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Title: The Collected Writing of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II

Author: Thomas De Quincey

Editor: David Masson

Release date: June 10, 2013 [eBook #42909]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
COLLECTED WRITING OF THOMAS DE QUINCEY, VOL. II ***

DE QUINCEY'S COLLECTED WRITINGS
VOL. II
AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LITERARY REMINISCENCES

THE
COLLECTED WRITINGS
OF

THOMAS
DE QUINCEY

BY
DAVID MASSON
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

Vol. II

LONDON
A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE
1896

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
From a picture by Peter Vandyke in the National Portrait Gallery

CONTENTS OF VOL. II

PAGE
Editor's Preface 1

Autobiography Continued from 1803 to 1808—

CHAP.
I. Oxford 9
II. German Studies and Kant in particular 81

Literary and Lake Reminiscences—

CHAP.
I. A Manchester Swedenborgian and a Liverpool Literary
Coterie 113
II. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 138
III. The Lake Poets: William Wordsworth 229
IV. The Lake Poets: William Wordsworth and Robert Southey 303
V. The Lake Poets: Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge 138
VI. The Saracen's Head 348
VII. Westmoreland and the Dalesmen: Society of the Lakes 360
VIII. Society of the Lakes: Charles Lloyd 381
IX. Society of the Lakes: Miss Elizabeth Smith, the Sympsons,
and the K—— Family 403

X. Society of the Lakes: Professor Wilson: Death of Little
Kate Wordsworth 432
XI. Rambles from the Lakes: Mrs. Siddons and Hannah More 446

William Wordsworth.
From a drawing by Robert Hancock in the National Portrait Gallery.

EDITOR'S PREFACE

The matter of this volume breaks itself into two main divisions, as follows:
—

I.—Autobiography continued from 1803 to 1808

Although De Quincey's Autobiography, so far as it was revised by himself
in 1853 for the Edinburgh Collective Edition of his writings, stopped at
1803, when he went to Oxford, he left a continuation of that Autobiography,
accessible to those that might be curious about it, in two old papers of his in
Tait's Edinburgh Magazine. One of these, bearing the continued general title
"Sketches of Life and Manners from the Autobiography of an English
Opium-Eater," but with the sub-title "Oxford," had appeared, in three
successive parts, in the numbers of the magazine for February, June, and
August 1835; the other, forming but a single article, had appeared in the
number for June 1836, with the simple title, "Autobiography of an English
Opium-Eater continued," but without any sub-title, or any indication of its
nature except what might be conveyed by the head-lines,—"The German
Language," "The German Philosophic Literature," and "The Philosophy of
Kant,"—at the tops of the right-hand pages. As the two papers together
carry on the Autobiography from 1803 to 1808, they are reproduced in this
volume from the columns of the magazine as two chapters of De Quincey's
Autobiography additional to the Revised Autobiography contained in the
preceding volume. The first, and much the larger, is sufficiently described
by the title "Oxford," used as a sub-title for it in Tait's Magazine. It is a
careful and very readable account of the system of Oxford life and
education during the five years of De Quincey's connexion with the

University, with glimpses of himself, though not so numerous or continuous
as might be wished, as he moved obscurely through the academic medium.
The other chapter will take most readers aback. Beginning in a popular
vein, and even humorously, it turns itself, through two-thirds of its extent,
into a dissertation on Kant's philosophy which is one of the toughest things
that De Quincey ever wrote. It is probably on this account that the
American Collective Edition of De Quincey, while gladly reprinting his
Oxford paper, omits this one altogether. That, however, is scarcely
allowable. Nor is it allowable to yield to the natural temptation which
would suggest the omission of the paper in the place where De Quincey put
it, and the reservation of it for some other place in the collection of his
writings where it might be in the company of other demons as abstruse as
itself. It belongs vitally to the autobiographic series, and to that part of the
autobiographic series which deals with De Quincey's Oxford life from 1803
to 1808. It is as if De Quincey had said to his readers—as, in fact, he does
virtually say in the paper—"It was during those five years that I betook
myself to German studies, and especially to studies in German Philosophy;
they had an immense effect upon me at the time, and a permanent influence
afterwards; and, if you would understand my subsequent life and mind, you
must, at the risk of a headache yourselves, listen at this point to a
description of the exact nature and symptoms of the headache they caused
me." To indicate as precisely as possible this autobiographic purport of the
paper, I have ventured, in the absence of any title to it by De Quincey
himself, to entitle it "German Studies and Kant in particular." It will be of
much interest to some readers; and others can skip it if they choose.

II.—Literary and Lake Reminiscences.

Concurrently with the series of the expressly autobiographic papers in Tait's
Magazine, there had appeared in the same magazine another series of
papers by De Quincey, also autobiographic in a general sense, but in a more
indirect fashion.
Having known a number of remarkable persons in the course of his life,
some of them of great literary celebrity, it had occurred to him that a series
of sketches of these, from his own recollections and impressions of them,

partly in their relations to himself, but not exclusively so, would be
welcome, and might at all events be made instructively De Quincey-like.
He had begun with Coleridge, and had contributed four papers of
Reminiscences of Coleridge to the numbers of Tait's Magazine for
September, October, and November 1834, and January 1835. These, though
necessarily autobiographic to a pretty large extent, had been interjected into
the series of his expressly autobiographic articles in the magazine. Then,
that expressly autobiographic series having been finished in 1836 in the
above-mentioned papers on his Oxford life and his first German studies, he
had ranged back, in an article in the magazine for February 1837, for a
recollection of certain literary notabilities of Manchester and Liverpool
whom he had known or seen in his schoolboy days. After that, zig-zagging
in his memory for suitable additions, he had brought in,—sometimes under
cover of the standing general magazine title of "Sketches of Life and
Manners from the Autobiography of an English Opium-Eater," but
sometimes under independent titles,—accounts of other acquaintances of
his, either famous to all the world already, or about whom the world might
be inquisitive. Of these our concern in the present volume, for
chronological reasons, is with Wordsworth and his fellow-celebrities of the
Lake district, whether those that were resident there when De Quincey first
visited it in Coleridge's company in 1807, or those that were resident there
from 1809 onwards, when De Quincey had become a Lakist too, and was
domiciled permanently, as it seemed, close to Wordsworth at Grasmere. To
Wordsworth himself,—always De Quincey's man of men, or at least poet of
poets, of his generation,—there were devoted three articles in Tait's
Magazine for January, February, and April 1839, entitled "Lake
Reminiscences: No. I. William Wordsworth, No. II. William Wordsworth,
No. III. William Wordsworth." These were followed in July of the same
year by a No. IV, entitled "William Wordsworth and Robert Southey," and
in August by a No. V, in which Coleridge came back for some notice, and
which was therefore entitled "Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge." For the
minor celebrities of the Lakes, after these three dii majorum gentium, and
for sketches of Lake scenery and society generally, there was a relapse into
the older magazine title "Sketches of Life and Manners" etc.; and the seven
additional articles required for these straggled through the numbers of Tait's
Magazine from September 1839 to August 1840.

Save that one of the articles so inventoried goes back beyond the Lake
period of De Quincey's life altogether, and that the main set of the
Coleridge articles treats Coleridge generally and apart from his Lakist
connexion, one might designate them collectively by that title of Lake
Reminiscences which De Quincey did use for some of them. As it is,
however, the title Literary and Lake Reminiscences seems, on the whole,
the fittest.
One question remains. Whence are we to take the text of these Literary
and Lake Reminiscences left by De Quincey? For the largest number of the
included articles there is no option. They were not reprinted by De Quincey
in the Collective Edition of 1853-60, though he must have contemplated
reprinting them some time; and the text of them must therefore be taken
from the pages of Tait's Magazine, in which they originally appeared. But
for a portion of the Reminiscences, and a very important portion, there is an
option. De Quincey did reprint in his Collective Edition the whole of his
special set of Coleridge Recollections, with the exception of the last article
of the four, throwing all the reprinted articles into one block, after
somewhat careful revision; and he reprinted also in the same way the whole
set of the special articles on Wordsworth, without any omission. These main
Coleridge and Wordsworth papers are therefore reproduced in our present
volume from De Quincey's own revised text of them,—with the restoration,
however, in the case of the Coleridge chapter, of that fourth of the magazine
articles on Coleridge which De Quincey omitted. The omission was
unnecessary; and, as the American Collective Edition contains the omitted
article, the present edition is entitled to the same benefit. What, however,
about the two minor papers of the Lake Reminiscences which appeared as
Nos. IV and V in Tait's Magazine for July and August 1839, under the titles
of "William Wordsworth and Robert Southey," and "Southey, Wordsworth,
and Coleridge," respectively? These also De Quincey reprinted in his
Collective Edition, after a fashion; but it was after a fashion which greatly
impaired their interest. He threw them, or rather parts of them, into one,
under the single title "Robert Southey," omitting a great deal of what was
liveliest and best in the original articles. This may have been caused merely
by his hurry at the time, in consequence of the pressure of the printers for
copy in any form; but possibly it had another cause. De Quincey's
Reminiscences of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey, on their first

appearance in Tait's Magazine between 1834 and 1840, had provoked a
good deal of resentment among those concerned. Coleridge was then dead;
but Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth were still living; as was also
Southey. Little wonder that the surviving relatives of Coleridge felt
aggrieved by the extreme frankness of some of De Quincey's personal
recollections of the dead sage, or that the Wordsworth and Southey families
were annoyed and offended on similar grounds. Wordsworth, with his
massive serenity, seems, indeed, to have tossed the matter aside easily
enough; but not so Southey. Carlyle tells us that, when he first met Southey
in London, Southey was full of the subject of De Quincey's delinquencies in
publishing so many anecdotes of a confidential kind respecting
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and himself, and spoke on the subject in terms
which Carlyle, who had read the articles, thought needlessly angry and
vehement. Something of all this may have been in De Quincey's mind
when, in reproducing his Lake Reminiscences in 1853 for his Collective
Edition, he came to the two Tait articles in which Southey had principally
figured. Hence, perhaps, though Southey had died in 1843, De Quincey's
large excisions from those articles, and his consolidation of them into one
paper, pleasant enough in the main, but comparatively insipid. It was an
editorial mistake on De Quincey's part, and must not bind us now. The
articles in their original livelier and more extensive magazine form being
irrevocable at any rate, and forming part and parcel of the American
Collective Edition, we have acted accordingly. We revert in the present
edition to the text of Tait's Magazine for the particular articles in question,
and print them as they stood there, with their separate titles.

Respecting the present volume as a whole, it will now be understood that,
while a portion of its contents consists of matter derived from De Quincey's
revised edition of 1853-60, considerably the larger proportion consists of
recovered magazine articles that have been practically inaccessible hitherto
to British readers. So composed, the volume is certainly one of the richest
specimens that could be offered of De Quincey's general characteristics.
There are ups and downs in it, portions inferior to others in literary merit,
and occasional lapses into what may seem spiteful or in bad taste. All in all,
however, it illustrates most variously and most amusingly the shrewdness of
De Quincey's observations of men and things, the range and readiness of his
erudition, the subtlety and originality of his speculative intellect, his faculty

of poetic imagination, his power of mournful pathos on the one hand and
the most whimsical humour on the other, and the marvellous versatility and
flexibility of his style. D. M.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY
(continued)
FROM 1803 TO 1808

CHAPTER I
OXFORD

I[1]

It was in winter, and in the wintry weather of the year 1803, that I first
entered Oxford with a view to its vast means of education, or rather with a
view to its vast advantages for study. A ludicrous story is told of a young
candidate for clerical orders—that, being asked by the bishop's chaplain if
he had ever "been to Oxford," as a colloquial expression for having had an
academic education, he replied, "No: but he had twice been to Abingdon":
Abingdon being only seven miles distant. In the same sense I might say that
once before I had been at Oxford: but that was as a transient visitor with
Lord W——,[2] when we were both children. Now, on the contrary, I
approached these venerable towers in the character of a student, and with
the purpose of a long connexion; personally interested in the constitution of
the University, and obscurely anticipating that in this city, or at least during
the period of my nominal attachment to this academic body, the remoter
parts of my future life would unfold before me. All hearts were at this time
occupied with the public interests of the country. The "sorrow of the time"
was ripening to a second harvest. Napoleon had commenced his Vandal, or
rather Hunnish war with Britain, in the spring of this year, about eight
months before; and profound public interest it was, into which the very
coldest hearts entered, that a little divided with me the else monopolizing
awe attached to the solemn act of launching myself upon the world. That
expression may seem too strong as applied to one who had already been for
many months a houseless wanderer in Wales, and a solitary roamer in the
streets of London. But in those situations, it must be remembered, I was an

unknown, unacknowledged vagrant; and without money I could hardly run
much risk, except of breaking my neck. The perils, the pains, the pleasures,
or the obligations, of the world, scarcely exist in a proper sense for him who
has no funds. Perfect weakness is often secure: it is by imperfect power,
turned against its master, that men are snared and decoyed. Here in Oxford I
should be called upon to commence a sort of establishment upon the
splendid English scale; here I should share in many duties and
responsibilities, and should become henceforth an object of notice to a large
society. Now first becoming separately and individually answerable for my
conduct, and no longer absorbed into the general unit of a family, I felt
myself, for the first time, burthened with the anxieties of a man, and a
member of the world.
Oxford, ancient Mother! hoary with ancestral honours, time-honoured, and,
haply, it may be, time-shattered power—I owe thee nothing! Of thy vast
riches I took not a shilling, though living amongst multitudes who owed to
thee their daily bread. Not the less I owe thee justice; for that is a universal
debt. And at this moment, when I see thee called to thy audit by unjust and
malicious accusers—men with the hearts of inquisitors and the purposes of
robbers—I feel towards thee something of filial reverence and duty.
However, I mean not to speak as an advocate, but as a conscientious witness
in the simplicity of truth; feeling neither hope nor fear of a personal nature,
without fee, and without favour.
I have been assured from many quarters that the great body of the public are
quite in the dark about the whole manner of living in our English
Universities; and that a considerable portion of that public, misled by the
totally different constitution of Universities in Scotland, Ireland, and
generally on the Continent, as well as by the different arrangements of
collegiate life in those institutions, are in a state worse than ignorant (that is,
more unfavourable to the truth)—starting, in fact, from prejudices, and
absolute errors of fact, which operate most uncharitably upon their
construction of those insulated statements, which are continually put
forward by designing men. Hence, I can well believe that it will be an
acceptable service, at this particular moment [1835], when the very
constitution of the two English Universities is under the unfriendly revision
of Parliament, when some roving commission may be annually looked for,
under a contingency which I will not utter in words (for I reverence the

doctrine of ευφημισμος (euphêmismos)), far worse than Cromwellian, that
is, merely personal, and to winnow the existing corporation from
disaffection to the state—a Henry the Eighth commission of sequestration,
and levelled at the very integrity of the institution—under such prospects, I
can well believe that a true account of Oxford as it is (which will be valid
also for Cambridge) must be welcome both to friend and foe. And instead
of giving this account didactically, or according to a logical classification of
the various items in the survey, I will give it historically, or according to the
order in which the most important facts of the case opened themselves
before myself, under the accidents of my own personal inquiry. No situation
could be better adapted than my own for eliciting information; for, whereas
most young men come to the University under circumstances of absolute
determination as to the choice of their particular college, and have,
therefore, no cause for search or inquiry, I, on the contrary, came thither in
solitary self-dependence, and in the loosest state of indetermination.
Every single point of my future position and connection, to what college I
would attach myself, and in which of the two orders open to my admission I
would enrol myself, was left absolutely to my own election. My coming at
all, in this year, arose out of an accident of conversation. In the latter half of
1803, I was living with my mother at the Priory of St. J——, a beautiful
place which she had in part planned, and built, but chiefly repaired out of a
very ancient Gothic monastery; when my uncle, a military man, on a visit to
England, after twenty-five years' absence in India, suddenly remarked, that
in my case he should feel it shameful to be "tied to my mother's apron-
string," for was I not eighteen years old? I answered that certainly I was:
but what could I do? My guardians had the power to control my expenditure
until I should be twenty-one; and they, it was certain, would never aid my
purpose of going to Oxford, having quarrelled with me on that very point.
My uncle, a man of restless activity, spoke to my mother immediately, I
presume, for within one hour I was summoned to her presence. Among
other questions, she put this to me, which is importantly connected with my
future experience at Oxford, and my coming account of it:—"Your
guardians," she prefaced, "still continue to me your school allowance of
£100. To this, for the present, when your sisters cost me such heavy
deductions from my own income, I cannot undertake to make any addition
—that is, you are not to count upon any. But, of course, you will be free to

spend your entire Oxford vacations, and as much time besides as the rules
of your college will dispense with your attendance, at my house, wherever
that may be. On this understanding, are you willing to undertake an Oxford
life, upon so small an allowance as £100 per annum?" My answer was by a
cheerful and prompt assent. For I felt satisfied, and said as much to my
mother, that, although this might sound, and might really prove, on a
common system of expenditure, ludicrously below the demands of the
place, yet in Oxford, no less than in other cities, it must be possible for a
young man of firm mind to live on a hundred pounds annually, if he pleased
to do so, and to live respectably. I guessed even then how the matter stood;
and so in my own experience I found it. If a young man were known to be
of trivial pursuits, with slight habits of study, and "strong book-
mindedness," naturally enough his college peers who should happen to be
idlers would question his right to court solitude. They would demand a sight
of his warrant of exemption from ordinary usages; and, finding none, they
would see a plain argument of his poverty. And, doubtless, when this
happens to be the sole characteristic point about a man, and is balanced by
no form of personal respectability, it does so far lead to contempt as to
make a man's situation mortifying and painful; but not more so, I affirm, in
Oxford than anywhere else. Mere defect of power, as such, and where
circumstances force it into violent relief, cannot well be other than a
degrading feature in any man's position. Now, in other cities, the man of
£100 a-year never can be forced into such an invidious insulation—he finds
many to keep him in countenance; but in Oxford he is a sort of monster—he
stands alone in the only class with which he can be compared. So that the
pressure upon Oxford predispositions to contempt is far stronger than
elsewhere; and, consequently, there would be more allowance due, if the
actual contempt were also stronger—which I deny. But, no doubt, in every
climate, and under all meridians, it must be humiliating to be distinguished
by pure defect. Now and for ever, to be weak is in some sense to be
miserable; and simple poverty, without other qualification or adjunct, is
merely defect of power. But, on the other hand, in Oxford, at least, as much
as in any other place I ever knew, talents and severe habits of study are their
own justification. And upon the strongest possible warrant, viz., my own
experience in a college then recently emerging from habits of riotous
dissipation, I can affirm that a man who pleads known habits of study as his

reason for secluding himself, and for declining the ordinary amusements
and wine parties, will meet with neither molestation nor contempt.[3]
For my part, though neither giving nor accepting invitations for the first two
years of my residence, never but once had I reason to complain of a sneer,
or indeed any allusion whatever to habits which might be understood to
express poverty. Perhaps even then I had no reason to complain, for my
own conduct in that instance was unwise; and the allusion, though a
personality, and so far ill-bred, might be meant in real kindness. The case
was this: I neglected my dress in one point habitually; that is, I wore clothes
until they were threadbare—partly in the belief that my gown would
conceal their main defects, but much more from carelessness and
indisposition to spend upon a tailor what I had destined for a bookseller. At
length, an official person, of some weight in the college, sent me a message
on the subject through a friend. It was couched in these terms: That, let a
man possess what talents or accomplishments he might, it was not possible
for him to maintain his proper station in the public respect, amongst so
many servants and people servile to external impressions, without some
regard to the elegance of his dress. A reproof so courteously prefaced I
could not take offence at; and at that time I resolved to spend some cost
upon decorating my person. But always it happened that some book, or set
of books,—that passion being absolutely endless, and inexorable as the
grave,—stepped between me and my intentions; until one day, upon
arranging my toilet hastily before dinner, I suddenly made the discovery
that I had no waistcoat (or vest, as it is now called, through conceit or
provincialism) which was not torn or otherwise dilapidated; whereupon,
buttoning up my coat to the throat, and drawing my gown as close about me
as possible, I went into the public "hall" (so is called in Oxford the public
eating-room) with no misgiving. However, I was detected; for a grave man,
with a superlatively grave countenance, who happened on that day to sit
next me, but whom I did not personally know, addressing his friend sitting
opposite, begged to know if he had seen the last Gazette, because he
understood that it contained an Order in Council laying an interdict upon
the future use of waistcoats. His friend replied, with the same perfect
gravity, that it was a great satisfaction to his mind that his Majesty's
Government should have issued so sensible an order; which he trusted
would be soon followed up by an interdict on breeches, they being still

more disagreeable to pay for. This said, without the movement on either
side of a single muscle, the two gentlemen passed to other subjects; and I
inferred, upon the whole, that, having detected my manœuvre, they wished
to put me on my guard in the only way open to them. At any rate, this was
the sole personality, or equivocal allusion of any sort, which ever met my
ear during the years that I asserted my right to be as poor as chose. And,
certainly, my censors were right, whatever were the temper in which they
spoke, kind or unkind; for a little extra care in the use of clothes will
always, under almost any extremity of poverty, pay for so much extra cost
as is essential to neatness and decorum, if not even to elegance. They were
right, and I was wrong, in a point which cannot be neglected with impunity.
But, to enter upon my own history, and my sketch of Oxford life.—Late on
a winter's night, in the latter half of December, 1803, when a snow-storm,
and a heavy one, was already gathering in the air, a lazy Birmingham coach,
moving at four and a half miles an hour, brought me through the long
northern suburb of Oxford, to a shabby coach-inn, situated in the Corn
Market. Business was out of the question at that hour. But the next day I
assembled all the acquaintances I had in the University, or had to my own
knowledge; and to them, in council assembled, propounded my first
question: What college would they, in their superior state of information,
recommend to my choice? This question leads to the first great
characteristic of Oxford, as distinguished from most other Universities.
Before me at this moment lie several newspapers, reporting, at length, the
installation in office (as Chancellor) of the Duke of Wellington. The original
Oxford report, having occasion to mention the particular college from
which the official procession moved, had said, no doubt, that the gates of
University, the halls of University, &c., were at such a point of time thrown
open. But most of the provincial editors, not at all comprehending that the
reference was to an individual college, known by the name of University
College, one of twenty-five such establishments in Oxford, had regularly
corrected it into "gates of the University," &c. Here is the first
misconception of all strangers. And this feature of Oxford it is which has
drawn such exclamations of astonishment from foreigners. Lipsius, for
example, protested with fervour, on first seeing this vast establishment of
Oxford, that one college of this University was greater in its power and
splendour, that it glorified and illustrated the honours of literature more

