise poetry as a mere mathematician does.
Plato's sentence upon poetry in the Kepublic has probably
been misunderstood. Chemistry seems akin to poetry,
from the brilliant shows and curious combinations which it
deals with and produces : it is full of sensuous matter for
poetic thought. Davy poetized, though he was not &poet.
I have heard Mr. Wordsworth say he might have been ;
but I think my father, though he overflowed with love and
admiration of Davy, would not have subscribed to that
opinion. He thought William Wordsworth too lavish in his
attributions of poetic power in some directions, as he was
generally considered too slow to allow it in others. When,
in my girlhood, I visited my brother Derwent at St. John's
College, Cambridge, with my dear mother, Professor Sedg-
wick showed me the statue of Newton by Eoubilliac ; and
I remember his expressing an opinion, from which my
young mind strongly dissented, that he was a far greater
man than Milton. He knew far more of Newton's merits
than I did ; but even then I felt Milton as many able,
intelligent men can never do. And I doubt whether the
power and services of a philosopher like Newton cannot be
far better estimated by one unlearned in mathematics and
astronomy, than those of the author of " Paradise Lost "

* Remark of General Wolfe on Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard."
— E. C.

A HAPPY CHILDHOOD. 379

by one who does not understand poetry. For the benefit of
poetry is poetry itself: both to the composer and the
reader, it is its own exceeding great reward.

2. Eminent men, especially in literature, have often, that
is, many eminent men have owed more to their mother than
their father, both for nature and education. It was so with
Cowper, and with my Uncle Southey. But the truth, no
doubt, is, that the parent whose mental qualities are most
powerful and excellent, most moulds the child that attains
to eminence, whether it be father or mother ; and when it
happens to be the latter that is best endowed, we are struck
to find that man has derived less from man than from
woman. Seldom has a poet had so poetical a son as
S. T. C. had in Hartley. Not one poet of this age beside
has transmitted a spark of his fire to his offspring ; but it
is curious that Hartley excelled most in the sonnet, in which
my father excelled least of all the poetic forms that he
attempted.

3. " A father's wrongs." Is not this a doubtful expres-
sion ? But for what had gone before, we should suppose
wrongs suffered by a father to be meant. A wrong is not a
wrongful thing done, but undergone, I think, in common
parlance. "Your injuries "is more ambiguous; perhaps
this is a wrong of mine, my active wrong to your style.

4. All that you say in these pages about the enduring
benefit of early happiness and tranquillity is well said, and
to my mind most true. It is good for children to be happy
and cheerful ; early sorrow weakens the mind, if it does not
harden it, as premature disproportionate labour injures the
body. I know this by experience, and have carefully
shielded my children's young minds from the trouble and
constraints which so often came upon my own, like frosts
and wintry blasts on the " darlings of the spring."

5. " Horace Walpole." — The oftener one meets Walpole
in the region of literary biography, the more the impres-

380 MEMOIB AND LETTEKS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

sion is intensified, that he was a respectable fribble, and a
compact solid mass of frivolity and littleness. Poets are
men of feeling KUT l^o^rjv. They are like soft rich peaches,
and he was the crude, hard, winter pear, that leaves a
dint in every one of the former with which it comes in
contact.

6. I should think Gray could never have written a philo-
sophic poem under any circumstances. I do not believe
that Keats would ever have written anything better or
higher than he had already produced. The " Hyperion,"
so exalted by Shelley, is, to my mind, a falling-off in felici-
tous originality. It is too Miltonic. Gray was a very
sensible man, and self-knowing. His own remarks on the
poetical habits which unfitted him for the production of a
poem of large compass seem to me excellent, and are just
what I have so often heard in other words from W. Words-
worth and H. Taylor. There must be flat rough spaces in
an extensive domain, if it is to be traversed with pleasure,
and Gray could not be flat and rough like Dante. He had
not masculine force enough for that. His verse, if not neat
and polished, would have been nothing. Elegance and
tenderness are its very soul.

7. "Delicate handwriting." — It is remarkable what fine
hands men of genius write, even when they are as awkward
in all other uses of the hand as a cow with a musket.

8. Do you think " Ion " a work of poetic genius, or only
of an admirer of poetic genius? There was a want of
poetic judgment in putting such intense Wordsworthian
modernism into an ancient form, I thought; like drinking
Barclay's entire out of an antique drinking vessel, meant to
hold Chian or Falernian wine. " Ion " was of the same
kind as the Diisseldorf reproductions of Eaphael.

9. Landor would be pleased at your compliment to his
verse Latinity. I have been wont to hear scholars say
that his Latin verse had merit, but not that of classi-

LANDOR'S POETRY. 381

cality. Last winter's number of the Edinburgh Review
contains an article on Landor's poetry by my friend
Mr. Aubrey de Vere. The article contains an ingenious
and eloquent comparison and contrast between the genius
of ancient Greece and that of Catholic Christianity with
reference to poetry and the arts. But it failed to inspire
me with any warm admiration of the poetic productions of
Landor. In him I had, as a girl, an implicit faith, induced
upon me by my uncle's attributions to the great self-
assertor, whose most amiable trait, I must think, is his
cordial admiration of, and warm testimonies to, Eobert
Southey. Landor's criticism is very acute and refined;
his dialogues I admire; but his poems appear to me cold
and ineffective, — the verse of a man too knowing and
tasteful to write bad poetry, but without poetic genius to
write well. At least, such was the impression on my
mind. Some few passages of Landor's poetry are striking.
I was a little disappointed that you did not notice here my
father's notes on " Gray's Platonica." " Whatever might
be expected from a scholar, a gentleman, a man of exquisite
taste, as the quintessence of sane and sound good sense,
Mr. Gray appears to me to have performed. The poet
Plato, etc., etc. But Plato the philosopher was not to be
comprehended within the field of vision, or to be com-
manded by the fixed immovable telescope of Mr. Locke's
human understanding."

10. De Quincey (" the Opium Eater," as he un-
disguisedly calls himself), called Parr a coarse old savage,
and whatever his scholarship might be, would give him
little credit, I believe, for. any judgment on the internal
merits of Plato.

11. Ode to Eton College. My father criticises the stanza
" Say, Father Thames," as the ." only very objectionable one
in point of diction; " the worst ten lines, he calls it, in all

382 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

the works of Mr. Gray ; " falsetto throughout, harsh and
feeble." He also condemns —

1 And Envy wan, etc.

2 Grim visaged, etc.

3 And sorrow's piercing dart.

As, 1, bad in the first ; 2, in the second ; 3, in the last
degree. How different the fate of poor " Christabei," when
she did appear! Enemies so fierce that even old friends
seemed afraid to admire and protect her. I have heard her
sneered at, and Lord Byron's praise called flummery, by
men who now would as soon think of sneering at Gray's
Elegy as at the " wild and original poem." I wonder what
Dodsley's "pinches" were. One would rather not have
any particular locality for the Elegy, than have one
assigned, I think.

12. The strain of thought in the Elegy would not have
made it popular without the strain of verse, the metrical
accordance with the tone of feeling in the contents. But
this metrical accordance is surely but the causa sine qua non
of its general acceptability. The efficient cause — the
peculiar merit — I have ever supposed to be that inexpres-
sible felicity and delightfulness of diction of which the line
noticed by Sir E. Brydges, "The rude forefathers of the
hamlet sleep," is but one instance out of a host. Then the
composition and combination of the sentiments and images
— in this lies the charm — more than in the images them-
selves. These, indeed, were not new — scarce one but had
been presented in poetry before. It has been the fashion
with admirers of Shelley and Keats to disparage Gray. I
remember coming out bluntly to my friend Mr. de Vere with
the opinion, that he looked coldly upon the author of the
Elegy, purely because he was simple and intelligible, and
used the English language in the ordinary senses, not pro-
curing for himself a semblance of the sublime by an easily

A LETTER OF CEABBE. 383

assumed obscurity, and a mock magnificence by straining
and inflection. For the same reason Crabbe is undervalued
by devotees of Tennyson. Yet his "Tales of the Hall"
display an acquaintance with the fine shades of human
character, and the various phases and aspects of human
sorrow — a vein of reflectiveness softened by poetic feeling,
which render them a most interesting study to persons who
have seen enough of life, as it is, in all its strangeness and
sadness, to recognize the truth and worth of his representa-
tions. I believe that Crabbe, in his personal character, has
all that sympathy with suffering humanity which appears
in his poems ; yesterday I read a private letter of his, in
which he laments over the introduction of machinery — and
yet allows for the necessity of the employers to use agents
that "do not eat and drink." His sympathy with both
parties is remarkable. I believe he was a gentle-hearted
creature.

13. How stupid not to like the "Long Story" ! Surely
that might have been understood at once. "Not a wise
remembrance." It is sometimes a relief thus to objectize
our ailments. It seems to cast them out from us and give
us a sort of mastery over them. The dumb state of misery,
when one dares not talk of it, is by far the worst. Then it
seems to possess one's whole being. There is a comfort
also in looking back, and seeing what miseries one has gone
through before and got beyond.

14. " Tour to the Lakes." It is said that Gray set the
fashion of touring to the English Lakes in search of the
picturesque. His horse-block is still shown near the vicar-
age of Keswick, on a hill overlooking Crosthwaite church-
yard, where my Uncle's and Aunt Southey's remains lie
buried, with Skiddaw in front.

15. Tintern Abbey. The "Lines on Tintern Abbey" is,
in my opinion, one of the finest strains of verse which this
age has produced.

384 MEMOIB AND LETTERS OF SABA COLERIDGE.

16. This disquisition is very interesting. I think it is
not sufficiently attended to, that " what a man does is the
measure of what he can do," from one cause or another.

17. "High spirits take away mine."* The quiet glad-
ness of children always cheers me; but the hilarity and
vigour of grown persons depress the weak and tremulous
spirits. We are hurt by the want of sympathy; and the
comparison is odious.

* A saying of Gray's. — E. C.

THE PAPAL AGGRESSION. 385

CHAPTEE XXIV.

LETTERS TO THE EEV. HENEY MOORE, MRS. MOORE,
MISS FENWICK, MRS. FARRER, AUBREY DE VERE,
ESQ., EDWARD QUILLINAN, ESQ., PROFESSOR HENRY
REED: 1851.

Causes of the Indifference to the Papal Aggression displayed both by
Ultra-High Churchmen and Ultra-Liberals — Mixed Character of
all National Movements — The Three Chief Religious Parties, and
the Right of each to a place in the English Church.

To Mrs. MOORE.

10, Chester Place, January 2nd, 1851. — I should much
like to know Mr. Moore's opinion on the present crisis in

the Church. I think you and he and Miss H generally

agree on matters of this kind, your root principles and
sentiments being pretty much the same ; and therefore I
mention only him, his being the masculine voice of the trio.
We, in this house, are very decided anti-papal aggres-
sionists, and I, for my part, am too regular a " John
Bulliana," as Sir F. Palgrave once called me, to give in to
any of the new-fangled views of toleration preached up by
the ultra-church party on one hand, and the ultra-liberal
party on the other. I conceive that a certain sympathy
with Eome inspires these views in the former, secret hopes
of a re-union of Christendom, and reluctance to adopt any
strong measure, or use any strong language against his
Holiness ; and that, in the latter, they proceed from indiffer-
ence both to Anglicanism and Komanism, an opinion that
the pretensions of the vicar of Christ are not more nugatory
and chimerical, even if more extravagant, than those of our
own priests and bishops.

I cannot help thinking that this indifference and scorn

386 MEMOIR AND LETTEKS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

in the latter party would shrink into a very small compass
— I mean that few respectable and thoughtful men would
entertain it — if the pretensions and claims of the clergy in
our Church were put on a more rational, intelligible founda-
tion, if they were moral rather than mystical, according to
the spirit of the Eeformation, and entirely purified from
Komish and dark-agish superstitions. However that may
be, I rejoice in the demonstration against Popery which is
now making by the people of. England, and I have been

telling Mr. that to style it a no-Popery row about the

royal supremacy is more sarcastic than just. The move-
ment has a thousand different grades and faces, but it is
partaken by a very large proportion of the worthiest and
most refined of the clergy and laity of this land. How
could a national movement like this fail to include in its
lower circles all that was low and abhorrent to the wise and
well-educated ? All the great movements to which we owe
our present high place among the nations have carried
along with them a mass of iniquity. Maurice, in his
"Church a Family," observes that "when the words 'no
Virgin Mary,' ' no forgiveness of sins,' are seen written
upon our walls, clergymen should think a little before they
fill whole sermons with specimens of Mariolatry, or with
the perversions of the confessional."

I protest I cannot see the logic of this. (" How should
you," Mr. Moore would say, "being of the illogical sex?")
Ministers of the gospel, a part of whose vocation is to
drive away false doctrine and prevent schism, are to refrain
from preaching against the corruptions of Popery, even
when it is beleaguering us round about and thundering at
our very gates, because idle, irreligious boys scribble
thoughtless nonsense upon the walls! " No Virgin Mary "
may be a good Protestant sentiment, it may mean no
Virgin to be made an object of worship, and "no forgiveness
of sins" may mean superstitiously by a priest. If it is meant

EELIGIOUS INTOLEBANCE. 387

in the literal sense, it is a denial of revealed religion ; and
what have we to do with that ?

The irreligion of these scribblers is not caused by contro-
versial sermons, but arises from want and misery and
spiritual destitution, and is to be met by positive remedies,
if at all, not by abstinence from a particular line of preach-
ing fitly addressed to any decent congregation.

I dare say you will agree with me on one point with
respect to the present movement, and that is in detesting
the silly, narrow, shabby way in which Tractarianism has
been attacked in so many quarters, or rather Tract arians.
This is sheer party spirit and overbearing intolerance.
Some of the Tractarians are really disloyal to our Church,
and it is too true that manv^ do unintentionally, by the
tenor and spirit of their preaching, send younger men to
Kome, while they themselves are not prepared to go that
length in honour of their principles. But the main body of
the Anglo-Catholics have as much right to keep their places
in our Church as the main body of the Evangelicals, or
the Philosophicals.

Tractarianism is as wide and vague a word as Rational-
ism or Germanism ; every man so calls his neighbour who
is more High Church than himself, and adopts more of
those doctrines and practices which belong to Eome and
are not forbidden to us, than he thinks proper to do ; and so,
too, every man accuses every other man of Eationalism
who doubts the truth or accuracy of any tenet or doctrinal
formula which he holds sacred, on the score of its wanting
reason.

The Tractarian party have shown such an intolerant
spirit themselves on many occasions, that I own my feel-
ings are more of contemptuous indignation against their
adversaries than of sympathy with themselves. Even now
how many of them are pining for a Convocation, which, as
they flatter themselves, is to banish from the Church the

MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

school represented to their minds by Gorham. A decree of
the assembled Synod is to drive away the whole multitude
of those who will not declare positively before God and man
that all infants are internally regenerate in baptism, and
rendered secure of heaven by baptism, a belief not properly
compatible with belief in election; for St. Augustine's
regeneration of the non-elect was a mere term for baptism,
implying no spiritual gift whatever, no forgiveness of sin,
or possession by the Spirit.

Now, this would be to banish a school which has existed
in the Church ever since the Eeformation, and is in reality
quite as intolerant as the conduct of their adversaries in
the present moment, though it may not have been mani-
fested in so coarse and childish a form, 'simply because
Anglo- Catholicism is not a popular mode of faith, and has
never spread so wide nor gone so low in the mass of society
as puritanical Protestantism.

II.

Letter to Countess Ida Halm-Halm by Abeken— " Death's Jest Book/'
and other Dramatic Works, by Mr. Beddoes.

To Mrs. FABRER, 3, Gloucester Terrace.

Chester Place, January, 1851. — I am much pleased at your
concurrence of opinion with me about the letter to Countess
Ida. It is by Abeken, a great friend of the Chevalier
Bunsen. This little work sets forth the distinctive charac-
ters of Eomanism and Protestantism more forcibly, I
should almost say profoundly, than any other work I have
met with. The defence of the Eeformation seems to me
admirable. It mirrored to me all my own views with new
force and distinctness.

Dearest Mrs. Farrer, you once kindly sent some dramatic
poems of Beddoes here, which I declined reading, not liking
my impression of the " Death's Jest Book," in which I saw
much to admire, to be interfered with, and hearing they

"DEATH'S JEST-BOOK." 389

were much inferior to that. Just before I went into Staf-
fordshire, I received that drama from the author, and put
it aside. After my return I took it up, considering it a
duty at least to look it through. I had been repelled by the
first peep I took into it. Those were my days, or rather
nights, of reading in bed, and so struck was I with the
powerful original imagery, and some of the wild situations
of the drama, that I did not lay it down till I had perused
the whole. I was really thrilled with some parts, the effect,
perhaps, being enhanced by the nightly gloom and silence.
Well, I resolved to express my admiration to the author the
very next day, and I was not the less inclined to be pleased,
that on the blank leaf I found a gratifying inscription, and
that the author was the son of an old Bristol friend of my
father. But in the morning came a letter from Mr. Quil-
linan, expressing warm admiration of the drama I had just
been reading, and at 4he same time announcing the death
of the author in rapid decline. I thought mournfully of
Gray's elegiac sentiment —

" Can flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death ? "

It was not flattery, in the common acceptation of the
word, that I meant to address to Mr. Beddoes, but a sincere
tribute of praise, for as much as it was worth.

Yet, after all, dear Mrs. Farrer, I quite agree in your
strictures on this same striking production. The plot is
most extravagant, and some of the characters are so wicked
for mere wickedness' sake, that they are placed without the
pale of humanity, and therefore out of reach of our human
interests and sympathies. Still, with all these great faults,
the play interested me greatly.

390 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

III.

Mr. Carlyle's "Life of Sterling" — Autobiography of Leigh Hunt —

Epicureanism.
To Miss MORRIS.

March 12th, 1851.— Did you read Carlyle's "Life of
Sterling " ? To me the work is fascinating, as far as the
biographical part is concerned. Dr. Calvert (Sterling's
dear friend) was a lifelong intimate friend of mine. The
chapter on S. T. C. is ridiculous. Leigh Hunt's Autobio-
graphy is most entertaining. What a Christianified epi-
cureanism is his religion ! Yet such is the religion of a
large portion of our amiable, refined, intelligent men. High
Churchmen, Evangelical, Sceptical, Epicurean, such are
the chief divisions of religious thought, I believe, among the
educated nowadays.

IV.

Early Reminiscences of the Character and Conversation of Mr. Words-
worth and Mr. Southey — Youthful Impressions mostly Uncon-
scious—The Platonic Ode— The "Triad" compared with "Lycidas"
— The "Prelude" — Testimonies contained in it to the Friendship
between her Father and Mr. Wordsworth.

To Professor HENRY REED, Philadelphia.

Chester Place, May 19th, 1851. — I dare say that you and
your friend, Mr. Yarnall, have lately been dwelling a good
deal on the two-volume "Memoir of Wordsworth," which I
finished slowly perusing last night in my hours of wakeful-
ness. For, alas ! I sleep but every other night, — the inter-
vening one is now almost wholly sleepless. Mr. H. C.
Eobinson requested that I would use the pencil or pen
freely on the margin of his copy: "the -more notes the
better." I fear he will be greatly disappointed by what I
have written, and I almost wish it rubbed out, it is so
trifling, and in some instances not to the purpose — as, I
fear, the owner of the book will think. I knew dear Mr.
Wordsworth perhaps as well as I have ever known any one

MR. WORDSWORTH AND MR. SOUTHEY. 391

in the world — more intimately than I knew my father, and
as intimately as I knew my Uncle Southey. There was
much in him to know, and the lines of his character were
deep and strong — the whole they formed, simple and im-
pressive. His discourse, as compared with my father's, was
as the Latin language to the Greek, or, to borrow a com-
parison which has been applied to Shakespeare and Milton,
as statuary to painting; it was intelligent, wise, and easily
remembered. But in my youth, when I enjoyed such ample
opportunities of taking in his mind, I listened to "enjoy
and not to understand," much less to report and inform
others. In our springtime of life we are poetical, not
literary, and often absorb unconsciously the intellectual
airs that blow or stilly dwell around us, as our bodies do
the fragrant atmosphere of May, — full of the breath of
primroses and violets, — and are nourished thereby without
reflecting upon the matter, any more than we classify and
systematize after Linnaeus or Jussieu, the vernal blossoms
which delight our outward senses. I used to take long
walks with Mr. Wordsworth about Kydal and Grasmere,
and sometimes, though seldom, at Keswick, to his Apple-
thwaite cottage, listening to his talk all the way ; and for
hours have I often listened when he conversed with my
uncle, or indoors at Eydal Mount, when he chatted or
harangued to the inmates of his household or the neigh-
bours. But I took no notes of his discourse either on the
tablet of memory or on material paper ; my mind and turn
of thought were gradually moulded by his conversation, and
the influences under which I was brought by his means in
matters of intellect, whilst in those which concerned the
heart and the moral being I was still more deeply and
importantly indebted to the character and daily conduct of
my admirable Uncle Southey. Yet I never adopted the
opinions of either en masse, and since I have come to years
of secondary and more mature reflection, I have been unable

392 MEMOIK AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

to retain many which I received from them. The impres-
sion upon my feelings of their minds remains unabated in
force ; but the formal views and judgments which I received
from their lips are greatly modified, though not more than
they themselves modified and re-adjusted their own views
and judgments from youth to age.

You express surprise at something I let fall in a former
letter, on what I consider the difference and inferiority in
kind of Mr. Wordsworth's late poems from those of his youth
and middle age. I must own that I do see this very
strongly, and should as little think of comparing that on
the "Power of Sound" with the " Platonic Ode," or the
" Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle ; " as — what shall
I say ? — the Crystal Palace with Windsor Castle ; or the
grand carved sideboard in the former with 'the broad oak
of the forest when its majestic stem of strong and solid
wood is robed in foliage of tender, mellow green. Those
earlier odes seem to be organic wholes : the first of them is
in some sort an image of the individual spirit of which it is
an efflux. The energy and felicity of its language is so
great, that every passage and every line of it has been
received into the poetical heart of this country, and has
become the common expression of certain moods of mind
and modes of thought, which had hardly been developed
before its appearance. The ode on the "Power of Sound,"
like the " Triad," is an elegant composition by a poetic
artist — a poetical will-work, not as a whole, I should say,
a piece of inspiration, though some lines in it are breath-
ings of the poetic spirit.

I confess, at the risk of lowering my taste in your esteem,
which I should be right sorry to do, yet not liking to retain
it by mere suppression of a part of my mind — a serious and
decided part, which has stood assaults of poetic reasoning
of no small force and animation ; I do confess that I have
never been able to rank the "Triad" among Mr. Words-

'THE TKIAD." 393

worth's immortal works of genius. It is just what he came
into the poetical world to condemn, and both by practice
and theory to supplant. It is, to my mind, artificial and
unreal. There is no truth in it as a whole, although bits
of truth, glazed and magnified, are embodied in it, as in the
lines, " Features to old ideal grace allied," a most unin-
telligible allusion to a likeness discovered in dear Dora's
contour of countenance to the great Memnon head in the
British Museum, with its overflowing lips and width of
mouth, which seems to be typical of the ocean. The poem
always strikes me as a mongrel — an amphibious thing,
neither portrait nor ideal, but an ambiguous cross between
the two. Mr. de Vere, before he knew me, took it for a
personification of Faith, Hope, and Charity, taken in
inverse order — a sufficient proof, I think, that it is ex-
travagant and unnatural as a description of three young
ladies of the nineteenth century. In "Lycidas," poetic
idealism is r^ot brought so closely into contrast and conflict
with familiar reality, as in the " Triad," because it contains
no description of the individual. The theme in reality is
quite general and abstract — death by drowning of the friend
of a great poet, in his bloom of youth, a minister of the
Gospel. This theme is adorned with all the pomp and
garniture of classic and Hebraic imagery that could be
clustered and cumulated round it. After all, in theory
Milton's mixture of Pagan mythology with the spiritualities
of the Gospel is not defensible. The best defence of
"Lycidas" is not to defend the design of it at all, but to
allege that the execution is perfect, the diction the ne plus
ultra of grace and loveliness, and that the spirit of the
whole is as original as if the poem contained no traces of
the author's acquaintance with ancient pastoral poetry,
from Theocritus downwards. I am much pleased to see
how highly Mr. Wordsworth speaks of Virgil's style, and of
his "Bucolics," which I have ever thought most graceful

394 MEMOIB AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

and tender. They are quite another thing from Theocritus,
however they may be based upon Theocritus.