conspicuously by the pomps with which it invested the ministers and
machinery of education, than any entire University of the Continent.
What is a University almost everywhere else? It announces little more, as
respects the academic buildings, than that here is to be found the place of
rendezvous—the exchange, as it were, or, under a different figure, the
palæstra of the various parties connected with the prosecution of liberal
studies. This is their "House of Call," their general place of muster and
parade. Here it is that the professors and the students converge, with the
certainty of meeting each other. Here, in short, are the lecture-rooms in all
the faculties. Well: thus far we see an arrangement of convenience—that is,
of convenience for one of the parties, namely, the professors. To them it
spares the disagreeable circumstances connected with a private reception of
their students at their own rooms. But to the students it is a pure matter of
indifference. In all this there is certainly no service done to the cause of
good learning which merits a state sanction, or the aid of national funds.
Next, however, comes an academic library, sometimes a good one; and here
commences a real use in giving a national station to such institutions,
because their durable and monumental existence, liable to no flux or decay
from individual caprice, or accidents of life, and their authentic station, as
expressions of the national grandeur, point them out to the bequests of
patriotic citizens. They fall also under the benefit of another principle—the
conservative feeling of amateurship. Several great collections have been
bequeathed to the British Museum, for instance—not chiefly as a national
institution, and under feelings of nationality, but because, being such, it was
also permanent; and thus the painful labours of collecting were guaranteed
from perishing. Independently of all this, I, for my part, willingly behold
the surplus of national funds dedicated to the consecration, as it were, of
learning, by raising temples to its honour, even where they answer no
purpose of direct use. Next after the service of religion, I would have the
service of learning externally embellished, recommended to the affections
of men, and hallowed by the votive sculptures, as I may say, of that
affection, gathering in amount from age to age. Magnificabo apostolatum
meum is a language almost as becoming to the missionaries and ministers of
knowledge, as to the ambassadors of religion. It is fit that by pompous
architectural monuments a voice may for ever be sounding audibly in
human ears of homage to these powers, and that even alien feelings may be

compelled into secret submission to their influence. Therefore, amongst the
number of those who value such things upon the scale of direct proximate
utility rank not me: that arithmetica officina is in my ears abominable. But
still I affirm that, in our analysis of an ordinary university, or "college," as it
is provincially called, we have not yet arrived at any element of service
rendered to knowledge or education, large enough to call for very extensive
national aid. Honour has thus far been rendered to the good cause by a
public attestation, and that is well: but no direct promotion has been given
to that cause, no impulse communicated to its progress, such that it can be
held out as a result commensurate to the name and pretensions of a
University. As yet there is nothing accomplished which is beyond the
strength of any little commercial town. And, as to the library in particular,
besides that in all essential departments it might be bought, to order, by one
day's common subscription of Liverpool or Glasgow merchants, students
very rarely indeed have admission to its free use.
What other functions remain to a University? For those which I have
mentioned of furnishing a point of rendezvous to the great body of
professors and students, and a point of concentration to the different
establishments of implements and machinery for elaborate researches (as,
for instance, of books and MSS., in the first place; secondly, of maps,
charts, and globes; and, thirdly, perhaps of the costly apparatus required for
such studies as sideral astronomy, galvanic chemistry or physiology, &c.);
all these are uses which cannot be regarded in a higher light than as
conveniences merely incidental and collateral to the main views of the
founders. There are, then, two much loftier and more commanding ends met
by the idea and constitution of such institutions, and which first rise to a
rank of dignity sufficient to occupy the views of a legislator, or to warrant a
national interest. These ends are involved: 1st, in the practice of conferring
degrees, that is, formal attestations and guarantees of competence to give
advice, instruction, or aid, in the three great branches of liberal knowledge
applicable to human life; 2d, in that appropriation of fixed funds to fixed
professorships, by means of which the uninterrupted succession of public
and authorised teachers is sustained in all the higher branches of
knowledge, from generation to generation, and from century to century. By
the latter result it is secured that the great well-heads of liberal knowledge
and of severe science shall never grow dry. By the former it is secured that

this unfailing fountain shall be continually applied to the production and to
the tasting of fresh labours in endless succession for the public service, and
thus, in effect, that the great national fountain shall not be a stagnant
reservoir, but, by an endless derivation (to speak in a Roman metaphor),
applied to a system of national irrigation. These are the two great functions
and qualifications of a collegiate incorporation: one providing to each
separate generation its own separate rights of heirship to all the knowledge
accumulated by its predecessors, and converting a mere casual life-annuity
into an estate of inheritance—a mere fleeting αγωνισμα (agônisma) into a
κτημα ες αει (ktêma es aei); the other securing for this eternal dowry as
wide a distribution as possible: the one function regarding the dimension of
length in the endless series of ages through which it propagates its gifts; the
other regarding the dimension of breadth in the large application throughout
any one generation of these gifts to the public service. Here are grand
functions, high purposes; but neither one nor the other demands any
edifices of stone and marble; neither one nor the other presupposes any
edifice at all built with human hands. A collegiate incorporation, the church
militant of knowledge, in its everlasting struggle with darkness and error, is,
in this respect, like the Church of Christ—that is, it is always and
essentially invisible to the fleshly eye. The pillars of this church are human
champions; its weapons are great truths so shaped as to meet the shifting
forms of error; its armouries are piled and marshalled in human memories;
its cohesion lies in human zeal, in discipline, in childlike docility; and all its
triumphs, its pomps, and glories, must for ever depend upon talent, upon the
energies of the will, and upon the harmonious co-operation of its several
divisions. Thus far, I say, there is no call made out for any intervention of
the architect.
Let me apply all this to Oxford. Among the four functions commonly
recognised by the founders of Universities are—1st, to find a set of halls or
places of meeting; 2d, to find the implements and accessaries of study; 3d,
to secure the succession of teachers and learners; 4th, to secure the
profitable application of their attainments to the public service. Of these
four, the two highest need no buildings; and the other two, which are mere
collateral functions of convenience, need only a small one. Wherefore, then,
and to what end, are the vast systems of building, the palaces and towers of
Oxford? These are either altogether superfluous, mere badges of ostentation

and luxurious wealth, or they point to some fifth function not so much as
contemplated by other Universities, and, at present, absolutely and
chimerically beyond their means of attainment. Formerly we used to hear
attacks upon the Oxford discipline as fitted to the true intellectual purposes
of a modern education. Those attacks, weak and most uninstructed in facts,
false as to all that they challenged, and puerile as to what implicitly they
propounded for homage, are silent. But, of late, the battery has been pointed
against the Oxford discipline in its moral aspects, as fitted for the
government and restraint of young men, or even as at all contemplating any
such control. The Beverleys would have us suppose, not only that the great
body of the students are a licentious crew, acknowledging no discipline or
restraints, but that the grave elders of the University, and those who wield
the nominal authority of the place, passively resign the very shows of
power, and connive at general excesses, even when they do not absolutely
authorize them in their personal examples. Now, when such representations
are made, to what standard of a just discipline is it that these writers would
be understood as appealing? Is it to some ideal, or to some existing and
known reality? Would they have England suppose that they are here
comparing the actual Oxford with some possible hypothetic or imaginable
Oxford,—with some ideal case, that is to say, about which great discussions
would arise as to its feasibility,—or that they are comparing it with some
known standard of discipline actually realized and sustained for
generations, in Leipsic, suppose, or Edinburgh, or Leyden, or Salamanca?
This is the question of questions, to which we may demand an answer; and,
according to that answer, observe the dilemma into which these furciferous
knaves must drop. If they are comparing Oxford simply with some ideal
and better Oxford, in some ideal and better world, in that case all they have
said—waiving its falsehoods of fact—is no more than a flourish of rhetoric,
and the whole discussion may be referred to the shadowy combats of
scholastic declamation-mongers—those mock gladiators, and umbratiles
doctores. But if, on the other hand, they pretend to take their station upon
the known basis of some existing institution,—if they will pretend that, in
this impeachment of Oxford, they are proceeding upon a silent comparison
with Edinburgh, Glasgow, Jena, Leipsic, Padua, &c.,—then are they self-
exposed, as men not only without truth, but without shame. For now comes
in, as a sudden revelation, and as a sort of deus ex machina, for the
vindication of the truth, the simple answer to that question proposed above,

Wherefore, and to what end, are the vast edifices of Oxford? A University,
as Universities are in general, needs not, I have shown, to be a visible body
—a building raised with hands. Wherefore, then, is the visible Oxford? To
what fifth end, refining upon the ordinary ends of such institutions, is the
far-stretching system of Oxford hospitia, or monastic hotels, directed by
their founders, or applied by their present possessors? Hearken, reader, to
the answer:—
These vast piles are applied to an end absolutely indispensable to any even
tolerable system of discipline, and yet absolutely unattainable upon any
commensurate scale in any other University of Europe. They are applied to
the personal settlement and domestication of the students within the gates
and walls of that college to whose discipline they are amenable.
Everywhere else the young men live where they please and as they please;
necessarily distributed amongst the towns-people; in any case, therefore,
liable to no control or supervision whatever; and, in those cases where the
University forms but a small part of a vast capital city, as it does in Paris,
Edinburgh, Madrid, Vienna, Berlin, and Petersburg, liable to every mode of
positive temptation and distraction which besiege human life in high-viced
and luxurious communities. Here, therefore, it is a mockery to talk of
discipline; of a nonentity there can be no qualities; and we need not ask for
the description of the discipline in situations where discipline there can be
none. One slight anomaly I have heard of as varying pro tanto the uniform
features of this picture. In Glasgow I have heard of an arrangement by
which young academicians are placed in the family of a professor. Here, as
members of a private household, and that household under the presiding eye
of a conscientious, paternal, and judicious scholar, doubtless they would
enjoy as absolute a shelter from peril and worldly contagion as parents
could wish; but not more absolute, I affirm, than belongs, unavoidably, to
the monastic seclusion of an Oxford college—the gates of which open to no
egress after nine o'clock at night, nor after eleven to any ingress which is
not regularly reported to a proper officer of the establishment. The two
forms of restraint are, as respects the effectual amount of control, equal; and
were they equally diffused, Glasgow and Oxford would, in this point, stand
upon the same level of discipline. But it happens that the Glasgow case was
a personal accident; personal, both as regarded him who volunteered the
exercise of this control, and those who volunteered to appropriate its

benefits; whereas the Oxford case belongs to the very system, is
coextensive with the body of undergraduates, and, from the very
arrangement of Oxford life, is liable to no decay or intermission.
Here, then, the reader apprehends the first great characteristic distinction of
Oxford—that distinction which extorted the rapturous admiration of Lipsius
as an exponent of enormous wealth, but which I now mention as applying,
with ruinous effect, to the late calumnies upon Oxford, as an inseparable
exponent of her meritorious discipline. She, most truly and severely an
"Alma Mater," gathers all the juvenile part of her flock within her own fold,
and beneath her own vigilant supervision. In Cambridge there is, so far, a
laxer administration of this rule, that, when any college overflows
undergraduates are allowed to lodge at large in the town. But in Oxford this
increase of peril and discretionary power is thrown by preference upon the
senior graduates, who are seldom below the age of twenty-two or twenty-
three; and the college accommodations are reserved, in almost their whole
extent, for the most youthful part of the society. This extent is prodigious.
Even in my time, upwards of two thousand persons were lodged within the
colleges; none having fewer than two rooms, very many having three, and
men of rank, or luxurious habits, having often large suites of rooms. But
that was a time of war, which Oxford experience has shown to have
operated most disproportionably as a drain upon the numbers disposable for
liberal studies; and the total capacity of the University was far from being
exhausted. There are now, I believe, between five and six thousand names
upon the Oxford books; and more than four thousand, I understand, of
constant residents. So that Oxford is well able to lodge, and on a very
sumptuous scale, a small army of men; which expression of her great
splendour I now mention (as I repeat) purely as applying to the question of
her machinery for enforcing discipline. This part of her machinery, it will be
seen, is unique, and absolutely peculiar to herself. Other Universities,
boasting no such enormous wealth, cannot be expected to act upon her
system of seclusion. Certainly, I make it no reproach to other Universities,
that, not possessing the means of sequestering their young men from
worldly communion, they must abide by the evils of a laxer discipline. It is
their misfortune, and not their criminal neglect, which consents to so dismal
a relaxation of academic habits. But let them not urge this misfortune in
excuse at one time, and at another virtually disavow it. Never let them take

up a stone to throw at Oxford, upon this element of a wise education; since
in them, through that original vice in their constitution, the defect of all
means for secluding and insulating their society, discipline is abolished by
anticipation—being, in fact, an impossible thing; for the walls of the college
are subservient to no purpose of life, but only to a purpose of convenience;
they converge the students for the hour or two of what is called lecture;
which over, each undergraduate again becomes sui juris, is again absorbed
into the crowds of the world, resorts to whatsoever haunts he chooses, and
finally closes his day at—— if, in any sense, at home—at a home which is
not merely removed from the supervision and control, but altogether from
the bare knowledge, of his academic superiors. How far this discipline is
well administered in other points at Oxford, will appear from the rest of my
account. But, thus far, at least, it must be conceded, that Oxford, by and
through this one unexampled distinction—her vast disposable fund of
accommodations for junior members within her own private cloisters—
possesses an advantage which she could not forfeit, if she would, towards
an effectual knowledge of each man's daily habits, and a control over him
which is all but absolute.
This knowledge and this control is much assisted and concentrated by the
division of the University into separate colleges. Here comes another
feature of the Oxford system. Elsewhere the University is a single college;
and this college is the University. But in Oxford the University expresses,
as it were, the army, and the colleges express the several brigades, or
regiments.
To resume, therefore, my own thread of personal narration. On the next
morning after my arrival in Oxford, I assembled a small council of friends
to assist me in determining at which of the various separate societies I
should enter, and whether as a "commoner," or as a "gentleman commoner."
Under the first question was couched the following latitude of choice: I give
the names of the colleges, and the numerical account of their numbers, as it
stood in January 1832; for this will express, as well as the list of that day
(which I do not accurately know), the proportions of importance amongst
them.

Mem.
1. University College 207

2. Balliol " 257
3. Merton " 124
4. Exeter " 299
5. Oriel " 293
6. Queen's " 351
7. New " 157
8. Lincoln " 141
9. All Souls' " 98
10. Magdalene " 165
11. Brasenose " 418
12. Corpus Christi " 127
13. Christ Church " 949
14. Trinity " 259
15. St. John's " 218
16. Jesus " 167
17. Wadham " 217
18. Pembroke " 189
19. Worcester " 231

Then, besides these colleges, five Halls, as they are technically called (the
term Hall implying chiefly that they are societies not endowed, or not
endowed with fellowships as the colleges are), namely:

Mem.
1.St. Mary Hall 83
2.Magdalen " 178
3.New Inn " 10
4.St. Alban " 41
5.St. Edmund " 96

Such being the names, and general proportions on the scale of local
importance, attached to the different communities, next comes the very
natural question, What are the chief determining motives for guiding the
selection amongst them? These I shall state. First of all, a man not
otherwise interested in the several advantages of the colleges has, however,

in all probability, some choice between a small society and a large one; and
thus far a mere ocular inspection of the list will serve to fix his preference.
For my part, supposing other things equal, I greatly preferred the most
populous college, as being that in which any single member, who might
have reasons for standing aloof from the general habits of expense, of
intervisiting, &c., would have the best chance of escaping a jealous notice.
However, amongst those "other things" which I presumed equal, one held a
high place in my estimation, which a little inquiry showed to be very far
from equal. All the colleges have chapels, but all have not organs; nor,
amongst those which have, is the same large use made of the organ. Some
preserve the full cathedral service; others do not. Christ Church, meantime,
fulfilled all conditions: for the chapel here happens to be the cathedral of
the diocese; the service, therefore, is full and ceremonial; the college, also,
is far the most splendid, both in numbers, rank, wealth, and influence.
Hither I resolved to go; and immediately I prepared to call on the head.
The "head," as he is called generically, of an Oxford college (his specific
appellation varies almost with every college—principal, provost, master,
rector, warden, etc.), is a greater man than the uninitiated suppose. His
situation is generally felt as conferring a degree of rank not much less than
episcopal; and, in fact, the head of Brasenose at that time, who happened to
be the Bishop of Bangor, was not held to rank much above his brothers in
office. Such being the rank of heads generally, à fortiori, that of Christ
Church was to be had in reverence; and this I knew. He is always, ex officio,
dean of the diocese; and, in his quality of college head, he only, of all deans
that ever were heard of, is uniformly considered a greater man than his own
diocesan. But it happened that the present dean had even higher titles to
consideration. Dr. Cyril Jackson had been tutor to the Prince of Wales
(George IV); he had repeatedly refused a bishopric; and that, perhaps, is
entitled to place a man one degree above him who has accepted one. He
was also supposed to have made a bishop, and afterwards, at least, it is
certain that he made his own brother a bishop. All things weighed, Dr. Cyril
Jackson seemed so very great a personage that I now felt the value of my
long intercourse with great dons in giving me confidence to face a lion of
this magnitude.
Those who know Oxford are aware of the peculiar feelings which have
gathered about the name and pretensions of Christ Church; feelings of

superiority and leadership in the members of that college, and often enough
of defiance and jealousy on the part of other colleges. Hence it happens that
you rarely find yourself in a shop, or other place of public resort, with a
Christ-Church man, but he takes occasion, if young and frivolous, to talk
loudly of the Dean, as an indirect expression of his own connection with
this splendid college; the title of Dean being exclusively attached to the
headship of Christ Church. The Dean, as maybe supposed, partakes in this
superior dignity of his "House"; he is officially brought into connection
with all orders of the British aristocracy—often with royal personages; and
with the younger branches of the aristocracy his office places him in a
relation of authority and guardianship—exercised, however, through
inferior ministry, and seldom by direct personal interference. The reader
must understand that, with rare exceptions, all the princes and nobles of
Great Britain who choose to benefit by an academic education resort either
to Christ Church College in Oxford, or to Trinity College in Cambridge:
these are the alternatives. Naturally enough, my young friends were
somewhat startled at my determination to call upon so great a man; a letter,
they fancied, would be a better mode of application. I, however, who did
not adopt the doctrine that no man is a hero to his valet, was of opinion that
very few men indeed are heroes to themselves. The cloud of external pomp,
which invests them to the eyes of the attoniti, cannot exist to their own;
they do not, like Kehama entering the eight gates of Padalon at once, meet
and contemplate their own grandeurs; but, more or less, are conscious of
acting a part. I did not, therefore, feel the tremor which was expected of a
novice, on being ushered into so solemn a presence.

II[4]

The Dean was sitting in a spacious library or study, elegantly, if not
luxuriously, furnished. Footmen, stationed as repeaters, as if at some
fashionable rout, gave a momentary importance to my unimportant self, by
the thundering tone of their annunciations. All the machinery of aristocratic
life seemed indeed to intrench this great Don's approaches; and I was really
surprised that so very great a man should condescend to rise on my
entrance. But I soon found that, if the Dean's station and relation to the
higher orders had made him lofty, those same relations had given a peculiar

suavity to his manners. Here, indeed, as on other occasions, I noticed the
essential misconception, as to the demeanour of men of rank, which
prevails amongst those who have no personal access to their presence. In
the fabulous pictures of novels (such novels as once abounded), and in
newspaper reports of conversations, real or pretended, between the King
and inferior persons, we often find the writer expressing his sense of
aristocratic assumption, by making the King address people without their
titles. The Duke of Wellington, for instance, or Lord Liverpool, figures
usually, in such scenes, as "Wellington," or "Arthur," and as "Liverpool."
Now, as to the private talk of George IV in such cases, I do not pretend to
depose; but, speaking generally, I may say that the practice of the highest
classes takes the very opposite course. Nowhere is a man so sure of his
titles or official distinctions as amongst them; for it is upon giving to every
man the very extreme punctilio of his known or supposed claims that they
rely for the due observance of their own. Neglecting no form of courtesy
suited to the case, they seek, in this way, to remind men unceasingly of
what they expect; and the result is what I represent—that people in the
highest stations, and such as bring them continually into contact with
inferiors, are, of all people, the least addicted to insolence or defect of
courtesy. Uniform suavity of manner is indeed rarely found except in men
of high rank. Doubtless this may arise upon a motive of self-interest,
jealous of giving the least opening or invitation to the retorts of ill-temper
or low breeding. But, whatever be its origin, such I believe to be the fact. In
a very long conversation of a general nature upon the course of my studies,
and the present direction of my reading, Dr. Cyril Jackson treated me just as
he would have done his equal in station and in age. Coming, at length, to
the particular purpose of my visit at this time to himself, he assumed a little
more of his official stateliness. He condescended to say that it would have
given him pleasure to reckon me amongst his flock; "But, sir," he said, in a
tone of some sharpness, "your guardians have acted improperly. It was their
duty to have given me at least one year's notice of their intention to place
you at Christ Church. At present I have not a dog-kennel in my college
untenanted." Upon this, I observed that nothing remained for me to do but
to apologize for having occupied so much of his time; that, for myself, I
now first heard of this preliminary application; and that, as to my guardians,
I was bound to acquit them of all oversight in this instance, they being no
parties to my present scheme. The Dean expressed his astonishment at this

statement. I, on my part, was just then making my parting bows, and had
reached the door, when a gesture of the Dean's, courteously waving me
back to the sofa I had quitted, invited me to resume my explanations; and I
had a conviction at the moment that the interview would have terminated in
the Dean's suspending his standing rule in my favour. But, just at that
moment, the thundering heralds of the Dean's hall announced some man of
high rank: the sovereign of Christ Church seemed distressed for a moment;
but then, recollecting himself, bowed in a way to indicate that I was
dismissed. And thus it happened that I did not become a member of Christ
Church.[5]
A few days passed in thoughtless indecision. At the end of that time, a
trivial difficulty arose to settle my determination. I had brought about fifty
guineas to Oxford; but the expenses of an Oxford inn, with almost daily
entertainments to young friends, had made such inroads upon this sum, that,
after allowing for the contingencies incident to a college initiation, enough
would not remain to meet the usual demand for what is called "caution
money." This is a small sum, properly enough demanded of every student,
when matriculated, as a pledge for meeting any loss from unsettled arrears,
such as his sudden death or his unannounced departure might else
continually be inflicting upon his college. By releasing the college,
therefore, from all necessity for degrading vigilance or persecution, this
demand does, in effect, operate beneficially to the feelings of all parties. In
most colleges it amounts to twenty-five pounds: in one only it was
considerably less. And this trifling consideration it was, concurring with a
reputation at that time for relaxed discipline, which finally determined me
in preferring W—— College[6] to all others. This college had the capital
disadvantage, in my eyes, that its chapel possessed no organ, and no
musical service. But any other choice would have driven me to an instant
call for more money—a measure which, as too flagrantly in contradiction to
the whole terms on which I had volunteered to undertake an Oxford life, I
could not find nerves to face.
At Worcester College, therefore, I entered: and here arises the proper
occasion for stating the true costs of an Oxford education. First comes the
question of lodging. This item varies, as may be supposed; but my own case
will place on record the two extremes of cost in one particular college,
nowadays differing, I believe, from the general standard. The first rooms

assigned me, being small and ill-lighted, as part of an old Gothic building,
were charged at four guineas a year. These I soon exchanged for others a
little better, and for them I paid six guineas. Finally, by privilege of
seniority, I obtained a handsome set of well-proportioned rooms, in a
modern section of the college, charged at ten guineas a year. This set was
composed of three rooms; namely, an airy bed-room, a study, and a
spacious room for receiving visitors. This range of accommodation is pretty
general in Oxford, and, upon the whole, may be taken perhaps as
representing the average amount of luxury in this respect, and at the average
amount of cost. The furniture and the fittings up of these rooms cost me
about twenty-five guineas; for the Oxford rule is, that if you take the rooms
(which is at your own option), in that case, you third the furniture and the
embellishments—that is, you succeed to the total cost diminished by one
third. You pay, therefore, two guineas out of each three to your immediate
predecessor. But, as he also may have succeeded to the furniture upon the
same terms, whenever there happens to have been a rapid succession of
occupants, the original cost to a remote predecessor is sometimes brought
down, by this process of diminution, to a mere fraction of the true value;
and yet no individual occupant can complain of any heavy loss. Whilst
upon this subject, I may observe that, in the seventeenth century, in Milton's
time, for example (about 1624), and for more than sixty years after that era,
the practice of chumship prevailed: every set of chambers was possessed by
two co-occupants; they had generally the same bed-room, and a common
study; and they were called chums. This practice, once all but universal, is
now entirely extinct; and the extinction serves to mark the advance of the
country, not so much in luxury as in refinement.
The next item which I shall notice is that which in college bills is expressed
by the word Tutorage. This is the same in all colleges, I believe: viz., ten
guineas per annum. And this head suggests an explanation which is most
important to the reputation of Oxford, and fitted to clear up a very extensive
delusion. Some years ago, a most elaborate statement was circulated of the
number and costly endowment of the Oxford Professorships. Some thirty or
more there were, it was alleged, and five or six only which were not held as
absolute sinecures. Now, this is a charge which I am not here meaning to
discuss. Whether defensible or not, I do not now inquire. It is the practical
interpretation and construction of this charge which I here wish to rectify. In

most Universities, except those of England, the Professors are the body on
whom devolves the whole duty and burthen of teaching; they compose the
sole fountains of instruction; and if these fountains fail, the fair inference is,
that the one great purpose of the institution is defeated. But this inference,
valid for all other places, is not so for Oxford and Cambridge. And here,
again, the difference arises out of the peculiar distribution of these bodies
into separate and independent colleges. Each college takes upon itself the
regular instruction of its separate inmates—of these and of no others; and
for this office it appoints, after careful selection, trial, and probation, the
best qualified amongst those of its senior members who choose to undertake
a trust of such heavy responsibility. These officers are called Tutors; and
they are connected by duties and by accountability, not with the University
at all, but with their own private colleges. The Professors, on the other
hand, are public functionaries, not connected (as respects the exercise of
their duties) with any college whatsoever—not even with their own—but
altogether and exclusively with the whole University. Besides the public
tutors appointed in each college, on the scale of one to each dozen or score
of students, there are also tutors strictly private, who attend any students in
search of special and extraordinary aid, on terms settled privately by
themselves. Of these persons, or their existence, the college takes no
cognisance; but between the two classes of tutors, the most studious young
men—those who would be most likely to avail themselves of the lectures
read by the professors—have their whole time pretty severely occupied: and
the inference from all this is, not only that the course of Oxford education
would suffer little if no Professors at all existed, but also that, if the existing
Professors were ex abundanti to volunteer the most exemplary spirit of
exertion, however much this spectacle of conscientious dealing might edify
the University, it would contribute but little to the promotion of academic
purposes. The establishment of Professors is, in fact, a thing of ornament
and pomp. Elsewhere, they are the working servants; but, in Oxford, the
ministers corresponding to them bear another name,—they are called
Tutors. These are the working agents in the Oxford system; and the
Professors, with salaries in many cases merely nominal, are persons
sequestered, and properly sequestered, to the solitary cultivation and
advancement of knowledge which a different order of men is appointed to
communicate.

Here let us pause for one moment, to notice another peculiarity in the
Oxford system, upon the tendency of which I shall confidently make my
appeal to the good sense of all unprejudiced readers. I have said that the
Tutors of Oxford correspond to the Professors of other Universities. But
this correspondence, which is absolute and unquestionable as regards the
point then at issue,—viz., where we are to look for that limb of the
establishment on which rests the main teaching agency,—is liable to
considerable qualification, when we examine the mode of their teaching. In
both cases, this is conveyed by what is termed "lecturing";—but what is the
meaning of a lecture in Oxford and elsewhere? Elsewhere, it means a
solemn dissertation, read, or sometimes histrionically declaimed, by the
Professor. In Oxford, it means an exercise performed orally by the students,
occasionally assisted by the tutor, and subject, in its whole course, to his
corrections, and what may be called his scholia, or collateral suggestions
and improvements. Now, differ as men may as to other features of the
Oxford, compared with the hostile system, here I conceive that there is no
room for doubt or demur. An Oxford lecture imposes a real bona fide task
upon the student; it will not suffer him to fall asleep, either literally or in the
energies of his understanding; it is a real drill, under the excitement,
perhaps, of personal competition, and under the review of a superior
scholar. But, in Germany, under the declamations of the Professor, the
young men are often literally sleeping; nor is it easy to see how the
attention can be kept from wandering, on this plan, which subjects the
auditor to no risk of sudden question or personal appeal. As to the prizes
given for essays, etc., by the Professors, these have the effect of drawing
forth latent talent, but they can yield no criterion of the attention paid to the
Professor; not to say that the competition for these prizes is a matter of
choice. Sometimes it is true that examinations take place; but the Oxford
lecture is a daily examination; and, waiving that, what chance is there (I
would ask) for searching examinations, for examinations conducted with
the requisite auctoritas (or weight of influence derived from personal
qualities), if—which may Heaven prevent!—the German tenure of
Professorships were substituted for our British one: that is, if for
independent and liberal teachers were substituted poor mercenary
haberdashers of knowledge—cap in hand to opulent students—servile to
their caprices—and, at one blow, degrading the science they profess, the
teacher, and the pupil? Yet I hear that such advice was given to a Royal

Commission, sent to investigate one or more of the Scottish Universities. In
the German Universities, every Professor holds his situation, not on his
good behaviour, but on the capricious pleasure of the young men who resort
to his market. He opens a shop, in fact: others, without limit, generally men
of no credit or known respectability, are allowed to open rival shops; and
the result is, sometimes, that the whole kennel of scoundrel Professors ruin
one another; each standing with his mouth open, to leap at any bone thrown
amongst them from the table of the "Burschen"; all hating, fighting,
calumniating each other, until the land is sick of its base knowledge-
mongers, and would vomit the loathsome crew, were any natural channel
open to their instincts of abhorrence. The most important of the Scottish
Professorships—those which are fundamentally morticed to the moral
institutions of the land—are upon the footing of Oxford tutorships, as
regards emoluments; that is, they are not suffered to keep up a precarious
mendicant existence, upon the alms of the students, or upon their fickle
admirations. It is made imperative upon a candidate for admission into the
ministry of the Scottish Kirk, that he shall show a certificate of attendance
through a given number of seasons at given lectures.
The next item in the quarterly (or, technically, the term) bills of Oxford is
for servants. This, in my college, and, I believe, in all others, amounted,
nominally, to two guineas a year. That sum, however, was paid to a
principal servant, whom, perhaps, you seldom or never saw; the actual
attendance upon yourself being performed by one of his deputies; and to
this deputy—who is, in effect, a factotum, combining in his single person
all the functions of chamber-maid, valet, waiter at meals, and porter or
errand-boy—by the custom of the place and your own sense of propriety,
you cannot but give something or other in the shape of perquisites. I was
told, on entering, that half a guinea a quarter was the customary allowance,
—the same sum, in fact, as was levied by the college for his principal; but I
gave mine a guinea a quarter, thinking that little enough for the many
services he performed; and others, who were richer than myself, I dare say,
often gave much more. Yet, sometimes, it struck me, from the gratitude
which his looks testified, on my punctual payment of this guinea,—for it
was the only bill with regard to which I troubled myself to practise any
severe punctuality,—that perhaps some thoughtless young man might give
him less, or might even forget to give anything; and, at all events, I have

reason to believe that half that sum would have contented him. These
minutiæ I record purposely; my immediate object being to give a rigorous
statement of the real expenses incident to an English university education,
partly as a guide to the calculations of parents, and partly as an answer to
the somewhat libellous exaggerations which are current on this subject, in
times like these, when even the truth itself, and received in a spirit of
candour the most indulgent, may be all too little to defend these venerable
seats of learning from the ruin which seems brooding over them. Yet, no!
Abominable is the language of despair even in a desperate situation. And,
therefore, Oxford, ancient mother! and thou, Cambridge, twin-light of
England! be vigilant and erect, for the enemy stands at all your gates! Two
centuries almost have passed since the boar was within your vineyards,
laying waste and desolating your heritage. Yet that storm was not final, nor
that eclipse total. May this also prove but a trial and a shadow of affliction!
which affliction, may it prove to you, mighty incorporations, what,
sometimes, it is to us, poor, frail homunculi—a process of purification, a
solemn and oracular warning! And, when that cloud is overpast, then, rise,
ancient powers, wiser and better—ready, like the λαμπαδηφοροι
(lampadêphoroi) of old, to enter upon a second stadium, and to transmit the
sacred torch through a second period of twice[7] five hundred years. So
prays a loyal alumnus, whose presumption, if any be, in taking upon
himself a monitory tone, is privileged by zeal and filial anxiety.
To return, however, into the track from which I have digressed. The reader
will understand that any student is at liberty to have private servants of his
own, as many and of what denomination he pleases. This point, as many
others of a merely personal bearing, when they happen to stand in no
relation to public discipline, neither the University nor the particular college
of the student feels summoned or even authorized to deal with. Neither, in
fact, does any other University in Europe; and why, then, notice the case?
Simply thus: if the Oxford discipline, in this particular chapter, has nothing
special or peculiar about it, yet the case to which it applies has, and is
almost exclusively found in our Universities. On the Continent it happens
most rarely that a student has any funds disposable for luxuries so
eminently such as grooms or footmen; but at Oxford and Cambridge the
case occurs often enough to attract notice from the least vigilant eye. And
thus we find set down to the credit account of other Universities the non-

existence of luxury in this or other modes, whilst, meantime, it is well
known to the fair inquirer that each or all are indulgences not at all or so
much as in idea proscribed by the sumptuary edicts of those Universities,
but, simply, by the lower scale of their general revenues. And this lower
scale, it will be said—how do you account for that? I answer, not so much
by the general inferiority of Continental Europe to Great Britain in diffusive
wealth (though that argument goes for something, it being notorious that,
whilst immoderate wealth, concentrated in a small number of hands, exists
in various continental states upon a larger scale than with us, moderately
large estates, on the other hand, are, with them, as one to two hundred, or
even two hundred and fifty, in comparison with ours), but chiefly upon this
fact, which is too much overlooked, that the foreign Universities are not
peopled from the wealthiest classes, which are the classes either already
noble, or wishing to become such. And why is that? Purely from the vicious
constitution of society on the Continent, where all the fountains of honour
lie in the military profession or in the diplomatic. We English, haters and
revilers of ourselves beyond all precedent, disparagers of our own eminent
advantages beyond all sufferance of honour or good sense, and daily
playing into the hands of foreign enemies, who hate us out of mere envy or
shame, have amongst us some hundreds of writers who will die or suffer
martyrdom upon this proposition—that aristocracy, and the spirit and
prejudices of aristocracy, are more operative (more effectually and more
extensively operative) amongst ourselves than in any other known society
of men. Now, I, who believe all errors to arise in some narrow, partial, or
angular view of truth, am seldom disposed to meet any sincere affirmation
by a blank, unmodified denial. Knowing, therefore, that some acute
observers do really believe this doctrine as to the aristocratic forces, and the
way in which they mould English society, I cannot but suppose that some
symptoms do really exist of such a phenomenon; and the only remark I
shall here make on the case is this, that, very often, where any force or
influence reposes upon deep realities, and upon undisturbed foundations,
there will be the least heard of loquacious and noisy expressions of its
power; which expressions arise most, not where the current is most violent,
but where (being possibly the weakest) it is most fretted with resistance.
In England, the very reason why the aristocratic feeling makes itself so
sensibly felt and so distinctly an object of notice to the censorious observer

is, because it maintains a troubled existence amongst counter and adverse
influences, so many and so potent. This might be illustrated abundantly.
But, as respects the particular question before me, it will be sufficient to say
this: With us the profession and exercise of knowledge, as a means of
livelihood, is honourable; on the Continent it is not so. The knowledge, for
instance, which is embodied in the three learned professions, does, with us,
lead to distinction and civil importance; no man can pretend to deny this;
nor, by consequence, that the Professors personally take rank with the
highest order of gentlemen. Are they not, I demand, everywhere with us on
the same footing, in point of rank and consideration, as those who bear the
king's commission in the army and navy? Can this be affirmed of the
Continent, either generally, or, indeed, partially? I say, no. Let us take
Germany as an illustration. Many towns (for anything I know, all) present
us with a regular bisection of the resident notables, or wealthier class, into
two distinct (often hostile) coteries: one being composed of those who are
"noble"; the other, of families equally well educated and accomplished, but
not, in the continental sense, "noble." The meaning and value of the word is
so entirely misapprehended by the best English writers,—being, in fact,
derived from our own way of applying it,—that it becomes important to
ascertain its true value. A "nobility" which is numerous enough to fill a
separate ball-room in every sixth-rate town, it needs no argument to show,
cannot be a nobility in any English sense. In fact, an edelmann or
nobleman, in the German sense, is strictly what we mean by a born
gentleman; with this one only difference, that, whereas, with us, the rank
which denominates a man such passes off by shades so insensible, and
almost infinite, into the ranks below, that it becomes impossible to assign it
any strict demarkation or lines of separation, on the contrary, the
Continental noble points to certain fixed barriers, in the shape of privileges,
which divide him, per saltum, from those who are below his own order.
But, were it not for this one legal benefit of accurate circumscription and
slight favour, the Continental noble, whether Baron of Germany, Count of
France, or Prince of Sicily and of Russia, is simply on a level with the
common landed esquire of Britain, and not on a level in very numerous
cases. Such being the case, how paramount must be the spirit of aristocracy
in Continental society! Our haute noblesse—our genuine nobility, who are
such in the general feeling of their compatriots—will do that which the
phantom of nobility of the Continent will not: the spurious nobles of

Germany will not mix, on equal terms, with their untitled fellow-citizens
living in the same city and in the same style as themselves; they will not
meet them in the same ball or concert-room. Our great territorial nobility,
though sometimes forming exclusive circles (but not, however, upon any
principle of high birth), do so daily. They mix as equal partakers in the same
amusements of races, balls, musical assemblies, with the baronets (or élite
of the gentry); with the landed esquires (or middle gentry); with the
superior order of tradesmen (who, in Germany, are absolute ciphers, for
political weight, or social consideration, but, with us, constitute the lower
and broader stratum of the nobilitas,[8] or gentry). The obscure baronage of
Germany, it is undeniable, insist upon having "an atmosphere of their own";
whilst the Howards, the Stanleys, the Talbots, of England, the Hamiltons,
the Douglases, the Gordons, of Scotland, are content to acknowledge a
sympathy with the liberal part of their untitled countrymen, in that point
which most searchingly tries the principle of aristocratic pride, viz., in their
pleasures. To have the same pursuits of business with another may be a
result of accident or position; to have the same pleasures, being a matter of
choice, argues a community of nature in the moral sensibilities, in that part
of our constitution which differences one man from another in the
capacities of greatness and elevation.
As with their amusements, so with their graver employments; the same
mutual repulsion continues to divide the two orders through life. The nobles
either live in gloomy seclusion upon their private funds, wherever the
privilege of primogeniture has enabled them to do so; or, having no funds at
all (the case of ninety-nine in one hundred), they go into the army; that
profession, the profession of arms, being regarded as the only one
compatible with an edelmann's pretensions. Such was once the feeling in
England; such is still the feeling on the Continent. It is a prejudice naturally
clinging to a semi-barbarous (because growing out of a barbarous) state,
and, in its degree, clinging to every stage of imperfect civilization; and,
were there no other argument, this would be a sufficient one, that England,
under free institutions, has outrun the Continent, in real civilization, by a
century; a fact which is concealed by the forms of luxurious refinement in a
few exclusive classes, too often usurping the name and honours of radical
civilization.

From the super-appreciation of the military profession arises a
corresponding contempt of all other professions whatsoever paid by fellow-
citizens, and not by the King or the State. The clerical profession is in the
most abject degradation throughout Southern Germany; and the reason why
this forces itself less imperiously upon the public notice is, that, in rural
situations, from the absence of a resident gentry (speaking generally), the
pastor is brought into rare collision with those who style themselves noble;
whilst, in towns, the clergy find people enough to countenance those who,
being in the same circumstances as to comfort and liberal education, are
also under the same ban of rejection from the "nobility," or born gentry. The
legal profession is equally degraded; even a barrister or advocate holds a
place in the public esteem little differing from that of an Old Bailey
attorney of the worst class. And this result is the less liable to modification
from personal qualities, inasmuch as there is no great theatre (as with us)
for individual display. Forensic eloquence is unknown in Germany, as it is
too generally on the Continent, from the defect of all popular or open
judicatures. A similar defect of deliberative assemblies—such, at least, as
represent any popular influences and debate with open doors—intercepts
the very possibility of senatorial eloquence.[9] That of the pulpit only
remains. But even of this—whether it be from want of the excitement and
contagious emulation from the other fields of oratory, or from the peculiar
genius of Lutheranism—no models have yet arisen that could, for one
moment, sustain a comparison with those of England or France. The highest
names in this department would not, to a foreign ear, carry with them any of
that significance or promise which surrounds the names of Jeremy Taylor or
Barrow, Bossuet or Bourdaloue, to those even who have no personal
acquaintance with their works. This absence of all fields for gathering
public distinctions co-operates, in a very powerful way, with the contempt
of the born gentry, to degrade these professions; and this double agency is, a
third time, reinforced by those political arrangements which deny every
form of state honour or conspicuous promotion to the very highest
description of excellence, whether of the bar, the pulpit, or the civic council.
Not "the fluent Murray," or the accomplished Erskine, from the English bar
—not Pericles or Demosthenes, from the fierce democracies of Greece—
not Paul preaching at Athens—could snatch a wreath from public homage,
nor a distinction from the state, nor found an influence, nor leave behind
them an operative model, in Germany, as now constituted. Other walks of

emolument are still more despised. Alfieri, a Continental "noble," that is, a
born gentleman, speaks of bankers as we in England should of a Jewish
usurer, or tricking money-changer. The liberal trades, such as those which
minister to literature or the fine arts, which, with us, confer the station of
gentleman upon those who exercise them, are, in the estimate of a
Continental "noble," fitted to assign a certain rank or place in the train and
equipage of a gentleman, but not to entitle their most eminent professors to
sit down, except by sufferance, in his presence. And, upon this point, let not
the reader derive his notions from the German books: the vast majority of
German authors are not "noble"; and, of those who are, nine tenths are
liberal in this respect, and speak the language of liberality, not by sympathy
with their own order, or as representing their feelings, but in virtue of
democratic or revolutionary politics.
Such as the rank is, and the public estimation of the leading professions,
such is the natural condition of the Universities which rear them. The
"nobles" going generally into the army, or leading lives of indolence, the
majority by far of those who resort to Universities do so as a means of
future livelihood. Few seek an academic life in Germany who have either
money to throw away on superfluities and external show, or who have such
a rank to support as might stimulate their pride to expenses beyond their
means. Parsimony is, therefore, in these places, the governing law; and
pleasure, not less fervently wooed than at Oxford or at Cambridge, putting
off her robes of elegance and ceremony, descends to grossness, and not
seldom to abject brutality.
The sum of my argument is—that, because, in comparison of the army, no
other civil profession is, in itself, held of sufficient dignity, and not less,
perhaps, because, under governments essentially unpopular, none of these
professions has been so dignified artificially by the state, or so attached to
any ulterior promotion, either through the state or in the state, as to meet the
demands of aristocratic pride, none of them is cultivated as a means of
distinction, but originally as a means of livelihood; that the Universities, as
the nurseries of these unhonoured professions, share naturally in their
degradation, and that, from this double depreciation of the place and its
final objects, few or none resort thither who can be supposed to bring any
extra funds for supporting a system of luxury; that the general temperance,
or sobriety of demeanour, is far enough, however, from keeping pace with

the absence of costly show; and that, for this absence even, we are to thank
their poverty rather than their will. It is to the great honour, in my opinion,
of our own country, that those often resort to her fountains who have no
motive but that of disinterested reverence for knowledge; seeking, as all
men perceive, neither emolument directly from University funds, nor
knowledge as the means of emolument. Doubtless, it is neither
dishonourable, nor, on a large scale, possible to be otherwise, that students
should pursue their academic career chiefly as ministerial to their capital
object of a future livelihood. But still I contend that it is for the interest of
science and good letters that a considerable body of volunteers should
gather about their banners without pay or hopes of preferment. This takes
place on a larger scale at Oxford and Cambridge than elsewhere; and it is
but a trivial concession in return, on the part of the University, that she
should allow, even if she had the right to withhold, the privilege of living
within her walls as they would have lived at their fathers' seats; with one
only reserve, applied to all modes of expense that are, in themselves,
immoral excesses, or occasions of scandal, or of a nature to interfere too
much with the natural hours of study, or specially fitted to tempt others of
narrower means to ruinous emulation.
Upon these principles, as it seems to me, the discipline of the University is
founded. The keeping of hunters, for example, is unstatutable. Yet, on the
other hand, it is felt to be inevitable that young men of high spirit, familiar
with this amusement, will find means to pursue it in defiance of all the
powers, however exerted, that can properly be lodged in the hands of
academic officers. The range of the proctor's jurisdiction is limited by
positive law; and what should hinder a young man, bent upon his pleasure,
from fixing the station of his hunter a few miles out of Oxford, and riding to
cover on a hack, unamenable to any censure? For, surely, in this age, no
man could propose so absurd a thing as a general interdiction of riding.
How, in fact, does the University proceed? She discountenances the
practice; and, if forced upon her notice, she visits it with censure, and that
sort of punishment which lies within her means. But she takes no pains to
search out a trespass, which, by the mere act of seeking to evade public
display in the streets of the University, already tends to limit itself; and
which, besides, from its costliness, can never become a prominent nuisance.
This I mention as illustrating the spirit of her legislation; and, even in this