You invited me, in a former letter, to speak to you of the
" Prelude ; " but this must be reserved for a future com-
munication. I can only say, now, that I was deeply
delighted in reading it, and think it a truly noble composi-
tion. It is not, perhaps, except in certain passages, which
had been extracted and given to the public before the
publication of the poem as a whole, effective and brilliant
poetry ; but it is deeply interesting as the image of a great
poetic mind : none but a mind on a great scale could have
produced it. As a supplement to the poetic works of the
author, it is of the highest value. You may imagine how I
was affected and gladdened by the warm tributes which it
contains to my father, and the proof it affords of their close
intimacy and earnest friendship. I think the history of
literature hardly affords a parallel instance of entire union
and unreserve between two poets. There may have been
more co-operation betwixt Beaumont and Fletcher; but,
from the character of their lives, there could hardly have
been such pure love and consonancy of thought and feeling
on high themes, and accordance in high aims and en-
deavours. Mr. Yarnall's remembrances of the poet in his
last year I thought highly interesting. I saw in them a
touch of Wordsworth's own manner, a reverent tenderness
and " solemn gloom." To judge from the notes of Mrs.
Davy and Lady Kichardson, Mr. Wordsworth must have
been somewhat more like his old self in discourse when at
his own home, surrounded by the natural objects in which
he took such high interest, than when I was with him at
Miss Fenwick's, at Bath, in the spring of that sad summer
which deprived him of his beloved daughter. Then, he
seemed unable to talk, except in snatches and fragments ;
and there was nothing fresh in what he said. His speech
seemed to me but a feeble, mournful echo of his former
utterances.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE OF 1851. 895

Visit to the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park— Sculpture and Jewels— The
Royal Academy of 1851 —Portrait of Mr. Wordsworth by
Pickersgill — Supposed Tendency to Pantheism in the "Lines on
Tintern Abbey."

To Miss FENWICK.

May Z5th, 1851, Chester Place. — Dearest Miss Fenwick, —
Yesterday, for the first time, I visited the Crystal Palace,
and ever since I have been longing for you to see it. Is it
quite impossible for you to come up to me first, and see
this interesting assemblage of works of art ? I saw so
many Bath chairs, and invalids in them, so many, many
degrees weaker than you or I. You could be wheeled about
to everything with perfect ease, and there are several
gentlemen, either of whom would delight to devote time to
going about with us and showing us everything.

I had a perfect dread of the thing before I went, and
would not have gone at all but to escape the perpetual
question, " Have you seen the great wonder ? " and " Do go
with me. Do let me take you to see it." I would not go
with any party, fearing that I should have to stay longer
than my strength would allow. Yesterday, E. and I went

under the care of Mr. D ; we stayed four hours, and I

came away far less fatigued than I have often felt after half
an hour in the Eoyal Academy. The difference arises from
the freedom in walking about, and the freshness of the
atmosphere. In this great conservatory or glass house, v;e
are perfectly sheltered from all inclemency of weather, all
too muchness of hot or cold, wind or sun, and under foot are
smooth boards which do not try the limbs like the inequali-
ties of street or road; and yet there is an openness and
space, and free circulation of air such as was never enjoyed, I
suppose, under cover before. I did not think to stay more
than one hour, but four soon slipped away. We were lucky
in meeting Lord Monteagle, who talked instructively to me

896 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

on the works of art, and pointed out a most graceful and
beautiful piece of sculpture by Gibson, which I afterwards
showed to friends whom I met, telling them at the same
time of Lord Monteagle's criticism. . . . Lord Monteagle

talked of little A , and of his having enjoyed one of the

greatest honours a mortal could obtain, in having been
preferred to the hippopotamus ! I dare say you may have

heard the story of little A 's choosing to see grandpapa,

rather than to visit the zoological favourite new-comer.

At first I felt mortified to see how British art, in the high
line of sculpture, appeared to be outdone by foreign, — all
the striking pieces, and those which occupied the con-
spicuous places in the centre of the great middle aisle,
being German, Italian, or French performances. The
grandest thing in this way is an Amazon * on horseback,
about to spear a lioness, who has leaped upon her horse,
and is trying to throttle it. The huntress sits back upon
her steed, the right leg drawn up, the left extended on the
other side below the belly of the horse, a superb torn-boy
indeed. The piece is colossal. Then there are two fishing
girls by Monti of Milan, most lovely, but quite real-life-ish,
—not like Gibson's piece, which would be almost taken for
a Greek antique, and there are such beauteous little babes
in marble, one little fellow strapped to his cot, from which
he is trying to rear himself up. But among the most
striking performances are two groups by Lequesne : (1) A
dog protecting a boy, about four or five years old, from a
serpent ; (2) the dog, having bitten off the serpent's head,
caressed by the child. The contrast in the face of the dog
when he is about to kill the serpent and when he has done
the job, is most expressive ; in the first group it 'is sharpened
with anxiety, it looks almost like that of a wolf, full of
horror and disgust at the noxious beast, and cautious
determination. In the second, it is all abroad with com-

* By Kiss, a German sculptor. — E. C.

THE KOHINOOE. 397

fortable, placid satisfaction, and affectionate good-nature.
These, of course, are only a few in a crowd.

I was disappointed in the great diamond, even though I
had heard that it disappointed every one. There is nothing
diamondy in it that I can see, no multiplicity of sparkle, it
looks only like a respectable piece of crystal. The two
strings of large pearls of the East India Company are very
fine, but I have some strings of large mock pearl which
look almost as well, and they can be imitated still more
nearly. The huge emeralds, too, look rather glassy. Of
all the works of art adapted to the uses of domestic life, the
most exquisite is the Gobelin tapestry ; in our noblemen's
palaces and houses there is nothing like it. The bunches
of flowers are more delicate and brilliant than any painting
I ever saw. The carved wood furniture is very fine, but in
that department the English equal the French, except in
one sideboard, supported by four hounds, which is the
most elegantly magnificent thing I ever saw. The grand
beds, too, are very grand. The crowd was far greater
yesterday than it ever was before, and what it will be on the
shilling days I know not. It was fine to look down from
the galleries, and see such a vast mass of human beings all
in motion, enjoying themselves, and animated. Everybody
looked pleased and comfortable.

The picture exhibition, too, is worth seeing. I like
Watts' portrait of Mr. Taylor much, and there are beautiful
portraits of Gibson, the sculptor, and a lady by Boxall.
Eastlake's Hippolita is very beautiful, but too pinky.
Pickersgill's portrait of our dear departed great poet is in-
sufferable— velvet waistcoat, neat shiny boots — just the sort
of dress he would not have worn if you could have hired
him — and a sombre sentimentalism of countenance quite
unlike his own look, which was either elevated with high
gladness or deep thought, or at times simply and childishly
gruff, — but never tender after that fashion, so lackadaisical
and mawkishly sentimental.

398 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Dr. Wordsworth's apologizing in the "Life," for the
"Lines on Tintern Abbey," seems to me injudicious.
Those great works of the Poet's vigorous mind must stand
for themselves ; it is on them, I believe, that Wordsworth's
fame will rest, and by them he must be judged.

But why admit for a moment that they might be accused
of Pantheism, or that Wordsworth might, had he not
written in a different spirit late in life ? If they had really
proceeded from a Pantheistic view, they ought to have been
suppressed if possible. Their beauty and power ought not
to have saved them ; this would give them influence, — add
wings to the poisoned shaft. But there is no such thing as
Pantheism truly imputable to them.

VI.

Intellectual Tuft-hunting.
To E. QUILLINAN, ESQ.

1851. — A parent cannot say to a son, "You must never
form an intimacy except with decidedly superior men."
There would be a sort of intellectual tuft-hunting in this,
which could not lead to good, for man is a very complex
animal, and cannot be determined in his movements and
procedure by one part of his nature without regard to the
rest, and our connections arise from many influences, all of
which cannot be given an exact account of.

VII.

The Bears of Literature — Margate — Bean-fields and Water Companies
— Leibnitz on the Nature of the Soul — Materialism of the Early
Fathers — Historical Reading — Scott's Novels.

To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq.

3, Zion Place, Eastdiff, Margate, June 20th, 1851. — I have
delayed writing to you more as reserving a pleasure, than
postponing a time-consuming task, for the subjects which
you invite me to investigate with you are so interesting to
my mind that a letter to you is always a high entertainment

EDITORS AND REVIEWERS. 399

to myself, whether or no to you it be a treat so far as it is a
treatise, or only acceptable as a personal communication.
I ought to have written sooner, however, to express my
grateful delight in what you have undertaken on behalf of
dear Hartley's poetry. It is painful to think of your com-
position being cut and slashed and squeezed and ground,
and perhaps inlaid and vamped by editorial interference.
Still, in any shape, the article will be very acceptable,
unless more tampered with than I can believe probable;
and even if aught unforeseen should prevent its appearance
altogether, it would always be most agreeable to me to
think of your having written it. I should like to see your
composition in its original virgin state, like the gadding
vine or well- attired woodbine, free and luxuriant in kindly
remark and beauty-finding criticism. An editor of a critical
review ought to be painted with a pruning-hook in his hand
as big as himself, and an axe beside him, just ready to fall
edge foremost upon his own foot, — only that it would
tantalize one to see it always suspended. There's a piece
of savagery ! The foot ought to be represented as rough as
that of a bear, and clumsy as the pedestal of an elephant,
to denote the rough clumsy way in which those ursine
editors go ramping and ravaging about the fairest flower-
gardens. Don't you remember how C 's great hoofs

went plunging about in Tennyson's first volume, containing
"Mariana," "The Miller's Daughter," and the "Ode to
Memory," and "The Dying Swan," and " CEnone," the
loveliest and most characteristic things, to my fancy, that
he ever wrote ? Indeed, C — — 's stamping down that pretty
bed of heart's ease, Moxon's Sonnets, was shameful, and
showed him fit to be chained to a post, or shut up with the
guests of Circe, in a sty of tolerable accommodation and
capacity, for the rest of his bearish and GriUine existence.
All this indignation streams forth from me on the pressure
of the mere thought of the treatment that your article is to

400 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

receive. " But let them go, and be you blithe and bonny,"
oh ! products of poetic genius of every degree, from the
greatest to the least, in spite of the Bears of Literature,
remembering how Keats was treated, who now by some
critics is boldly styled the most poetical poet of the age.

My general health has derived as much benefit from my
stay here as it usually does from a seaside visit. I walk
an hour in the morning, and in the evening an hour or fifty
minutes. I could do more than this in the way of exercise,
but though my strength would allow of it, I fear that it
might not be prudent.

The weather was quite wintry, a spring temperature,
with the squally look and sound of winter, during the first
nine or ten days of our stay. Now it begins to be Juneish,
the butterflies are abroad, especially the azure ones, that
seem to be animated bits cut out of the sapphire of the still
blue sea; the corn poppy rears its head, that was hung down
like that of an eastern slave making a low obeisance, and
discloses its scarlet head-gear ; while the blossomed beans
look up and seem to stare at us with their clear black eye,
the jetty iris surrounded by a snowy cornea. Have you ever
observed this in the bean-blossom ? — it is really pretty to
behold. The sweet odours from the bean-fields, and from
little gardens full of stocks, carnations, roses, gilly-flowers,
pinks, and southernwood, which we pass on our cliff walk,
are an agreeable contrast to the vile ones which annoy us
when we enter the town to post letters, or get a book from
one of the libraries. The whole way round the town there
are not many yards of ground free from this nuisance.
Surely many summers will not pass ere Margate radically
reforms her drainage, and every town and city in England
adopts those better plans of water-supply and extrusion of
uncleanness which are already before the public. How
strange it seems that Government should in any degree
admit the proposals of the water companies for consolidat-

LEIBNITZ ON THE SOUL. 401

ing them, and granting them a monopoly of this lucrative
business ! What can they say in answer to the allegations
against the old system, and all that is advanced in support
of another plan ? I do think, in all matters of this kind,
which concern the public health, Government ought to be
paternal and governing; and I hope, in time, the country
will support them in taking such businesses into their own
hands, and conducting them on a plan having the advan-
tage of unity. But you will see that I am talking after the
article on centralization, etc., in the last Quarterly an
article which pleased me very much, because it both gave
me new information, and confirmed some of my old opinions
that the Government, on sanitary matters, should act more
boldly, and take more upon it than heretofore, and not
suffer what is important to the health of the community to
be misguggled by individual selfishness and caprice, or the
rapacious dishonesty of companies.

I have been reading Leibnitz on the origin and nature
and composition of the soul, and found much in his
teaching that is satisfactory. But of this more anon. He
says, with a sage simplicity, that if his doctrine, as was
objected to it, represents the souls of beasts as imperishable,
it is much better to allow them immortality than to deny it
to men. He thinks that the Anti-Platonism of some of the
early Fathers (indeed, I believe, of all the orthodox ones),
which made the soul, in all finite beings, men and angels,
to be material, not immortal per se, by its original con-
formation, but only made so, in particular cases, by the
arbitrary determination of the Creator, keeping alive the
good for reward and the evil for punishment, — is a danger-
ous notion. And certainly, if materialism, in any shape,
is commended to the minds of men, however guarded it
may be by the teachers of it within the Church, by a
corollary framed in support of Kevelation, it will be laid
hold of by teachers without the Church, and easily

402 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

separated from its pious appendix. The more agreement
can be made out betwixt philosophy and religion, the better
for the interests of the latter ; the more foundation for the
hopes to which Kevelation points can be laid on the ground
of reason, the better for the authority of the former. And
yet some Christian teachers in all ages have manifested a
jealousy of support to religious doctrine supplied by reason,
as if the ally must needs prove an usurper. Such usurp-
ation would be but a supplanting of herself.

My reading books here are Leibnitz, Eanke, and the
Scotch Novels, and of these the middle is the one to which
alone I find it difficult to enchain my attention. History is
always difficult to me, because taking in so much fact at
once is like making a meal all of dry bread. As for Scott,
I grieve to be nearing the end of his charming productions.
They fill a place in literature which they have entirely to
themselves. No other books combine the same qualities,
— so much humour, so much information, so high a tone,
varying from the chivalrous to the gentlemanly, and such
an out-of-door freshness, the scene being so much in the
open air, or in mansions connected with nature or elevated
by historic association, or rendered interesting by the way
in which they show characteristics of the Scottish peasantry
or townsfolk.

THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 403

CHAPTEE XXV.

LETTERS TO MR. ELLIS YARN ALL, PROFESSOR HENRY
REED, AUBREY DE VERE, ESQ., THOMAS BLACK-
BURNE, ESQ., MISS FEN WICK : July— December, 1851.

A Visit to the Zoological Gardens.
To AUBREY DE VERE, Esq.

10, Chester Place, August ISth, 1851. — I was very sorry to
find that I had missed you on my return from the
Zoological Gardens. You should visit the animals if you
have not heen there for some time. I never saw the
creatures so well provided for before, their dwellings so
spacious, or their peculiar habits so attended to in the
arrangements, sham rocks and trees appropriately dis-
tributed, and careful directions everywhere to the visitors
what is not to be done to the annoyance and injury of the
unspeaking inhabitants.

There are two kitten jaguars, which alone are worth
going to see. Such darls ! I wish I had seen them when
they were still smaller. These are on the lion side. On
the opposite, one of the large dens holds six or seven lovely
leopards, which were lying about in a choice variety of
easy, elegant attitudes, the long tail of one special beauty
depending carelessly over a bough, the lithe limb stretched
out opposite. She looked like an eastern sultana, very
young. Wordsworth might well choose the " Panther in
the Wilderness " as an emblem of beauty, — their forms,
their motions, their exquisitely variegated coat, all are so
beautiful; and they look both good-natured and playful.
The giraffes so remind one of a delirious dream, that I
think if I were to look at them long I should go off into a

404 MEMOIK AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

sort of trance. Oh, how very hideous the ourang-outang is !
Why did Nature make such a hideous creature ? And how
the elephants look like a first rude clumsy formation of her
" prentice hand," and yet I suppose their construction is
not simpler or less refined than that of slenderer creatures.
How one is struck, in these gardens, with the way in which
the inferior animals are adapted and conformed, each to a
certain habitat, monkeys and leopards and the sloth to
trees, though each in a different way, great birds to rocks,
giraffes to places where there are high trees, the hippo-
potamus to streams, &c., while man is fitted to no habita-
tion, but fits a habitation to himself, except that the
constitutions of some peoples are suited to certain climates.

II.

Immortality — Causes of Ancient and Modern Infidelity — Comparative
Advantages of America and Europe — Copies from the Old Masters
—The Bridgewater Gallery — The High Church Movement— The
Central Truth of Christianity — Merits of Anglicanism as com-
pared with Romanism, Quakerism, and Scepticism — Danger of
Staking the Faith on External Evidences — Pre-eminence ascribed
by certain Fathers and Councils of the Church to the See of
Rome — The Protestant Ground of Faith — The Theory of Develop-
ment— A Dinner Party at Mr. Kenyon's — Interesting Appearance
and High Poetic Gifts of Mrs. Browning — Expression and Thought
in Poetry — Women's Novels — Conclusion.
To Mr. ELLIS YABNALL,* Philadelphia, U.S.

10, Chester Place, Regent's Park, August 28th, 1851.—
Dear Mr. Yarnall, — I will begin an answer to your interest-
ing letter at once, not waiting for more time, or aught else,
to answer it suitably, and as I should like to do ; for I
know how much better ever so brief an answer is than
none, so that it be not short in friendly feelings. It was
by no means necessary to apologize, as you do, for the
personal accounts in your letter, which were to me remark-

* Afriend and fellow-townsman of Professor Reed's, from whom he
brought an introduction to my mother, while on a visit to England in the
summer of 1849.— E. C.

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 405

ably interesting. A good and wise man, one who is
enjoying life himself, and promoting the welfare and
happiness of others, called away suddenly,

" While those whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket,"

is always a subject for serious meditation on the ways of
God with man, and to religious minds an evidence that
here we have no abiding city, — that the best estate of frail
mortals, so frail as earthly beings, so strong in the
heavenly part of their constitution, is when they feel them-
selves to be strangers and pilgrims here below. What a
depth of consolation there is in some of those expressions
in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews ! How they articulate
the voice of immortality within us, and countervail the
melancholy oracle of Lucretius, with their calm and
confident assurances ! The atheism of Epicurus gained its
power upon the mind from the irrationality and anti-
moralism, the sensuality and cruelty involved in the
popular religion which it opposed. And just so it is, I
think, in the present day ; the deniers of Eevelation, and
doubters of a future state, the disbelievers even of a God
and an immortality for man in His presence, acquire all
their strength from the weakness of the mediaeval ecclesi-
astical system, its audacious contradictions of Scripture
and the moral sense, and the unscrupulous use it makes of
the most corrupt human instrumentalities for the further-
ance of its purposes, and consolidation of its power. But I
must not plunge into this large subject at present.

I looked out in the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
Society's maps for the places you mention, and found some
of them, and ascertained their relation to New York. It is
very interesting to think how a ready-made civilization is
rapidly spreading around that vast westerly lake, Michigan.
It seems to me that in your country you have a great deal
of our refinement without our troublesome tedious con-

HEMOIB AUD LETT-BBS OF SABA COLEBHK

ventionality. You have books, and in them the main
substance of cultivation, the best part of civilization ; and
you have a noble, beautiful nature around you, which
would do nothing to elevate the mind by itself, but where
intellectual education has laid a ground-work, becomes an
exalting and refining influence, and a perpetual sdurce of
delight. I wish you had more pictures by the old
imaginative masters, and some of the architectural and
sculptorial works of past generations of men, whose
circumstances enabled them to do what never can be done
again, unless a new state of things conies in, of which
there is now no prospect. But the facilities of intercourse
with Europe will do something to make up for that de-
ficiency, by enabling every man of taste and leisure (even
occasional) in your country to fill his memory with those
noble and lovely forms. Surely all of you who visit Italy,
or the galleries of France and England, or the palaces of
Spain, enriched by the painters of that sunny land, ought
to bring home some copies of the finer productions of art.
I have seen copies of old pictures which, I do believe, have
almost all in them that the originals possess, almost all
those qualities which constitute their charm and salutary
influence; and it is, fortunately, paintings of the higher
order of merit, the merit of which is most adequately
conveyed by copies, and even by prints. There is in them
a grace and loftiness of design, which cannot be absent
from any attempt at translation. Whenever I see an
original BaphaeL, I behold an infinite deal of beauty which
no print can convey ; a soft exqnisiteness of outline, and a
lifelike elasticity in the flesh; and yet I greet it as an old
acquaintance. Lately, I visited Lord Ellesmere's noble
collection of pictures, which used to be called the Stafford
or the Bridgeware? gallery (Lord EHesmere is brother to
the Duke of Sutherland). I had seen this splendid
asflemblnge twice in my life before, once when I was a girl,

THE BRIDGEWATEK GALLERY. 407

and saw little more in the Titians and Poussins and
Eaphaels than products of power which I could not under-
stand. A year ago I saw them again with Mr. Quillinan,
Mr. Wordsworth's son-in-law, whose death filled us with
grief two months ago. In Lord Ellesmere's new house the
pictures are not well lighted, and many of them are placed
so high as to be quite lost to the eye in all but a general
outline. Still I received a pleasure from them unfelt
before. In the centre of the principal room are the four
Kaphaels, La Vierge au Palmier, the Virgin seated under a
palm tree, presenting the infant Saviour to the kneeling
Joseph. This is one of the loveliest pictures I ever beheld.
To judge from .the print, the Virgin de la Maison d'Albe,
seated on the ground, with the Child Jesus climbing into
her lap, St. John smilingly adoring close by, must be of
equal beauty. Both these paintings are in a circular
form, which aids the effect of their soft symmetry and
perfect grace. The next in beauty of the Eaphaels is the
standing Virgin,* with Jesus and John, as boys of seven or
eight, close beside her. La Vierge au Linge is least
interesting, the Babe being too young to display grace of
form and motion. It is asleep, the mother lifting the veil
from its face. The fourth is the Blessed Mother, with her
Babe stretching itself across her arms. The two large
Titians, Diana, Calisto, and Nymphs, — Diana, Actason, and
Nymphs, form a part of this rich group. I feel their power,
but cannot properly appreciate these pictures; and they
are out of harmony, in tone, with the main mass of the
paintings around. The famous Assumption of the Virgin,
by Guido, is at the end of the room, a large painting in a
sort of alcove. It was one of the first pictures that ever
awakened pictorial enthusiasm in me, or rather excited
poetical enthusiasm by means of the pictorial art, when I
saw it at the British Institution. The Maid Mother, robed

* La Belle Vierge.— E. C.

408 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

in pink, with a blue scarf fluttering over her rich, graceful
form, floats upwards through a sky of aerial gold. The
face is round and fair, and exquisitely delicate, with soft
yellow hair and upturned hazel eyes. The "Michael
triumphing over Satan," in another apartment, is to my
imagination quite as delightful, as this more admired
production of the same master. In the Archangel there is
the same rich, full form as in the ascending Madonna, the
same round, almost infantine face, surmounted with a
natural glory of light golden hair ; the beauty is womanish,
as if Venus had been transformed into Apollo, for one day's
festival in heaven, with an expectation of going back into
her original state of goddesshood the day after. By
comparing this picture with some of Murillo's, we obtain a
notion of the superiority of the latter in religious depth and
seriousness. For Murillo is always serious, though never
quite sublime ; evangelical more than ecclesiastical, which
latter may be Christian, and yet will admit of Paganized
conceptions of divine things, and these accompanied with a
Pagan air of luxurious and voluptuous earthiness. I was
led to this remark by thinking of the Angels or Divine
Persons who appear to Abraham, in Murillo's great picture,
companion to the still finer Prodigal Son, by the same great
artist (both are in the possession of Lord Ellesmere's brother,
the Duke of Sutherland, and are in his palatial town-house),
they are so much more spiritual in their beauty.

You speak of the Movement in our Church, originated by
Newman and other writers of the " Tracts for the Times,"
and I can entirely agree with you in thinking that it has
awakened a loftier spirit than before was prevailing, j
believe too that the discussions it has occasioned must be
in the main for good, and at any rate were inevitable. The
particular Tractarian movement indeed is itself but the
offspring of a deeper one, which is common to all Europe,
and has been produced by such a complex cause of circum-

THE HIGH CHURCH MOVEMENT. 409

stances, states, and relations, as ever brings about the
great general changes in the public condition of things,
and social arrangements at large. Matters pertaining to
religion could not remain as they were left by the Eeforma-
tion; as thought advanced, and when this nation was no
longer occupied with foreign wars or internal commotions,
and began to think seriously of setting its house in order,
the discrepancies and incoherencies, intellectual and moral,
discoverable to the searching eye in various departments of
Church and State, must be revealed in a clear light, and
call for remedy. Tractarianism was a stage in the progress
of newly- awakened thought ; but how men who go on
thinking can suppose that it set forth a coherent religious
system, with which a serious mind could rest satisfied, or
settled religious matters on a firm basis, I cannot imagine
for a moment. On the contrary, of all forms of the
Christian faith that ever have found favour with respectable
bodies of men, Anglo- Catholicism seems to me the most
baseless and inconsistent. My friend, Mr. H. Crabb
Eobinson, says that its inconsistency is its merit, as
compared, he means, with Eomanism on the one hand, or
Straussism on the other. Differing as I do materially from
Mr. Eobinson respecting the great central truth of
Christianity, the Divinity of our Lord (for I believe the
Eedeemer to be God Himself, and he holds Jesus Christ to
be a Being empowered by God to save the world, no mere
man, and yet not very God), I do agree with him in this,
and believe Anglo-Catholicism a far better religion than
Eomanism, Quakerism, or general scepticism, though more
inconsistent than either.

I think it far better than Eomanism, because it rejects
that impious supplementary gospel, those blasphemous
pretensions, heathenish figments, demoralizing principles,
and debasing practices, which the Church of Eome keeps
up for the benefit of the clergy, together with those

410 MEMOIR AND LETTEES OF SARA COLERIDGE.

doctrines of Papal authority, which, if unresisted (provi-
dentially it has always been kept in check), must soon
destroy all national independence, and introduce a despotism
inimical to the progress and best interests of the human
race.

I think it better than Quakerism, which rejects the whole
Visible Church system, because I see in that system, so far
as it is maintained on sound principles, for the educating
of mankind in spirituals, not for blinding and enchaining
them, immense utility. All temporal governments require
a Church to work in alliance with them ; and the Anglican
form, retaining the Episcopate, is an excellent institution,
which may be placed on a firm basis of reason and
morality. On this foundation it has been standing all
along, amid the various theories of men hovering around
it, and supposed to be the foundation by mystified beholders,
who cannot distinguish between cloudage and terra firma.

I need not say why Anglo-Catholicism is better than
such doctrine as that of the rejectors of Eevelation, who
think that St. John confounded his own dreams, engendered
of human philosophies, with the teaching of the Spirit,
and deprive those whom they seduce of all solid ground of
hope in a better life to come. Such views appear to be the
immediate result, in some minds, of the High Church
externalism and dogmatism, which denies the inward
revelation to be the true ultimate assurance of faith. They
examine that external authority to which they have been
commanded to bow, and find it wanting in the material of
conviction ; and they have never been led to think and feel
that the Christian religion, so far as it answers any true
purpose of a religion in purifying and elevating our nature,
is its own evidence ; that the Bible attests its own divineness,
as the sun reveals itself by its own light. These sceptics,
equally with the externalizing Eomanist, are ever seen to
be deficient in a sense and perception of moral evidence;

MORAL EVIDENCE. 411

they are blind to the traces of God, both in the course of
the world and in the volume of Kevelation ; equally with
the Bomanist, the Infidel fails to see that religion is a
spirit, a power or principle, not a certain set of formal
beliefs bound up together in a frame, so that a man must
take it all up at once, or leave it all. The Komanist urges
that if the ideas of reason (or aught in the mind within)
are the criterion of truth, a man's creed will be always
varying; he does not understand that we may perceive
truth in a thousand different ways and degrees, but that we
can really perceive none at all except by the mirror of
heaven within us. Just so the sceptic finds out certain
incoherencies, or thinks he finds them, in the Scriptural
accounts of our Lord's course upon earth, and thereupon
concludes that the Word of God cannot be contained in the
Bible, because he finds it in part to be the mistaken word
of man.

The inconsistency of the Anglo-Catholic position seems
to me to be this, — the Anglican, who firmly maintains the
doctrine of the Apostolical Succession, as absolutely essen-
tial to the being of the Christian Church, and boasts that
our hierarchy, by means of regular ordination, descends in
an unbroken line from the Apostles ; who insists upon the
absolving powers of the clergy, and founds them upon
Scripture, by transferring the promise of our Lord to His
faithful followers (the chosen Twelve), that they should
have the power of binding and loosing, to all their succes-
sors ordained in due form, whatever their personal qualifi-
cations may happen to be; when it is objected that the
language of the New Testament itself authorizes no such
application, that it is an arbitrary extension of the sense,
and supposes a thing in its own nature unreasonable,
because the mission and the promise are obviously adapted
to the personal qualifications of those to whom they were
originally addressed, — their supernatural powers which

412 MEMOIR AND LETTEKS OF SABA COLEKIDGE.

ceased with them — their burning faith and zeal, which
cannot be conveyed by ordination, or any other ceremony ;
the Anglican, I say, constantly replies (and certainly no
other reply can be given) that all sound members of the
Catholic Church submit to the judgment of the Church,
which is to be ascertained by the decrees and acts of
general councils and the consent of ancient bishops and
doctors. But on all the same grounds of Scripture, and
application of Scripture by Councils and Fathers, we ought
to believe in the primacy of the Pope, that he is the
supreme judge in all controversies, and the determiner of
doctrine, whence it follows that we ought to accept the
whole Eomish system, with its Deification of the Virgin,
doctrine of the Mass, adoration of saints (for such it prac-
tically is), with all those religious institutes and practices
which the English mind so revolts from and contemns,—
the mockery of indulgences, the corruption of the confes-
sional, monasticism with all its social mischiefs, loosening
the bonds of family life, intrusion and domination of the
priesthood. For all these things and more are contained
within that dark womb, so simple without, so labyrinthine
within — the Papal Supremacy and Infallibility ; for though
the latter article is not called de fide, yet it so obviously
follows from the former, that exalters of the papacy may
very well afford to leave it to take care of itself, when the
supremacy has been established. Here the Anglican inter-
poses, taking exception at the term Supremacy. He tells
you the primacy acknowledged by the Church: of the first
six centuries is a widely different thing from the headship
now claimed for the Pope ; it may be proved by overwhelm-
ing evidence that bishops of old, the very same men who
used high language concerning the Chair of Peter, did hold
their own against this most exalted and venerable Chair,
whenever they thought it necessary to assert their inde-
pendence, and defend their proceedings and their doctrine

THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. 413

against an adverse decision of the Holy See; nay, that
some of them openly disclaimed a bishop of bishops,
alleging that the Apostles were heads of their several
charges, and declaring that there is no Head of the whole
Church but Christ. To this answer the modern Komanist
replies, that the doctrine was as yet not fully developed,
which is a plain fact ; but, without admitting his pretension
that an article not known or understood in the first ages
can be a divine truth, necessary to be admitted by all
Christians on peril of salvation, I must concede to the
Komanist that the Fathers generally, and by a sort of con-
sent, attributed a pre-eminence to the See and Bishop of
Kome, which properly involve the supremacy even in the
modern sense, and their words and actions, repudiating
the paramount authority of the latter, are really inconsis-
tent with their attributions to the successor of the Fisher-
man, when no particular interest or influence induces them
to diminish his claims. I have lately examined this question

in debates with Mr. , who has satisfied himself that the

Eomish Church theory is the only tenable one, and although
unable myself to receive or admire any mystico-ecclesiastical
system, Eoman or Anglican, yet with a strong desire to
find the Eomanist pretensions to patristic testimony in
favour of the papacy wholly vain. But in this I have been
disappointed. The language of Cyprian, Ambrose, and
very many other Fathers, as well as of councils venerated
by Anglo-Catholics, is unmeaning and self-contradictory, if
understood so as to exclude the supremacy. It imports
that the Bishop of Eome is the centre and origin of unity ;
his See the Eock on which the Church is built ; himself the
successor of Peter, from whom the " Apostolate and Epis-
copate in Christ took its beginning ; " that " where Peter is,
there is the Church ; " that to be out of communion with
Eome is to be cut off from Christ; that from the See of
Peter "the full grace of all Pontiffs is derived;" that the

414 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Koman Church is the " foundation and mould of the
Churches ; " that the Holy See transmits its rights to the
universal , Church ;" that "the Pope is the head of the
Church, other bishops the members." In the Third General
Council he was acknowledged to be the " Head of the whole
Faith."* Now, surely this language, and it is quite as
general as any which can be cited from the Fatherhood on
the Con- substantiality of Christ with the Father, or the
three Persons in the Godhead, is senseless babble, if it
does not mean that the Pope is the source of jurisdiction
and the ultimate decider of controversy in the Church.
The ancient Fathers, with scarce a dissentient voice,
ascribe a pre-eminence and authority to Peter over the
other Apostles ; and as all the Apostles had supernatural
powers, what could St. Peter have beyond them, except
what is now ascribed to the Pope as his successor, namely,
to be their earthly head, the channel of grace and episcopal
power from Christ to them, consequently to be the ultimate
judge of questions concerning the faith ?

I fully admit that the Fathers and Bishops often contra-
dict this doctrine, as I have already said (though Tertul-
lian's language proves that the Papal supremacy was
asserted in the second century), and the Canons of Sardica
are strong evidence that it was not a "Law and Tradition
of the Church " acknowledged from the beginning, as well
as the silence of the earliest Christian writers, especially
St. Ignatius, who exalts the Episcopate, and says nought of
any Bishop of Bishops. But surely this incoherent and
conflicting testimony, of which it seems impossible to make
a harmonious whole, and which keeps up the controversy
between the Churches, contains ample vindication of the
attitude assumed by genuine Scriptural Protestantism,
which acknowledges no positive divine ground of faith but

* See Postscript.— E. C.

TRADITION AND DEVELOPMENT. 415

the Bible, acknowledged to be divine by its own internal
character, and corresponding to the image of the divine
within us, not by any external testimony of the visible
Church. Surely it shows those to have reason on their
side, who refuse to be absolutely determined, in all the
articles of their belief, by majorities of ancient Bishops
and Doctors, or even by their consentient voice. It begins
to be generally felt that no consistent scheme of doctrine
can be obtained from the ancient Fathers ; and that the
principle of development must be freely acted on, in order
to the maintenance of any Church system founded in the
Christian Eevelation, and connected with it by unbroken
tradition. But this principle of development is contra-
dictory to the general mind of the Ancient Church, which
always appeals to Scripture and the continuous teaching of
the Church authorities ; it is incongruous with the root-
principles of a system of externalism and uniformity of
doctrine in its intellectual aspect, which ought to be sup-
ported by outward and historic testimony. Hereafter a
Head Bishop, or a General Council, may decide that
Arianism is, after all, the right doctrine of the Godhead,
and who could disprove the assertion that it was the proper
development of the original belief, always acknowledged by
a part of the Church, held in germ, and so forth. Develop-
ment is too large a key for the lock to which it is deceptively
applied. The lock it really fits is one which opens into
the illimitable Court of Anarchy, not into the area of the
existing visible Church system. There is no conceivable
corruption or transmutation of doctrine and practice,
which may not be called a true development, if there is no
rule or standard by which the legitimacy of the extension
is to be judged; and all depends on the judgment of an
irresponsible Head, presumed to be the oracle through
which Christ speaks to His Church.

... My daughter and I lately met at the house of my

416 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

excellent old friend, Mr. Kenyon, that poetical pair, Mr.
and Mrs. Browning. You probably know her as Elizabeth
Barrett, author of the " Seraphim," "'Drama of Exile,"
and many ballads and minor poems, among which " Cow-
per's Grave" is of special excellence. She has lately
published " Casa Guidi Windows," a meditative, political
poem of considerable merit ; Mazzini admires it, and it has
been translated into Italian. Mrs, Browning is in weak
health, and cannot remain in this foggy clime ; they are to
reside in Paris. She is little, hard-featured, with long dark
ringlets, a pale face, and plaintive voice, something very
impressive in her dark eyes and her brow. Her general
aspect puts me in mind of Mignon, — what Mignon might
be in maturity and maternity. She has more poetic genius
than any other woman living, — perhaps more than any
woman ever showed before, except Sappho. Still there is
an imperfectness in what she produces ; in many passages
the expressions are very faulty, — the images forced and
untrue, — the sentiments exaggerated, and the situations
unnatural and unpleasant. Another pervading fault of
Mrs. Browning's poetry is rugged, harsh versification, with
imperfect rhymes, and altogether that want of art in the
department of metre, which prevents the language from
being an unobstructive medium for the thought. Verse and
diction are the bodily organism of poetry ; this body ought
to be soft, bright, lovely, carrying with it an influence and
impression of delightfulness, yet not challenging attention
by itself. These defects in poetical organism are inimical
to the enduring life of the poetry; the same or similar
thoughts will reappear in better form, and so supersede the
earlier version ; whereas, if poetic thoughts are once bodied
to perfection, they will remain and exclude all future rivals.
There is fear with regard to many of our present producers
of poetry, lest the good that is in them should be swamped
by the inferior matter, which gives a grotesque air to their
compositions at large.

WOMEN'S NOVELS. 417

It has been ever a favourite saying with me, that there is
one line of literature, and only one, in which women can do
something that men cannot do, and do better ; and that is
a certain style of novel. I warmly admire the better novels
produced by women during the last seventy or eighty years,
—the writings of Inchbald, Burney, Edgeworth, Jane
Austen, Miss Ferrier, and those interesting productions of
the present day, from the pen of Mrs. Marsh and Miss
Bronte. Mrs. Gore's novels are full of talent, and display a
most extensive acquaintance both with modern books and
modern things ; but there is a most unpleasant tone about
them. "Jane Eyre" and " Shirley," by Miss Bronte, are
full of genius. There is a spirit, a glow and fire about
them, a masculine energy of satire and of picturesque
description, which have delighted me ; but they also abound
in proofs of a certain hardness of feeling and plebeian
coarseness of taste. The novels of Mrs. Marsh, upon the
whole, please me better than any that are now forthcoming.
They are thoroughly feminine ; and though often too diffuse,
their diffuseness may be skimmed over without leaving any
unpleasant impression on the mind. " The Wilmingtons,"
with its sequel, " Time the Avenger," is to my feelings an
interesting book.

If you happen to have any communication with Newbury
Port, Massachusetts, — but this is a vain thought. I was
thinking of my unseen friends and correspondents, Mr. and
Mrs. Tracey, of that place. My last to them spoke of my
weakened health, and they are anxious to know how I am
going on. I cannot give a good report of myself, and from
several causes must not attempt more letter-writing at
present. My kindest wishes attend them. I have already
sent kind regards and thanks to Mr, and Mrs. Eeed, Accept
the same yourself, dear sir, and may you long have health
and strength to enjoy the infinite delights of literature, and
the loveliness of " this bright, breathing world," which the

2 s

418 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

poets teach us to admire, and the Gospel makes us hope to
find again in that unseen world whither we are all going.—
Believe me truly your friend,

SARA COLERIDGE.

III.

Prayer for Temporal and Spiritual Benefits.
To Miss FENWICK.

September 4th, 1851. — Your friendship, dear friend, has
been one great blessing of these last years of my life, and
I trust not only a comfort and happiness, but a lasting
benefit, which will survive all the worsening and decay of
our poor, frail, earthly tabernacle. My gratitude to you is
one of my deepest feelings. God bless you, and bestow
upon you all whatsoever He knows to be best for you. I
must still pray for temporal comforts to be granted you.
We are to pray ever, and He will set our prayers straight.
But still more earnestly, and with more confidence for you
and for myself, I ask for that peace which passes under-
standing.— Ever most affectionately your friend,

SARA COLERIDGE.
IV.

Increase of Illness — Fancied Wishes — Trial and Effects of Mesmerism
— Editorial Duties still fulfilled — Derwent Isle and Keswick
Vale — Visit of the Archdukes to General Peachey in 1815 — Old
Letters — Death ; and the Life beyond it.

To AUBREY DB VERB, Esq.

10, Chester Place, Oct. 1st, 1851. — My dear Friend, — You
will regret very much to learn how much worse and weaker
I am than when you saw me last. I cannot now walk more
than half an hour at a time, when I am at the best. At
Margate an hour or hour and twenty minutes did not
fatigue me. I still take short walks twice a day, but how
long my power of doing this will last I cannot say.

You can hardly imagine how my mind hovers about that
old well-known churchyard, with Skiddaw and the Bas-

MESMERISM. 419

senthwaite hills in sight ; how I long to take away Mama's
remains from the place where they are now deposited, and
when my own time comes, to repose beside her, as to what
now seems myself, in that grassy burial-ground, with the
Southeys reposing close by. My husband I hope to meet
in heaven; but there is a different feeling in regard to
earlier ties. Hartley and Mr. Wordsworth I would have
where they are, in that Grasmere churchyard, within an
easy distance of Keswick, as it used to be in old times.

These are strong feelings, translated into fancied wishes,
— not sober earnest. When we are withdrawn from society
and the bustle of life, in some measure, and our thoughts are
from any cause fixed on the grave, how does the early life
rise up into glow and prominence, and, as it were, call one
back into itself ! Yet during that early life how I looked
forward, imagining better things here below than I had yet
experienced, and going beyond this world altogether, into
the realms above !

A few weeks ago, my old friend C. H. Townshend * came
to town for a short time on business from Lausanne. He
reproached me for not trying mesmerism, and on my yielding
to his representations on the subject, brought Dr. Elliotson
to give me advice. My housemaid willingly undertook the
business, and was instructed, and now mesmerizes regularly
twice a day. The effect on me is not strong, sophisticated
as my nerves have been by morphine ; but there is a per-
ceptible peculiar sensation produced by the passes. They
soothe me at the time, and make me drowsy, and I think
there is some beneficial influence exerted on the constitu-
tion. From what I feel, I am much inclined to believe that
some agent in the physical frame is called into action by

* The name of Mr. Chauncy Hare Townshend will be familiar to all visitors
at the South Kensington Museum, where the fine collection of pictures and
jewels, bequeathed by him to that institution, is now exhibited. He wa?
the author of " Facts in Mesmerism," and of several volumes of poetry, and
-yas, besides, an accomplished amateur artist and musician. — E. C.

420 MEMOIR AND 'LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

the passes ; that the mesmeric influence of the operator
excites this principle in the patient, as heat kindles heat
upon communication. Neuralgic pains are soon relieved by
the passes. They return after a while, but are quieted for
the time. An article on electro-biology in the last West-
minster, reducing all the phenomena under ordinary causes,
I think shallow, and know to be mistaken.

I have not yet opened the book of new poetry you have
sent me to read, but hope to do so ere we meet. I have a
great many books on hand, and Derwent keeps me busy in
matters which he is concerned in, as far as my weak
strength will allow. He wants some new editions of the
Esteesian Marginalia prepared for the press, and this can-
not be done at present, as I have so long been the Esteesian
housekeeper, without my superintendence.

We have seen a good deal lately of Mr. Blackburne, a
poetical friend of my brother Hartley, a charming converser,
but very much in want of a steady, regular profession. He
has always some new poem or poemet to recite whenever
he comes. His poetry is graceful, ^abounding in sweet
images, but lacks bone. He is too fond, I think, of the
boneless Keatsian sort of poetry, which is all marrow, and
wearies one at last with its want of fibre. Indeed, I say
the other extreme is better in the end.

October 2nd. — Sweet Derwent Isle ! how many, many
scenes of my youth arise in my mind in connection with
thee ! I had a personal and a second-hand association with
that lovely spot ; for Mama used to tell me much of Emma,
the first young wife of General Peachey, youngest daughter
of Mr. Charter of Taunton, whom my Uncle Southey so
beautifully described in those epitaph lines, which present
her as she appeared, "like a dream of old romance, skim-
ming along in her little boat, and how she was laid, before
her youth had ripened into full summer, amid Madeira's
orange-groves to rest." She was tall — a man's height —

DEEWENT ISLAND. 421

five foot eight at least, but so feminine — a slender, blue-
eyed blonde.

I cannot remember that fair Emma ; but what pleasant
visits have I paid to the Island — in summer, autumn, icy
winter — in the second lady's time ! There I was when the
Archdukes came to visit the Island, and lunched there after
the entrance of the Allied Kings into Paris. Oh ! the fussi-
ness of the General on that occasion ! How their Sereni-
ties Russianly absorbed the preservative butter of the
potted char ! What a beautiful Prussian Count they had
with them, with whom I fancied myself in love for two or
three days ! — tried hard to be, I believe, though the cement
was wanting of advances on his part towards me, without
which Apollo himself would soon have slipped away from
my heart and fancy. Sometimes we were detained in the
Island by stress of weather, and once were prevented from
a visit to it by the same cause.

I wonder whether the feathery fern I transplanted from
the Cardingmill Field, the part among trees beside the
river, is yet living, and the beech-tree, which I used to
climb, with its copper foliage, at the foot of which, in
spring, a few crocuses grew.

I was quite sorry to say farewell to C. H. Townshend.
He was more agreeable, more clever in talk, than ever ; and
we have such interesting common Greta Hall and Keswick
remembrances.

A sweet and affecting set of verses from Blackburne, on
receiving back old letters of Hartley's, —

" There they lie, a frozen ocean,

Running on without a shore,
But the ardour and the motion

Of the heart beats there no more.
And thou ? art thou grown brighter

Since I saw thee then so bright ?
Thinner are thy hands, and whiter,

And thy hair like autumn light."

422 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Oh, Keswick vale ! and shall I really die, and never, never
see thee again ? Surely there will be another Keswick — all
the loveliness transfused, the hope, the joy of youth ! How
wholly was that joy the work of imagination !

Oh, this life is very dear to me ! The outward beauty of
earth, and the love and sympathy of fellow-creatures, make
it, to my feelings, a sort of heaven half ruined — an Elysium
into which a dark tumultuous ocean is perpetually rushing
in to agitate and destroy, to lay low the blooming bowers of
tranquil bliss, and drown the rich harvests. Love is the
sun of this lower world ; and we know from the beloved
Disciple that it will be the bliss of Heaven. God is Love ;
and whatever there may be that we cannot now conceive,
love will surely be contained in it. It will be Love sub-
limed, and incorporated in Beauty infinite and perfect.

I am very faint and weak to-day — more so than I have
yet been ; but I have been as low in nerves often formerly,
otherwise I might think that I had entered into the dark
valley, and was approaching the river of Death. How kind
of Bunyan — what a beneficent imagination — to shadow out
death as a river, which is so pleasant to the mind, and
carries it on into regions bright and fair beyond that
boundary stream.