case, the reader must carry along with him the peculiar distinction which I
have pressed with regard to English Universities, in the existence of a large
volunteer order of students seeking only the liberalization, and not the
profits, of academic life. In arguing upon their case, it is not the fair logic to
say, These pursuits taint the decorum of the studious character; it is not fair
to calculate how much is lost to the man of letters by such addiction to fox-
hunting, but, on the contrary, what is gained to the fox-hunter, who would,
at any rate, be such, by so considerable a homage paid to letters, and so
inevitable a commerce with men of learning. Anything whatsoever attained
in this direction is probably so much more than would have been attained
under a system of less toleration. Lucro ponamus, we say, of the very least
success in such a case. But, in speaking of toleration as applied to acts or
habits positively against the statutes, I limit my meaning to those which, in
their own nature, are morally indifferent, and are discountenanced simply as
indirectly injurious, or as peculiarly open to excess. Because, on graver
offences (as gambling, &c.), the malicious impeachers of Oxford must well
have known that no toleration whatsoever is practised or thought of. Once
brought under the eye of the University in a clear case and on clear
evidence, it would be punished in the most exemplary way open to a limited
authority; by rustication, at least—that is, banishment for a certain number
of terms, and consequent loss of these terms—supposing the utmost
palliation of circumstances; and, in an aggravated case, or on a second
offence, most certainly by final expulsion. But it is no part of duty to serve
the cause even of good morals by impure means; and it is as difficult
beforehand to prevent the existence of vicious practices so long as men
have, and ought to have, the means of seclusion liable to no violation, as it
is afterwards difficult, without breach of honour, to obtain proof of their
existence. Gambling has been known to exist in some dissenting
institutions; and, in my opinion, with no blame to the presiding authorities.
As to Oxford in particular, no such habit was generally prevalent in my
time; it is not an English vice; nor did I ever hear of any great losses
sustained in this way. But, were it otherwise, I must hold, that, considering
the numbers, rank, and great opulence, of the students, such a habit would
impeach the spirit and temper of the age rather than the vigilance or
magisterial fidelity of the Oxford authorities. They are limited, like other
magistrates, by honour and circumstances, in a thousand ways; and if a knot
of students will choose to meet for purposes of gaming, they must always

have it in their power to baffle every honourable or becoming attempt at
detecting them. But upon this subject I shall make two statements, which
may have some effect in moderating the uncharitable judgments upon
Oxford discipline. The first respects the age of those who are the objects of
this discipline; on which point a very grave error prevails. In the last
Parliament, not once, but many times over, Lord Brougham and others
assumed that the students of Oxford were chiefly boys; and this, not idly or
casually, but pointedly, and with a view to an ulterior argument; for
instance, by way of proving how little they were entitled to judge of those
thirty-nine articles to which their assent was demanded. Now, this argued a
very extraordinary ignorance; and the origin of the error showed the levity
in which their legislation was conducted. These noble lords had drawn their
ideas of a University exclusively from Glasgow. Here, it is well known, and
I mention it neither for praise nor blame, that students are in the habit of
coming at the early age of fourteen. These may allowably be styled boys.
But, with regard to Oxford, eighteen is about the earliest age at which
young men begin their residence: twenty and upwards is, therefore, the age
of the majority; that is, twenty is the minimum of age for the vast majority,
as there must always be more men of three years' standing than of two or of
one. Apply this fact to the question of discipline: young men beyond
twenty, generally,—that is to say, of the age which qualifies men for seats in
the national council,—can hardly, with decency, either be called or treated
as boys; and many things become impossible as applied to them, which
might be of easy imposition upon an assemblage really childish. In mere
justice, therefore, when speculating upon this whole subject of Oxford
discipline, the reader must carry along with him, at every step, the
recollection of that signal difference as to age which I have now stated
between Oxonians and those students whom the hostile party contemplate
in their arguments.[10] Meantime, to show that, even under every obstacle
presented by this difference of age, the Oxford authorities do, nevertheless,
administer their discipline with fidelity, with intrepidity, and with
indifference as respects the high and the low, I shall select from a crowd of
similar recollections two anecdotes, which are but trifles in themselves, and
yet are not such to him who recognizes them as expressions of a uniform
system of dealing.

A great Whig Lord (Earl C——) happened (it may be ten years ago) to
present himself one day at Trinity (the leading college of Cambridge), for
the purpose of introducing Lord F—— ch, his son, as a future member of
that splendid society. Possibly it mortified his aristocratic feelings to hear
the head of the college, even whilst welcoming the young nobleman in
courteous terms, yet suggesting, with some solemnity, that, before taking
any final resolution in the matter, his lordship would do well to consider
whether he were fully prepared to submit himself to college discipline; for
that, otherwise, it became his own duty frankly to declare that the college
would not look upon his accession to their society as any advantage. This
language arose out of some recent experience of refractory and turbulent
conduct upon the part of various young men of rank; but it is very possible
that the noble Earl, in his surprise at a salutation so uncourtly, might regard
it, in a Tory mouth, as having some lurking reference to his own Whig
politics. If so, he must have been still more surprised to hear of another
case, which would meet him before he left Cambridge, and which involved
some frank dealing as well as frank speaking, when a privilege of exception
might have been presumed, if Tory politics, or services the most
memorable, could ever create such a privilege. The Duke of W—— had
two sons at Oxford. The affair is now long past; and it cannot injure either
of them to say, that one of the brothers trespassed against the college
discipline, in some way which compelled (or was thought to compel) the
presiding authorities into a solemn notice of his conduct. Expulsion
appeared to be the appropriate penalty of his offences: but, at this point, a
just hesitation arose. Not in any servile spirit, but under a proper feeling of
consideration for so eminent a public benefactor as this young nobleman's
father. the rulers paused—and at length signified to him that he was at
liberty to withdraw himself privately from the college, but also, and at the
same time, from the University. He did so, and his brother, conceiving him
to have been harshly treated, withdrew also; and both transferred
themselves to Cambridge. That could not be prevented: but there they were
received with marked reserve. One was not received, I believe, in a
technical sense; and the other was received conditionally; and such
restrictions were imposed upon his future conduct as served most amply,
and in a case of great notoriety, to vindicate the claims of discipline, and, in
an extreme case, a case so eminently an extreme one that none like it is ever
likely to recur, to proclaim the footing upon which the very highest rank is

received at the English Universities. Is that footing peculiar to them? I
willingly believe that it is not; and, with respect to Edinburgh and Glasgow,
I am persuaded that their weight of dignity is quite sufficient, and would be
exerted to secure the same subordination from men of rank, if
circumstances should ever bring as large a number of that class within their
gates, and if their discipline were equally applicable to the habits of
students not domiciled within their walls. But, as to the smaller institutions
for education within the pale of dissent, I feel warranted in asserting, from
the spirit of the anecdotes which have reached me, that they have not the
auctoritas requisite for adequately maintaining their dignity.
So much for the aristocracy of our English Universities: their glory is, and
the happiest application of their vast influence, that they have the power to
be republican, as respects their internal condition. Literature, by substituting
a different standard of rank, tends to republican equality; and, as one
instance of this, properly belonging to the chapter of servants, which
originally led to this discussion, it ought to be known that the class of
"servitors," once a large body in Oxford, have gradually become practically
extinct under the growing liberality of the age. They carried in their
academic dress a mark of their inferiority; they waited at dinner on those of
higher rank, and performed other menial services, humiliating to
themselves, and latterly felt as no less humiliating to the general name and
interests of learning. The better taste, or rather the relaxing pressure of
aristocratic prejudice, arising from the vast diffusion of trade and the higher
branches of mechanic art, have gradually caused these functions of the
order (even where the law would not permit the extinction of the order) to
become obsolete. In my time, I was acquainted with two servitors: but one
of them was rapidly pushed forward into a higher station; and the other
complained of no degradation, beyond the grievous one of exposing himself
to the notice of young women in the streets with an untasselled cap; but this
he contrived to evade, by generally going abroad without his academic
dress. The servitors of Oxford are the sizars of Cambridge; and I believe the
same changes[11] have taken place in both.
One only account with the college remains to be noticed; but this is the
main one. It is expressed in the bills by the word battels, derived from the
old monkish word patella (or batella), a plate; and it comprehends
whatsoever is furnished for dinner and for supper, including malt liquor, but

not wine, as well as the materials for breakfast, or for any casual
refreshment to country visitors, excepting only groceries. These, together
with coals and faggots, candles, wine, fruit, and other more trifling extras,
which are matters of personal choice, form so many private accounts
against your name, and are usually furnished by tradesmen living near to
the college, and sending their servants daily to receive orders. Supper, as a
meal not universally taken, in many colleges is served privately in the
student's own room; though some colleges still retain the ancient custom of
a public supper. But dinner is, in all colleges, a public meal, taken in the
refectory or "hall" of the society; which, with the chapel and library,
compose the essential public suite belonging to every college alike. No
absence is allowed, except to the sick, or to those who have formally
applied for permission to give a dinner-party. A fine is imposed on all other
cases of absence. Wine is not generally allowed in the public hall, except to
the "high table," that is, the table at which the fellows and some other
privileged persons are entitled to dine. The head of the college rarely dines
in public. The other tables, and, after dinner, the high table, usually adjourn
to their wine, either upon invitations to private parties, or to what are called
the "common rooms" of the several orders—graduates and undergraduates,
&c. The dinners are always plain, and without pretensions—those, I mean,
in the public hall; indeed, nothing can be plainer in most colleges—a simple
choice between two or three sorts of animal food, and the common
vegetables. No fish, even as a regular part of the fare; no soups, no game;
nor, except on some very rare festivity, did I ever see a variation from this
plain fare at Oxford. This, indeed, is proved sufficiently by the average
amount of the battels. Many men "battel" at the rate of a guinea a week: I
did so for years: that is, at the rate of three shillings a day for everything
connected with meals, excepting only tea, sugar, milk, and wine. It is true
that wealthier men, more expensive men, and more careless men, often
"battelled" much higher; but, if they persisted in this excess, they incurred
censures, more and more urgent, from the head of the college.
Now, let us sum up; promising that the extreme duration of residence in any
college at Oxford amounts to something under thirty weeks. It is possible to
keep "short terms," as the phrase is, by a residence of thirteen weeks, or
ninety-one days; but, as this abridged residence is not allowed, except in
here and there a college, I shall assume—as something beyond the strict

maximum of residence—thirty weeks as my basis. The account will then
stand thus:

1.Rooms £10 10 0
2.Tutorage 10 10 0
3.Servants (subject to the explanations made above), say 5 5 0
4.Battels (allowing one shilling a day beyond what I and
others spent in much dearer times; that is, allowing
twenty-eight shillings weekly), for thirty weeks 40 4 0
———
£66 9 0

This will be a liberal calculation for the college bill. What remains? 1.
Candles, which the reader will best calculate upon the standard of his own
general usage in this particular. 2. Coals, which are remarkably dear at
Oxford—dearer, perhaps, than anywhere else in the island; say, three times
as dear as at Edinburgh. 3. Groceries. 4. Wine. 5. Washing. This last article
was, in my time, regulated by the college, as there were certain privileged
washerwomen, between whom and the students it was but fair that some
proper authority should interfere to prevent extortion, in return for the
monopoly granted. Six guineas was the regulated sum; but this paid for
everything,—table-linen, &c., as well as for wearing apparel; and it was
understood to cover the whole twenty-eight or thirty weeks. However, it
was open to every man to make his own arrangements, by insisting on a
separate charge for each separate article. All other expenses of a merely
personal nature, such as postage, public amusements, books, clothes, &c.,
as they have no special connection with Oxford, but would, probably, be
balanced by corresponding, if not the very same, expenses in any other
place or situation, I do not calculate. What I have specified are the expenses
which would accrue to a student in consequence of leaving his father's
house. The rest would, in these days, be the same, perhaps, everywhere.
How much, then, shall we assume as the total charge on account of Oxford?
Candles, considering the quantity of long days amongst the thirty weeks,
may be had for one shilling and sixpence a week; for few students—unless
they have lived in India, after which a physical change occurs in the

sensibility of the nostrils—are finical enough to burn wax-lights. This will
amount to two pounds five shillings. Coals, say sixpence a day; for three-
pence a day will amply feed one grate in Edinburgh; and there are many
weeks in the thirty which will demand no fire at all. Groceries and wine,
which are all that remain, I cannot calculate. But suppose we allow for the
first a shilling a day, which will be exactly ten guineas for thirty weeks; and
for the second, nothing at all. Then the extras, in addition to the college
bills, will stand thus:

Washing for thirty weeks, at the privileged rate £6 6 0
Candles 2 5 0
Fire 5 5 0
Groceries 10 10 0
— ——
£24 6 0

The college bills, therefore, will be £66: 9s.; the extras, not furnished by the
college, will be about £24: 6s.,—making a total amount of £90: 15s. And
for this sum, annually, a man may defray every expense incident to an
Oxford life, through a period of weeks (viz., thirty) something more than he
will be permitted to reside. It is true, that, for the first year, there will be, in
addition to this, his outfit: and for every year there will be his journeys.
There will also be twenty-two weeks uncovered by this estimate; but for
these it is not my business to provide, who deal only with Oxford.
That this estimate is true, I know too feelingly. Would that it were not!
would that it were false! Were it so, I might the better justify to myself that
commerce with fraudulent Jews which led me so early to commence the
dilapidation of my small fortune. It is true; and true for a period (1804-8)
far dearer than this. And to any man who questions its accuracy I address
this particular request—that he will lay his hand upon the special item
which he disputes. I anticipate that he will answer thus: "I dispute none: it is
not by positive things that your estimate errs, but by negations. It is the
absence of all allowance for indispensable items that vitiates the
calculation." Very well: but to this, as to other things, we may apply the
words of Dr. Johnson—"Sir, the reason I drink no wine, is because I can

practise abstinence, but not temperance." Yes: in all things, abstinence is
easier than temperance; for a little enjoyment has invariably the effect of
awaking the sense of enjoyment, irritating it, and setting it on edge. I,
therefore, recollecting my own case, have allowed for no wine-parties. Let
our friend, the abstraction we are speaking of, give breakfast-parties, if he
chooses to give any; and certainly to give none at all, unless he were
dedicated to study, would seem very churlish. Nobody can be less a friend
than myself to monkish and ascetic seclusion, unless it were for twenty-
three hours out of the twenty-four.
But, however this be settled, let no mistake be made; nor let that be charged
against the system which is due to the habits of individuals. Early in the last
century, Dr. Newton, the head of a college in Oxford, wrote a large book
against the Oxford system, as ruinously expensive. But then, as now, the
real expense was due to no cause over which the colleges could exercise
any effectual control. It is due exclusively to the habits of social intercourse
amongst the young men; from which he may abstain who chooses. But, for
any academic authorities to interfere by sumptuary laws with the private
expenditure of grown men, many of them, in a legal sense, of age, and all
near it, must appear romantic and extravagant, for this (or, indeed, any)
stage of society. A tutor being required, about 1810, to fix the amount of
allowance for a young man of small fortune, nearly related to myself,
pronounced three hundred and twenty pounds little enough. He had this
allowance, and was ruined in consequence of the credit which it procured
for him, and the society it connected him with. The majority have two
hundred pounds a year: but my estimate stands good, for all that.
Having stated, generally, the expenses of the Oxford system, I am bound, in
candour, to mention one variety in the mode of carrying this system into
effect, open to every man's adoption, which confers certain privileges, but,
at the same time (by what exact mode, I know not), considerably increases
the cost, and in that degree disturbs my calculation. The great body of
undergraduates, or students, are divided into two classes—Commoners, and
Gentlemen Commoners. Perhaps nineteen out of twenty belong to the
former class; and it is for that class, as having been my own, that I have
made my estimate. The other class of Gentlemen Commoners (who, at
Cambridge, bear the name of Fellow Commoners) wear a peculiar dress,
and have some privileges which naturally imply some corresponding

increase of cost; but why this increase should go to the extent of doubling
the total expense, as it is generally thought to do, or how it can go to that
extent, I am unable to explain. The differences which attach to the rank of
"Gentlemen Commoners" are these: At his entrance he pays double "caution
money"; that is, whilst Commoners in general pay about twenty-five
guineas, he pays fifty; but this can occur only once; and, besides, in strict
point of right, this sum is only a deposit, and is liable to be withdrawn on
leaving the University, though it is commonly enough finally presented to
the college in the shape of plate. The next difference is, that, by comparison
with the Commoner, he wears a much more costly dress. The Commoner's
gown is made of what is called prince's stuff, and, together with the cap,
costs about five guineas. But the Gentleman Commoner has two gowns—an
undress for the morning, and a full dress-gown for the evening; both are
made of silk, and the latter is very elaborately ornamented. The cap also is
more costly, being covered with velvet instead of cloth. At Cambridge,
again, the tassel is made of gold fringe or bullion, which, in Oxford, is
peculiar to the caps of noblemen; and there are many other varieties in that
University, where the dress for "pensioners" (that is, the Oxford
"Commoners") is specially varied in almost every college; the object being,
perhaps, to give a ready means to the academic officers for ascertaining, at
a glance, not merely the general fact that such or such a delinquent is a
gownsman (which is all that can be ascertained at Oxford), but also the
particular college to which he belongs. Allowance being made for these two
items of "dress" and "caution-money," both of which apply only to the
original outfit, I know of no others in which the expenditure of a Gentleman
Commoner ought to exceed, or could with propriety exceed, that of a
Commoner. He has, indeed, a privilege as regards the choice of rooms; he
chooses first, and probably chooses those rooms which, being best, are
dearest; that is, they are on a level with the best; but usually there are many
sets almost equally good; and of these the majority will be occupied by
Commoners. So far, there is little opening for a difference. More often,
again, it will happen that a man of this aristocratic class keeps a private
servant; yet this happens also to Commoners, and is, besides, no properly
college expense. Tutorage is charged double to a Gentleman Commoner—
namely, twenty guineas a year: this is done upon a fiction (as it sometimes
turns out) of separate attention, or aid given in a private way to his
scholastic pursuits. Finally, there arises naturally another and peculiar

source of expense to the "Gentleman Commoner," from a fact implied in his
Cambridge designation of "Fellow Commoner," commensalis—viz., that he
associates at meals with the "fellows" and other authorities of the college.
Yet this again expresses rather the particular shape which his expenditure
assumes than any absolute increase in its amount. He subscribes to a regular
mess, and pays, therefore, whether present or not; but so, in a partial sense,
does the Commoner, by his forfeits for "absent commons." He subscribes
also to a regular fund for wine; and, therefore, he does not enjoy that
immunity from wine-drinking which is open to the Commoner. Yet, again,
as the Commoner does but rarely avail himself of this immunity, as he
drinks no less wine than the Gentleman Commoner, and, generally
speaking, wine not worse in quality, it is difficult to see any ground for a
regular assumption of higher expenditure in the one class than the other.
However, the universal impression favours that assumption. All people
believe that the rank of Gentleman Commoner imposes an expensive
burden, though few people ever ask why. As a matter of fact, I believe it to
be true that Gentlemen Commoners spend more by a third, or a half, than
any equal number of Commoners, taken without selection. And the reason
is obvious: those who become Gentlemen Commoners are usually
determined to that course by the accident of having very large funds; they
are eldest sons, or only sons, or men already in possession of estates, or else
(which is as common a case as all the rest put together) they are the heirs of
newly-acquired wealth—sons of the nouveaux riches—a class which often
requires a generation or two to rub off the insolence of a too conscious
superiority. I have called them an "aristocratic" class; but, in strictness, they
are not such; they form a privileged class, indeed, but their privileges are
few and trifling, not to add that these very privileges are connected with one
or two burdens, more than outweighing them in the estimate of many; and,
upon the whole, the chief distinction they enjoy is that of advertising
themselves to the public as men of great wealth, or great expectations, and,
therefore, as subjects peculiarly adapted to fraudulent attempts.
Accordingly, it is not found that the sons of the nobility are much inclined
to enter this order: these, if they happen to be the eldest sons of earls, or of
any peers above the rank of viscount, so as to enjoy a title themselves by
the courtesy of England, have special privileges in both Universities as to
length of residence, degrees, &c.; and their rank is ascertained by a special
dress. These privileges it is not usual to forgo; though sometimes that

happens, as, in my time, in the instance of Lord George Grenville (now
Lord Nugent); he neither entered at the aristocratic college (Christ Church),
nor wore the dress of a nobleman. Generally, however, an elder son appears
in his true character of nobleman; but the younger sons rarely enter the class
of Gentlemen Commoners. They enter either as "Commoners," or under
some of those various designations ("scholars," "demies," "students,"
"junior fellows") which imply that they stand upon the foundation of the
college to which they belong, and are aspirants for academic emoluments.
Upon the whole, I am disposed to regard this order of Gentlemen
Commoners as a standing temptation held out by authority to expensive
habits, and a very unbecoming proclamation of honour paid to the
aristocracy of wealth. And I know that many thoughtful men regard it in the
same light with myself, and regret deeply that any such distribution of ranks
should be authorized, as a stain upon the simplicity and general manliness
of the English academic laws. It is an open profession of homage and
indulgence to wealth, as wealth—to wealth disconnected from everything
that might ally it to the ancestral honours and heraldries of the land. It is
also an invitation, or rather a challenge, to profuse expenditure. Regularly,
and by law, a Gentleman Commoner is liable to little heavier burdens than a
Commoner; but, to meet the expectations of those around him, and to act up
to the part he has assumed, he must spend more, and he must be more
careless in controlling his expenditure, than a moderate and prudent
Commoner. In every light, therefore, I condemn the institution, and give it
up to the censures of the judicious. So much in candour I concede. But, to
show equal candour on the other side, it must be remembered that this
institution descends to us from ancient times, when wealth was not so often
divided from territorial or civic honours, conferring a real precedency.

III[12]

There was one reason why I sought solitude at that early age, and sought it
in a morbid excess, which must naturally have conferred upon my character
some degree of that interest which belongs to all extremes. My eye had
been couched into a secondary power of vision, by misery, by solitude, by
sympathy with life in all its modes, by experience too early won, and by the

sense of danger critically escaped. Suppose the case of a man suspended by
some colossal arm over an unfathomed abyss,—suspended, but finally and
slowly withdrawn,—it is probable that he would not smile for years. That
was my case: for I have not mentioned in the "Opium Confessions" a
thousandth part of the sufferings I underwent in London and in Wales;
partly because the misery was too monotonous, and, in that respect, unfitted
for description; but still more because there is a mysterious sensibility
connected with real suffering, which recoils from circumstantial rehearsal
or delineation, as from violation offered to something sacred, and which is,
or should be, dedicated to privacy. Grief does not parade its pangs, nor the
anguish of despairing hunger willingly count again its groans or its
humiliations. Hence it was that Ledyard, the traveller, speaking of his
Russian experiences, used to say that some of his miseries were such that he
never would reveal them. Besides all which, I really was not at liberty to
speak, without many reserves, on this chapter of my life, at a period (1821)
not twenty years removed from the actual occurrences, unless I desired to
court the risk of crossing at every step the existing law of libel, so full of
snares and man-traps, to the careless equally with the conscientious writer.
This is a consideration which some of my critics have lost sight of in a
degree which surprises me. One, for example, puts it to his readers whether
any house such as I describe as the abode of my money-lending friend
could exist "in Oxford-street"; and, at the same time, he states, as
circumstances drawn from my description, but, in fact, pure coinages of his
own, certain romantic impossibilities, which, doubtless, could as little
attach to a house in Oxford-street as they could to a house in any other
quarter of London. Meantime, I had sufficiently indicated that, whatsoever
street was concerned in that affair, Oxford-street was not: and it is
remarkable enough, as illustrating this amiable reviewer's veracity, that no
one street in London was absolutely excluded but one, and that one,
Oxford-street. For I happened to mention that, on such a day (my birth-
day), I had turned aside from Oxford-street to look at the house in question.
I will now add that this house was in Greek-street: so much it may be safe
to say. But every candid reader will see that both prudential restraints, and
also disinterested regard to the feelings of possibly amiable descendants
from a vicious man, would operate with any thoughtful writer, in such a
case, to impose reserve upon his pen. Had my guardians, had my money-
lending friend of Jewry, and others concerned in my memoirs, been so

many shadows, bodiless abstractions, and without earthly connections, I
might readily have given my own names to my own creations, and have
treated them as unceremoniously as I pleased. Not so under the real
circumstances of the case. My chief guardian, for instance, though obstinate
to a degree which risked the happiness and the life of his ward, was an
upright man otherwise; and his children are entitled to value his memory.
Again, my Greek-street τραπεζιτης (trapezitês), the "fœnerator Alpheus,"
who delighted to reap where he had not sown, and too often (I fear) allowed
himself in practices which not impossibly have long since been found to
qualify him for distant climates and "Botanic" regions,—even he, though I
might truly describe him as a mere highwayman whenever he happened to
be aware that I had received a friendly loan, yet, like other highwaymen of
repute, and "gentle thieves," was not inexorable to the petitions of his
victim: he would sometimes toss back what was required for some instant
necessity of the road; and at his breakfast-table it was, after all, as
elsewhere recorded, that I contrived to support life; barely, indeed, and most
slenderly, but still with the final result of escaping absolute starvation. With
that recollection before me, I could not allow myself to probe his frailties
too severely, had it even been certainly safe to do so. But enough; the reader
will understand that a year spent either in the valleys of Wales, or upon the
streets of London, by a wanderer too often houseless in both situations,
might naturally have peopled the mind of one constitutionally disposed to
solemn contemplations with memorials of human sorrow and strife too
profound to pass away for years.
Thus, then, it was. Past experience of a very peculiar kind, the agitations of
many lives crowded into the compass of a year or two, in combination with
a peculiar structure of mind, offered one explanation of the very remarkable
and unsocial habits which I adopted at college; but there was another not
less powerful, and not less unusual. In stating this, I shall seem, to some
persons, covertly designing an affront to Oxford. But that is far from my
intention. It is noways peculiar to Oxford, but will, doubtless, be found in
every University throughout the world, that the younger part of the
members—the undergraduates, I mean, generally, whose chief business
must have lain amongst the great writers of Greece and Rome—cannot have
found leisure to cultivate extensively their own domestic literature. Not so
much that time will have been wanting; but that the whole energy of the

mind, and the main course of the subsidiary studies and researches, will
naturally have been directed to those difficult languages amongst which lie
their daily tasks. I make it no subject of complaint or scorn, therefore, but
simply state it as a fact, that few or none of the Oxford undergraduates, with
whom parity of standing threw me into collision at my first outset, knew
anything at all of English Literature. The Spectator seemed to me the only
English book of a classical rank which they had read; and even this less for
its inimitable delicacy, humour, and refined pleasantry in dealing with
manners and characters, than for its insipid and meagre essays, ethical or
critical. This was no fault of theirs: they had been sent to the book chiefly as
a subject for Latin translations, or of other exercises; and, in such a view,
the vague generalities of superficial morality were more useful and more
manageable than sketches of manner or character, steeped in national
peculiarities. To translate the terms of Whig politics into classical Latin
would be as difficult as it might be for a Whig himself to give a consistent
account of those politics from the year 1688. Natural, however, and
excusable, as this ignorance might be, to myself it was intolerable and
incomprehensible. Already, at fifteen, I had made myself familiar with the
great English poets. About sixteen, or not long after, my interest in the story
of Chatterton had carried me over the whole ground of the Rowley
controversy; and that controversy, by a necessary consequence, had so
familiarised me with the "Black Letter" that I had begun to find an
unaffected pleasure in the ancient English metrical romances; and in
Chaucer, though acquainted as yet only with part of his works, I had
perceived and had felt profoundly those divine qualities which, even at this
day, are so languidly acknowledged by his unjust countrymen. With this
knowledge, and this enthusiastic knowledge of the elder poets—of those
most remote from easy access—I could not well be a stranger in other
walks of our literature, more on a level with the general taste, and nearer to
modern diction, and, therefore, more extensively multiplied by the press.
Yet, after all—as one proof how much more commanding is that part of a
literature which speaks to the elementary affections of men than that which
is founded on the mutable aspects of manners—it is a fact that, even in our
elaborate system of society, where an undue value is unavoidably given to
the whole science of social intercourse, and a continual irritation applied to
the sensibilities which point in that direction, still, under all these
advantages, Pope himself is less read, less quoted, less thought of, than the

elder and graver section of our literature. It is a great calamity for an author
such as Pope, that, generally speaking, it requires so much experience of
life to enjoy his peculiar felicities as must argue an age likely to have
impaired the general capacity for enjoyment. For my part, I had myself a
very slender acquaintance with this chapter of our literature; and what little
I had was generally, at that period of my life, as with most men it continues
to be to the end of life, a reflex knowledge, acquired through those pleasant
miscellanies, half gossip, half criticism—such as Warton's Essay on Pope,
Boswell's Johnson, Mathias's Pursuits of Literature, and many scores
besides of the same indeterminate class: a class, however, which do a real
service to literature, by diffusing an indirect knowledge of fine writers in
their most effective passages, where else, in a direct shape, it would often
never extend.
In some parts, then, having even a profound knowledge of our literature, in
all parts having some, I felt it to be impossible that I should familiarly
associate with those who had none at all; not so much as a mere historical
knowledge of the literature in its capital names and their chronological
succession. Do I mention this in disparagement of Oxford? By no means.
Among the undergraduates of higher standing, and occasionally, perhaps, of
my own, I have since learned that many might have been found eminently
accomplished in this particular. But seniors do not seek after juniors; they
must be sought; and, with my previous bias to solitude, a bias equally
composed of impulses and motives, I had no disposition to take trouble in
seeking any man for any purpose.
But, on this subject, a fact still remains to be told, of which I am justly
proud; and it will serve, beyond anything else that I can say, to measure the
degree of my intellectual development. On coming to Oxford, I had taken
up one position in advance of my age by full thirty years: that appreciation
of Wordsworth, which it has taken full thirty years to establish amongst the
public, I had already made, and had made operative to my own intellectual
culture, in the same year when I clandestinely quitted school. Already, in
1802, I had addressed a letter of fervent admiration to Mr. Wordsworth. I
did not send it until the spring of 1803; and, from misdirection, it did not
come into his hands for some months. But I had an answer from Mr.
Wordsworth before I was eighteen; and that my letter was thought to
express the homage of an enlightened admirer may be inferred from the fact

that his answer was long and full. On this anecdote I do not mean to dwell;
but I cannot allow the reader to overlook the circumstances of the case. At
this day [1835] it is true, no journal can be taken up which does not
habitually speak of Mr. Wordsworth as of a great, if not the great, poet of
the age. Mr. Bulwer, living in the intensest pressure of the world, and
though recoiling continually from the judgments of the world, yet never in
any violent degree ascribes to Mr. Wordsworth (in his England and the
English, p. 308) "an influence of a more noble and purely intellectual
character than any writer of our age or nation has exercised." Such is the
opinion held of this great poet in 1835; but what were those of 1805-15,—
nay, of 1825? For twenty years after the date of that letter to Mr.
Wordsworth above referred to, language was exhausted, ingenuity was put
on the rack, in the search after images and expressions vile enough, insolent
enough, to convey the unutterable contempt avowed for all that he had
written by the fashionable critics. One critic—who still, I believe, edits a
rather popular journal, and who belongs to that class, feeble, fluttering,
ingenious, who make it their highest ambition not to lead, but, with a slave's
adulation, to obey and to follow all the caprices of the public mind—
described Mr. Wordsworth as resembling, in the quality of his mind, an old
nurse babbling in her paralytic dotage to sucking babies. If this insult was
peculiarly felt by Mr. Wordsworth, it was on a consideration of the unusual
imbecility of him who offered it, and not because in itself it was baser or
more insolent than the language held by the majority of journalists who
then echoed the public voice. Blackwood's Magazine (1817) first
accustomed the public ear to the language of admiration coupled with the
name of Wordsworth. This began with Professor Wilson; and well I
remember—nay, the proofs are still easy to hunt up—that, for eight or ten
years, this singularity of opinion, having no countenance from other
journals, was treated as a whim, a paradox, a bold extravagance, of the
Blackwood critics. Mr. Wordsworth's neighbours in Westmoreland, who had
(generally speaking) a profound contempt for him, used to rebut the
testimony of Blackwood by one constant reply—"Ay, Blackwood praises
Wordsworth, but who else praises him?" In short, up to 1820, the name of
Wordsworth was trampled under foot; from 1820 to 1830, it was militant;
from 1830 to 1835, it has been triumphant. In 1803, when I entered at
Oxford, that name was absolutely unknown; and the finger of scorn, pointed
at it in 1802 by the first or second number of the Edinburgh Review, failed

to reach its mark from absolute defect of knowledge in the public mind.
Some fifty besides myself knew who was meant by "that poet who had
cautioned his friend against growing double," etc.; to all others it was a
profound secret.
These things must be known and understood properly to value the prophetic
eye and the intrepidity of two persons, like Professor Wilson and myself,
who, in 1802-3, attached themselves to a banner not yet raised and planted;
who outran, in fact, their contemporaries by one entire generation, and did
that about 1802 which the rest of the world are doing in chorus about 1832.
Professor Wilson's period at Oxford exactly coincided with my own; yet, in
that large world, we never met. I know, therefore, but little of his policy in
regard to such opinions or feelings as tended to dissociate him from the
mass of his coëvals. This only I know, that he lived as it were in public, and
must, therefore, I presume, have practised a studied reserve as to his deepest
admirations; and, perhaps, at that day (1803-8) the occasions would be rare
in which much dissimulation would be needed. Until Lord Byron had begun
to pilfer from Wordsworth and to abuse him, allusions to Wordsworth were
not frequent in conversations; and it was chiefly on occasions of some
question arising about poetry in general, or about the poets of the day, that it
became difficult to dissemble. For my part, hating the necessity for
dissimulation as much as the dissimulation itself, I drew from this
peculiarity also of my own mind a fresh reinforcement of my other motives
for sequestering myself; and, for the first two years of my residence in
Oxford, I compute that I did not utter one hundred words.
I remember distinctly the first (which happened also to be the last)
conversation that I ever held with my tutor. It consisted of three sentences,
two of which fell to his share, one to mine. On a fine morning, he met me in
the Quadrangle, and, having then no guess of the nature of my pretensions,
he determined (I suppose) to probe them. Accordingly, he asked me, "What
I had been lately reading?" Now, the fact was that I, at that time immersed
in metaphysics, had really been reading and studying very closely the
Parmenides, of which obscure work some Oxford man, early in the last
century, published a separate edition. Yet, so profound was the benignity of
my nature that, in those days, I could not bear to witness, far less to cause,
the least pain or mortification to any human being. I recoiled, indeed, from

the society of most men, but not with any feelings of dislike. On the
contrary, in order that I might like all men, I wished to associate with none.
Now, then, to have mentioned the Parmenides to one who, fifty thousand to
one, was a perfect stranger to its whole drift and purpose, looked too
méchant, too like a trick of malice, in an age when such reading was so very
unusual. I felt that it would be taken for an express stratagem for stopping
my tutor's mouth. All this passing rapidly through my mind, I replied,
without hesitation, that I had been reading Paley. My tutor's rejoinder I have
never forgotten: "Ah! an excellent author; excellent for his matter; only you
must be on your guard as to his style; he is very vicious there." Such was
the colloquy; we bowed, parted, and never more (I apprehend) exchanged
one word. Now, trivial and trite as this comment on Paley may appear to the
reader, it struck me forcibly that more falsehood, or more absolute
falsehood, or more direct inversion of the truth, could not, by any artifice or
ingenuity, have been crowded into one short sentence. Paley, as a
philosopher, is a jest, the disgrace of the age; and, as regards the two
Universities, and the enormous responsibility they undertake for the books
which they sanction by their official examinations for degrees, the name of
Paley is their great opprobrium. But, on the other hand, for style, Paley is a
master. Homely, racy, vernacular English, the rustic vigour of a style which
intentionally forgoes the graces of polish on the one hand, and of scholastic
precision on the other—that quality of merit has never been attained in a
degree so eminent. This first interchange of thought upon a topic of
literature did not tend to slacken my previous disposition to retreat into
solitude; a solitude, however, which at no time was tainted with either the
moroseness or the pride of a cynic.
Neither must the reader suppose that, even in that day, I belonged to the
party who disparage the classical writers, or the classical training of the
great English schools. The Greek drama I loved and revered. But, to deal
frankly, because it is a subject which I shall hereafter bring before the
public, I made great distinctions. I was not that indiscriminate admirer of
Greek and Roman literature which those too generally are who admire it at
all. This protesting spirit against a false and blind idolatry was with me, at
that time, a matter of enthusiasm—almost of bigotry. I was a bigot against
bigots. Let us take the Greek oratory, for example:—What section of the
Greek literature is more fanatically exalted, and studiously in depreciation

of our own? Let us judge of the sincerity at the base of these hollow
affectations, by the downright facts and the producible records. To admire,
in any sense which can give weight and value to your admiration, pre-
supposes, I presume, some acquaintance with its object. As the earliest title
to an opinion, one way or other, of the Greek eloquence, we ought to have
studied some of its most distinguished artists; or, say one, at least; and this
one, we may be sure, will be, as it ought to be, Demosthenes. Now, it is a
fact, that all the copies of Demosthenes sold within the last hundred years
would not meet the demand of one considerable town, were that orator a
subject of study amongst even classical scholars. I doubt whether, at this
day, there exist twenty men in Europe who can be said to have even once
read Demosthenes; and, therefore, it was that, when Mr. Mitford, in his
"History of Greece," took a new view of this orator's political
administration—a view which lowered his character for integrity—he found
an unresisting acceder to his doctrines in a public having no previous
opinion upon the subject, and, therefore, open to any casual impression of
malice or rash judgment. Had there been any acquaintance with the large
remains which we still possess of this famous orator, no such wrong could
have been done. I, from my childhood, had been a reader, nay, a student, of
Demosthenes; and simply for this reason, that, having meditated profoundly
on the true laws and philosophy of diction, and of what is vaguely
denominated style, and finding nothing of any value in modern writers upon
this subject, and not much as regards the grounds and ultimate principles
even in the ancient rhetoricians, I have been reduced to collect my opinions
from the great artists and practitioners, rather than from the theorists; and,
among those artists, in the most plastic of languages, I hold Demosthenes to
have been the greatest.
The Greek is, beyond comparison, the most plastic of languages. It was a
material which bent to the purposes of him who used it beyond the material
of other languages; it was an instrument for a larger compass of
modulations; and it happens that the peculiar theme of an orator imposes
the very largest which is consistent with a prose diction. One step further in
passion, and the orator would become a poet. An orator can exhaust the
capacities of a language—an historian, never. Moreover, the age of
Demosthenes was, in my judgment, the age of highest development for arts
dependent upon social refinement. That generation had fixed and

ascertained the use of words; whereas the previous generation of
Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, &c., was a transitional period: the language
was still moving, and tending to a meridian not yet attained; and the public
eye had been directed consciously upon language, as in and for itself an
organ of intellectual delight, for too short a time to have mastered the whole
art of managing its resources. All these were reasons for studying
Demosthenes, as the one great model and standard of Attic prose; and
studied him I had, more than any other prose writer whatever. Pari passu, I
had become sensible that others had not studied him. One monotonous song
of applause I found raised on every side; something about being "like a
torrent, that carries everything before it." This original image is all we get in
the shape of criticism, and never any attempt even at illustrating what is
greatest in him, or characterising what is most peculiar. The same persons
who discovered that Lord Brougham was the modern Bacon have also
complimented him with the title of the English Demosthenes. Upon this
hint, Lord Brougham, in his address to the Glasgow students, has deluged
the great Athenian with wordy admiration. There is an obvious prudence in
lodging your praise upon an object from which you count upon a rebound to
yourself. But here, as everywhere else, you look in vain for any marks or
indications of a personal and direct acquaintance with the original orations.
The praise is built rather upon the popular idea of Demosthenes than upon
the real Demosthenes. And not only so, but even upon style itself, and upon
the art of composition in abstracto, Lord Brougham does not seem to have
formed any clear conceptions,—principles he has none. Now, it is useless to
judge of an artist until you have some principles on the art. The two capital
secrets in the art of prose composition are these: 1st, The philosophy of
transition and connection, or the art by which one step in an evolution of
thought is made to arise out of another: all fluent and effective composition
depends on the connections;—2dly, The way in which sentences are made
to modify each other; for the most powerful effects in written eloquence
arise out of this reverberation, as it were, from each other in a rapid
succession of sentences; and, because some limitation is necessary to the
length and complexity of sentences, in order to make this interdependency
felt: hence it is that the Germans have no eloquence. The construction of
German prose tends to such immoderate length of sentences that no effect
of intermodification can ever be apparent. Each sentence, stuffed with
innumerable clauses of restriction, and other parenthetical circumstances,

becomes a separate section—an independent whole. But, without insisting
on Lord Brougham's oversights, or errors of defect, I will digress a moment
to one positive caution of his, which will measure the value of his
philosophy on this subject. He lays it down for a rule of indefinite
application that the Saxon part of our English idiom is to be favoured at the
expense of that part which has so happily coalesced with the language from
the Latin or Greek. This fancy, often patronized by other writers, and even
acted upon, resembles that restraint which some metrical writers have
imposed upon themselves—of writing a long copy of verses from which
some particular letter, or from each line of which some different letter,
should be carefully excluded. What followed? Was the reader sensible, in
the practical effect upon his ear, of any beauty attained? By no means; all
the difference, sensibly perceived, lay in the occasional constraints and
affectations to which the writer had been driven by his self-imposed
necessities. The same chimera exists in Germany; and so much further is it
carried that one great puritan in this heresy (Wolf) has published a vast
dictionary, the rival of Adelung's, for the purpose of expelling every word
of foreign origin and composition out of the language, by assigning some
equivalent term spun out from pure native Teutonic materials. Bayonet, for
example, is patriotically rejected, because a word may be readily
compounded tantamount to musket-dirk; and this sort of composition
thrives showily in the German, as a language running into composition with
a fusibility only surpassed by the Greek. But what good purpose is attained
by such caprices? In three sentences the sum of the philosophy may be
stated. It has been computed (see Duclos) that the Italian opera has not
above six hundred words in its whole vocabulary: so narrow is the range of
its emotions, and so little are these emotions disposed to expand themselves
into any variety of thinking. The same remark applies to that class of
simple, household, homely passion, which belongs to the early ballad
poetry. Their passion is of a quality more venerable, it is true, and deeper
than that of the opera, because more permanent and coextensive with
human life; but it is not much wider in its sphere, nor more apt to coalesce
with contemplative or philosophic thinking. Pass from these narrow fields
of the intellect, where the relations of the objects are so few and simple, and
the whole prospect so bounded, to the immeasurable and sea-like arena
upon which Shakspeare careers—co-infinite with life itself—yes, and with
something more than life. Here is the other pole, the opposite extreme. And

what is the choice of diction? What is the lexis? Is it Saxon exclusively, or
is it Saxon by preference? So far from that, the Latinity is intense—not,
indeed, in his construction, but in his choice of words; and so continually
are these Latin words used with a critical respect to their earliest (and,
where that happens to have existed, to their unfigurative) meaning, that,
upon this one argument I would rely for upsetting the else impregnable
thesis of Dr. Farmer as to Shakspeare's learning. Nay, I will affirm that, out
of this regard to the Latin acceptation of Latin words, may be absolutely
explained the Shakspearian meaning of certain words which has hitherto
baffled all his critics. For instance, the word modern, of which Dr. Johnson
professes himself unable to explain the rationale or principle regulating its
Shakspearian use, though he felt its value, it is to be deduced thus: First of
all, change the pronunciation a little, by substituting for the short o, as we
pronounce it in modern, the long o, as heard in modish, and you will then,
perhaps, perceive the process of analogy by which it passed into the
Shakspearian use. The matter or substance of a thing is, usually, so much
more important than its fashion or manner, that we have hence adopted, as
one way for expressing what is important as opposed to what is trivial, the
word material. Now, by parity of reason, we are entitled to invert this order,
and to express what is unimportant by some word indicating the mere
fashion or external manner of an object as opposed to its substance. This is
effected by the word modal or mōdern, as the adjective from modus, a
fashion or manner; and in that sense Shakspeare employs the word. Thus,
Cleopatra, undervaluing to Cæsar's agent the bijouterie which she has kept
back from inventory, and which her treacherous steward had betrayed,
describes them as mere trifles—