Miss Fenwick is to me an angel upon earth. Her being
near me now has seemed a special providence. God bless
her, and spare her to us and her many friends. She is a
noble creature, all tenderness and strength. When I first
became acquainted with her, I saw at once that her heart
was of the very finest, richest quality ; and her wisdom and
insight are, as ever must be in such a case, exactly corres-
pondent.

THE END APPROACHING. 423

Leave-taking — Value of a Profession — A Lily, and a Poem — Flowers —
Beauty and Use.

To THOMAS BLACKBURNE, Esq.

10, Chester Place, October 13^/t, 1851. — I feel much in
saying farewell to you, dear friend of my ever-lamented
brother. You have known me in a sad, shaded stage of
my existence, yet have greeted my poor autumn as brightly
and genially as if it were spring or summer. Hitherto my
head has been " above water ; " ere you return to this busy
town, the waves may have gone over my head. My great
endeavour is not to foreshape the future in particulars, but
knowing that my strength always has been equal to my
day, when the day is come, to feel that it ever will be so
on to the end, come what may, and that all things, except
a reproaching conscience, are "less dreadful than they
seem."

God bless you ! Cultivate your poetical talent, which
will ever be a delight to you, but still, as I used to say to

my friend Mr. , have a profession, — a broad beam of

the house of life, around which the bright occasional
garland may be woven from time to time. — Believe me,
dear Mr. Blaokburne, yours with much regard,

SABA COLERIDGE.

" Espouse thy doom at once, and cleave
To fortitude without reprieve," *

are words that often sound in my ear.

Wordsworth was more to my opening mind in the way of
religious consolation than all books put together except the
Bible.

* " White Doe of Kylstone," Canto II.— E. C.

424 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

Regent's Park, September ZSth. — Thank you, dear Mr.
Blackburne, for that beauteous flower and lovely poem.
Two lines I specially admire

" And like a poet tell it with a blossom
To each new sun."

The corolla of flowers is intended to protect the fructifying
system in its tender state. But this purpose might have
been served by something unsightly. Nature has provided
exquisite beauty both in the stamina and pistils (which
give all the grace and spirit to many blossoms, or, expand-
ing into petals, form the richness of the rosa centifolia, and
numberless other double flowers), and in their guard, which
exceeds the robes of Solomon, and rivals the butterfly,
which " flutters with free wings above it."

How stupid are those people who reduce all beauty to
the sense of usefulness — early association ! I have heard
a very clever man insist that children may be taught to
admire toads and spiders, and think them as beautiful as
butterflies, birds of paradise, or such a lily as you have
sent me.

VI.

Proposal to visit the South of France — Climate and Society of Lau-
sanne— The Spasmodic School of Poetry — Article on Immortality,
in the Westminster Review — Outward Means a part of the Christian
Scheme— The "Evil Heart of Unbelief "—The Foundations of
Religion.

To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq.

Chester Place, October 19^, 1851. — My dear Friend, — Are
you still at that dear Derwent Island ? I must direct a few
lines thither for the chance of their finding you there.
Since your last most kind letter, I have been longing to
thank you for its most soothing contents.

I am sure you would have a pleasure in giving up your
own favourite project of visiting Eome, — postponing it in

CHAUNCY HAKE TOWNSHEND. 425

order to guard the poor invalid on her way to a better clime
than this. Alas ! it is but a pleasant vision, the thought
of my journeying to the south of France. Yet, I believe a
foreign climate, more bracing, less damp and unsettled
than this, might afford me as much advantage as I could
receive from external things. C. H. Townshend talked to
me of the effect of Lausanne air upon his relaxed and ailing
frame, till he inspired me with a great wish, unfelt by me

before, that I could live abroad with my E . The

discourse of other friends, William and Emma G , who

are delicate people, goes strongly the same way. Mrs.
Browning feels life abroad to be life indeed.

Then Chauncy Townshend says that he prefers the state
of society around him at Mon Loisir to London excitement
and bustle. " There," he says, " I may be sad if sorrow
comes, but I am always calm." The way in which he
uttered these words was calming to my spirit ; and
certainly never did I see our old friend in a better mood,
more quietly gladsome, free, and variously eloquent. He
tells me that he has almost agreeable, refined, intellectual
set of acquaintances at Lausanne, whom he visits without
London formality and expense. He provides himself with
a store |of books for the winter, and is as independent and
happy as man can be in this life. "But why did you
furnish this fine house in Norfolk Street, Park Lane," said
I, " and fill it with beautiful works of art, only to enter it
at long intervals, and then for a few weeks ? " He declared
he had as much pleasure in thinking of it, and roaming all
over it in imagination, as if he were actually occupying its
space, and beholding its adornments. This is, perhaps,
rather fantastical. An imagination so pliant might go a
step further, and imagine the house and contents, without
keeping money locked up in it.

I read through the dramatic poem you were so kind as
to send me, and found it full of passion and energy, but, on

426 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

the whole, painful and unsatisfactory, — a production which
shoots its bolt at once, and then has no more that it can
do. I was reminded of the Preface to the " Virgin Widow "
in reading it. One most powerful passage is a vision of
the death of an ancient gladiator; but then it is utterly
extravagant and untrue. Such things could not be, — such
horrid combinations of incompatible terrors and sufferings
and ecstasies of enjoyment, and power and weakness, could
not exist together. There are no lines and expressions,
lovely and felicitous, which take place among the treasures
of the mind, and are re-visited ever and anon. Mr. Taylor
has not written a great deal, but the proportion of such
satisfactory passages to the total quantity of his composi-
tions is considerable, and will give him a place, I think,
finally, above all the other spasmodists of the present day.

Did you read Helps's " Companions of my Solitude " ?
There is a great charm in Helps, and he does give some
help to reflection, though rather butterflyish in his move-
ments.

Last night I read an article on Immortality in the West-
minster. What a shallow sciolist that A seems to be !

This life would be a gorgeous vestibule to no edifice, only
a darksome cavern, if there were nought for man beyond it.
How disproportionate our intellectual and spiritual educa-
tion ! " Few of us seem fit for heaven. What human
goodness is commensurate to perfect, endless felicity — what
human frailty to eternal woe ? " Thus men argue against a
future state. But we know not how heaven hereafter will
be apportioned, and how the soul may expand in heaven-
worthiness. If man be destined for the dust in a few years,
he is a strange riddle. This life has ever seemed a mere
transitional state, and tolerable only on that supposition, to
the most elevated and cultivated men.

Viewing the Komish system as you do, my dear friend, a
bright ideal, I cannot regret that you think as you do of

EELIGIOUS BELIEF. 42?

the compatibility of my father's scheme of philosophy
therewith, assured as I feel that he had done that papal
system too much justice to believe in it as a divine institu-
tion. Do not think I am ever worried by what you call
your "rough notes" on Komanism, however surprised I
may sometimes be at your views in all their eloquence.

I do verily think no pious Eomanist can suppose that
faith does not involve a spiritual intuition and internal
revelation of the truth. But the question wasr which is the
ultimate ground of belief, that which underlies and supports
all the rest, this discernment of divine things which Christ
himself by His Spirit works in the heart, or the teaching
of the Church ? Is the latter necessary to assure us that
the very work of God in the soul of man is really and truly
His work ?

An external system for teaching Christianity, for ini-
tiating men into it, leading them to Christ, I believe to be
a part of God's providence ; and such a system, in so far
as it is conformed to reason and moral truth, will have the
blessing of the Spirit. But I cannot think it necessary, or
even desirable for the right religious education of mankind,
the education of the higher faculties and nobler feelings,
that this system should be infallible. I admit that sin is
not the only obstacle or impediment by which divine truth
may be kept from the minds of men. The African savage
cannot make himself religious wholly from within. There
must be a preacher and outward instrumentalities. I only
meant to say that when the deep spiritual verities, which
are the substance of the faith, are presented to the mind,
it is sm, and not any imperfection in our faculties, which
can alone prevent it from being clearly perceived. This
seems to be plainly intimated by our Lord, when He shows
why the Jews did not receive Him, and in His discourse
to Philip. Upon the whole, we have as good means
of knowing the Saviour, and all that concerns our peace,

428 MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE.

as our Lord's disciples had. We cannot know Him at all,
except by an inward revelation of the Spirit. It is by
knowledge of the truth, that is, information of it from with-
out, that this communion with the enlightening Spirit
comes about. But where it is, surely it is an absolute,
independent certainty.

The term "private judgment " is ambiguous. It may be
interpreted in a bad sense, in which I do not see that it is
fairly chargeable on Eeformed Christianity. But it is
confounded with individual intuition, and in that sense it
is not easily convicted of error. But I do not pretend
to maintain* any particular reformed system as the very
truth. I believe we have but approximations to absolute
truth.

I own too that there are to my mind far more interesting
considerations concerning religion than those which we
have been discussing. It is the foundations of religion,
those problems and difficulties that belong to every system,
or underlie them all, which engage my serious thoughts. I
care not so much about the difference between Eomish and
Anglican, though I confess the views of the Blessed Virgin
in the Church of Eome do seem to me to make modern
Eomanism an essentially different faith and system from
that of the Bible and of early Christianity.

VII.

Gradual Loss of Strength — Credulity of Unbelievers— Spiritual Peace
— Thoughts of past Years.

To AUBREY DE VERB, Esq.

10, Chester Place, Oct. 27th, 1851.— My dear Friend,— I
was sorry not to see you yesterday, and the more so lest
I should be too weak when you come again,

For I'm wearing awa, Friend,
Like snaw when it's thaw, Friend.

SPIRITUAL PEACE. 429

and I feel as if I should not be long here. There is a
torpor ever hanging over me, like a cloud overspreading
the sky, only rent here and there by some special force ;
and my eyes have a heavy, deathy look. I am decidedly
worse since I saw you, and I begin to wish to get rid of the
mesmerism, which is producing no good effect.

Thank you for the "Valley of Lilies."* I have been

looking at that strange book of A — — and M . In all

the volume of Humanity, as far as I have opened it, this is
the very strangest, saddest page, as far as relates to states
of thought and opinion. Is it not astonishing that, in a
Christian country, there can have been such, a one-sided
intellectual development ? The condition constantly through-
out the book confounded with the efficient cause. I now
feel as if I had never seen arrogance and shallowness,
before these Letters came before me. The monstrous
credulity on the one hand, and utter faithlessness on the
other, is truly frightful.

Do you remember how beautifully Hooker shows how
our spiritual peace may be smothered for a time by bodily
clouds ? But, as my father says, there is a mind within the
mind, and we must try to draw out and strengthen that.

I dwell on the Southey Letters. My mind is ever going
back to my brighter days of youth, and all its dear people
and things of other days.

VIII.

Congratulations on a Friend's Recovery from Illness — Her own State
of Health and of Mind — Wilkie's Portrait of her Brother
Hartley at Ten Years old— The Northern Worthies — A Farewell.

To Professor HENRY REED.

10, Chester Place, December %Znd, 1851. — My dear Pro-
fessor Reed, — Many weeks ago I heard from Mr. Yarnall
with deep concern of your severe, lingering illness — linger-

* A devotional work by Thomas a Kempis. — E. C.

430 MEMOJR AND LETTERS OF SAEA COLERIDGE.

ing, though transitory, I trust, in its nature. A week since
I received from your friend another long and very interest-
ing letter, which conveyed to me the welcome news that,
though still confined to your bed, you were in a fair way of
recovery. It may be premature to congratulate you on
positive recovery, and Mrs. Eeed with you ; but I may say
how hopefully I look forward to it, and how rejoiced I
should be to hear of your restoration to your family and all
your various activities, literary and professional. Woulcl
that my health prospect were as yours — as hopeful ! I am
now an invalid, confined to my own room and the adjoining
apartment, with little prospect of restoration, though I
am not entirely hopeless. My malady, which has been
threatening me ever since the summer before last, did not
come into activity till a few months ago. What my course
and the event may be perhaps no physician can tell to a
certainty. I endeavour not to speculate, to make the most
of each day as it comes, making use of what powers remain
to me, and feeling assured that strength will be supplied, if
it be sought from above, to bear any trial which my Father
in heaven may think fit to send. I do not suffer pain.
My principal suffering is the sense of sinking and depres-
sion. Of course all literary exertion and extensive corres-
pondence are out of the question for me in my present
condition. New editions of my father's works are in
contemplation, and I can still be of use to my brother
Derwent, in helping to arrange them. But any work that I
do now is of a very slight and slow description.

Mr. Herbert Taylor kindly offers to send to Philadelphia
any book or packet for me, and I take the opportunity of
sending you an enlarged engraving of Wilkie's sketch of
my brother Hartley, in which you were so much interested,
and the more from a likeness you discerned in it to your
son. My brother's biographical work, " The Northern
Worthies," is in the press, and great pleasure I have in

A FAKE WELL. 431

reading the proof sheets, and perceiving how much more
merit there is in these lives than I ever knew them to
possess before. Their chief interest consists in the accom-
panying criticisms and reflections. I feel sure you will like
them exceedingly, though, of course, you may dissent from
many of the opinions and sentiments expressed.

Farewell, my dear sir, you have my sincere wishes and
prayers for your entire restoration. I may not be able to
answer any more letters from America — a land in which I
shall never cease to take an interest-^but I shall ever hear
with pleasure of you and yours, as long as my powers of
thought remain.

Give my kind regards to Mrs. Keed, and believe me yours
with much esteem and sympathy,

SARA COLERIDGE.

POSTSCKIPT.

" In the Third General Council he was acknowledged to be the 'Head
of the whole Faith.' "—p. 414.

NOTE. — I am indebted for more exact information on this point to the
kindness of Bishop Abraham, who has taken the trouble to consult the
original authorities. He thus gives the result of his researches in Labbe's
Concilia, vol. iii. Paris Edition, 1671 : " I cannot find any warrant for such
a statement as that, attributing to the Council any such acknowledgment.
What I do find is, in p. 620, Philip the Presbyter, a Legate of Rome, thanks
the Synod for their approval of Pope Celestine's letter, and says : ov y&p
ayvoe'i v/j.<av TJ fta/captorrjs, '6n y K€<t>d\v) oAvjs TTJS iriffrecas, $ Kal T£>V airoarAXuv,
b fj.aKtiptos Ufrpos 6 dWo-roAos. This is a very different thing from an
acknowledgment by the Council of the Popes being the Head of the Faith.
What the Council did say, after the reading of the Pope's letter, was,

TJS avvfoov, euxapto-ret irnaa rj

432 MEMOIB AND LETTEKS OF SAKA COLEKIDGE.

Eis KeAeo'Tij'o?, ets KuptAXos, fj.ia iriffTts rfjs ffvv68ov, /j.ia irians TTJS oiKou/xej/rjs.' "
From this evidence it would appear that the title accorded to Pope Celestine
by the Council of Ephesus was not " Head," but " Guardian of the Faith."
— E. C.

"That shiny blue flower, which grows upon a shrubby stem, and
emulates the sky so boldly. " — p. 214.

NOTE. — I have been informed by a .kind unknown correspondent, that the
plant here referred to, which I wrongly conjectured to be the common blue
corn-flower (centaurea Cyanus), is the wild chicory or succory, (cickorium
Intylus).—^. C.

Printed by William Moore & Co.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

ABBOTT'S " Corner-stone," 79
Abercrombie, Dr., 80
" Abipones, Account of the," 27
Abstract Ideas, as treated by Plato,

101
Academy, the Royal, of 1845, 167,

397 '

"Admiral's Daughters, The," 249
" Adonais," Shelley's, 367
"Adoration of the Lamb," Van

Eyck's, 123
Advantages of America and Europe,

Comparative, 405
^Eschylus, 217
Affliction, the Salutary Discipline of,

251

Afternoon Calls, 306
Age and Ugliness, 216
Aggression, the Papal, 385
Agreement among Christians, 192
Allan Bank, Visit to, 14
Allonby, Visit to, 18
" Alton Locke," 374
Andrewes, Bishop, Illustration em-
ployed by, 197
Angelico, Fra, " Last Judgment" by,

297

Anglo-Catholicism, 409
Animals, 404
" Antichrist," 169
Anti-Lutherism, 253
Anti-Papal Demonstration, the, 376
" Antiquary, The," 371
Apocalyptic Denunciations, 171
Archdukes, Visit of the, 421
Architecture, Domestic, 362
Argument, Candour in, 231

Ariosto, 81

Aristocracy, an Ideal, 336
Aristophanes, 148
Aristotle on Imitation, 353
Arnold, Dr., History of Eome by, 99
- Life of, 158

Character and Views of, 165

School Sermons of, 272

Comment on 2 Kings ii. 23

by, 273

Art of Life, the 119

Poetry, the, 246

" Art, Sacred and Legendary," 310
Associations with the Seasons, 308
Athanasian Creed, the, 230
Atheism, Shelley's, 171
Attacks on Revelation, 374
Augustine, St., College of, 175, 209
Austen, Jane, 53, 302
Authoresses, a Group of, 53
Autobiographies, Religious, 211

B-

B
PARK, 358

" Babylon the Great," 172
Bacon, Lord, Mr. Spedding's Vindi-
cation of, 268

Dissimulation of, 271

Baillie, Mrs. Joanna, 47

Death of, 335

Bancroft, Mr., Remark of, 345
Barbauld, Mrs., 55
" Barry Cornwall," 333
Bartolomeo, Fra, 297
Bath, Visit to, 228, 231
Bathing in the Sea, 97

in the,,River Greta, 31 1

2 j?

434

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Bayard, Chevalier, Memoir of, 26

Bean-fields, 400

Bears of Literature, 399

Beauty and Use, 424

Beddoes, Mr., " Death's Jest Book "

by, 388

Belgium, Tour in, 122
Beppoists, English, 81
Berkeley, Bishop, Idealism of, 154

Pope's line on, 235

Bigotry, Eeligious, 127
Bird-nesting, 56

Bishops in Parliament, 221
Black Country, the, 354
Blackburne, f., Esq., Letters to, 423
Blue and White, 215
" Body, S. T. C. on the," 185
Books for Children, 82

- a Source of Happiness, 115
Boscobel, 335

British Constitution, the, 91
Brooke, Miss A., Letters to, 78, 81,

99, 111
Browning, Mrs., 416

Early Poems of, 152

Burns, 201

Butchers' Prices, 141, 330

Byron, Lord, on the Lake Poets, 110

as a Satirist, 116

CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, 174
Carlyle, Mr., a Talk with, 205

"Reply to Strictures on,"

278

Cellini's Perseus, 358
Chalmers, Dr., 80
Chaperonage, 333
Charles I., 228
Chartist Demonstration, 251
Chaucer and Dryden, 55
Cheerfulness and Happiness, 146
Chillington, 355
Chinese, the, 329
Cholera and Infection, 315
Christ, Glorified Humanity of, 188
Christianity taught to Children, 83
" Christian Year," Mr. Keble's, 245
Church Ornamentation, 257
Classic Mythology and Catholic
Hagiology, 310
Coleridge, Berkeley, 2
Coleridge, Bertha Fanny, 117

Coleridge, Rev. Derwent, Anecdotes

of, 5

Coleridge, Rev. Edward, Letters to,
278, 294, 372

• • Mrs. Edward, Letter to,

156
Coleridge, Hartley, 3

Last Illness and Death of,

291, 295

Writings of, 372, 430

Portrait of, 430

Letters to, 44, 115, 134,

155, 163
Coleridge, Henry Nelson, 33, 51

Illness and Death of,

128, 129, 130

Letters to, 55, 56, 57,

58, 60, 61, 62, 74, 77, 78, 84, 86,
90, 100, 101, 108, 109, ]10, 118,
119 120, 121
Coleridge, Herbert, 36, 45, 261

Letter to, 130

Coleridge, Rev. James, D.D., 136
Coleridge, Right Honourable Sir
John Taylor, Letters to, 128, 137,
138, 140, 148, 158, 174, 175, 182,
208, 228, 295, 296, 302, 370
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 2

Last Illness and Death

of, 64

his Immense Reading, 185

— his Opinions unfairly
criticised, 194

- Tendency of his Writ-
ings, 241

his View of Scripture, 267

• Variety of his Poetry, 327

her Study of his Writ-

ings, 342

his Influence, 368

Coleridge, Mrs. Samuel Taylor, Death
of, 182, 183

Character of, 307

Coleridge, Bishop, Death of, 331
Collective Wisdom of the Age, 92
Collins, William, Sketch by, 22
Colour in Architecture, 156
Confirmation, the Ordinance of, 269
Contemporary Divines, 173
Continental Morality, 270
Controlling Grief, 252
Controversial Sermons. 140
Conviction of Sin, 191
Copies from the Old Masters, 40G
Council, a General, 303

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

435

Council, The Third, 414

Country Life, 265

Cowper's " Iliad," 61

Crabbe, 195

Crashaw, 245, 308

Credulity of Unbelievers, 429

Critic's Foible, a, 77

Cromwell, Oliver, 228

Cruelty, 56

Crystal Palace, the, of 1851, 395

DANTE, 222

Death and the Life beyond it, 422

Death-bed Eepentance, 236

Democracy, American, 94

Demoniacal Possession, 319

De Quincey, Mr., 69

Derbyshire, 50

Derwent Isle, 420

De Vere, Aubrey, Esq., Letters to,
179, 185, 193, 200, 201, 205,
212, 220, 222, 228, 231, 243, 253,
257, 261, 268, 269, 274, 306, 308,
310, 315, 323, 329, 339, 354, 362,
371, 398, 403, 418, 424, 428

Devonshire, 51

Dickens as a Moralist, 266

Diffuseness, 161

Dingle, the, 355

Disembodied Souls, 189

Divinity of Our Lord, 409

Study of, 99

" Dobbin " in " Vanity Fair," 278

Drama, the, 57

Dress, the Lake Poets on, 17

Dudley Gallery, Visit to the, 297

Duties, Social, 321

EARLY Greatness of great Poets, 101

Marriage, 264

Eeligious Views, 25

Earnest of Eternal Life, the, 240
Editorial Duties, 37, 420
Education, 44
Effects of Sorrow, 206
Eldon, Lord, 162
Eloquence of Love, etc., 63
" Endymion," Keats', 180
English Government, the, 95

English Reserve, 366
Enthusiasm, 60
Epicureanism, 290
Equivoques and Paradoxes, 235
Erskine, Miss, Letters to, 166, 195,

234, 252

Establishment, the, 221
Eton Successes, 229

Schoolboy, an, 142

Evangelical School, the, on Prophecy,

169

" Evangeline," Mr. Longfellow's, 274
Evening Grey and Morning Red, 210
Exaggerated Self -accusations, 191
Expensive Blessings, 216
Explanations of Prophecy, 151
Expression and Thought in Poetry,

416

FACTS and Opinions, 311

Failure and Success, 302

Fairy Tales, 82

Faith and Reason, 369

Fall into the Greta, 5

Fancied Wishes, 419

Farewell, a, 431,

Farrer, Miss, 143, 219

Farrer, Mrs. Thomas, Letters to, 125,

141, 159, 174, 219, 313, 388
Fasting, 233
"Faust," Goethe's, Second Part of,

121
" Faustina," by Countess Hahn-

Hahn, 270
Fellow-lodgers, 160
" Femme Accomplie, Une," 301
Fenwick, Miss, Letters to, 209, 236,

240, 241, 242, 248, 250, 264, 276,

291, 304, 308, 314, 322, 334, 343,

395, 418

Ferrer, Nicholas, Memoir of, 137
Filial Subordination, Doctrine of

the, 230

Force and Livelinessin Poetry, 84
Fricker, Martha and Eliza, 9
Fuseli's "Lycidas," 347

GENERALIZATION in Art, 350
Generosity, 276
Genius, Hereditary, 379

436

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Geography made Easy, 58
German Theology, 299
Gibson's Venus, 396
Gillman, Mrs., 250