"Such gifts as we greet modern friends withal";

where all commentators have felt that modern must from the position mean
slight and inconsiderable, though perplexed to say how it came by such a
meaning. A modern friend is, in the Shakspearian sense, with relation to a
real and serviceable friend, that which the fashion of a thing is by
comparison with its substance. But a still better illustration may be taken
from a common line, quoted every day, and ludicrously misinterpreted. In
the famous picture of life—"All the world's a stage"—the justice of the
peace is described as

"Full of wise saws and modern instances";

which (horrendum dictu!) has been explained, and, I verily believe, is
generally understood to mean, full of wise sayings and modern illustrations.
The true meaning is—full of proverbial maxims of conduct and of trivial
arguments; that is, of petty distinctions, or verbal disputes, such as never
touch the point at issue. The word modern I have already deduced; the word
instances is equally Latin, and equally used by Shakspeare in its Latin
sense. It is originally the word instantia, which, by the monkish and
scholastic writers, is uniformly used in the sense of an argument, and
originally of an argument urged in objection to some previous argument.[13]
I affirm, therefore, that Lord Brougham's counsel to the Glasgow students is
not only bad counsel,—and bad counsel for the result, as well as for the
grounds, which are either capricious or nugatory,—but also that, in the
exact proportion in which the range of thought expands, it is an impossible
counsel, an impracticable counsel—a counsel having for its purpose to
embarrass and lay the mind in fetters, where even its utmost freedom and its
largest resources will be found all too little for the growing necessities of
the intellect. "Long-tailed words in osity and ation!" What does that
describe? Exactly the Latin part of our language. Now, those very
terminations speak for themselves:—All high abstractions end in ation; that
is, they are Latin; and, just in proportion as the abstracting power extends
and widens, do the circles of thought widen, and the horizon or boundary
(contradicting its own Grecian name) melts into the infinite. On this
account it was that Coleridge (Biographia Literaria) remarks on

Wordsworth's philosophical poetry, that, in proportion as it goes into the
profound of passion and of thought, do the words increase which are
vulgarly called "dictionary words." Now, these words, these "dictionary"
words, what are they? Simply words of Latin or Greek origin: no other
words, no Saxon words, are ever called by illiterate persons dictionary
words. And these dictionary words are indispensable to a writer, not only in
the proportion by which he transcends other writers as to extent and as to
subtlety of thinking, but also as to elevation and sublimity. Milton was not
an extensive or discursive thinker, as Shakspeare was; for the motions of his
mind were slow, solemn, sequacious, like those of the planets; not agile and
assimilative; not attracting all things within its own sphere; not multiform:
repulsion was the law of his intellect—he moved in solitary grandeur. Yet,
merely from this quality of grandeur, unapproachable grandeur, his intellect
demanded a larger infusion of Latinity into his diction. For the same reason
(and without such aids he would have had no proper element in which to
move his wings) he enriched his diction with Hellenisms and with
Hebraisms[14]; but never, as could be easy to show, without a full
justification in the result. Two things may be asserted of all his exotic
idioms—1st, That they express what could not have been expressed by any
native idiom; 2d, That they harmonize with the English language, and give
a colouring of the antique, but not any sense of strangeness, to the diction.
Thus, in the double negative, "Nor did they not perceive," &c., which is
classed as a Hebraism—if any man fancy that it expresses no more than the
simple affirmative, he shows that he does not understand its force; and, at
the same time, it is a form of thought so natural and universal that I have
heard English people, under corresponding circumstances, spontaneously
fall into it. In short, whether a man differ from others by greater profundity
or by greater sublimity, and whether he write as a poet or as a philosopher,
in any case, he feels, in due proportion to the necessities of his intellect, an
increasing dependence upon the Latin section of the English language; and
the true reason why Lord Brougham failed to perceive this, or found the
Saxon equal to his wants, is one which I shall not scruple to assign,
inasmuch as it does not reflect personally on Lord Brougham, or, at least,
on him exclusively, but on the whole body to which he belongs. That thing
which he and they call by the pompous name of statesmanship, but which
is, in fact, statescraft—the art of political intrigue—deals (like the opera)
with ideas so few in number, and so little adapted to associate themselves

with other ideas, that, possibly, in the one case equally as in the other, six
hundred words are sufficient to meet all their demands.
I have used my privilege of discursiveness to step aside from Demosthenes
to another subject, no otherwise connected with the Attic orator than, first,
by the common reference of both subjects to rhetoric; but, secondly, by the
accident of having been jointly discussed by Lord Brougham in a paper
which (though now forgotten) obtained, at the moment, most undue
celebrity. For it is one of the infirmities of the public mind with us, that
whatever is said or done by a public man,—any opinion given by a member
of Parliament, however much out of his own proper jurisdiction and range
of inquiry,—commands an attention not conceded even to those who speak
under the known privilege of professional knowledge. Thus, Cowper was
not discovered to be a poet worthy of any general notice until Charles Fox,
a most slender critic, had vouchsafed to quote a few lines, and that not so
much with a view to the poetry as to its party application. But now,
returning to Demosthenes, I affirm that his case is the case of nearly all the
classical writers,—at least, of all the prose writers. It is, I admit, an extreme
one; that is, it is the general case in a more intense degree. Raised almost to
divine honours, never mentioned but with affected rapture, the classics of
Greece and Rome are seldom read, most of them never; are they, indeed, the
closet companions of any man? Surely it is time that these follies were at an
end; that our practice were made to square a little better with our
professions, and that our pleasures were sincerely drawn from those sources
in which we pretend that they lie.
The Greek language, mastered in any eminent degree, is the very rarest of
all accomplishments, and precisely because it is unspeakably the most
difficult. Let not the reader dupe himself by popular cant. To be an
accomplished Grecian demands a very peculiar quality of talent; and it is
almost inevitable that one who is such should be vain of a distinction which
represents so much labour and difficulty overcome. For myself, having, as a
school-boy, attained to a very unusual mastery over this language, and
(though as yet little familiar with the elaborate science of Greek metre)
moving through all the obstacles and resistances of a Greek book with the
same celerity and ease as through those of the French and Latin, I had, in
vanquishing the difficulties of the language, lost the main stimulus to its
cultivation. Still, I read Greek daily; but any slight vanity which I might

connect with a power so rarely attained, and which, under ordinary
circumstances, so readily transmutes itself into a disproportionate
admiration of the author, in me was absolutely swallowed up in the
tremendous hold taken of my entire sensibilities at this time by our own
literature. With what fury would I often exclaim: He who loveth not his
brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen?
You, Mr. A, L, M, O, you who care not for Milton, and value not the dark
sublimities which rest ultimately (as we all feel) upon dread realities, how
can you seriously thrill in sympathy with the spurious and fanciful
sublimities of the classical poetry—with the nod of the Olympian Jove, or
the seven-league strides of Neptune? Flying Childers had the most
prodigious stride of any horse on record; and at Newmarket that is justly
held to be a great merit; but it is hardly a qualification for a Pantheon. The
parting of Hector and Andromache—that is tender, doubtless; but how
many passages of far deeper, far diviner tenderness, are to be found in
Chaucer! Yet in these cases we give our antagonist the benefit of an appeal
to what is really best and most effective in the ancient literature. For, if we
should go to Pindar, and some other great names, what a revelation of
hypocrisy as respects the fade enthusiasts for the Greek poetry!
Still, in the Greek tragedy, however otherwise embittered against ancient
literature by the dismal affectations current in the scenical poetry, at least I
felt the presence of a great and original power. It might be a power inferior,
upon the whole, to that which presides in the English tragedy; I believed
that it was; but it was equal and appealed equally to real and deep
sensibilities in our nature. Yet, also, I felt that the two powers at work in the
two forms of the drama were essentially different; and, without having read
a line of German at that time, or knowing of any such controversy, I began
to meditate on the elementary grounds of difference between the Pagan and
the Christian forms of poetry. The dispute has since been carried on
extensively in France, not less than in Germany, as between the classical
and the romantic. But I will venture to assert that not one step in advance
has been made, up to this day. The shape into which I threw the question it
may be well to state; because I am persuaded that out of that one idea,
properly pursued, might be evolved the whole separate characteristics of the
Christian and the Antique. Why is it, I asked, that the Christian idea of sin is
an idea utterly unknown to the Pagan mind? The Greeks and Romans had a

clear conception of a moral ideal, as we have; but this they estimated by a
reference to the will; and they called it virtue, and the antithesis they called
vice. The lacheté or relaxed energy of the will, by which it yielded to the
seductions of sensual pleasure, that was vice; and the braced-up tone by
which it resisted these seductions was virtue. But the idea of holiness, and
the antithetic idea of sin, as a violation of this awful and unimaginable
sanctity, was so utterly undeveloped in the Pagan mind, that no word exists
in classical Greek or classical Latin which approaches either pole of this
synthesis; neither the idea of holiness, nor of its correlate, sin, could be so
expressed in Latin as at once to satisfy Cicero and a scientific Christian.
Again (but this was some years after), I found Schiller and Goethe
applauding the better taste of the ancients, in symbolizing the idea of death
by a beautiful youth, with a torch inverted, &c., as compared with the
Christian types of a skeleton and hourglasses, &c. And much surprised I
was to hear Mr. Coleridge approving of this German sentiment. Yet, here
again, I felt, the peculiar genius of Christianity was covertly at work
moving upon a different road, and under opposite ideas, to a just result, in
which the harsh and austere expression yet pointed to a dark reality, whilst
the beautiful Greek adumbration was, in fact, a veil and a disguise. The
corruptions and the other "dishonours" of the grave, and whatsoever
composes the sting of death in the Christian view, is traced up to sin as its
ultimate cause. Hence, besides the expression of Christian humility, in thus
nakedly exhibiting the wrecks and ruins made by sin, there is also a latent
profession indicated of Christian hope. For the Christian contemplates
steadfastly, though with trembling awe, the lowest point of his descent;
since, for him, that point, the last of his fall, is also the first of his re-ascent,
and serves, besides, as an exponent of its infinity; the infinite depth
becoming, in the rebound, a measure of the infinite re-ascent. Whereas, on
the contrary, with the gloomy uncertainties of a Pagan on the question of his
final restoration, and also (which must not be overlooked) with his utter
perplexity as to the nature of his restoration, if any were by accident in
reserve, whether in a condition tending downwards or upwards, it was the
natural resource to consult the general feeling of anxiety and distrust, by
throwing a thick curtain and a veil of beauty over the whole too painful
subject. To place the horrors in high relief could here have answered no
purpose but that of wanton cruelty; whereas, with the Christian hopes, the

very saddest memorials of the havocks made by death are antagonist
prefigurations of great victories in the rear.
These speculations, at that time, I pursued earnestly; and I then believed
myself, as I yet do, to have ascertained the two great and opposite laws
under which the Grecian and the English tragedy has each separately
developed itself. Whether wrong or right in that belief, sure I am that those
in Germany who have treated the case of Classical and Romantic are not
entitled to credit for any discovery at all. The Schlegels, who were the
hollowest of men, the windiest and wordiest (at least, Frederick was so),
pointed to the distinction; barely indicated it; and that was already some
service done, because a presumption arose that the antique and the modern
literatures, having clearly some essential differences, might, perhaps, rest
on foundations originally distinct, and obey different laws. And hence it
occurred that many disputes, as about the unities, &c., might originate in a
confusion of these laws. This checks the presumption of the shallow
criticism, and points to deeper investigations. Beyond this, neither the
German nor the French disputers on the subject have talked to any
profitable purpose.
I have mentioned Paley as accidentally connected with my début in literary
conversation; and I have taken occasion to say how much I admired his
style and its unstudied graces, how profoundly I despised his philosophy. I
shall here say a word or two more on that subject. As respects his style,
though secretly despising the opinion avowed by my tutor (which was,
however, a natural opinion for a stiff lover of the artificial and the
pompous), I would just as unwillingly be supposed to adopt the extravagant
opinions, in the other extreme, of Dr. Parr and Mr. Coleridge. These two
gentlemen, who privately hated Paley, and, perhaps, traduced him, have
hung like bees over one particular paragraph in his Evidences, as though it
were a flower transplanted from Hymettus. Dr. Parr pronounced it the finest
sentence in the English language. It is a period (that is, a cluster of
sentences) moderately well, but not too well, constructed, as the German
nurses are accustomed to say. Its felicity depends on a trick easily imitated
—on a balance happily placed (namely, "in which the wisest of mankind
would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts and rest to their inquiries)."
As a bravura, or tour de force, in the dazzling fence of rhetoric, it is
surpassed by many hundreds of passages which might be produced from

rhetoricians; or, to confine myself to Paley's contemporaries, it is very far
surpassed by a particular passage in Burke's letter upon the Duke of
Bedford's base attack upon him in the House of Lords; which passage I
shall elsewhere produce, because I happen to know, on the authority of
Burke's executors, that Burke himself considered it the finest period which
he had ever written. At present, I will only make one remark, viz. that it is
always injudicious, in the highest degree, to cite for admiration that which
is not a representative specimen of the author's manner. In reading Lucian, I
once stumbled on a passage of German pathos, and of German effect.
Would it have been wise, or would it have been intellectually just, to quote
this as the text of an eulogium on Lucian? What false criticism it would
have suggested to every reader! what false anticipations! To quote a formal
and periodic pile of sentences was to give the feeling that Paley was what
the regular rhetorical artists designate as a periodic writer, when, in fact, no
one conceivable character of style more pointedly contradicted the true
description of his merits.
But, leaving the style of Paley, I must confess that I agree with Mr. Bulwer
(England and the English) in thinking it shocking and almost damnatory to
an English University, the great well-heads of creeds, moral and
evangelical, that authors such in respect of doctrine as Paley and Locke
should hold that high and influential station as teachers, or rather oracles of
truth, which has been conceded to them. As to Locke, I, when a boy, had
made a discovery of one blunder full of laughter and of fun, which, had it
been published and explained in Locke's lifetime, would have tainted his
whole philosophy with suspicion. It relates to the Aristotelian doctrine of
syllogism, which Locke undertook to ridicule. Now, a flaw, a hideous flaw,
in the soi-disant detecter of flaws, a ridicule in the exposer of the ridiculous
—that is fatal; and I am surprised that Lee, who wrote a folio against Locke
in his lifetime, and other examiners, should have failed in detecting this. I
shall expose it elsewhere; and, perhaps, one or two other exposures of the
same kind will give an impetus to the descent of this falling philosophy.
With respect to Paley, and the naked prudentialism of his system, it is true
that in a longish note Paley disclaims that consequence. But to this we may
reply, with Cicero, Non quæro quid neget Epicurus, sed quid congruenter
neget. Meantime, waiving all this as too notorious, and too frequently
denounced, I wish to recur to this trite subject, by way of stating an

objection made to the Paleyan morality in my seventeenth year, and which I
have never since seen reason to withdraw. It is this:—I affirm that the whole
work, from first to last, proceeds upon that sort of error which the logicians
call ignoratio elenchi, that is, ignorance of the very question concerned—of
the point at issue. For, mark, in the very vestibule of ethics, two questions
arise—two different and disconnected questions, A and B; and Paley has
answered the wrong one. Thinking that he was answering A, and meaning
to answer A, he has, in fact, answered B. One question arises thus: Justice is
a virtue; temperance is a virtue; and so forth. Now, what is the common
principle which ranks these several species under the same genus? What, in
the language of logicians, is the common differential principle which
determines these various aspects of moral obligation to a common genus?
Another question, and a more interesting question to men in general, is this,
—What is the motive to virtue? By what impulse, law, or motive, am I
impelled to be virtuous rather than vicious? Whence is the motive derived
which should impel me to one line of conduct in preference to the other?
This, which is a practical question, and, therefore, more interesting than the
other, which is a pure question of speculation, was that which Paley
believed himself to be answering. And his answer was,—that utility, a
perception of the resulting benefit, was the true determining motive.
Meantime, it was objected that often the most obvious results from a
virtuous action were far otherwise than beneficial. Upon which, Paley, in
the long note referred to above, distinguished thus: that, whereas actions
have many results, some proximate, some remote, just as a stone thrown
into the water produces many concentric circles, be it known that he, Dr.
Paley, in what he says of utility, contemplates only the final result, the very
outermost circle; inasmuch as he acknowledges a possibility that the first,
second, third, including the penultimate circle, may all happen to clash with
utility; but then, says he, the outermost circle of all will never fail to
coincide with the absolute maximum of utility. Hence, in the first place, it
appears that you cannot apply this test of utility in a practical sense; you
cannot say, This is useful, ergo, it is virtuous; but, in the inverse order, you
must say, This is virtuous, ergo, it is useful. You do not rely on its
usefulness to satisfy yourself of its being virtuous; but, on the contrary, you
rely on its virtuousness, previously ascertained, in order to satisfy yourself
of its usefulness. And thus the whole practical value of this test disappears,
though in that view it was first introduced; and a vicious circle arises in the

argument; as you must have ascertained the virtuousness of an act, in order
to apply the test of its being virtuous. But, secondly, it now comes out that
Paley was answering a very different question from that which he supposed
himself answering. Not any practical question as to the motive or impelling
force in being virtuous, rather than vicious,—that is, to the sanctions of
virtue,—but a purely speculative question, as to the essence of virtue, or the
common vinculum amongst the several modes or species of virtue (justice,
temperance, &c.)—this was the real question which he was answering. I
have often remarked that the largest and most subtle source of error in
philosophic speculations has been the confounding of the two great
principles so much insisted on by the Leibnitzians, viz., the ratio
cognoscendi and the ratio essendi. Paley believed himself to be assigning—
it was his full purpose to assign—the ratio cognoscendi; but, instead of that,
unconsciously and surreptitiously, he has actually assigned the ratio
essendi, and, after all, a false and imaginary ratio essendi.

APPENDED NOTE

As De Quincey's long and interesting Chapter on Oxford from 1803 to 1808
leaves the incidents of his own passage through the University rather hazy,
the following condensation of particulars on the subject may not be
unwelcome. They are partly from one of his own conversations in 1821
with Richard Woodhouse (the notes of which conversations are appended to
Mr. Garnett's edition in 1885 of the Confessions of an English Opium-
Eater), partly from an article in the Quarterly Review for July 1861
containing information supplied by Dr. Cotton of Worcester College, and
partly from information collected by Mr. Page for his Life of De Quincey:—
Admitted into Worcester College on the 17th of December 1803, he did for
the first two years of his residence lead, as he tells us, a very solitary life,
withdrawing himself from wine-parties, and frequenting chiefly the society
of a German named Schwartzburg. Even then, however, he had the
reputation with some in the college of being, though of shy and quaint
ways, a man of uncommon genius and erudition; and, latterly, as this
reputation spread in the college, and some inevitable appearances of his in
college declamations and the like confirmed it, he became the object of
more general attention, and was urged to go up for honours in taking his

degree. He did attend the first examination for B.A. honours at Michaelmas
in the year 1808, with the result that Dr. Goodenough of Christ Church,
who was one of the examiners, is said to have told one of the Worcester
College dons, "You have sent us to-day the cleverest man I ever met with; if
his vivâ voce examination to-morrow correspond with what he has done in
writing, he will carry everything before him." De Quincey's own account to
Mr. Woodhouse was that the examination was an oral one and in Latin;
which agrees more with the possibility of such a report from Dr.
Goodenough on the same day. De Quincey further adds that this
examination was on a Saturday, and that the remaining examination, which
was to follow on Monday, was to be in Greek. He had been looking forward
to this examination with much interest, his Greek readings having been of
wide range and in many directions out of the ordinary academic track; and
his interest had been increased by the regulation that the answers to the
questions were to be wholly or largely in the Greek tongue itself. The fact
that this rule had been altered at the last moment had, however, disgusted
him; and this, together with "his contempt for his examiners" and the
thought that the examination would be of a kind that would leave his real
resources untested, had such an effect upon him that, "when the time came,
he was non inventus." Mr. Woodhouse's report from himself is that "on the
Sunday morning he left Oxford"; the Worcester College tradition, which is
equally precise as to the main fact that he "packed up his things and walked
away from Oxford," makes the flight occur in the night following the first
examination. Whatever other causes there may have been for the break-
down, the opium-eating habit must have been chiefly responsible. That
habit had been formed by De Quincey in 1804 in one of those visits of his
to London which, with visits to other places, are to be understood as having
varied the monotony of his Oxford residence. The habit had grown upon
him in his solitude in his college rooms; and part of the college tradition
respecting his break-down is that, having taken a large dose of the drug to
stimulate him sufficiently for the first day's examination, he was wrecked
by the reaction. He took no University degree; and, though his name
remained on the college books to as late as 15th December 1810, his real
connexion with Oxford ceased in 1808.—D. M.

CHAPTER II
GERMAN STUDIES AND KANT IN
PARTICULAR[15]

Using a New Testament, of which (in the narrative parts at least) any one
word being given will suggest most of what is immediately consecutive,
you evade the most irksome of the penalties annexed to the first breaking
ground in a new language: you evade the necessity of hunting up and down
a dictionary. Your own memory, and the inevitable suggestions of the
context, furnish a dictionary pro hac vice. And afterwards, upon advancing
to other books, where you are obliged to forgo such aids, and to swim
without corks, you find yourself already in possession of the particles for
expressing addition, succession, exception, inference—in short, of all the
forms by which transition or connexion is effected (if, but, and, therefore,
however, notwithstanding), together with all those adverbs for modifying or
restraining the extent of a subject or a predicate, which in all languages
alike compose the essential frame-work or extra-linear machinery of human
thought. The filling-up—the matter (in a scholastic sense)—may differ
infinitely; but the form, the periphery, the determining moulds into which
this matter is fused—all this is the same for ever: and so wonderfully
limited in its extent is this frame-work, so narrow and rapidly revolving is
the clock-work of connexions among human thoughts, that a dozen pages of
almost any book suffice to exhaust all the επεα πτεροεντα (epea pteroenta)
[16]
which express them. To have mastered these επεα πτεροεντα (epea
pteroenta) is in effect to have mastered seven-tenths, at the least, of any
language; and the benefit of using a New Testament, or the familiar parts of
an Old Testament, in this preliminary drill, is, that your own memory is thus
made to operate as a perpetual dictionary or nomenclator. I have heard Mr.