Letters to, 130, 260

Gladsomeness of Childhood, 155
Goethe, compared with Dante and

Lucretius, 225
Gorham Case, the, 312
Gospel, the, its own best Evidence,

370

Governesses, 301
Grace Divine, 87
" Granby," 249
"Grantley Manor," 248
Graphic Style of the Old Testament,

Grasmere Churchyard, 242
Gray, Memoir of, 382
Greta Hall, 11
Grief, 139

HAHN-HAHN, Countess, Letter of

M. Abeken to, 3b8
Hallam, Mr., 95
Hammond, Dr., on 2 St. Peter i. 20,

273

Hampden, Dr., 258, 259
Handwriting, 380
Happiness, Early, 379
Hard Words in the Latin Grammar,

Hearing and Reading, 311
Heart, a Quiet, 137
Heaven, Descriptions of, 113
Heavenly Love and Beauty, 422
Helps, Sir Arthur, 426
Hemans, Mrs., 77
Heraud, Mr., Oration by, 68
Herbert, George, 308
Herne Bay, 316

" Hero-Worship," Mr. Carlyle's, 143
Herschel, Miss, 58
Hexameters, German and English,

275

High Church Movement, the, 408
Highgate, Visit to, 30
Historical Reading, 402
Holiday Tasks, 209
Homeric Controversy, the, 373
Human Sorrow and Heavenly Rest,

212

" Hyperion," Keats', 380
Mr. Longfellow's, 275

ILLNESS, Increase of, 418

Imitation in Art, 350

Immortality, 404

" In Memoriam," Mr. Tennyson's,
363, 367

Infidelity, 373

Ancient and Modern, 405

Inflexibility of the French Language,
121

"Installation Ode," Mr. Words-
worth's, 243

Intellectual Ladies, 243

Tuft-Hunting, 398

Intermediate State of the Departed,
113

" Ion," Mr. Talfourd's, 380

Irish Character, the, 234

Famine, the, 235

Irreverence, Charges of, 197

Irving, Rev. Edward, 71

JAMES II., 309

" Jane Eyre," 271, 277

Jewels in the Crystal Palace, 397

Johnson, Dr., 54

Jones, Mrs. H. M., Letters to, 71, 73,

91, 116, 128, 266
Justice, 276

KEATS, Poetry of, 179

" Remains of," 275

Character of, 324

Kenyon, John, Esq., Letter to, 152
Keswick, 163, 422
Kohinoor, the, 397

LAMB, Charles, 71, 74

Lamb, Mary, 240

Landor, Walter Savage, 380

" Pentameron," by, 215

Landscape Painters, 349
" Laodamia," Critique on, 201
Latter-day Pamphlets, 305, 335
Lausanne, 425

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

437

Lazarus, Resurrection of, 100
Lecturer, a Little, 108
Leibnitz on the Soul, 401
Leicestershire, a Visit to, 359
Leigh Hunt, 390
Lily and a Poem, a, 424
" Little Grand Lamas," 3
Logic of the Heart, the, 144
London Shopkeepers, 160
Love and Death, 118
— Praise, 322
Lukewarm Christians, 102
Luther, 196, 254
" Lycidas," Milton's, 393
" Lyra Innocentium," Mr. Keble's,
199

MACAULAY, Lord, History of Eng-
land by, 309

Personal Likeness of, to

Mr. Coleridge, 328

Margate, a Visit to, 141, 305

Marriage Prospects, 31

" Marriage," by Miss Ferrier, 250

Married Happiness, 90

Marsh, Mrs., 417

Martineau, Miss, 48

"Mary and Florence," by Miss
Tytler, 83

Maurice, Rev. F. D., 105

" Mazeppa " and " Manfred," 116

Mesmerism, 419, 429

Metaphysics like Alum, 78

Use of, 338

Metre, a Lesson on, 247

Metrical Rules, Use of, 157

Middle-aged Portraits, 265

Millennium, the, 172

Milton, 62, 193, 223

Mirabeau, 286

Miracles, Modern, 304

Modesty and Vanity, 165

Moore, Venerable Archdeacon, Let-
ters to, 127, 132, 216, 242, 272,
335, 368

Moore, Mrs., Letters to, 360, 361,
367, 385

More, Mrs. Hannah, 52

Morris, Miss, Letters to, 150, 157,
168, 169, 172, 173, 178, 205, 210,
238, 246, 251, 267, 292, 328, 347,
390

Mourner, Trials of a, 133
Munro, Mr., Picture Gallery of, 313

NATIVE Place, Our, 265
Vale, Her, 163

Neuralgia, 366

" New Heavens and a New Earth,"
177

Newman, Dr., Sermons of, 83, 86

Niagara, described by Miss Mar-
tineau, 102

Night Fears, 20

" OLD MAN'S HOME," the, 235

Old Ties, 344

" Oliver Newman," Mr. Southey's ,

207

Opera, the, 368
Oxford, Visit to, 125
School of Divines, 104

PAIN, 111.

Palgrave, Sir Francis, 319

" Paradise Lost," 62

Parent, Love of a, 184

Parental Affection, 208

Patience and Hope in Education,

120

Patteson, Lady, 126
Peel, Sir Robert, 353
" Phantasmion," 34, 81
Philosophy of the " Excursion," 110
" Pilgrim's Progress, The," 370
Pindar, 269

Pindaric Metre and Poetry, 217
" Pi-pos, Pot-pos," 6
Plummer, Mrs., Letters to, 64, 70,

71, 97, 104, 120, 125, 139, 297
Popery, English Aversion to, 377
Popular Poets, 345
Prayer for the Dead, 124

Temporal Blessings, 418

Pre-eminence ascribed to the Papal

See, 413

« Prelude, The," 346, 347, 365
" Pretty Lessons for Good Children,"

Profession, Value of a, 423
Public Singers, 367
Pusey, Dr., 173

438

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

QUARLES, Poems of, 245

Quillinan, Edward, Esq., Letters to,

147, 300, 301, 332, 337, 338, 341,

346, 367, 369, 374, 398
Mrs., Illness and Death

of, 236, 239, 240

RAIN, Roses, and Hay, 360
Raphaels at Bridgewater Honse,

407
Reed, Professor Henry, Letters to,

348, 375, 390, 429
Regeneration, Spiritual, 339
Remains, Literary of S. T. C., 78
Reunion of Christendom, 175
Rigby, Miss, 301
Romish Clergy, the, 176
Rnskin, Mr., "Modern Painters,"

by, 205
Critique on, 348

" SAINTISM," 211

Sanitary Improvements, 316

Satirists, 371

School Rivalries, 260

Scotland and Switzerland, 313

Scott's Novels, 371, 376

Sellon, Miss, 308

" Sensitive Plant," the, 204

Sensitiveness about Public Opinion,

296

" Seraphim, The," 155
Shakespeare, 325
Shelley and Keats, 324
" Shirley," 306
Shylock, 63
Sisterhoods, 318
South, Yisit to the, 7
Southey, Mr., Industry of, 194

Monument of, 138

Her Obligations to, 241

• Recollections of, 391

Spedding, Mr., on Lord Bacon, 268
Spiders, 74

Spiritual Peace, 429
Staffordshire, Visit to, 347

Stammering, 109

Stanger, Mrs. Joshua, Letters to, 116,

124, 144, 298

Stanley, Dean, Sermons by, 298
Statues, Recumbent, 138
Sterling, Life of, 290
" Story without an End," 76
Strickland, Miss, 300
Strong-minded Women, 298
Stutfield, C. B.Esq., letter to, 264
Sunday Stories, 110
Sunset Landscape, a, 118
— Over the Sea, 174
Swedenborg, 113

TASSO, 50

Taylor, Sir Henry, Reminiscences of

S. C. by, 22
Letters to, 194

311, 312
Taylor, the Hon. Lady, Letter to,

183

Taylor, Isaac, of Ongar, 159
Teaching, 266
" Telling " Speeches, 334
Temple Church, the, 156
Ten Virgins, Parable of the, 173
Tennyson, Mr., Poems by, 399
" Tennyson, Shelley, and Keats," 323

T Wood, 347, 354

Thackeray, Mr., 277

" Theologica Germanica," 214

Townsend, Mrs. Richard, Letters to,

195, 245, 265, 298, 346
Townshend, Rev. Chauncy Hare,

419, 425

" Travelling Onwards," 150
Trench, Archbishop, Work on the

Miracles by, 321
Trentham, 357
Trevenen, Miss, Letters to, 47, 76,

81, 102, 103, 110, 122, 233
" Triad, The," 29, 393
Tunbridge Wells, 144, 314
Turner, Painting of, 167, 350

" UNBELIEF, the Evil Heart of," 427
Unitarian, a, 59

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

439

VALLEY of Life, the, 374

" Vanity Fair," 277

Vaughan, Poems of, 308

" Veneration," in Mr. Carlyle's

"Hero-Worship," 279
Visionary Hopes, 122
Visitors before Luncheon, 168
Voss's Luise, 274

WALKING, 306

Walpole, Horace, Letters of, 55

and Gray, 379

Waltzing, 333
Wesley, Life of, 121

among the Farmers, 360

Westminster Review, an Article in

the, 426

Whateley, Archbishop, 79
White, Blanco, Lines on, 276
" White Doe of Rylstone, The," 72
Widowhood, 37, 133, 135, 137

Wilkie's Portrait of Hartley Cole-
ridge, 430

Wolverhampton Iron Works, 356

Women's Novels, 417

Wordsworth, Mr., his Attachment to
the English Church, 70

- and Mrs., at Bath,
231

Illness and Death of,

337, 339, 341

Memoir of, 390

Portrait of, 397

Poetry of, 72, 200, 375

YAENALL, Mr. Ellis, Letter to, 404
Youth and Age, 264

Sorrows of, 147

Youthful Impressions, 391

" ZOE," by Miss Jewsbury, 271
Zoological Gardens, the, 403

Library Edition, 24s.

MEMOIR AND LETTERS

SABA COLEKIDGE.

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HENRY S. KING & Co., LONDON.

DECEMBER, 1874.

A CLASSIFIED CATALOGUE OF

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worth recording." — Pall Mall Gazette.

Second Edition.
THE NILE WITHOUT A DRAGOMAN. By Frederic Eden.

In i vol. Crown Svo, cloth. Price js. 6d.

" It is a book to read during an autumn holiday."
— Spectator.

" Should any of our readers care to imitate Mr.
Eden's example, and wish to see things with their

own eyes, and shift for themselves, next winter in
Upper Egypt, they will find this book a very agree-
able guide."- Times.

ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. A Volume of Travels, with Maps.

By A. D. Carlisle, B. A., Trin. Coll., Camb. Demy Svo. Price 16*.

"We can only commend, which we do very
heartily, an eminently sensible and readable book."
— British Quarterly Review.

"Mr. Carlisle's account of his little outing is
exhilarating and charming." — Spectator.

" Rarely have we read a more graphic descrip-
tion of the countries named, India, China, Japan,
California, and South America . . . The chapters
about Japan are especially replete with informa-
tion."— "John Bull.

65, Cornhill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Row, London.

Works Published by Henry S. King 6

VOYAGES AND TRAVEL — continued.

IRELAND. A Tour of Observation, with Remarks on Irish Public Questions.
By Dr. James Macaulay. Crown 8vo. Price 7*. 6d.

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for impartiality of criticism and general accuracy
of information could be so well recommended to the
fair-minded Irish reader."— Evening Standard.

" A careful and instructive book. Full of facts,
full of information, and full of interest." — Literary
Churchman.

A WINTER IN MOROCCO. By Amelia Perrier. With 4 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo. Price los. 6d.

ness of Oriental life with a quick ob'servant eye,

" Well worth reading, and contains several excel-
lent illustrations." — Hour.

" Miss Perrier is a very amusing writer. She has
a good deal of humour, sees the oddity and quaint-

and evidently turned her opportunities of sarcastic
examination to account." — Daily News.

SCIENCE.

THE PHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE SENSES; OR THE
MENTAL AND THE PHYSICAL IN THEIR MUTUAL RELATION. By B,. S. "Wyld,
F.R.S.E. Illustrated by Several Plates. Demy 8vo. Price i6s.

The author's object is twofold : first, to supply a Manual of the Senses, embracing ths
more important discoveries of recent times ; second, in discussing the subject of Life,
Organisation, Sensibility, and Thought, to demonstrate in opposition to the Materialistic
Theory, that the Senses, no less than Reason, furnish proof that an immaterial and
spiritual element is the operatite element in nature.

SCIENTIFIC LONDON. By Bernard H. Becker. I vol. Crown 8vo. $s.
An Account of the History and present Scope of the following Institutions : —

The Government Department of Science

The Royal Society

The Royal Institution

The Institution of Civil Engineers

The Royal Geographical Society

The Society of Telegraph Engineers

The British Association

The Birkbeck Institute

The Society of Arts

and Art
The Statistical Society
The Chemical Society
The Museum of Practical Geology
The London Institution
The Gresham Lectures.

OBSERVATIONS OF MAGNETIC DECLINATION MADE AT

TKEVANDRTJM AND AGTJSTIA MALLEY in the Observatories of his
Highness the MAHARAJAH OF TRAVANCORE, G. C.S.I., in the Years 1852 to 1860.
Being Trevandrum Magnetical Observations, Volume I. Discussed and Edited by
Jolin Allan Broun, F.R.S., late Director of the Observatories. With an
Appendix. Imperial 410, cloth. 3/. 3^.

*** The Appendix, containing Reports on the Observatories and on the Public Museum,
Public Park and Gardens at Trevandrum, pp. xii. 116, maybe had separately. Price 21.5.

EUCLID SIMPLIFIED IN METHOD AND LANGUAGE. Being
a Manual of Geometry on the French System. By J. R. Morell.

The chief features of the work are : — The separation of Theorems and Problems — The
Natural Sequence of reasoning ; areas being treated by themselves and at a later page —
The simpler and more natural treatment of ratio — The legitimate use of arithmetical
applications, of transposition, and superposition- — The general alteration of language to
a more modern form — Lastly, if it be assumed to be venturesome to supersede the time-
hallowed pages of Euclid it may be urged that the attempt is made under the shelter of
very high authorities.

THE QUESTIONS OF AURAL SURGERY. By James Hinton,

late Aural Surgeon to Guy's Hospital. Post 8vo. With Illustrations. Price 125. 6d.

"Th

maintai

z questions of Aural Surgery more than cian, a deep and accurate thii
n the author's reputation as a careful clini- and talented writer."— Lancet.

:iker, and a forcible

AN ATLAS OF DISEASES OF THE MEMBRANA TYMPANL

With Descriptive Text. By James Hinton, late Aural Surgeon to Guy's Hospital.
Post 8vo. Price £6 6s.

" Of Mr. Hinton's Atlas of the Membrnna Tym- ever yet been published. The drawings are taken
pani it is hardly necessary to say more than that from actual specimens, and are all coloured by
it is by far the best and most accurate that has hand." — Lancet.

65, CornhiH ; 6° 12, Paternoster Row, London.

Works Published by Henry S. King &• Co., 7

SCIENCE — continued.

Second Edition.

PHYSIOLOGY FOR PRACTICAL USE. By various Writers. Edited
by James Hinton. avols. Crown Svo. With 50 Illustrations. Price 12$. 6d.

" A more clear, valuable, and well-informed set I " It has certainly been edited with great care.
of treatises we never saw than these, which are Physiological treatises we have had in great
bound up into two compact and readable volumes, number, but not one work, we believe, which so
And they are pleasant reading, too, as well as thoroughly appeals to all classes of the community
useful reading." — Literary Churchman. \ as the present. Everything has apparently been

' done to render the work really practical and

" We never saw the popular side of the science
of physiology better explained than it is in these

useful.'1 — Civil Service Gazette.

two thin volumes." — Standard.

Second Edition.

THE PRINCIPLES OF MENTAL PHYSIOLOGY. With their

Applications to the Training and Discipline of the Mind, and the Study of its Morbid
Conditions. By W. B. Carpenter, L.L.D., M.D., &C. 8vo. Illustrated. I2J.

house of useful hints for mental training which
make this large and yet very amusing, as well as
instructive book, an encyclopaedia of well-classified
and often very startling psychological experi-.
ences. " — Spectator.

This valuable book .

Let us add that nothing we have said, or in any
limited space could say, would give an adequate
conception of the valuable and curious collection
of facts bearing on morbid mental conditions, the
learned physiological exposition, and the treasure-

SENSATION AND INTUITION. Studies in Psychology and ^Esthetics.
By James Sully, M.A. Demy 8vo. ios. 6d.

" As to the manner of the book, Mr. Sully writes
well, and so as to be understood by any one who
will take the needful pains. . . . The materials
furnished by a quick and lively natural sense are

a qu

happily ordered by a mind trained in scientific
method. This merit is especially conspicuous in
those parts of the book where, with abundant in-
genuity and no mean success, Mr. Sully endea-
vours to throw some light of cosmic order into

the chaos of aesthetics. Unhappily for our present
'

1 Though the series of essays is by no means
devoid of internal connection, each presents so
many new points of interest that it is impossible
here to note more than one or two particulars. The
first essay of all, wherein the author considers the
relation of the Evolution-hypothesis to human
psychology, may be cited as an excellent speci-
men of his style of work." — Examiner.

In conclusion, we beg to thank Mr. Sully

: beg to

appily for our present for a meritorious and successful attempt to popu-

purpose, the best qualities of the work are pre- larise valuable and not very tractable departments
cisely those to which we cannot do justice within of science."— Academy.
the limits of a review." — Saturday Revieiu.

Second Edition.

THE EXPANSE OF HEAVEN. A Series of Essays on the Wonders of
the Firmament. By R. A. Proctor, B. A. With a Frontispiece. Crown Svo. 6s.

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STUDIES OF BLAST FURNACE PHENOMENA. By M. L.
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"The whole subject is dealt with very copiously I appreciation at the hands of practical men, for
and clearly in all its parts, and can scarcely fail of | whose use it is designed." — Post.

CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH PSYCHOLOGY. From the French of

Professor Til. Ri/bot. Large post Svo. Price gs. An Analysis of the Views and
Opinions of the following Metaphysicians, as expressed in their writings : —

JAMES MILL, ALEXANDER BAIN, JOHN STUART MILL, GEORGE H. LEWES, HERBERT
SPENCER, SAMUEL BAILEY.

" The task which M. Ribot set himself he has I " We can cordially recommend the volume."—
performed with very great success." — Examiner. \ Journal of Mental Science

HEREDITY: a Psychological Study on its Phenomena, its Laws, its Causes,
and its Consequences. By Th. Ribot, Author of " Contemporary English Psychology."
i vol. Large crown Svo.

It is generally admitted that " Heredity " — or
that biological law by which all living creatures tend
to reproduce themselves in their descendants — is
the rule in all forms of vital activity. The author

devotes his work to the study of the question,
" Does the law also hold in regard to the mental

faculties:'"

A TREATISE ON RELAPSING FEVER. By R. T. Lyons,

Assistant-Surgeon, Bengal Army. Post Svo. Price 7$. 6d.

"A practical work, thoroughly supported in its views by a series of remarkable cases."' — Standard.

65, Cornhill ; & 12, Paternoster Row, London.

Works Published bv Henry S. King

Co.,

SCIENCE— continued.

Second Edition Revised.

LEGAL HANDBOOK FOR ARCHITECTS, BUILDERS,
AND BUILDING OWNERS. By Edward Jenkins, Esq., M.P., and
John Raymond, Esq., Barristers-at-Law. Crown Svo. 6s.

"This manual has one recommendation which
cannot be accorded to more than a very small
proportion of the books published at the present
day. It proposes to supply a real want. . . . As
to the style of the work, it is just what a legal
handbook should be. . . . We warmly recommend
it to our readers." — Architect.

"It would be doing it an injustice to class it
with the rank and file of legal hand-books. In
tone and style it resembles Lord St. Leonards'
well-known popular treatise on the law of real

property. The writer conceives his subject clearly,
and writes in a manner that is pleasant, forcible,
and lucid."— La7v Magazine and Review.

" For all this and much more, about buildings
and building contracts, which is not always easy
for a layman to understand, but which it is very
necessary for an architect to know, the reader will
find in the neat little volume just published frou

the pen of Messrs. Jenkins and Raymond, a very
excellent guide." — La

Journal.

THE HISTORY OF CREATION, a Popular Account of the Develop-
ment of the Earth and its Inhabitants, according to the theories of Kant, Laplace,
Lamarck, and Darwin. By Professor Ernst Hseckel of the University of Jena.
The Translation revised by E. Ray Lankester, M. A. With Coloured Plates and
Genealogical Trees of the various groups of both plants and animals. 2 vols. Post 8vro.

{Preparing.

THE HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF MAN. By Ernst

Hseckel. Translated by E. A. Van Rhyn and L. Elsberg, M.D. (Univer-
sity of New York), with Notes and Additions sanctioned by the Author. Post Svo.

A New Edition.
SCENE. A Physician's Hints about Doctors,

CHANGE OF AIR AND

Patients, Hygiene, and Society ; with_Notes of Excursions for health in the Pyrenees,
and ami
and the

and amongst the Watering-places of France (Inland and Seaward), Switzerland, Corsica,
Mediterranean. By Dr. Alphonse Donne. Large post Svo. Price ys.

" A very readable and serviceable book

The real value of it is to be found in the accurate
and minute information given with regard to a
large number of places which have gained a repu-
tation on the continent for their mineral waters."
— Pall Mall Gazette.

"A singularly pleasant and chatty as well
instructive book about health." — Guardian.

" A valuable and almost complete i-ade inec
for the continental tourist seeking health. "—Lor..
Quarterly Rericic.

New and Enlarged Edition.

MISS YOUMANS' FIRST BOOK OF BOTANY. Designed to

cultivate the observing powers of Children. With 300 Engravings. Crown Svo. Price 55.
"It is but rarely that a school-book appears First Book of Botany .... It has been everywhere
which is at once so novel in plan, so successful in welcomed as a timely and invaluable contribution
execution, and so suited to the general want, as to to the improvement of primary education." — fa.i
command universal and unqualified approbation, Mall Gazette.
but such has been the case with Miss Youmans*

A DICTIONARY AND GLOSSARY OF THE KOR-AN. With

copious Grammatical References and Explanations of the Text. By Major J.
Penrice, B. A. 410. Price 2w.

"The book is likely to answer its purpose in smoothing a beginner's road in reading the
Kor-an." — Academy. •

MODERN GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. By T. G-. Jackson.

Crown Svo. Price 5^.

" The reader will find some of the most impor-
tant doctrines of eminent art teachers practically
applied in this little book, which is well written and
popular in style." — Manchester Examiner.

CHOLERA : HOW TO AVOID AND TREAT IT. Popular and

Practical Notes by Henry Blanc, M.D. Crown Svo. Price 4*. 6<t.

"A very practical manual, based on experience and careful observation, fuli of excellent hints on a
most dangerous disease." — Standard.

" This thoughtful little book is worthy of the
perusal of all interested in art or architecture."
—Standard.

65, Cornhill i &* 12, Paternoster Row, London.

Works Published by Henry S. King 6° Co., 9

THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.

The following is a List of the Volumes already published.

Fourth Edition.

I. THE FORMS OF WATER IN CLOUDS AND RIVERS,
ICE AND GLACIERS. By J. Tyndall, LIi.D., F.R.S. With 26 Illus-
trations. Price 5-y.

Second Edition.

II. PHYSICS AND POLITICS ; OR, THOUGHTS ON THE APPLICATION

OF THE PRINCIPLES OF "NATURAL SELECTION" AND "INHERITANCE" TO POLITICAL
SOCIETY. By Walter Bagrehot. Price 4*.

Third Edition.

III. FOODS. By Dr. Edward Smith. Profusely Illustrated. Price 5*.

Third Edition.

IV. MIND AND BODY: THE THEORIES OF THEIR RELATION. By

Alexander Bain, LiL.D., Professor of Logic at the University of Aberdeen.
With Four Illustrations. Price 4.?.

Fourth Edition.

V. THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. By Herbert Spencer. Price 5*.

Third Edition.
VI. THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. By Professor

Balfour Stewart. With Fourteen Engravings. Price $s.

Second Edition.

VII. ANIMAL LOCOMOTION; or, Walking, Swimming, and Flying.
ByJ. Bell Pettigrew, M.D., F.R.S. With 119 Illustrations. Price 55.

Second Edition.

VIII. RESPONSIBILITY IN MENTAL DISEASE. By Dr.
Henry Maudsley. Price 5*.

Second Edition.
IX. THE NEW CHEMISTRY. By Professor Josiali P. Cooke,

of the Harvard University. With Thirty-one Illustrations. Price 5$.
Second Edition.

X. THE SCIENCE OF LAW. By Prof. Sheldon Amos. Price 5*.

Second Edition.
XI. ANIMAL MECHANISM. A Treatise on Terrestrial and Aerial

Locomotion. By Professor E. J. Marey. With 117 Illustrations. Price 5$.

XII. THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT AND DARWINISM. By

Professor Oscar Schmidt (Strasburg University). Illustrated. Price 55.

XIII. HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION
AND SCIENCE. By John William Draper, M.D., L.L.D. Professor in
the University of New York ; Author of "A Treatise on Human Physiology." Price 55.

XIV. THE CHEMICAL EFFECTS OF LIGHT AND PHOTO-
GRAPHY, TN THEIR APPLICATION TO ART, SCIENCE, AND INDUS-
TRY. By Dr. Hermann Vog-el (Polytechnic Academy of Berlin). With 74
Illustrations.

XV. OPTICS. By Professor Lommel (University of Erlangen). Profusely
Illustrated.

XVI. FUNGI : THEIR NATURE, INFLUENCES, USES, &c.
By M. C. Cooke, M.A., LL.D. Edited by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley,
M.A., F.L.S. Profusely Illustrated.

65, Cornhill *3 6° 12, Paternoster Row, London.

Works Published by Henry S. Xing 6- Co.,

THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES— continued.

Forthcoming Volumes.

Mons. VAN BENEDEN.

On Parasites in the Animal Kingdom.

Prof. W. KINGDOM CLIFFOKD, M.A.

The First Principles of the Exact Sciences ex-
plained to the non-mathematical.

Prof. T. H. HUXLEY, >LL.D., P.B.S.

Bodily Motion and Consciousness.

Dr. W. B. CARPENTER, LL.D., F.R.S.

The Physical Geography of the Sea.

Prof. WILLIAM COLLING, F.R.S.

The Old Chemistry viewed from the New Stand-
point.

W. LAUDER LINDSAY, M.D., F.R.S.E.

Mind in the Lower Animals.

Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., F.R.S.

The Antiquity of Man.

Prof. W. T. THISELTON DYER, B.A.,
B.SC.

Form and Habit in Flowering Plants.

Mr. J. N. LOCKYER, F.R.S.

Spectrum Analysis : some of its recent results.

Prof. MICHAEL FOSTER, M.D.
Protoplasm and the Cell Theory.

Prof. W. STANLEY JEVONS.

Money : and the Mechanism of Exchange.

H. CHARLTON BASTIAN, M.D., F.R.S.
The Brain as an Organ of Mind.

Prof. A. C. RAMSAY, LL.D., F.R.S.

Earth Sculpture : Hills, Valleys, Mountains, Plains,
Rivers, Lakes ; how they were produced, and
how they have been Destroyed.

Prof. RUDOLPH VIRCHOW (Berlin Univ.)

Morbid Physiological Action.

Prof. CLAUDE BERNARD.

Physical and Metaphysical Phenomena of Life.

Prof. H. SAINTE -CLAIRE DEVILLE.

An Introduction to General Chemistry.

Prof. WURTZ.

Atoms and the Atomic Theory.

Prof. DE QUATREFAGES.
The Negro Races.

Prof. LACAZE-DUTHIERS.

Zoology since Cuvier.

Prof. BERTHELOT.

Chemical Synthesis.

Prof. J. ROSENTHAL.

General Physiology of Muscles and Nerves.

Prof. JAMES D. DANA, M.A., LL.D.

On CephalLzation ; or, Head-Characters in tL~
Gradation and Progress of Life.

Prof. S. W. JOHNSON, M.A.

On the Nutrition of Plants.

Prof. AUSTIN FLINT, Jr. M.D.

The Nervous System and its Relation to the
Bodily Functions.

Prof. W. D. WHITNEY.

Modern Linguistic Science.

Prof BERNSTEIN (University of Halle).
Physiology of the Senses.

Prof. FERDINAND COHN (BreslauUniv.)

Thallophytes (Algce, Lichens, Fungi).

Prof. HERMANN (University of Zurich).
Respiration.

Prof. LEUCKART (University of Leipsic).

Outlines of Animal Organization.

Prof. LIEBREICH (University of Berlin),
Outlines of Toxicology.

Prof. KUNDT (University of Strasburg).
On Sound.

Prof. REES (University of Erlangen).
On Parasitic Plants.

Prof. STEINTHAL (University of Berlin).
Outlines of the Science of Language.

P. BERT (Professor of Physiology, Paris;.

Forms of Life and other Cosmical Conditions.

E. ALGLAVE (Professor of Constitutional
and Administrative Law at Douai, and of
Political Economy at Lille).

The Primitive Elements of Political Constitutions

P. LORAIN (Professor of Medicine, Paris).
Modern Epidemics.

Prof. SCHUTZENBERGER (Director of
the Chemical Laboratory at the Sorbonne).

On Fermentations.
Mons. FREIDEL.

The Functions of Organic Chemistry.
Mons. DEBRAY.

Precious Metals.

Mons. P. BLASERNA (Professor in the
University of Rome.)
On Sound ; The Organs of Voice and of Hearing.

65, Cornhill ; c- 12, Paternoster Row, London.

Works Published by Henry S. King & Co., n

ESSAYS AND LECTURES.

THE BETTER SELF. Essays for Home Life. By the Author of " The

Gentle Life." Crown 8vo. 6s.

A CLUSTER OF LIVES. By Alice King, Author of "Queen of

Herself," &c. Crown 8vo. 75-. 6d.

CONTENTS. — Vittoria Colonna — Madame Recamier — A Daughter of the Stuarts —
Dante — Madame de Sevigne— Geoffrey Chaucer — Edmund Spenser — Captain Cook's
Companion — Ariosto — Lucrezia Borgia — Petrarch — Cervantes — Joan of Arc — Galileo —
Madame Cottin — Song of the Bird in the Garden of Armida.

Second Edition.

IN STRANGE COMPANY; or, The Note Book of a Roving Correspondent.
By James Greenwood, "The Amateur Casual." Crown 8vo. 6s.

"A bright, lively book." — Standard. "Some of the papers remind us of Charles Lamb

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MASTER-SPIRITS. By Robert Buchanan. Post 8vo. IQJ. 6d.
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' ' Full of fresh and vigorous writing, such as can
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dent intellect." — Saturday Review.

" Written with a beauty of language and a spirit
of vigorous enthusiasm rare even in our best living
word-painters. " — Standard.

" A very pleasant and readable book."

Examiner.

Mr. Buchanan is a writer whose books the
satisfaction . . . both

critics may always open with
manly and artistic." — Hour.

GLANCES AT INNER ENGLAND. A Lecture delivered in the United

States and Canada. By Edward Jenkins, M.P., Author of " Ginx's Baby," &c.
Crown 8vo. Price 5.5-.

"These 'glances' exhibit much of the author's
characteristic discrimination and judgment." —
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"Cleverly written, full of terse adages and

rapier-like epigrams it is ; thoughtful and just it is
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"Eloquent and epigrammatic." — Illustrated
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OUR LAND LAWS. Short Lectures delivered before the Working Men's
College. By T. Lean Wilkinson. Crown 8vo, limp cloth, zs.

"A very handy and intelligible epitome of the general principles of existing land laws.'1 — Standard.

AN ESSAY ON THE CULTURE OF THE OBSERVING

POWEBS OF CHILDREN, especially in connection with the Study of Botany. B
Eliza A. Youmans. — • • - - • • '

EN, especially m connection with the study oi Botany. By
Edited, with Notes and a Supplement, by Joseph.

Payne, P.O. P., Author of "Lectures on the Science and Art of Education," &c.
Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.

" This study, according to her just notions on the
subject, is to be fundamentally based on the ex-
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THE GENIUS OF CHRISTIANITY UNVEILED. Being Essays

by William Godwin, Author of " Political Justice," &c. Edited with a preface by
C. Keg-an Paul, i vol. Crown 8vo. js. 6d.

flowers at first hand, not merely to be. informed of
what others have seen and examined." — Pall Mall
Gazette.

" Few have thought more clearly and directly " The deliberate thoughts of Godwin deserve to
than William Godwin, or expressed their reflec- be put before the world for reading and conside
tions with more simplicity and unreserve."

WORKS BY JOSEPH PAYNE, Professor of the Science and Art of

Education to the College of Preceptors.

THE TRUE FOUNDATION OF SCIENCE TEACHING. A Lecture delivered at the
College of Preceptors. 8vo, sewed, 6d.

THE SCIENCE AND ART OF EDUCATION. A Lecture introductory to a "Course
of Lectures and Lessons to Teachers on the Science, Art, and History of Education,"
delivered at the College of Preceptors. 8vo, sewed, 6d.

FKOBEL AND THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. A
Lecture delivered at the College of Preceptors. 8vo, sewed, 6d.

65, Cornhill ; and 12, Paternoster Row, London.

12 Works Published by Henry S. King c^ Co.,

MILITARY WORKS.

MOUNTAIN WARFARE, illustrated by the Campaign of 1799 in Switzer-
land, being a translation of the Swiss Narrative compiled from the works of the Archduke
Charles. Jomini, and others. Also of Notes by General H. Dufour on the Campaign of
the Vatteline in 1635. By Major-General Shadwell, C.B. With Appendix,
Maps, and Introductory Remarks.

- This work has been prepared for the purpose of illustrating by the well-known cam-
paign of 1799 in Switzerland, the true method of conducting warfare in mountainous
countries. Many of the scenes of this contest are annually visited by English tourists/and
are in themselves full of interest ; but the special object of the volume is to attract the
attention of the young officers of our army to this branch of warfare, especially of those,
whose lot may hereafter be cast, and who may be called upon to take part in operations
against the Hill Tribes of our extensive Indian frontier.

RUSSIA'S ADVANCE EASTWARD. Based on the Official Reports of

Lieut. Hugo Stumm, German Military Attache to the Khivan Expedition. To which is
appended other Information on the Subject, and a Minute Account of the Russian Army.
By Capt. C. E. H. Vincent, F.R.Gr.S. Crown 8vo. With Map. 6s.

" Captain Vincent's account of the improve- I tenant Stumm's narrative of one of the most bril-
ments which have taken place lately in all branches liant military exploits of recent years is Captain
of the service is accurate and clear, and is fall 1 Vincent's own account of the reconstruction,
of useful material for the C9nsideratiqn of those under Mi-lutin, of the Russian Army. Few books

will give a better idea of its progress than this
brief survey of its present state and latest achieve-

vho believe that Russia is still where she was left
by the Crimean war." — Athenczum.
"Even more interesting, perhaps, than Lieu-

ment. "—GraJ>h ic.

THE VOLUNTEER, THE MILITIAMAN, AND THE

REGULAR SOLDIER; a Conservative View of the Armies of England, Past,
Present, and Future, as Seen in January, 1874. By A Public School Boy. i vol.
Crown 8vo. Price $J.

" Deserves special attention. ... It is a good I steps in the growth of the English army from the
and compact little work, and treats the whole trme of the Anglo-Saxons. The writer is at great
topic in a clear, intelligible, and rational way. pains to examine the real facts concerning enlist-
There is an interesting chapter styled " Historical ment into the different branches of the army at
Retrospect," which very briefly traces all the main | the present day." — U-'estminster Review.

THE OPERATIONS OF THE GERMAN ENGINEERS AND

TECHNICAL TROOPS IN THE FRANCO- GERM AN WAR OP 1870-71.
By Capt. A. VOn Groetze. Translated by Col. G-. Graham. Demy 8vo. With
Six Plans.

THE OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST ARMY, UNDER GEN.

VON STEINMETZ. By Major von Schell. Translated by Captain E. O.
Hollist. With Three Maps. Demy 8vo. Price ior. 6d.

" A very complete and important account of the
investment of Metz."

" The volume is of somewhat too technical a
character to be recommended to the general
reader, but the military student will find it a valu-

able contribution to the history of the great
struggle ; and its utility is increased by a capital
general map of the operations of the First Army,
and also plans of Spicheren and of the battle-fields
round Metz."— "John Bull.

THE OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST ARMY UNDER GEN.

VON GOEBEN. By Major von Schell. Translated by Col. C. H. von
"Wright. Four Maps. Demy 8vo. Price 9^.

"In concluding our notice of this instructive I has he succeeded, that it might really be imagined

work, which, by the way, is enriched by several
large-scale maps, we must not withho.d our tribute
of admiration at the manner in which the translator
has performed his task. So thoroughly, indeed,

that the book had been originally composed
English. . . The work is decidedly valtiable to a
student of the art of war, and no military library
can be considered complete without it." — Hour.

THE OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST ARMY UNDER GEN.
VON MANTEUFFEL. By Col. Count Hermann von Wartensleben,
Chief of the Staff of the First Army. Translated by Colonel C. H. VOn Wright.
With Two Maps. Demy 8vo. Price 9$.

"Very clear, simple, yet eminently instructive, i estimable value of being in great measure the re-
is this history. It is not overladen with useless de- cord of operations actually witnessed by the author,
tails, ii written in good taste, and possesses the in- I supplemented by official documents." — Athcnanm.

65, Cornhill ; 6° 12, Paternoster Row, London,

Works Published by Henry S. King 6- Co., 13

MILITARY WORKS —continued.
THE GERMAN ARTILLERY IN THE BATTLES NEAR METZ

Based on the official reports of the German Artillery. By Captain Hoffbauer,
Instructor in the German Artillery and Engineer School. Translated by Capt. E. O.
Hollist. Demy 8vo. With Map and Plans. Price 2is.

" Captain Hoftbauer's style is much more simple
and agreeable than those of many of his comrades
andfellowauthors, and it suffers nothing in the hands

able and. instructive book ; whilst to his brother
officers, who have a special professional interest m
the subject, its value cannot well be overrated."—

of Captain Hollist, whose translation is close and Academy.
faithful. He has given the general public a read- ,

THE OPERATIONS OF THE BAVARIAN ARMY CORPS.
By Captain Hugo Helvig1. Translated by Captain Gr. S. Sclrwabe.

With 5 large Maps. In 2 vols. Demy 8vo. Price 24$.

" It contains much material that may prove use- I and that the translator has performed his work
ful to the future historian of the war ; and it is, on most creditably." — Athcnceum.
the whole, written in a spirit of fairness and im- | "Captain Schwabe has done well to translate it,
partiality. . . It only remains to say that the work ' and his translation is admirably executed." — Pali
is enriched by some excellent large scale maps, | Mall Gazette.

AUSTRIAN CAVALRY EXERCISE. From an Abridged Edition
compiled by CAPTAIN ILLIA WOINOVITS, of the General Staff, on the Tactical Regula-
tions of the Austrian Army, and prefaced by a General Sketch of the Organisation, &c.,
of the Cavalry. Translated by Captain W. S. Cooke. Crown 8vo, cloth. Price "js.

"Among the valuable group of works on the i ' Austrian Cavalry Exercise ' will hold a good ajrd
military tactics of the chief States of Europe which uselul place."— Westminster Review.
Messrs. King are publishing, a small treatise on I

History of the Organisation, Equipment, and War Services of
THE REGIMENT OF BENGAL ARTILLERY. Compiled from

Published Official and other Records, and various private sources, by Major Francis
W. Stubbs, Royal (late Bengal) Artillery. Vol. I. will contain WAR SERVICES. The
Second Volume will be published separately, and will contain the HISTORY OF THE
ORGANISATION AND EQUIPMENT OF THE REGIMENT. In 2 vols. 8vo. With Maps
and Plans. \Preparing.

VICTORIES AND DEFEATS. An Attempt to explain the Causes which
have led to them. An Officer's Mariual. By Col. R. P. Anderson. 8vo. 14$.

"The young officer should have it always at
hand to open anywhere and read a bit, and we
warrant him that let that bit be ever so small it
will give him material for an hour's thinking." —
United Service Gazette.

"The present book proves that he is a diligent
student of military history, his illustrations ranging
over a wide field, and including ancient and mo-
dern Indian and European warfare." — Standard.

THE FRONTAL ATTACK OF INFANTRY. By Capt. Laymann,

Instructor of Tactics at the Military College, Neisse. Translated by Colonel
Edward Newdigrate. Crown 8vo, limp cloth. Price 2s. 6d.

ipaign by the terrible and unanticipated
f the fire ; and how, accordingly, troops
>e trained to attack in future wars." — Naval

plains how the.' e were modified in the course of

the campaign by the terrible and unanticipated

effect of the "

should be tra:

and Military Gazette.

ELEMENTARY MILITARY GEOGRAPHY, RECONNOITRING,

AND SKETCHING-. Compiled for Non-Commissioned Officers and Soldiers of all
Arms. By Capt. C. E. H. Vincent. Square cr. 8vo. 2S. 6d.

" An exceedingly useful kind of book. A valu-
able acquisition to the military student's library.
It recounts, in the first place, the opinions and
tactical formations which regulated the German
army during the early battles of the late war ; ex-

" This manual takes into view the necessity of
every soldier knowing how to read a military map,
in order to know to what points in an enemy's
country to direct his attention ; and provides for
this necessity by giving, in terse and sensible

language, definitions of varieties of ground and the

advantages they

a number of use

Naval and Military Gazette.

present in warfare, together with
ful hints in military sketching." —

THREE WORKS BY LIEUT.-COL. THE HON. A. ANSON,

V.C., M.P.
THE ABOLITION OF PURCHASE AND THE ARMY RESERVES AND MILITIA REFORMS.

ARMY REGULATION BILL OF 1871. Crown
8vo. Price One Shilling.

Crown 8vo. Sewed. Price One Shilling.
THE STORY OF THE SUPERSESSIONS. " Crown
8vo. Price Sixpence.

6 ">> Cornhill ; 6° 12, Paternoster Row, London.

14 Works Published by Henry S. Ki?ig d° Co.,

MILITARY WORKS — continued.
THE OPERATIONS OF THE SOUTH ARMY IN JANUARY

AND FEBRUARY, 1871. Compiled from the Official War Documents of the Head-
quarters of the Southern Army. By Count Hermann von Wartensleben,
Colonel in the Prussian General Staff. Translated by Colonel C. H. von Wright.
Demy 8vo, with Maps. Uniform with the above. Price 6s.

STUDIES IN THE NEW INFANTRY TACTICS. Parts I. & II.
By Major W. von Scherff. Translated from the German by Colonel Lumley
Graham. Demy 8vo. Price js. 6d.

" The subject of the respective advantages of
attack and defence, and of the methods in which
each form of battle should be carried out under
the fire of modern arms, is exhaustively and ad-

mirably treated ; indeed, we cannot but consider
it to be decidedly superior to any work which has
hitherto appeared in English upon this all-import-
ant subject." — Standard.

Second Edition. Revised and Corrected.

TACTICAL DEDUCTIONS FROM THE WAR OF 1870—71. By
Captain A. von Bog-uslawski. Translated by Colonel Lumley G-raham,

late iSth (Royal Irish) Regiment. Demy 8vo. Uniform with the above. Price -js.

"We must, without delay, impress brain and
forethought into the British Service ; and we can-
not commence the good work too soon, or better,
than by placing the two books (' The Operations of

THE ARMY OF THE NORTH-GERMAN CONFEDERATION.

A Brief Description of its Organization, of the different Branches of the Service, and
their "R61e" in War, of its Mode of Fighting, &c. By a Prussian General.
Translated from the German by Col. Edward Newdigate. Demy 8vo. Price $s.

the German Armies' and 'Tactical Deductions')
we have here criticised in every military library,
and introducing them as class-books in every tac-
tical school."— United Service Gazette.

" The work is quite essential to the full use of
the other volumes of the ' German Military Series,'
which Messrs. King are now producing in hand-
some uniform style. —United Service Magazine.
Every page of the book deserves attentive

study .... The information given on mobilisation,
garrison troops, keeping up establishment during
war, and on the employment of the different
branches of the service, is of great value."—
Standard.

THE OPERATIONS OF THE GERMAN ARMIES IN FRANCE,

PROM SEDAN TO THE END OF THE WAR OF 1870-71. With large
Official Map. From the Journals of the Head-quarters Staff, by Major "William
Blume. Translated by E. M. Jones, Major aoth Foot, late Professor of Military
History, Sandhurst. Demy 8vo. Price 9$.

" The book is of absolute necessity to the mili-
tary student .... The work is one of high merit."
— United Service Gazette.

" The work of Major von Blume in its English
dress forms the most valuable addition to our stock

of works upon the war that our press has put forth.
Our space forbids our doing more than comrxend-
ing it earnestly as the most authentic and instruc-
tive narrative of the second section of the war that
has yet appeared."— Saturday Review.

HASTY INTRENCHMENTS. By Colonel A. Brialmont. Translated
by Iiieut. Charles A. Empson, II. A. With Nine Plates. DemySvo. Price 6s.

" It supplies that which our own text-books give
but imperfectly, viz , hints as to how a position can

" A valuable contribution to military literature."
— Athenaum.

" In seven short chapters it gives plain directions
for forming shelter-trenches, with the best method
of carrying the necessary tools, and it offers prac-
tical illustrations of the use of hasty intrenchments
on the field of battle."— United Service Magazine.

best be strengthened by means . . . of such extem-
porised intrenchments and batteries as can be
thrown up by infantry in the space of four or five
hours . . . deserves to become a standard military
work."— Standard.

STUDIES IN LEADING TROpPS. Parts I. and II. By Colonel von

"Verdy du "Vernois. An authorised and accurate Translation by Lieutenant
H. J. T. Hildyard, 7ist Foot. Demy 8vo. Price 7s.

*.* General BEAUCHAMP WALKER says of
this work : — " I recommend the first two numbers
of Colonel von Verdy's ' Studies ' to the attentive
perusal of my brother officers. They supply a
want which I have often felt during my service in
this country, namely, a minuter tactical detail of
the minor operations of war than any but the most

observant and fortunately-placed staff-officer is in
a position to give. I have read and re-read them
very carefully, I hope with profit, certainly with
great interest, and beHeve that practice, in the
sense of these ' Studies,' would be a valuable pre-
paration for manosuvres on a more extended
scale."— Berlin, June, 1872.

DISCIPLINE AND DRILL. Four Lectures delivered to the London

Scottish Rifle Volunteers. By Capt. S. Flood Page. Cheaper Edition. Cr. 8vo. is.

"The very useful and interesting work. "— I "An admirable collection of lectures." — Times.
Volunteer Service Gazette.

65, Cornhill ; & 12, Paternoster Row, Lotidon.

Works Published by Henry S. King 6- Co.,

MILITARY WORKS — continued.

CAVALRY FIELD DUTY. By Major-Qeneral von Mirus. Translated
by Captain Frank S. Russell, i4th (King's) Hussars. Cr. 8vo, cloth limp. js. 6d.

"We have no book on cavalry duties that at all
ipproaches to this, either for completeness in
details, clearness in description, or for manifest
utility. In its pages will be found plain instructions
for every portion of duty before the enemy that a
combatant horseman will be called upon to per-
form, and if a dragoon but studies it well and

intelligently, his value to the army, we are confi-
dent, must be increased one hundredfold. Skir-
mishing, scouting-, patrolling, and vedetting are
now the chief duties dragoons in peace should be
practised at, and how to perform these duties
effectively is what the book teaches."— United
Set vice Magazine.