Southey say that, by carrying in his pocket a Dutch, Swedish, or other
Testament, on occasion of a long journey performed in "muggy" weather,
and in the inside of some venerable "old heavy"—such as used to bestow
their tediousness upon our respectable fathers some thirty or forty years ago
—he had more than once turned to so valuable an account the doziness or
the dulness of his fellow-travellers, that, whereas he had "booked" himself
at the coach-office utterly αναλφαβητος (analphabêtos), unacquainted with
the first rudiments of the given language, he had made his parting bows to
his coach brethren (secretly returning thanks to them for their stupidity) in a
condition for grappling with any common book in that dialect. One of the
polyglot Old or New Testaments published by Bagster would be a perfect
Encyclopædia, or Panorganon, for such a scheme of coach discipline, upon
dull roads and in dull company. As respects the German language in
particular, I shall give one caution from my own experience to the self-
instructor: it is a caution which applies to the German language exclusively,
or to that more than to any other, because the embarrassment which it is
meant to meet grows out of a defect of taste characteristic of the German
mind. It is this: elsewhere, you would naturally, as a beginner, resort to
prose authors, since the license and audacity of poetic thinking, and the
large freedom of a poetic treatment, cannot fail to superadd difficulties of
individual creation to the general difficulties of a strange dialect. But this
rule, good for every other case, is not good for the literature of Germany.
Difficulties there certainly are, and perhaps in more than the usual
proportion, from the German peculiarities of poetic treatment; but even
these are overbalanced in the result by the single advantage of being limited
in the extent by the metre, or (as it may happen) by the particular stanza. To
German poetry there is a known, fixed, calculable limit. Infinity, absolute
infinity, is impracticable in any German metre. Not so with German prose.
Style, in any sense, is an inconceivable idea to a German intellect. Take the
word in the limited sense of what the Greeks called Συνθεσις ονοματων
(Synthesis onomatôn)—i.e., the construction of sentences—I affirm that a
German (unless it were here and there a Lessing) cannot admit such an idea.
Books there are in German, and, in other respects, very good books too,
which consist of one or two enormous sentences. A German sentence
describes an arch between the rising and the setting sun. Take Kant for
illustration: he has actually been complimented by the cloud-spinner,
Frederick Schlegel, who is now in Hades, as a most original artist in the

matter of style. "Original" Heaven knows he was! His idea of a sentence
was as follows:—We have all seen, or read of, an old family coach, and the
process of packing it for a journey to London some seventy or eighty years
ago. Night and day, for a week at least, sate the housekeeper, the lady's
maid, the butler, the gentleman's gentlemen, &c., packing the huge ark in all
its recesses, its "imperials," its "wells," its "Salisbury boots," its "sword-
cases," its front pockets, side pockets, rear pockets, its "hammer-cloth
cellars" (which a lady explains to me as a corruption from hamper-cloth, as
originally a cloth for hiding a hamper, stored with viaticum), until all the
uses and needs of man, and of human life, savage or civilized, were met
with separate provision by the infinite chaos. Pretty nearly upon the model
of such an old family coach packing did Kant institute and pursue the
packing and stuffing of one of his regular sentences. Everything that could
ever be needed in the way of explanation, illustration, restraint, inference,
by-clause, or indirect comment, was to be crammed, according to this
German philosopher's taste, into the front pockets, side pockets, or rear
pockets, of the one original sentence. Hence it is that a sentence will last in
reading whilst a man

"Might reap an acre of his neighbour's corn."

Nor is this any peculiarity of Kant's. It is common to the whole family of
prose-writers of Germany, unless when they happen to have studied French
models, who cultivate the opposite extreme. As a caution, therefore,
practically applied to this particular anomaly in German prose-writing, I
advise all beginners to choose between two classes of composition—ballad
poetry, or comedy—as their earliest school of exercise: ballad poetry,
because the form of the stanza (usually a quatrain) prescribes a very narrow
range to the sentences; comedy, because the form of dialogue, and the
imitation of daily life in its ordinary tone of conversation, and the spirit of
comedy, naturally suggesting a brisk interchange of speech, all tend to short
sentences. These rules I soon drew from my own experience and
observation. And the one sole purpose towards which I either sought or
wished for aid respected the pronunciation; not so much for attaining a just
one (which I was satisfied could not be realized out of Germany, or, at least,
out of a daily intercourse with Germans) as for preventing the formation,
unawares, of a radically false one. The guttural and palatine sounds of the

ch, and some other German peculiarities, cannot be acquired without
constant practice. But the false Westphalian or Jewish pronunciation of the
vowels, diphthongs, &c., may easily be forestalled, though the true delicacy
of Meissen should happen to be missed. Thus much guidance I purchased,
with a very few guineas, from my young Dresden tutor, who was most
anxious for permission to extend his assistance; but this I would not hear of:
and, in the spirit of fierce (perhaps foolish) independence, which governed
most of my actions at that time of life, I did all the rest for myself.

"It was a banner broad unfurl'd,
The picture of that western world."

These, or words like these, in which Wordsworth conveys the sudden
apocalypse, as by an apparition, to an ardent and sympathising spirit, of the
stupendous world of America, rising, at once, like an exhalation, with all its
shadowy forests, its endless savannas, and its pomp of solitary waters—
well and truly might I have applied to my first launching upon that vast
billowy ocean of the German literature. As a past literature, as a literature of
inheritance and tradition, the German was nothing. Ancestral titles it had
none; or none comparable to those of England, Spain, or even Italy; and
there, also, it resembled America, as contrasted with the ancient world of
Asia, Europe, and North Africa.[17] But, if its inheritance were nothing, its
prospects, and the scale of its present development, were in the amplest
style of American grandeur. Ten thousand new books, we are assured by
Menzel, an author of high reputation—a literal myriad—is considerably
below the number annually poured from all quarters of Germany into the
vast reservoir of Leipsic: spawn infinite, no doubt, of crazy dotage, of
dreaming imbecility, of wickedness, of frenzy, through every phasis of
Babylonian confusion; yet, also, teeming and heaving with life and the
instincts of truth—of truth hunting and chasing in the broad daylight, or of
truth groping in the chambers of darkness; sometimes seen as it displays its
cornucopia of tropical fruitage; sometimes heard dimly, and in promise,
working its way through diamond mines. Not the tropics, not the ocean, not
life itself, is such a type of variety, of infinite forms, or of creative power, as
the German literature in its recent motions (say for the last twenty years),
gathering, like the Danube, a fresh volume of power at every stage of its
advance. A banner it was, indeed, to me of miraculous promise, and

suddenly unfurled. It seemed, in those days, an El Dorado as true and
undeceiving as it was evidently inexhaustible. And the central object in this
interminable wilderness of what then seemed imperishable bloom and
verdure—the very tree of knowledge in the midst of this Eden—was the
new or transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
I have described the gorgeousness of my expectations in those early days of
my prelusive acquaintance with German literature. I have a little lingered in
painting that glad aurora of my first pilgrimage to the fountains of the Rhine
and of the Danube, in order adequately to shadow out the gloom and blight
which soon afterwards settled upon the hopes of that golden dawn. In Kant,
I had been taught to believe, were the keys of a new and a creative
philosophy. Either "ejus ductu," or "ejus auspiciis"—that is, either directly
under his guidance, or indirectly under any influence remotely derived from
his principles—I looked confidingly to see the great vistas and avenues of
truth laid open to the philosophic inquirer. Alas! all was a dream. Six weeks'
study was sufficient to close my hopes in that quarter for ever. The
philosophy of Kant—so famous, so commanding in Germany from about
the period of the French Revolution—already, in 1805, I had found to be a
philosophy of destruction, and scarcely in any one chapter so much as
tending to a philosophy of reconstruction. It destroys by wholesale, and it
substitutes nothing. Perhaps, in the whole history of man, it is an
unexampled case that such a scheme of speculation—which offers nothing
seducing to human aspirations, nothing splendid to the human imagination,
nothing even positive and affirmative to the human understanding—should
have been able to found an interest so broad and deep among thirty-five
millions of cultivated men. The English reader who supposes this interest to
have been confined to academic bowers, or the halls of philosophic
societies, is most inadequately alive to the case. Sects, heresies, schisms, by
hundreds, have arisen out of this philosophy; many thousands of books
have been written by way of teaching it, discussing it, extending it,
opposing it. And yet it is a fact that all its doctrines are negative—teaching,
in no case, what we are, but simply what we are not, to believe—and that
all its truths are barren. Such being its unpopular character, I cannot but
imagine that the German people have received it with so much ardour from
profound incomprehension of its meaning, and utter blindness to its drift: a
solution which may seem extravagant, but is not so; for, even amongst those

who have expressly commented on this philosophy, not one of the many
hundreds whom I have myself read but has retracted from every attempt to
explain its dark places. In these dark places lies, indeed, the secret of its
attraction. Were light poured into them, it would be seen that they are culs-
de-sac, passages that lead to nothing; but, so long as they continue dark, it
is not known whither they lead, how far, in what direction, and whether, in
fact, they may not issue into paths connected directly with the positive and
the infinite. Were it known that upon every path a barrier faces you
insurmountable to human steps—like the barriers which fence in the
Abyssinian valley of Rasselas—the popularity of this philosophy would
expire at once; for no popular interest can long be sustained by speculations
which, in every aspect, are known to be essentially negative and essentially
finite. Man's nature has something of infinity within itself, which requires a
corresponding infinity in its objects. We are told, indeed, by Mr. Bulwer,
that the Kantian system has ceased to be of any authority in Germany—that
it is defunct, in fact—and that we have first begun to import it into England
after its root had withered, or begun to wither, in its native soil. But Mr.
Bulwer is mistaken. The philosophy has never withered in Germany. It
cannot even be said that its fortunes have retrograded: they have oscillated:
accidents of taste and ability in particular professors, or caprices of fashion,
have given a momentary fluctuation to this or that new form of Kantianism
—an ascendency, for a period, to various, and, in some respects, conflicting
modifications of the transcendental system; but all alike have derived their
power mediately from Kant. No weapons, even if employed as hostile
weapons, are now forged in any armoury but that of Kant; and, to repeat a
Roman figure which I used above, all the modern polemic tactics of what is
called metaphysics are trained and made to move either ejus ductu or ejus
auspiciis. Not one of the new systems affects to call back the Leibnitzian
philosophy, the Cartesian, or any other of earlier or later date, as adequate to
the purposes of the intellect in this day, or as capable of yielding even a
sufficient terminology. Let this last fact decide the question of Kant's
vitality. Qui bene distinguit bene docet. This is an old adage. Now, he who
imposes new names upon all the acts, the functions, and the objects of the
philosophic understanding must be presumed to have distinguished most
sharply, and to have ascertained with most precision, their general relations
—so long as his terminology continues to be adopted. This test, applied to
Kant, will show that his spirit yet survives in Germany. Frederick Schlegel,

it is true, twenty years ago, in his lectures upon Literature, assures us that
even the disciples of the great philosopher have agreed to abandon his
philosophic nomenclature. But the German philosophic literature, since that
date, tells another tale. Mr. Bulwer is, therefore, wrong; and, without going
to Germany, looking only to France, he will see cause to revise his
sentence. Cousin—the philosophic Cousin, the only great name in
philosophy for modern France—familiar as he is with North Germany, can
hardly be presumed unacquainted with a fact so striking, if it were a fact, as
the extinction of a system once so triumphantly supreme as that of Kant;
and yet Mr. Bulwer, admiring Cousin as he does, cannot but have noticed
his efforts to naturalize Kant in France. Meantime, if it were even true that
transcendentalism had lost its hold of the public mind in Germany, prima
facie, this would prove little more than the fickleness of that public which
must have been wrong in one of the two cases—either when adopting the
system, or when rejecting it. Whatever there may be of truth and value in
the system will remain unimpeached by such caprices, whether of an
individual or of a great nation; and England would still be in the right to
import the philosophy, however late in the day, if it were true even (which I
doubt greatly) that she is importing it.
Both truth and value there certainly is in one part of the Kantian
philosophy; and that part is its foundation. I had intended, at this point, to
introduce an outline of the transcendental philosophy—not, perhaps, as
entering by logical claim of right into any biographical sketch, but as a very
allowable digression in the record of that man's life to whom, in the way of
hope and of profound disappointment, it had been so memorable an object.
For two or three years before I mastered the language of Kant,[18] it had
been a pole-star to my hopes, and in hypothesi, agreeably to the uncertain
plans of uncertain knowledge, the luminous guide to my future life—as a
life dedicated and set apart to philosophy. Such it was some years before I
knew it: for at least ten long years after I came into a condition of valuing
its true pretensions and measuring its capacities, this same philosophy shed
the gloom of something like misanthropy upon my views and estimates of
human nature; for man was an abject animal if the limitations which Kant
assigned to the motions of his speculative reason were as absolute and
hopeless as, under his scheme of the understanding and his genesis of its
powers, too evidently they were. I belonged to a reptile race, if the wings by

which we had sometimes seemed to mount, and the buoyancy which had
seemed to support our flight, were indeed the fantastic delusions which he
represented them. Such, and so deep and so abiding in its influence upon
my life, having been the influence of this German philosophy, according to
all logic of proportions, in selecting the objects of my notice, I might be
excused for setting before the reader, in its full array, the analysis of its
capital sections. However, in any memorial of a life which professes to keep
in view (though but as a secondary purpose) any regard to popular taste, the
logic of proportions must bend, after all, to the law of the occasion—to the
proprieties of time and place. For the present, therefore, I shall restrict
myself to the few sentences in which it may be proper to gratify the
curiosity of some readers, the two or three in a hundred, as to the peculiar
distinctions of this philosophy. Even to these two or three out of each
hundred I shall not venture to ascribe a larger curiosity than with respect to
the most general "whereabouts" of its position—from what point it starts,
whence and from what aspect it surveys the ground, and by what links from
this starting point it contrives to connect itself with the main objects of
philosophic inquiry.
Immanuel Kant was originally a dogmatist in the school of Leibnitz and
Wolf; that is, according to his trisection of all philosophy into dogmatic,
sceptical, and critical, he was, upon all questions disposed to a strong
affirmative creed, without courting any particular examination into the
grounds of this creed, or into its assailable points. From this slumber, as it is
called by himself, he was suddenly aroused by the Humian doctrine of
cause and effect. This celebrated essay on the nature of necessary
connexion—so thoroughly misapprehended at the date of its first
publication to the world by its soi-disant opponents, Oswald, Beattie, &c.,
and so imperfectly comprehended since then by various soi-disant
defenders—became in effect the "occasional cause" (in the phrase of the
logicians) of the entire subsequent philosophic scheme of Kant; every
section of which arose upon the accidental opening made to analogical
trains of thought by this memorable effort of scepticism applied by Hume to
one capital phenomenon among the necessities of the human understanding.
What is the nature of Hume's scepticism as applied to this phenomenon?
What is the main thesis of his celebrated Essay on Cause and Effect? For
few, indeed, are they who really know anything about it. If a man really

understands it, a very few words will avail to explain the nodus. Let us try.
It is a necessity of the human understanding (very probably not a necessity
of a higher order of intelligences) to connect its experiences by means of
the idea of cause and its correlate, effect: and, when Beattie, Oswald, Reid,
&c., were exhausting themselves in proofs of the indispensableness of this
idea, they were fighting with shadows; for no man had ever questioned the
practical necessity for such an idea to the coherency of human thinking. Not
the practical necessity, but the internal consistency of this notion, and the
original right to such a notion, was the point of inquisition. For, attend,
courteous reader, and three separate propositions will set before your eyes
the difficulty. First Prop., which, for the sake of greater precision, permit
me to throw into Latin:—Non datur aliquid [A] quo posito ponitur aliud
[B] a priori; that is, in other words, You cannot lay your hands upon that
one object or phenomenon [A] in the whole circle of natural existences,
which, being assumed, will entitle you to assume a priori, any other object
whatsoever [B] as succeeding it. You could not, I say, of any object or
phenomenon whatever, assume this succession a priori—that is, previously
to experience. Second Prop. But, if the succession of B to A be made known
to you, not a priori (by the involution of B in the idea of A), but by
experience, then you cannot ascribe necessity to the succession: the
connection between them is not necessary but contingent. For the very
widest experience—an experience which should stretch over all ages, from
the beginning to the end of time—can never establish a nexus having the
least approximation to necessity; no more than a rope of sand could gain the
cohesion of adamant by repeating its links through a billion of successions.
Prop. Third. Hence (i.e. from the two preceding propositions), it appears
that no instance or case of nexus that ever can have been offered to the
notice of any human understanding has in it, or by possibility could have
had, anything of necessity. Had the nexus been necessary, you would have
seen it beforehand; whereas, by Prop. 1, Non datur aliquid, quo posito
ponitur aliud a priori. This being so, now comes the startling fact, that the
notion of a cause includes the notion of necessity. For, if A (the cause) be
connected with B (the effect) only in a casual or accidental way, you do not
feel warranted in calling it a cause. If heat, applied to ice (A) were
sometimes followed by a tendency to liquefaction (B) and sometimes not,
you would not consider A connected with B as a cause, but only as some
variable accompaniment of the true and unknown cause, which might

allowably be present or be absent. This, then, is the startling and mysterious
phenomenon of the human understanding—that, in a certain notion, which
is indispensable to the coherency of our whole experience, indispensable to
the establishing any nexus between the different parts and successions of
our whole train of notions, we include an accessary notion of necessity,
which yet has no justification or warrant, no assignable derivation from any
known or possible case of human experience. We have one idea at least—
viz. the idea of causation—which transcends our possible experience by one
important element, the element of necessity, that never can have been
derived from the only source of ideas recognised by the philosophy of this
day. A Lockian never can find his way out of this dilemma. The experience
(whether it be the experience of sensation or the experience of reflection)
which he adopts for his master-key never will unlock this case; for the sum
total of human experience, collected from all ages, can avail only to tell us
what is, but never what must be. The idea of necessity is absolutely
transcendent to experience, per se, and must be derived from some other
source. From what source? Could Hume tell us? No: he, who had started the
game so acutely (for, with every allowance for the detection made in
Thomas Aquinas of the original suggestion, as recorded in the Biographia
Literaria of Coleridge, we must still allow great merit of a secondary kind
to Hume for his modern revival and restatement of the doctrine), this same
acute philosopher broke down confessedly in his attempt to hunt the game
down. His solution is worthless.
Kant, however, having caught the original scent from Hume, was more
fortunate. He saw, at a glance, that here was a test applied to the Lockian
philosophy, which showed, at the very least, its insufficiency. If it were
good even for so much as it explained—which Burke is disposed to receive
as a sufficient warrant for the favourable reception of a new hypothesis—at
any rate, it now appeared that there was something which it could not
explain. But, next, Kant took a large step in advance proprio marte.
Reflecting upon the one idea adduced by Hume as transcending the
ordinary source of ideas, he began to ask himself whether it were likely that
this idea should stand alone? Were there not other ideas in the same
predicament; other ideas including the same element of necessity, and,
therefore, equally disowning the parentage assigned by Locke? Upon
investigation, he found that there were: he found that there were eleven

others in exactly the same circumstances. The entire twelve he denominated
categories; and the mode by which he ascertained their number—that there
were so many and no more—is of itself so remarkable as to merit notice in
the most superficial sketch. But, in fact, this one explanation will put the
reader in possession of Kant's system, so far as he could understand it
without an express and toilsome study. With this explanation, therefore, of
the famous categories, I shall close my slight sketch of the system. Has the
reader ever considered the meaning of the term Category—a term so
ancient and so venerable from its connexion with the most domineering
philosophy that has yet appeared amongst men? The doctrine of the
Categories (or, in its Roman appellation, of the Predicaments) is one of the
few wrecks from the Peripatetic philosophy which still survives as a
doctrine taught by public authority in the most ancient academic institutions
of Europe.[19] It continues to form a section in the code of public instruction;
and perhaps under favour of a pure accident. For, though, strictly speaking,
a metaphysical speculation, it has always been prefixed as a sort of preface
to the Organon (or logical treatises) of Aristotle, and has thus accidentally
shared in the immortality conceded to that most perfect of human works.
Far enough were the Categories from meriting such distinction. Kant was
well aware of this: he was aware that the Aristotelian Categories were a
useless piece of scholastic lumber: unsound in their first conception; and,
though illustrated through long centuries by the schoolmen, and by still
earlier Grecian philosophers, never in any one known instance turned to a
profitable account. Why, then, being aware that even in idea they were
false, besides being practically unsuitable, did Kant adopt or borrow a name
laden with this superfetation of reproach—all that is false in theory
superadded to all that is useless in practice? He did so for a remarkable
reason: he felt, according to his own explanation, that Aristotle had been
groping (the German word expressive of his blind procedure is
herumtappen)—groping in the dark, but under a semi-conscious instinct of
truth. Here is a most remarkable case or situation of the human intellect,
happening alike to individuals and to entire generations—in the situation of
yearning or craving, as it were, for a great idea as yet unknown, but dimly
and uneasily prefigured.
Sometimes the very brink, as it may be called, of such an idea is
approached; sometimes it is even imperfectly discovered; but with marks in

the very midst of its imperfections which serve as indications to a person
coming better armed for ascertaining the sub-conscious thought which had
governed their tentative motions. As it stands in Aristotle's scheme, the idea
of a category is a mere lifeless abstraction. Rising through a succession of
species to genera, and from these to still higher genera, you arrive finally at
a highest genus—a naked abstraction, beyond which no farther regress is
possible. This highest genus, this genus generalissimum, is, in peripatetic
language, a category; and no purpose or use has ever been assigned to any
one of these categories, of which ten were enumerated at first, beyond that
of classification—i.e. a purpose of mere convenience. Even for as trivial a
purpose as this, it gave room for suspecting a failure, when it was
afterwards found that the original ten categories did not exhaust the
possibilities of the case; that other supplementary categories (post-
prœdicamenta) became necessary. And, perhaps, "more last words" might
even yet be added, supplementary supplements, and so forth, by a hair-
splitting intellect. Failures as gross as these, revisals still open to revision,
and amendments calling for amendments, were at once a broad confession
that here there was no falling in with any great law of nature. The paths of
nature may sometimes be arrived at in a tentative way; but they are broad
and determinate; and, when found, vindicate themselves. Still, in all this
erroneous subtilisation, and these abortive efforts, Kant perceived a
grasping at some real idea—fugitive indeed and coy, which had for the
present absolutely escaped; but he caught glimpses of it continually in the
rear; he felt its necessity to any account of the human understanding that
could be satisfactory to one who had meditated on Locke's theory as probed
and searched by Leibnitz. And in this uneasy state—half sceptical, half
creative, rejecting and substituting, pulling down and building up—what
was, in sum and finally, the course which he took for bringing his trials and
essays to a crisis? He states this himself, somewhere in the Introduction to
his Critik der reinen Vernunft; and the passage is a memorable one. Fifteen
years at the least have passed since I read it; and, therefore, I cannot pretend
to produce the words; but the substance I shall give; and I appeal to the
candour of all his readers whether they have been able to apprehend his
meaning. I certainly did not for years. But, now that I do, the passage places
his procedure in a most striking and edifying light. Astronomers, says Kant,
had gone on for ages, assuming that the earth was the central body of our
system; and insuperable were the difficulties which attended that