INDIA AND THE EAST.

THE THREATENED FAMINE IN BENGAL; How IT MAY BE

MET, AND THE RECURRENCE OF FAMINES IN INDIA PREVENTED. Being No. i of
" Occasional Notes on Indian Affairs." By Sir H. Bartle E. Frere, G.C.B.,
G.C.S.I., &C. &C. Crown 8vo. With 3 Maps. Price $s.

THE ORIENTAL SPORTING MAGAZINE. A Reprint of the first

5 Volumes, in 2 Volumes, demy 8vo. Price 285.

specimens of the animal world in their native
jungle. It is seldom we get so many exciting inci-
dents in a similar amount of space . . . Well suited
to the libraries of country gentlemen and all those
who are interested in sporting matters." — Civil
Service Gazette.

" Lovers of sport will find ample amusement in
the varied contents of these two volumes." — Allen's
Indian Mail.

" Full of interest for the sportsman and natural-
ist. Full of thrilling adventures of sportsmen who
have attacked the fiercest and most gigantic

Second Edition, Revised and Corrected.

THE EUROPEAN IN INDIA. A Hand-book of Practical Information

for those proceeding to, or residing in, the East Indies, relating to Outfits, Routes,
Time for Departure, Indian Climate, &c. By Edmund C. P. Hull. With a
MEDICAL GUIDE FOR ANGLO-INDIANS. Being a Compendium of Advice to Europeans
in India, relating to the Preservation and Regulation of their Health. To which is
added a Supplement on the Management of Children in India. By R. S. Mair,
M.D., F.E-.C.S.E., late Deputy Coroner of Madras. In i vol. Post 8vo. Price 6s.

It supplies a want which few

" Full of all sorts of useful information to the
English settler or traveller in India."— Standard.

"One of the most valuable books ever published
in India — valuable for its sound information, its
careful array of pertinent facts, and its sterling

common sense.

persons may have discovered, but which everybody
will at once recognise when once the contents of
the book have been mastered. The medical part
of the work is invaluable." — Calcutta Guardian.

MEDICAL GUIDE FOR ANGLO-INDIANS. Being a Compendium

of Advice to Europeans in India, relating to the Preservation and Regulation of their
Health. With a Supplement on the Management of Children in India. By R. S. Mair,
M.D., F.R.C.S.E., late Deputy Coronerof Madras. Post 8vo, limpcloth. Price y.6d.

TAS-HIL UL KALAM ; OR, HINDUSTANI MADE EASY. By Captain

"W. R. M. Holroyd, Bengal Staff Corps, Director of Public Instruction, Punjab.
Crown 8vo. Price $s.

"As clear and as instructive as possible." — I nation, that is not to be found in any other work
Standard. on the subject that has crossed our path." — Hoine-

" Contains a great deal of most necessary infor- 1 ward Mail.

EASTERN EXPERIENCES. By L. Bowring, C.S.I., Lord Canning's

Private Secretary, and for many years Chief Commissioner of Mysore and Coorg.
Illustrated with Maps and Diagrams. Demy 8vo. Price i6.y.

"An admirable and exhaustive geographical,
political, and industrial survey." — Athencewn.

"Interesting even to the general reader, but
especially so to those who may have a special con-
cern in that portion of our Indian Empire." — Post.

" This compact and methodical summary of the
most authentic information relating to countries
whose welfare is intimately connected with our
own." — Daily News.

65, Cornhill ; 6* 12, Paternoster Row, London.

1 6 Works Published by Henry S. King 6° Co.,

INDIA AND THE EAST — continued.
EDUCATIONAL COURSE OF SECULAR SCHOOL BOOKS

FOB INDIA. Edited by J. S. Laurie, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law ;
formerly H.M. Inspector of Schools, England ; Assistant Royal Commissioner, Ireland ;
Special Commissioner, African Settlement ; Director of Public Instruction, Ceylon.

"These valuable little works will prove of real I who intend entering the Civil Service of India."—
service to many of our readers, especially to those | Civil Service Gazette.

The folloiving Works are now ready : —

*. d. s. J.

THE FIBST HINDUSTANI ! GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA, with

BEADEB, stiff linen wrapper . .06! Empire in Hindustan. 128 pp. cloth i 6

In the Press.

ELEMENTABY GEOGBAPHY OF
INDIA.

FACTS AND FEATUBES OF INDIAN
HISTORY, in a series of alternating

Reading Lessons and Memory Exercises.
Second Edition.

WESTERN INDIA BEFORE AND DURING THE MUTINIES.

Pictures drawn from life. By Maj or-Gren. Sir George Le Grand Jacob,
K.C.S.I., C.B. In i vol. Crown 8vo. Price 7*. 6d.

' The most important contribution to the history
of Western India during the Mutinies which has
yet, in "a popular form, been made public." —
AtJienceiim.

' Few men more competent than himself to speak
authoritatively concerning Indian affairs." — Stan-
dard.

EXCHANGE TABLES OF STERLING AND INDIAN RUPEE

CURRENCY, UPON A NEW AND EXTENDED SYSTEM, embracing Values from One
Farthing to One Hundred Thousand Pounds, and at rates progressing, in Sixteenths of
a Penny, from is. gd. to -2S. -^d. per Rupee. By Donald Fraser, Accountant to the
British Indian Steam Navigation Company, Limited. Royal 8vo. Price IQJ. 6J.

"The calculations must have entailed great I houses which have dealings with any country where
labour on the author, but the work is one which we the rupee and the English pound are standard
fancy must become a standard one in all business ' coins of currency." — Inverness Courier.

BOOKS for the YO UNG and for LENDING LIBRARIES.

NEW WORKS BY HESBA STRETTON.
THE WONDERFUL LIFE. Fcap. 8vo. With a Map and Illuminated

Frontispiece, zs. 6d. [Just out.

This slight find brief sketch is merely the story of the life and death of our Lord. It has been
written for those who have not the leisure, or the books, needed for threading together the frag-
mentary and scattered incidents recorded in the four Gospels. Of late years these records have been
searched diligently for the smallest links which might serve to complete the chain of those years of •»
life passed amongst us as Jesus of Nazareth, the Carpenter, the Prophet, and the Messiah. This litt>e
book is intended only to present the result of these close investigations made by man3" learned men, in ^
plain continuous narrative, suitable for unlearned readers.

CASSY. Twentieth Thousand. With Six Illustrations. is. 6d.

THE KING'S SERVANTS. Twenty-eighth Thousand. With Eight

Illustrations, is. 6d.

Part I.— Faithful in Little. Part II.— Unfaithful. Part III.— Faithful in Much,

LOST GIF. Thirty-sixth Thousand. With Six Illustrations, is. 6d.

V ALSO A HANDSOMELY-BOUND EDITION, WITH TWELVE
ILLUSTRATIONS, PRICE HALF-A-CROWN.

65, Corjihill ; 6* 12, Paternoster Row, London.

Works Published by Henry S. King &> Co., 17

BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG AND FOR LENDING LIBRARIES — continued.

DADDY'S PET. By Mrs. Ellen Boss (Nelsie Brook). Third Thousand.
Small square, cloth, uniform with " Lost Gip." With Six Illustrations. Price is.

"We have been more than pleased with this I "Full of deep feeling and true and noble senti-
simple bit of writing." — Christian Jt'orld. \ ment." — Brighton Gazette.

LOCKED OUT; A Tale of the Strike. By Ellen Barlee. With a
Frontispiece. TS. 6d.

PRETTY LESSONS IN VERSE FOR GOOD CHILDREN,

with some Lessons in Latin, in Easy Rhyme. By Sara Coleridge. A New Edition.
With Six Illustrations. Cloth, 3*. 6d.

AUNT MARY'S BRAN PIE. By the Author of " St. Olave's," "When I
was a Little Girl," &c. Small crown 8vo. With Five Illustrations. 3$. 6d.

Second Edition.

SEEKING HIS FORTUNE, AND OTHER STORIES. Crown 8vo.

With Four Illustrations. Price 3*. 6d.
CONTENTS.— Seeking his Fortune.— Oluf and Stephanoff.— What's in a Name?—

Contrast.— Onesta.

"These are plain, straightforward stories, told
in the precise, detailed manner which we are
sureyoung people like.'' — Spectator.

" They are romantic, entertaining, and deci-

We can answer for it that thjs volume will find
favour with those for whom it is written, and that
the sisters will like it quite as well as the brothers."
— Athtnaum.

dedly inculcate a sound and generous moral. .

THREE WORKS BY MARTHA FARQUHARSON.

I. ELSIE DINSMORE. Cr. 8vo. Price 3$. 6d. I III. ELSIE'S HOLIDAYS AT ROSELANDS.
II. ELSIE'S GIRLHOOD. Cr. 8vo. Price %s.6d. \ Crown 8vo. Price 3 s. 6d.

Each Story is independent and complete in itself.
They are published in uniform size and price, and are elegantly bound and illustrated.

"We do not pretend to have read the history
of Elsie as she is portrayed in three different
volumes. By the help, however, of the illustra-
tions, and by dips here and there, we can safely
givea favourable account." — Westminster Review.

" Elsie Dinsmore is a familiar name to a world
of young readers. In the above three pretty
volumes her story is complete, and it is one full of
youthful experiences, winning a general interest."
— Athencemn.

THE LITTLE WONDER-HORN. By Jean Ingelow. A Second

Series of " Stories told to a Ckild." With Fifteen Illustrations. Cloth, gilt. Price 3*. 6d.

"We like all the contents of the ' Little Wonder- I " Full of fresh and vigorous fancy : it is worthy-
Horn ' very much." — Athenceum. I of the author of some of the best of our modern

" We recommend it with confidence."— /W/ I verse."— Standard.
Mall Gazette.

Second Edition.

THE AFRICAN CRUISER. A Midshipman's Adventures on the West
Coast of Africa. A Book for Boys. By S. Whitehurch Sadler, R.N., Author
of "Marshall Vavasour." With Three Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Price 3^. 64.

"A capital story of youthful adventure .... Sea- I "Sea yarns have always been in favour with
loving boys will find few pleasanter gift books this boys, but this, written in a brisk style by a thorough
season than ' The African Cruiser.' — Hour. ' sailor, is crammed full of adventures." — Times.

Third Edition.

BRAVE MEN'S FOOTSTEPS. A Book of Example and Anecdote for
Young People. By the Editor of "Men who have Risen." With Four Illus-
trations, by C. Doyle. Crown 8vo. Price -$s. 6d.

"A readable and instructive volume."— Exa- I win the favour of those who, in choosing a gift for

wintr. a boy, would consult his moral development as

" The little volume is precisely of the stamp to I well as his temporary pleasure."— Daily TelegrapJi.

65, Cornhill ; &> 12, Paternoster Row, London.

1 8 Works Published by Henry S. King 6^ Co.,

BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG AND FOR LENDING LIBRARIES — continued.

Second Edition.
PLUCKY FELLOWS. A Book for Boys. By Stephen J. Mac Kenna,

With Six Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Price 35. 6d.

" A thorough book for boys . . . written through-
out in a manly, straightforward manner that is sure
to win the hearts of the children."— London Society*

"This is one of the very best ' Books for Boys '
•which have been issued this year.'' — Morning
Advertiser,

Second Edition.

GUTTA-PERCHA WILLIE, THE WORKING GENIUS. By
George MacDonald. With 9 Illustrations by Arthur Hug-lies. Cr. 8vo. 3$. 6<f.

" The cleverest child we know assures us she has I will, we are convinced, accept that verdict upon
read this story through five times. Mr. Macdonald | his little work as final"— Specta tor.

THE TRAVELLING MENAGERIE. By Charles Camden, Authoi
of " Hoity Toity." With Ten Illustrations by J. Mahoney. Crown 8vo. 3$. 6d.

" A capital little book .... deserves a wide I " A very attractive story."— Public Opinion,
circulation among our boys and girls."— Hour. \

THE DESERT PASTOR, JEAN JAROUSSEAU. Translated from
the French of Eugrene Pelletan. By Colonel E. P. De L'Hoste. In fcap.
8vo, with an Engraved Frontispiece. New Edition. Price 3^. 6d.

pure love, and the spectacle of a household brought
up in the fear of- the Lord . . . ." — lllicstrated
London News.

"A touching record of the struggles in the cause
of religious liberty of a real man." — Graphic.

" There is a poetical simplicity and picturesque-
ness ; the noblest heroism ; unpretentious religion ;

THE DESERTED SHIP. A Real Story of the Atlantic. By Cupples

Howe, Master Mariner. Illustrated by Townley Grreen. Cr. 8vo. Price 35. 6iL

" Curious adventures with bears, seals, and other I the story deals, and will much interest boys who
Arctic animals, and with scarcely more human have a spice of romance in their composition." —
Esquimaux, form the mass of material with which | Courant.

HOITY TOITY, THE GOOD LITTLE FELLOW. By Charles

Camden. With Eleven Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Price 3*. 6d.

" Relates very pleasantly the history of a charm- 1 them to do right. There are many shrewd lessons-
ing- little fellow who meddles always with a kindly | to be picked up in this clever little story."— Pitbli;
disposition with other people's affairs and helps | Opinion.

THE BOY SLAVE IN BOKHARA. A Tale of Central Asia. By

David Ker, Author of "On the Road to Khiva," &c. Crown Svo, with
Four Illustrations. Price $s.

SEVEN AUTUMN LEAVES FROM FAIRY-LAND. Illustrated

with Nine Etchings. Square crown 8vo. $s.

SLAVONIC FAIRY TALES. From Russian, Servian, Polish, and
Bohemian Sources. Translated by John T. Naak6, of the British Museum. Crown
8vo. With Four Illustrations. Price 5^.

" A most choice and charming selection I and thirteen Servian, in Mr. Naak^'s modest bul

The tales have an original national ring in them, I serviceable collection of Slavonic Fairy Tales,
and will be pleasant reading to thousands besides Its contents are, as a general rule, well chosen,
children. Yet children will eagerly open the and they are translated with a fidelity which
pages, and not willingly close them, of the pretty deserves cordial praise . . . Before taking leave
volume." — Standard. of his prettily got up volume, we ought to mention

" English readers now have an opportunity of that its contents fully come up to the promise held
becoming acquainted with eleven Polish and eight out in its preface."— Academy.
Bohemian stories, as well as with eight Russian 1

WAKING AND WORKING; OR, FROM GIRLHOOD TO

WOMANHOOD. By Mrs. Gr. S. Reaney. Cr. 8vo. With a Frontispiece, ss.

65, Cornhill ; & 12, Paternoster Row, London.

Works Published by Henry S. King & Co., 19

BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG AND FOR LENDING LIBRARIES— continued.

AT SCHOOL WITH AN OLD DRAGOON. By Stephen J.

Mac Kenna. Crown 8vo. With Six Illustrations. Price 5*.

"Consisting almost entirely of startling stories of
military adventure . . . Boys will find them suffi-
ciently exciting reading." — Times.

' ' These yarns give some very spirited and in-
teresting descriptions of soldiering in various parts
of the world."— Spectator.

"Mr. Mac Kenna's former work, ' Plucky Fellows,"
is already a general favourite, and those who read
the stories of the Old Dragoon will find that he has
still plenty of materials at hand for pleasant tales,
anrl has lost none of his power in telling them well."
—Standard.

FANTASTIC STORIES. Translated from the German of Richard
Leander, by Paulina B. G-ranville. Crown 8vo. With Eight full-page Illustra-
tions, by M. E. Fraser-Tytler. Price 5$.

"Short, quaint, and, as they are fitly called, fan- I "'Fantastic' is certainly the right epithet to
tastic, they deal with all manner of subjects." — apply to some of these strange tales." — Examiner.
Guardian. \

Third Edition.

STORIES IN PRECIOUS STONES. By Helen Zimmern. With

Six Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Price 55.

" A series of pretty tales which are half fantastic,
half natural, and pleasantly quaint, as befits stories
intended for the young." — Daily Telegraph.

" A pretty little book which fanciful young per-

sons will appreciate, and which will remind its
readers of many a legend, and many an imaginary
virtue attached to the gems they are so fond of
wearing." — Post.

Fourth Edition.
THE GREAT DUTCH ADMIRALS. By Jacob de Liefde. Crown

8vo. With Eleven Illustrations by Townley Green and others. Price 5$.

" May be recommended as a wholesome present
for boys. They will find in it numerous tales of
adventure." — Attienezitm.

"A really good book." — Standard.
" A really excellent book." — Spectator.

THE TASMANIAN LILY. By James Bonwick. Crown 8vo.

With Frontispiece. Price 5$.

" An interesting and useful work." — Hour. I ceived, and are full of those touches which give

"The characters of the story are capitally con- | them a natural appearance."— Public Opinion.

MIKE HOWE, THE BUSHRANGER OF VAN DIEMEN'S
LAND. By James Bonwick. Crown 8vo. With a Frontispiece. Price 55-.

1 He illustrates the career of the bushranger half i are, to say the least, exquisite, and his representa-
entury ago ; and this he does in a highly credit- tions of cl
able manner ; his delineations of life in the bush I Courant.

PHANTASMION. A Fairy Romance. By Sara Coleridge. With an
Introductory Preface by the Right Hon. Lord Coleridge of Ottery S.
Mary. A new Edition. In i vol. Crown Svo. Price js. 6d.

"The readers of this fairy tale will find them- read it were it twice the length, closing the book
selves dwelling for a time in a veritable region of with a feeling of regret that the repast was at an

romance, breathing an atmosphere of unreality, | end." — Vanity Fair.
id surrounded by supernatural beings." — Post. \ " A beautiful cc
" This delightful work . . . We would gladly have -^Examiner.

and surrounded by supernatural beings."— Post. \ " A beautiful conception of a rarely-gifted mind-.."

LAYS OF A KNIGHT-ERRANT IN MANY LANDS. By Major-
Greneral Sir Vincent Eyre, C.B., K.C.S.I., &c. Square crown 8vo. With
Six Illustrations. Price js. 6d.

Pharaoh Land. | Home Land. | Wonder Land. | Rkine Land.

" A collection of pleasant and well-written | " The conceits here and there are really very
stanzas . . . abounding in real fun and humour." . amusing." — Standard.
— Literary ll'orld.

BEATRICE AYLMER AND OTHER TALES. By Mary M. Howard,

Author of " Brampton Rectory." i vol. Crown 8vo. Price 6s.

"These tales .possess considerable merit."— I "A neat and chatty little volume."— Hour.
Court Journal. |

65, Corn /i ill ; 6° i2; Paternoster Row, London.

c 2

2O Works Published by Henry S. King 6° Co.,

WORKS BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

THE CABINET EDITION.

Messrs. HENRY S. KING & Co. have the pleasure to announce that
they are issuing an Edition of the Laureate's works, in Ten Monthly
Volumes, foolscap Svo, at Half-a- Crown each, entitled " The Cabinet
Edition," which will contain the whole of Mr. Tennyson's works.
The first volume is illustrated by a beautiful Photographic Portrait ;
and the other volumes are each to contain a Frontispiece. They are
tastefully bound in Crimson Cloth, and are to be issued in the
following order : —

Vol. V,M.

1. EARLY POEMS, ' 6. IDYLLS OF THE KING.

2, ENGLISH IDYLLS & OTHER POEMS, i 7. IDYLLS OF THE KING.

3. LOCKSLEY HALL & OTHER POEMS.

4. LUCRETIUS & OTHER POEMS.

5. IDYLLS OF THE KING.

8. THE PEINCESS.

9. MAUD AND ENOCH ARDEN.
10. IN MEMORIAM.

Volumes I. to VII. are now ready.
Subscribers' names received by all Booksellers.

Reduction in prices of Mr. Tennyson's Works : —

s. ef.

POEMS. Small 8vo 60

MAUD AND OTHER POEMS. Small Svo 36

THE PRINCESS. Small Svo „ 36

IDYLLS OF THE KING. Small Svo ' 50

,, ,, Collected. Small Svo 70

THE HOLY GRAIL, AND OTHER POEMS. Small Svo 46

'GARETH AND LYNETTE. Small Svo 30

:ENOCH ARDEN, &c. Small svo 3 6

IN MEMORIAM. Small Svo 40

SELECTIONS FROM THE ABOVE WORKS. Square Svo, cloth . . .36
„ ,, „ cloth, gilt edges . . . .40

SONGS FROM THE ABOVE WORKS. Square Svo, cloth 36

LIBRARY EDITION OF MR. TENNYSON'S WORKS. 6 vols. Post Svo, each 10 6
POCKET VOLUME EDITION OF MR. TENNYSON'S WORKS, n vols., in

neat case . .316

,, extra cloth, gilt, in case 35 o

POEMS. Illustrated Edition, 410 25 o

%* All the above arc kept in leather bindings.

65, Cornhill; <5- 12, Paternoster Rowf London.

Works Published by Henry S. King c° Co.

POETRY.

POUB ELEGANT POETICAL, GIFT BOOKS:

LYRICS OF LOVE, From Shakspeare to Tennyson. Selected and arranged
by W. Davenport Adams, Junr. Fcap. 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges, 3-r. 6d. ,

" \ most excellent collection. . . . Shows taste
and care." — ll'estininster Gazette.

"A charming' and scholarly pocket volume of
poetry . . . The editor annotates his pieces just
sufficiently for information. . . . The collection,

as a whole, is very choice." — British Quarterly
Review.

" The anthology is a very full and good one, and
represents the robust school of Carew and Suckling
better than any other that we know." — Academy.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT'S POEMS. Red-line Edition. Hand-

somely bound. With Illustrations and Portrait of the Author. Price js. 6d.
A Cheaper Edition, with Frontispiece, is also published. Price -$s. 6d.

Tliese are the only complete English Editions sanctioned by the A utJwr.
tion." — Academy.

" We are glad to possess so neat and elegant an

" Of all the poets of the United States there is no
one who obtained the fame and position of a classic
earlier, or has kept them longer, than William
Cullen Bryant. .. A si ' '
forward fashion of

writer preserved such an even level of ma
throughout his poems. Like some other American
poets, Mr. Bryant is particularly happy in transla-

singularly simple and straight-
verse. Very rarely has any

edition of the works of the most thoughtful, grace-
ful, and Wordsworthian of American poets.'' —
British Quarterly Review.

" Some of the purest and tenderest poetry of this
generation . . . Undoubtedly the best edition of the
poet now in existence."— Glasgow News. <

ENGLISH SONNETS. Collected and Arranged by John Dennis.

Fcap. 8vo. Elegantly bound. Price 3^. 6d.

" Mr. Dennis has shown great judgment in this
selection." — Saturday Re^'ie-iu.

" An exquisite selection, a selection which every
lover of poetry will consult again and again with

delight. The notes arc very useful. . .The volume
is one for which English literature owes Mr. Dennis
the heartiest thanks." — Spectator.

Second Edition.

HOME-SONGS FOR QUIET HOURS. Edited by the Rev. Canon.

R. H. Baynes, Editor of " Lyra Anglicana," &c. Fcap 8vo. Cloth extra, 3^. 6d.

addition to the gift books of the season.'' —

" A tasteful collection of devotional poetry of a
very high standard of excellence. The pieces are
short, mostly original, and instinct, for the most
part, with the most ardent spirit of devotion."—
Standard.

" A most acceptable volume of sacred poetry ; a

" These are poems in which every word has a
meaning, and from which it would be unjust tc
remove a stanza . . . Some of the best pieces ii:
the book are anonymous." — Pall Mall Gazette.

%* The above four looks may also be had handsomely bound in
Morocco with gilt edges.

THE DISCIPLES. A New Poem. By Mrs. Hamilton King. Second

Edition, with some Notes. Crown 8vo. Price -js. 6d.

" A higher impression of the imaginative power i could scarcely deny to ' Ugo Bassi' the praise of
of the writer is given by the objective truthfulness being a work worthy in every way to live . . . The
of the glimpses she gives us of her master, help- style of her writing is pure and simple in the last
ing us to understand how he could be regarded degree, and all is natural, truthful, and free frojn
by some as a heartless charlatan, by others as an ! the slightest shade of obscurity in thought or die-
inspired saint." — Academy. tion . . . The book altogether is one that merits

"Mrs. King can write good verses. The de- | unqualified admiration and praise." — Daily Tels-
scription of the capture of the Croats at Mestre is | graph.

extremely spirited ; there is a pretty picture of the i " Throughout it breathes restrained passion and
road to Rome, from the Abruzzi, and another of I lofty sentiment, which flow out now and then as a
Palermo." — Athetuzuin. \ stream widening to bless the lands into powerful

" In her new volume Mrs. King has far surpassed music." — British Quarterly Review.
her previous attempt. Even the most hostile critic I

ASPROMONTE, AND OTHER POEMS. By the same Author. Second
Edition. Cloth, 4$. 6d.

"The volume is anonymous, but there is no reason ' The Execution of Felice Orsini,' has much poetic
for the author to be ashamed of it. The ' Poems merit, the event celebrated being told with dra-
of Italy' are evidently inspired by genuine enthu-
siasm in the cause espoused ; and one of them,

matic force." — Ath

" The verse is fluent and free." — Spectator.

ARYAN : or, the STORY of the SWORD. A Poem.

late of Trinity College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo.

By Herbert Todd, M.A.,

65, Cornhill ; 6° 12, Paternoster Row, London.

Works Published by Henry S. King 6° Co.,

POETRY — continued.

THROUGH STORM AND SUNSHINE.
By Adon Author of "Lays of Modern
Oxford." With Illustrations by H. Pater-
son, M. E. Edwards, A. T., and the
Author.

SONGS FOR MUSIC. By Four Friends.
Square crown 8vo. Price $s.

CONTAINING SONGS BY

Reginald A. Gatty. Stephen H. Gatty.
Greville J. Chester. Juliana H. Ewing.
" A charming' gift -book, which will be very
popular with lovers of poetry." — John Bull.

•' The charm of simplicity is manifest through-
out, and the subjects are well chosen and suc-
cessfully treated. " — Rocfc.

ROBERT BUCHANAN'S POETICAL
WORKS. Collected Edition, in 3 Vols.,
price 185. Vol. I. contains, — "Ballads
and Romances ;" " Ballads and Poems
of Life," and a Portrait of the Author.

Vol. II.—" Ballads and Poems of Life ;"
"Allegories and Sonnets."

Vol. II I. — "Coruiskeen Sonnets;" "Book
of Orm ;" " Political Mystics."

" Holding, as Mr. Buchanan does, such a con-
spicuous place amongst modern writers, the read-
ing public will be duly thankful for this handsome
edition of the poet's works.' — Civil Service
Gazette.

" Taking the poems before us as experiments,
we hold that they are very full of promise ... In
the romantic ballad, Mr. Buchanan shows real

THOUGHTS IN VERSE. Small crown
8vo. Price is. f>d.

This is a Collection of Verses expressive
of religious feeling, written from a Theistic
stand-point.

"All who are interested in devotional verse
should read this tiny volume." — Acad>:iny.
ON THE NORTH WIND— THISTLE-
DOWN. A volume of Poems. By the
Hon. Mrs. Willoughby. Elegantly
bound. Small crown 8vo. -js. 6d.
PENELOPE AND OTHER POEMS.
By Allison Hughes. Fcap. Svo. 45. 6d.
"Full of promise. They possess both form
and colour, they are not wanting in suggestion,
and they reveal something not far removed from
imagination. ... If the verse moves stiffly it is
because the substance is rich and carefully
wrought. That artistic regard for the value of
words, which is characteristic of the best modern
workmanship, is apparent in every composition,
and the ornament, even when it might be pro-
nounced excessive, is tasteful in arrangement."—
Atlienceum.

COSMOS. A Poem. 8vo. y. 6d.

SUBJECT.— Nature in the Past and in the Pre-
sent.— Man in the Past and in the Present. — The
Future.

POEMS. By Augustus Taylor. Fcp.Svo. $s.
NARCISSUS AND OTHER POEMS.

By E. Carpenter. Fcap. 8vo. 5*.
"In many of these poems there is a force of

fancy, a grandeur of imagination, and a power of

poetical utterance not by any means common in

these days."— Standard.

AURORA; A Volume of Verse. Fcap. 8vo. 5*.

POEMS. By Annette F. C. Knight. Fcap.
Svo. Cloth. Price 5*.

" . . . . Very fine also is the poem entitled ' Past
and Present,' from which we take the song pic-
turing the ' Spirits of the Present.' The verses here
are so simple in form as almost to veil the real
beauty and depth of the image; yet it would not
be easy to find a more exquisite picture in poetry
or on canvas of the spirit of the age." — Scotsman.

" These poems are musical to read, they give
true and pleasant pictures of common things, and
they tell sweetly of the deeper moral and religious
harmonies which sustain us under the discords and
the griefs of actual life."— Spectator.

" Full of tender and felicitous verse . . . ex-
pressed with a rare artistic perfection. . . . The
penis of the book to our mind are the poems
entitled ' In a Town Garden.'"— Literary Church-

A TALE OF THE SEA, SONNETS,
AND OTHER POEMS. By James
Howell. Fcap. Svo. Cloth, 5^.

" Mr. Howell has a keen perception of the
beauties of nature, and a just appreciation of the
charities of life. . . . Mr. Howcll's book deserves,
and will probably receive, a warm reception."—
Pali Mall Gazette.

METRICAL TRANSLATIONS FROM
THE GREEK AND LATIN POETS,
AND OTHER POEMS. By R. B.
Boswell, M.A. Oxon. Crown Svo. $s.

" Most of these translations we can praise as of
very high merit. . . . For sweetness and regu-
larity, his verses are pre-eminent."— Literary
Churchman.

"Mr. Boswell has a strong poetical vein in
his nature, and gives us every promise of success
as an original poet." — Standard.

EASTERN LEGENDS AND STORIES
IN ENGLISH VERSE. By Lieu-
tenant Norton Powlett, Royal Artillery.
Crown Svo. $s.

"There is a rollicking sense of fun about the
stories, joined to marvellous power of rhyming,
and plenty of swing, which irresistibly reminds us
of our old favourite (Ingoldsby)."— Graphic.

Second Edition.

VIGNETTES IN RHYME AND VERS
DE SOCIETE. By Austin Dobson.
Fcap. Svo. 5-y.

"Clever, clear-cut, and careful."— Athenawn.

"As a writer of Vers de Socit-tf!, Mr. Dobson
is almost, if not quite, unrivalled."— Examiner.

" Lively, innocent, elegant in expression, and
graceful in fancy."— Morning Post.

SONGS FOR SAILORS. By Dr. W. C.

Bennett. Dedicated by Special Request
to H. R. H. the Duke of Edinburgh.
Crown Svo. 3^. 6d. With Steel Portrait
and Illustrations.

An Edition in Illustrated paper Covers.
Price i.y.

WALLED IN, AND OTHER POEMS.
By the Rev. Henry J. Bulkeley. Fcp.
Svo. 55-.

" A remarkable book of genuine poetry."—
Evening Standard.

" Genuine power displayed."— Examiner

"Poetical feeling is manifest here, and the
diction of the poem is unimpeachable." — Pall
Mall Gazette.

65, Cornhill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Row, London.

Works Published by Henry S. Xing &> Co.,

POETRY — continued.

SONGS OF LIFE AND DEATH. By
John Payne, Author of " Intaglios,"
"Sonnets," etc. Crown 8vo. 5^.

" The art of ballad-writing has long been lost
in Er.gland, and Mr Payne may claim to be its
restorer. It is a perfect delight to meet with such
a ballad as ' May Margaret ' in the present
volume." — JVestminster Revinu.
IMITATIONS FROM THE GERMAN
OF SPITTA AND TERSTEGEN.
By Lady Durand. Fcap. 8vo. 45-.

" A charming little volume. . . Will be a very
valuable assistance to peaceful, meditative souls."
—Church Herald.

ON VIOL AND FLUTE. A New Volume
of Poems, by Edmund W. Gosse. With
Frontispiece by W.B. Scott. Cr. 8vo. y.

" A careful perusal of his verses will show that
he is a poet. . . His song has the grateful, mur-
muring sound which reminds one of the softness
and deliciousness of summer time. . . . There is
much that is good in the volume."— Spectator.
EDITH ; OR, LOVE AND LIFE IN CHESHIRE.
By T. Ashe, Author of "The Sorrows of
Hypsipyle," etc. Sewed. Price 6d.

"A really fine poem, full of tender, subtle
touches of feeling."— Manchester News.

" Pregnant from beginning to end with the re-
sults of careful observation and imaginative
power." — Chester Chron icle.

THE INN OF STRANGE MEETINGS,
AND OTHER POEMS. By Mortimer
Collins. Crown 8vo. 5*.

"Abounding in quiet humour, in bright fancy,
in sweetness and melody of expression, and, at
times, in the tenderest touches of pathos."—
Graphic.

" Mr. Collins has an undercurrent of chivalry
and romance beneath the trifling vein of good-
humoured banter which is the special character-
istic of his verse." — Athenceum.
GOETHE'S FAUST. A New Translation in
Rime. By C. Kegan Paul. Crown 8vo. 6s.

"His translation is the most minutely accurate
that has yet been produced. . . " — Examiner.

"Mr. Paul is a zealous and a faithful inter-
preter."— Saturday Review.

AN OLD LEGEND OF S. PAUL'S. By
the Rev. G.B.Howard. Fcp. 8vo. 35. 6d.
"We admire, and deservedly admire, the gen-
uine poetry of this charming old legend as here
presented to us by the brilliant imagination and
the chastened taste of the gifted writer." — Stan-
dard.

SONNETS, LYRICS, AND TRANSLA-
TIONS. By the Rev. Charles Turner.
Cr. 8vo. 4*. 6d.

"Mr. Turner is a genuine poet; his song is
sweet and pure, beautiful in expression, and often
subtle in thought." — Pall Mall Gazette.

"The light of a devout, gentle, and kindly
spirit, a delicate and graceful fancy, a keen in-
telligence irradiates these thoughts." — Contem-
porary Review.

THE DREAM AND THE DEED, AND
OTHER POEMS. By Patrick Scott,
Author of " Footpaths between Two
Worlds," etc. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, 5^.

" A bitter and able satire on the vice and follies
of the day, literary, social, and political." — Stan-
dard.

"Shows real poetic power coupled with evi-
dences of satirical energy." — Edijtburgh Daily
Review.

EROS AGONISTES. By E. B. D. Fcap.
8vo. 3-r. 6d.

"It is not the least merit of these pages that
they are everywhere illumined with moral and
religious sentiment suggested, not paraded, of the
brightest, purest character." — Standard.
CALDERON'S DRAMAS. Translated from
the Spanish. By Denis Florence Mac-
Carthy. Post 8vo. Cloth, gilt edges. IO-T.

" The lambent verse flows with an ease, spirit,
and music perfectly natural, liberal, and har-
monious."— Spectator.

" It is impossible to speak too highly of this
beautiful work."— Month.

Second Edition.

SONGS OF TWO WORLDS. First
Series. By a New Writer. Fcp. 8vo. 5^.

" These poems will assuredly take high rank
among the class to which they belong." — British
Quarterly Review, April isf.

"No extracts could do justice to the exquisite

tones, the felicitous phrasing and delicately
wrought harmonies of some ot these poems." —
Nonconformist.

" A purity and delicacy of feeling like morning
air." — Graphic.

Second Edition.

SONGS OF TWO WORLDS. Second
Series. By a New Writer. Fcp. 8vo. $s.

" The most noteworthy poem is the 'Ode on a
Spring Morning,' which has somewhat of the
charm of ' L'Allegro ' and ' II Penseroso.' It is
the nearest approach to a masterpiece in the col-
lection. We cannot find too much praise for its
noble assertion of man's resurrection." — Saturday
Review.

" A real advance on its predecessor, and con-
tains at least one poem ('The Organ Boy ') of
great originality, as well as many of much beauty
.... As exquisite a little poem as we have read
for many a day .... but not at all alone in its
power to fascinate." — Spectator.

" Will be gratefully welcomed."— Examiner.
THE GALLERY OF PIGEONS, AND
OTHER POEMS. By Theo. Mar-
zials. Crown 8vo. ^s. 6d.

"A conceit abounding in prettiness." — Ex-
aminer.

" The rush of fresh, sparkling fancies is too
rapid, too sustained, too abundant, not to be

THE LEGENDS OF ST. PATRICK
AND OTHER POEMS. By Aubrey
de Vere. Crown 8vo. 5-5-.

" Mr. De Vere's versificatioii in his earlier poems
is characterised by great sweetness and sim-
plicity. He is master of his instrument, and
rarely offends the ear with false notes."— Pall
Mall Gazette.

" "VVe have but space to commend the varied
structure of his verse, the carefulness of his
grammar, and his excellent English." — Saturday

ALEXANDER THE GREAT. A
Dramatic Poem. By Aubrey de Vere,
Author of "The Legends of St. Patrick."
Crown 8vo. 5^.

" Undeniably well written."— Examiner.

" A noble play. . . . The work of a true poet,
and of a fine artist, in whom there is nothing
vulgar and nothing weak. . . . We had no con-
ception, from our knowledge of Mr. De Vere's
former poems, that so much poetic power lay in
him as this drama shows. It is terse as well as full
of beauty, nervous as well as rich in thought."—
Spectator.

65, Cornhill ; 6° 12, Paternoster Row, London,

Works Published by Henry S. King 6- Co.,

FICTION.

HIS QUEEN. By Alice Fisher, Author of
"Too Bright to Last." 3 vols. Cr. 8vo.

ISRAEL MORT : OVERMAN. The Story
of the Mine. By John Saunders, Author
of" Hirell," &c. 3 vols. Crown 8vo.

MALCOLM : A Scottish Story. By George
MacDonald, Author of "David Elgin-
brod," &c. 3 vols. Crown 8vo.

THE NEGLECTED QUESTION. By
B. Markewitch. Translated from the
Russian, by the Princesses Ouroussoff.

2 vols. Crown 8vo. 14^.
WOMAN'S A RIDDLE; OR, BABY

WARMSTREY. By Philip Sheldon,

3 vols.

" In the delineation of idiosyncrasy, special and
particular, and its effects on the lives of the per-
sonages of the story, the author may, without
exaggeration, be said to be masterly. Whether
in the long-drawn-out development of character,
or in the description of peculiar qualities in a
single pointed sentence, he is equally skilful,
while, where pathos is necessary, he has it at com-
mand, and subdued, sly humour is not wanting."
— Morning Post.

LISETTE'S VENTURE. By Mrs.
Russell Gray. 2 vols.

IDOLATRY. A Romance. By Julian

awthorne, Author of "Bressant." 2 vols.

"A more powerful book than ' Bressant ". . . .

If the figures are mostly phantoms, they are

phantoms which take a more powerful hold on the

mind than many very real figures There

are three scenes in this romance, any one of
which would prove true genius."— Spectator.
"The character of the Egyptian, half mad,

and all wicked, is remarkably drawn

Manetho is a really fine conception .... That
there are passages of almost exquisite beauty
here and there is only what we might expect." —
Athenczum.

BRESSANT. A Romance. By Julian
Hawthorne. 2 vols. Crown 8vo.

" One of the most powerful with which we are
acquainted." — Times.

" We shall once more have reason to rejoice
whenever we hear that a new work is coming out
written by one who bears the honoured name of
Hawthorne." — Saturday Review..

VANESSA. By the Author of " Thomasina,"
" Dorothy," £c. 2 vols. Second Edition.

THOMASINA. By the Author of " Dorothy,"
" De Cressy," &c. 2 vols. Crown 8vo.

" A finished and delicate cabinet picture ; no
line is without its purpose." — Atlienceion.

AILEEN FERRERS. By Susan Morley.
In 2 vols. Crown 8vo, cloth.

" Her novel rises to a level far above that which
cultivated women with a facile pen ordinarily at-
tain when they set themselves to write a story. It
is as a study of character, worked out in a manner
that is free from almost all the usual faults of lady-
writers, that ' Aileen Ferrers ' merits a place
apart from its innumerable rivals," — Saturday
Review.

LADY MORETOUN'S DAUGHTER.
By Mrs. Eiloart. In 3 vols. Crown Svo,

" Carefully written .... The narrative is TvcH
sustained." — Athenceum,

"An interesting story .... Above the run of
average novels."— Vanity Fair.

" Will prove more popular than any of the
author's former works .... Interesting and read-
able."—Hour.

" The story is well put together, and readable."
—Examiner.

WAITING FOR TIDINGS. By the
Author of " White and Black." 3 vols.

"An interesting novel." — Vanity Fair.

" A very lively tale, abounding with f.
incidents." — John Bull.

TWO GIRLS. By Frederick Wedmore,
Author of " ASnaptGold Ring." 2 vols.
"A carefully-written novel of character, con-
trasting the two heroines of one love tale, an
English lady and a French actress. Cicely i;>
charming ; the introductory description of her is
a good specimen of the well-balanced sketches ii>
wh:ch the author shines."— Athenaum.

CIVIL SERVICE. By J. T. Listado.
Author of " Maurice Rhynhart." 2 vols.

" A very channii g a:id amusing story . . . The
characters are all \\ell drawn and life-like .... It
is with no ordinary skill that Mr. Listado has
drawn the character of Hugh Haughton, full as
he is of scheming and subtleties . . . The plot is
worked out with great skill and is of no ordinary
kind."— Civ il Service Gazette.

" A story of Irish life, free from burlesque and
partisanship, yet amusingly national . . . There is
plenty of ' go ' in the story.'' — Athentzum.

MR. CARINGTON. A Tale of Love and
Conspiracy. By Robert Turner Cotton.
In 3 vols. Cloth, crown Svo.

" A novel in so many ways good, as in a fresh
and elastic diction, stout unconventionality, and
happy boldness of conception and execution.
His novels, though free spoken, will be some ef
the healthiest of our day."— Examiner.

TOO LATE. By Mrs. Newman. 2 vols.

"The plot is skilfully constructed, the charac-
ters are well conceived, and the narrative moves
to its conclusion without any waste of words . . .
The tone is healthy, in spite of its incidents,
which will please the lovers of sensational fiction.
. . . The reader who opens the book will read it
all through."— Pall Mall Gazette.

REGINALD BRAMBLE. A Cynic of the
igth Century. An Autobiography, i vol.

"There is plenty of vivacity in Mr. Bra:nL!c's
narratiye." — Athenaum.

' ' Written in a lively and readable style." — Jlcur.

CRUEL AS THE GRAVE. By the
Countess Von Bothmer. 3 vols.

" Jealousy is cruel as the Grave."
"Interesting, though somewhat tragic."—
Athenczum.

" Agreeable, unaffected, and eminently read-
able."—Daily News.

THE HIGH MILLS. By Katherine
Saunders, Author of "Gideon's Rock,"
&c. 3 vols.

65, Cornhill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Row, Londim.

Works Published by Henry S. King 6- Co.,

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EEPTIMIUS. A Romance. By Nathaniel
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EFFIE'S GAME; How SHE LOST AND
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Works Published by Henry S. King 6- Co., 27

THEOLOGICAL.

THE NEW TESTAMENT, TRANSLATED FROM THE

LATEST GREEK TEXT OF TISCHENDORF. By Samuel Davidson,

D.D., LL.D. The desirableness of presenting a single text, especially if it be the
best, instead oi one formed for the occasion under traditional influences, is apparent.
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of the authorised version. Such a work will shortly appear, with an Introduction
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STUDIES OF THE DIVINE MASTER. By the Rev. T. Griffith.

This book depicts the successive phases of the public life of Jesus, so far as is needful to
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CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH. A Course of Lent Lectures, delivered in

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JOHN KNOX AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND : His work in

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EXAMINED, AND THE CLAIMS OF THE ROMAN CHURCH COMPARED
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WORDS OF FAITH AND CHEER. A Mission of Instruction and
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THE GOSPEL ITS OWN WITNESS. Being the Hulsean Lectures for

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65, Cornhill ; 6^ 12, Paternoster Row, London.

28 Works Published by Henry S. King & Co.,

THEOLOGICAL — continued.
HARTHAM CONFERENCES; OR, DISCUSSIONS UPON SOME

OP THE RELIGIOUS TOPICS OF THE DAY. By the Rev. F. W.
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STUDIES IN MODERN PROBLEMS. FIRST SERIES. Edited by the

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STUDIES IN MODERN PROBLEMS. SECOND SERIES. Edited by the

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CONTENTS : Some Principles of Christian Geremonial — A Layman's View of Confes-
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UNTIL THE DAY DAWN. Four Advent Lectures delivered in the Epis-
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THEO_LOGY AND MORALITY. Being Essays by the Rev. J. Llewellyn

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HYMNS AND SACRED LYRICS. By the Rev. Godfrey Thring-,
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it, that they have become popular, and that the
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and from them, that we feel all the better •

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Works Published by Henry S. King & Co., 29

THEOLOGICAL — continued.
THE RECONCILIATION OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE.

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HYMNS AND VERSES, Original and Translated. By the Rev.

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MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE IN THE EAST. By the Rev.

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lay it down again till he has got to the last word."
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MISSIONARY LIFE IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS. By James

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THE ETERNAL LIFE. Being Fourteen Sermons. By the Rev. Jas.
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CATHOLICISM AND THE VATICAN. With a Narrative of the Old
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THE PUBLIC WORSHIP REGULATION ACT, 1874. With an

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A very useful and convenient manual, and

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SIX PRIVY COUNCIL JUDGMENTS — 1850-1872. Annotated by

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last twenty years, which will constitute the un-
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THE MOST COMPLETE HYMN BOOK PUBLISHED.
HYMNS FOR THE CHURCH AND HOME. Selected and Edited by

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The Hymn-book consists of Three Parts: — I. For Public Worship. — II. For Family
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%.* Published in various forms and prices, the latter ranging f re m %d. to 6s. Lists and full
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65, Cornhill ; &» 12, Paternoster Roiv, London.

Works Published by Henry S. King 6- C0.9

THEOLOGICAL— continued.

WORKS BY THE REV. H. R. HAWEIS, M.A.

Second Edition.
SPEECH IN SEASON. A New Volume of Sermons. Cr. Svo. Price

Eighth Edition.
THOUGHTS FOR THE TIMES. Crown Svo. Price yj. 6d.

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UNSECTARIAN FAMILY PRAYERS, for Morning and Evening fora
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and household. They are brief, but very beautiful." —
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WORKS BY THE REV. CHARLES ANDERSON, MA
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CHURCH THOUGHT AND CHURCH WORK. Edited by the Rev,

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gestions, evidently the result of earnest observation

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WORDS AND WORKS IN A LONDON PARISH.
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Edited by

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THE CURATE OF SHYRE. A Record of Parish Reform, with its at-
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WORKS BY THE REV. G. S. DREW, M.A.

VICAR OF TRINITY, LAMBETH.

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NAZARETH : ITS LIFE AND LES-
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SCRIPTURE LANDS IN CONNECTION
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THE SON OF MAN. His Life and Ministry. Crown Svo. 75. 6d.

THE DIVINE KINGDOM ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. Svo, ios. 6<t.

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65, Cornhill ; 6-12, Paternoster Row, London.

Works Published by Henry S. King 6- Co.,

THEOLOGICAL — continued.

WORKS BY THE REV
THE SOLIDITY OF TRUE RELI-
GION AND OTHER SERMONS
PREACHED IN LONDON DURING
THE ELECTION AND MISSION
WEEK, FEBRUARY, 1874. Crown
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COL. MEADOWS TAYLOR'S INDIAN TALES.
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