assumption. At length, it occurred to try what would result from inverting
the assumption. Let the earth, instead of offering a fixed centre for the
revolving motions of other heavenly bodies, be supposed itself to revolve
about some one of these, as the sun. That supposition was tried, and
gradually all the phenomena which, before, had been incoherent,
anomalous, or contradictory, began to express themselves as parts of a most
harmonious system. "Something," he goes on to say, "analogous to this I
have practised with regard to the subject of my inquiry—the human
understanding. All others had sought their central principle of the
intellectual phenomena out of the understanding, in something external to
the mind. I first turned my inquiries upon the mind itself. I first applied my
examination to the very analysis of the understanding." In words not
precisely these, but pretty nearly equivalent to them, does Kant state, by
contradistinction, the value and the nature of his own procedure. He first,
according to his own representation, thought of applying his investigation to
the mind itself. Here was a passage which for years (I may say) continued
to stagger and confound me. What! he, Kant, in the latter end of the 18th
century, about the year 1787—he the first who had investigated the mind!
This was not arrogance so much as it was insanity. Had he said—I, first,
upon just principles, or with a fortunate result, investigated the human
understanding, he would have said no more than every fresh theorist is
bound to suppose, as his preliminary apology for claiming the attention of a
busy world. Indeed, if a writer, on any part of knowledge, does not hold
himself superior to all his predecessors, we are entitled to say—Then, why
do you presume to trouble us? It may look like modesty, but is, in effect,
downright effrontery, for you to think yourself no better than other critics;
you were at liberty to think so whilst no claimant of public notice—as being
so, it is most arrogant in you to be modest. This would be the criticism
applied justly to a man who, in Kant's situation, as the author of a new
system, should use a language of unseasonable modesty or deprecation. To
have spoken boldly of himself was a duty; we could not tolerate his doing
otherwise. But to speak of himself in the exclusive terms I have described
does certainly seem, and for years did seem to myself, little short of
insanity. Of this I am sure,—that no student of Kant, having the passage
before him, can have known heretofore what consistent, what rational
interpretation to give it; and, in candour, he ought to own himself my debtor
for the light he will now receive. Yet, so easy is it to imagine, after a

meaning is once pointed out, and the station given from which it shows
itself as the meaning—so easy, under these circumstances, is it to imagine
that one has, or that one could have, found it for one's self—that I have little
expectation of reaping much gratitude for my explanation. I say this, not as
of much importance one way or the other in a single case of the kind, but
because a general consideration of this nature has sometimes operated to
make me more indifferent or careless as to the publication of commentaries
on difficult systems when I had found myself able to throw much light on
the difficulties. The very success with which I should have accomplished
the task—the perfect removal of the obstacles in the student's path—were
the very grounds of my assurance that the service would be little valued.
For I have found what it was occasionally, in conversation, to be too
luminous—to have explained, for instance, too clearly a dark place in
Ricardo. In such a case, I have known a man of the very greatest powers
mistake the intellectual effort he had put forth to apprehend my elucidation,
and to meet it half way, for his own unassisted conquest over the
difficulties; and, within an hour or two after, I have had, perhaps, to stand,
as an attack upon myself, arguments entirely and recently furnished by
myself. No case is more possible: even to apprehend complex explanation,
a man cannot be passive; he must exert considerable energy of mind; and, in
the fresh consciousness of this energy, it is the most natural mistake in the
world for him to feel the argument which he has by considerable effort
appropriated to be an argument which he has originated. Kant is the most
unhappy champion of his own doctrines, the most infelicitous expounder of
his own meaning, that has ever existed. Neither has any other commentator
succeeded in throwing a moonlight radiance upon his philosophy. Yet
certain I am that, were I, or any man, to disperse all his darkness, exactly in
that proportion in which we did so—exactly in the proportion in which we
smoothed all hindrances—exactly in that proportion would it cease to be
known or felt that there had ever been any hindrances to be smoothed. This,
however, is digression, to which I have been tempted by the interesting
nature of the grievance. In a jesting way, this grievance is obliquely noticed
in the celebrated couplet—

"Had you seen but these roads before they were made,
You'd lift up your hands and bless Marshal Wade."

The pleasant bull here committed conceals a most melancholy truth, and
one of large extent. Innumerable are the services to truth, to justice, or
society, which never can be adequately valued by those who reap their
benefits, simply because the transition from the early and bad state to the
final or improved state cannot be retraced or kept alive before the eyes. The
record perishes. The last point gained is seen; but the starting point, the
point from which it was gained, is forgotten. And the traveller never can
know the true amount of his obligations to Marshal Wade, because, though
seeing the roads which the Marshal has created, he can only guess at those
which he superseded. Now, returning to this impenetrable passage of Kant,
I will briefly inform the reader that he may read it into sense by connecting
it with a part of Kant's system from which it is in his own delivery entirely
dislocated. Going forwards some thirty or forty pages, he will find Kant's
development of his own categories. And, by placing in juxtaposition with
that development this blind sentence, he will find a reciprocal light arising.
All philosophers, worthy of that name, have found it necessary to allow of
some great cardinal ideas that transcended all the Lockian origination—
ideas that were larger in their compass than any possible notices of sense or
any reflex notices of the understanding; and those who have denied such
ideas will be found invariably to have supported their denial by a vitium
subreptionis, and to have deduced their pretended genealogies of such ideas
by means of a petitio principii—silently and stealthily putting into some
step of their leger-de-main process everything that they would pretend to
have extracted from it. But, previously to Kant, it is certain that all
philosophers had left the origin of these higher or transcendent ideas
unexplained. Whence came they? In the systems to which Locke replies
they had been called innate or connate. These were the Cartesian systems.
Cudworth, again, who maintained certain "immutable ideas" of morality,
had said nothing about their origin; and Plato had supposed them to be
reminiscences from some higher mode of existence. Kant first attempted to
assign them an origin within the mind itself, though not in any Lockian
fashion of reflection upon sensible impressions. And this is doubtless what
he means by saying that he first had investigated the mind—that is, he first
for such a purpose.
Where, then, is it, in what act or function of the mind, that Kant finds the
matrix of these transcendent ideas? Simply in the logical forms of the

understanding. Every power exerts its agency under some laws—that is, in
the language of Kant, by certain forms. We leap by certain laws—viz., of
equilibrium, of muscular motion, of gravitation. We dance by certain laws.
So also we reason by certain laws. These laws, or formal principles, under a
particular condition, become the categories.
Here, then, is a short derivation, in a very few words, of those ideas
transcending sense which all philosophy, the earliest, has been unable to
dispense with, and yet none could account for. Thus, for example, every act
of reasoning must, in the first place, express itself in distinct propositions;
that is, in such as contain a subject (or that concerning which you affirm or
deny something), a predicate (that which you affirm or deny), and a copula,
which connects them. These propositions must have what is technically
called, in logic, a certain quantity, or compass (viz., must be universal,
particular, or singular); and again they must have what is called quality (that
is, must be affirmative, or negative, or infinite): and thus arises a ground for
certain corresponding ideas, which are Kant's categories of quantity and
quality.
But, to take an illustration more appropriately from the very idea which first
aroused Kant to the sense of a vast hiatus in the received philosophies—the
idea of cause, which had been thrown as an apple of discord amongst the
schools by Hume. How did Kant deduce this? Simply thus: it is a doctrine
of universal logic that there are three varieties of syllogism—viz., 1st,
Categoric, or directly declarative [A is B]; 2d, Hypothetic, or conditionally
declarative [If C is D, then A is B]; 3d, Disjunctive, or declarative by means
of a choice which exhausts the possible cases [A is either B, or C, or D; but
not C or D, ergo B]. Now, the idea of causation, or, in Kant's language, the
category of Cause and Effect, is deduced immediately, and most naturally,
as the reader will acknowledge on examination, from the 2d or hypothetic
form of syllogism, when the relation of dependency is the same as in the
idea of causation, and the necessary connexion a direct type of that which
takes place between a cause and its effect.
Thus, then, without going one step further, the reader will find grounds
enough for reflection, and for reverence towards Kant, in these two great
results: 1st, That an order of ideas has been established which all deep
philosophy has demanded, even when it could not make good its claim.

This postulate is fulfilled. 2dly, The postulate is fulfilled without mysticism
or Platonic reveries. Ideas, however indispensable to human needs, and
even to the connexion of our thoughts, which came to us from nobody knew
whence must for ever have been suspicious; and, as in the memorable
instance cited from Hume, must have been liable for ever to a question of
validity. But, deduced as they now are from a matrix within our own minds,
they cannot reasonably fear any assaults of scepticism.
Here I shall stop. A reader new to these inquiries may think all this a trifle.
But he who reflects a little will see that, even thus far, and going no step
beyond this point, the Kantian doctrine of the Categories answers a standing
question hanging aloft as a challenge to human philosophy, fills up a lacuna
pointed out from the era of Plato. It solves a problem which has startled and
perplexed every age: viz. this—that man is in possession, nay, in the hourly
exercise, of ideas larger than he can show any title to. And, in another way,
the reader may measure the extent of this doctrine, by reflecting that, even
so far as now stated, it is precisely coextensive with the famous scheme of
Locke. For what is the capital thesis of that scheme? Simply this—that all
necessity for supposing immediate impressions made upon our
understandings by God, or other supernatural, or antenatal, or connatal,
agencies, is idle and romantic; for that, upon examining the furniture of our
minds, nothing will be found there which cannot adequately be explained
out of our daily experience; and, until we find something that cannot be
solved by this explanation, it is childish to go in quest of higher causes.
Thus says Locke: and his whole work, upon its first plan, is no more than a
continual pleading of this single thesis, pursuing it through all the plausible
objections. Being, therefore, as large in its extent as Locke, the reader must
not complain of the transcendental scheme as too narrow, even in that
limited section of it here brought under his notice.
For the purpose of repelling it, he must do one of two things: either he must
shew that these categories or transcendent notions are not susceptible of the
derivation and genesis here assigned to them—that is, from the forms of the
logos or formal understanding; or, if content to abide by that derivation, he
must allege that there are other categories besides those enumerated, and
unprovided with any similar parentage.

Thus much in reply to him who complains of the doctrine here stated as,
1st, Too narrow, or, 2d, As insufficiently established. But, 3d, in reply to
him who wishes to see it further pursued or applied, I say that the possible
applications are perhaps infinite. With respect to those made by Kant
himself, they are chiefly contained in his main and elementary work, the
Critik der reinen Vernunft; and they are of a nature to make any man
melancholy. Indeed, let a man consider merely this one notion of causation;
let him reflect on its origin; let him remember that, agreeably to this origin,
it follows that we have no right to view anything in rerum naturâ as
objectively, or in itself, a cause; that, when, upon the fullest philosophic
proof, we call A the cause of B, we do in fact only subsume A under the
notion of a cause—we invest it with that function under that relation; that
the whole proceeding is merely with respect to a human understanding, and
by way of indispensable nexus to the several parts of our experience;
finally, that there is the greatest reason to doubt whether the idea of
causation is at all applicable to any other world than this, or any other than
a human experience. Let a man meditate but a little on this or other aspects
of this transcendental philosophy, and he will find the steadfast earth itself
rocking as it were beneath his feet; a world about him which is in some
sense a world of deception; and a world before him which seems to promise
a world of confusion, or "a world not realised." All this he might deduce for
himself without further aid from Kant. However, the particular purposes to
which Kant applies his philosophy, from the difficulties which beset them,
are unfitted for anything below a regular treatise. Suffice it to say here, that,
difficult as these speculations are from one or two embarrassing doctrines
on the Transcendental Consciousness, and depressing as they are from their
general tendency, they are yet painfully irritating to the curiosity, and
especially so from a sort of experimentum crucis which they yield in the
progress of their development on behalf of the entire doctrine of Kant—a
test which, up to this hour, has offered defiance to any hostile hand. The test
or defiance which I speak of takes the shape of certain antinomies (so they
are termed), severe adamantine arguments, affirmative and negative, on two
or three celebrated problems, with no appeal to any possible decision, but
one which involves the Kantian doctrines. A quæstio vexata is proposed—
for instance, the infinite divisibility of matter; each side of this question,
thesis and antithesis, is argued; the logic is irresistible, the links are perfect,
and for each side alternately there is a verdict, thus terminating in the most

triumphant reductio ad absurdum,—viz. that A, at one and the same time
and in the same sense, is and is not B,—from which no escape is available
but through a Kantian solution. On any other philosophy, it is demonstrated
that this opprobrium of the human understanding, this scandal of logic,
cannot be removed. This celebrated chapter of antinomies has been of great
service to the mere polemics of the transcendental philosophy: it is a glove
or gage of defiance, constantly lying on the ground, challenging the rights
of victory and supremacy so long as it is not taken up by any antagonist,
and bringing matters to a short decision when it is.
One section, and that the introductory section, of the transcendental
philosophy, I have purposely omitted, though in strictness not to be
insulated or dislocated from the faithful exposition even of that which I
have given. It is the doctrine of Space and Time. These profound themes, so
confounding to the human understanding, are treated by Kant under two
aspects—1st, as Anschauungen, or Intuitions—(so the German word is
usually translated for want of a better); 2dly, as forms, a priori, of all our
other intuitions. Often have I laughed internally at the characteristic
exposure of Kant's style of thinking—that he, a man of so much worldly
sagacity, could think of offering, and of the German scholastic habits, that
any modern nation could think of accepting such cabalistic phrases, such a
true and very "Ignotium per Ignotius," in part payment of an explanatory
account of Time and Space. Kant repeats these words—as a charm before
which all darkness flies; and he supposes continually the case of a man
denying his explanations or demanding proofs of them, never once the sole
imaginable case—viz., of all men demanding an explanation of these
explanations. Deny them! Combat them! How should a man deny, why
should he combat, what might, for anything to the contrary appearing,
contain a promissory note at two months after date for 100 guineas? No; it
will cost a little preliminary work before such explanations will much avail
any scheme of philosophy, either for the pro or the con. And yet I do myself
really profess to understand the dark words; and a great service it would be
to sound philosophy amongst us, if this one word anschauung were
adequately unfolded and naturalized (as naturalized it might be) in the
English philosophic dictionary, by some full Grecian equivalent. Strange
that no man acquainted with German philosophy should yet have been
struck by the fact—or, being struck, should not have felt it important to call

public attention to the fact,—of our inevitable feebleness in a branch of
study for which as yet we want the indispensable words. Our feebleness is
at once argued by this want, and partly caused. Meantime, as respects the
Kantian way of viewing space, by much the most important innovation
which it makes upon the old doctrines is—that it considers space as a
subjective not an objective aliquid; that is, as having its whole available
foundation lying ultimately in ourselves, not in any external or alien tenure.
This one distinction, as applied to space, for ever secures (what nothing else
can secure or explain) the cogency of geometrical evidence. Whatever is
true for any determinations of a space originally included in ourselves, must
be true for such determinations for ever, since they cannot become objects
of consciousness to us but in and by that very mode of conceiving space,
that very form of schematism which originally presented us with these
determinations of space, or any whatever. In the uniformity of our own
space-conceiving faculty we have a pledge of the absolute and necessary
uniformity (or internal agreement among themselves) of all future or
possible determinations of space; because they could no otherwise become
to us conceivable forms of space than by adapting themselves to the known
conditions of our conceiving faculty. Here we have the necessity which is
indispensable to all geometrical demonstration: it is a necessity founded in
our human organ, which cannot admit or conceive a space, unless as
preconforming to these original forms or schematisms. Whereas, on the
contrary, if space were something objective, and consequently, being a
separate existence, independent of a human organ, then it is altogether
impossible to find any intelligible source of obligation or cogency in the
evidence—such as is indispensable to the very nature of geometrical
demonstration. Thus we will suppose that a regular demonstration has
gradually, from step to step downwards, through a series of propositions—
No. 8 resting upon 7, that upon 5, 5 upon 3—at length reduced you to the
elementary axiom that Two straight lines cannot enclose a space. Now, if
space be subjective originally—that is to say, founded (as respects us and
our geometry) in ourselves—then it is impossible that two such lines can
enclose a space, because the possibility of anything whatever relating to the
determinations of space is exactly co-extensive with (and exactly expressed
by) our power to conceive it. Being thus able to affirm its impossibility
universally, we can build a demonstration upon it. But, on the other
hypothesis, of space being objective, it is impossible to guess whence we

are to draw our proof of the alleged inaptitude in two straight lines for
enclosing a space. The most we could say is, that hitherto no instance has
been found of an enclosed space circumscribed by two straight lines. It
would not do to allege our human inability to conceive, or in imagination to
draw, such a circumscription. For, besides that such a mode of argument is
exactly the one supposed to have been rejected, it is liable to this
unanswerable objection, so long as space is assumed to have an objective
existence, viz. that the human inability to conceive such a possibility only
argues (what in fact is often found in other cases) that the objective
existence of space—i.e. the existence of space in itself, and in its absolute
nature—is far larger than its subjective existence—i.e. than its mode of
existing quoad some particular subject. A being more limited than man
might be so framed as to be unable to conceive curve lines; but this
subjective inaptitude for those determinations of space would not affect the
objective reality of curves, or even their subjective reality for a higher
intelligence. Thus, on the hypothesis of an objective existence for space, we
should be thrown upon an ocean of possibilities, without a test for saying
what was—what was not possible. But, on the other hypothesis, having
always in the last resort what is subjectively possible or impossible (i.e.
what is conceivable or not by us, what can or cannot be drawn or
circumscribed by a human imagination), we have the means of
demonstration in our power, by having the ultimate appeals in our power to
a known uniform test—viz. a known human faculty.
This is no trifling matter, and therefore no trifling advantage on the side of
Kant and his philosophy, to all who are acquainted with the disagreeable
controversies of late years among French geometricians of the first rank,
and sometimes among British ones, on the question of mathematical
evidence. Legendre and Professor Leslie took part in one such a dispute;
and the temper in which it was managed was worthy of admiration, as
contrasted with the angry controversies of elder days, if, indeed, it did not
err in an opposite spirit, by too elaborate and too calculating a tone of
reciprocal flattery. But, think as we may of the discussion in this respect,
most assuredly it was painful to witness so infirm a philosophy applied to
an interest so mighty. The whole aerial superstructure—the heaven-aspiring
pyramid of geometrical synthesis—all tottered under the palsying logic of
evidence, to which these celebrated mathematicians appealed. And

wherefore?—From the want of any philosophic account of space, to which
they might have made a common appeal, and which might have so far
discharged its debt to truth as at least to reconcile its theory with the great
outstanding phenomena in the most absolute of sciences. Geometry is the
science of space: therefore, in any philosophy of space, geometry is entitled
to be peculiarly considered, and used as a court of appeal. Geometry has
these two further claims to distinction—that, 1st, It is the most perfect of
the sciences, so far as it has gone; and, 2dly, That it has gone the farthest. A
philosophy of space which does not consider and does not reconcile to its
own doctrines the facts of geometry, which, in the two points of beauty and
of vast extent, is more like a work of nature than of man, is, prima facie, of
no value. A philosophy of space might be false which should harmonize
with the facts of geometry—it must be false if it contradict them. Of Kant's
philosophy it is a capital praise that its very opening section—that section
which treats the question of space—not only quadrates with the facts of
geometry, but also, by the subjective character which it attributes to space,
is the very first philosophic scheme which explains and accounts for the
cogency of geometrical evidence.
These are the two primary merits of the transcendental theory—1st, Its
harmony with mathematics, and the fact of having first, by its doctrine of
space, applied philosophy to the nature of geometrical evidence; 2dly, That
it has filled up, by means of its doctrine of categories, the great hiatus in all
schemes of the human understanding from Plato downwards. All the rest,
with a reserve as to the part which concerns the practical reason (or will), is
of more questionable value, and leads to manifold disputes. But I contend
that, had transcendentalism done no other service than that of laying a
foundation, sought but not found for ages, to the human understanding—
namely, by showing an intelligible genesis to certain large and
indispensable ideas—it would have claimed the gratitude of all profound
inquirers. To a reader still disposed to undervalue Kant's service in this
respect, I put one parting question—Wherefore he values Locke? What has
he done, even if value is allowed in full to his pretensions? Has the reader
asked himself that? He gave a negative solution at the most. He told his
reader that certain disputed ideas were not deduced thus and thus. Kant, on
the other hand, has given him at the least a positive solution. He teaches
him, in the profoundest revelation, by a discovery in the most absolute

sense on record, and the most entirely a single act—without parts, or
contributions, or stages, or preparations from other quarters—that these
long disputed ideas could not be derived from the experience assigned by
Locke, inasmuch as they are themselves previous conditions under which
any experience at all is possible: he teaches him that these ideas are not
mystically originated, but are, in fact, but another phasis of the functions or
forms of his own understanding; and, finally, he gives consistency, validity,
and a charter of authority, to certain modes of nexus without which the sum
total of human experience would be a rope of sand.
In terminating this slight account of the Kantian philosophy, I may mention
that, in or about the year 1818-19, Lord Grenville, when visiting the lakes
of England, observed to Professor Wilson that, after five years' study of this
philosophy, he had not gathered from it one clear idea. Wilberforce, about
the same time, made the same confession to another friend of my own.
It is not usual for men to meet with their capital disappointments in early
life, at least not in youth. For, as to disappointments in love, which are
doubtless the most bitter and incapable of comfort, though otherwise likely
to arise in youth, they are in this way made impossible at a very early age,
that no man can be in love to the whole extent of his capacity until he is in
full possession of all his faculties, and with the sense of dignified maturity.
A perfect love, such as is necessary to the anguish of a perfect
disappointment, presumes also for its object not a mere girl, but woman,
mature both in person and character, and womanly dignity. This sort of
disappointment, in a degree which could carry its impression through life, I
cannot therefore suppose occurring earlier than at twenty-five or twenty-
seven. My disappointment—the profound shock with which I was repelled
from German philosophy, and which thenceforwards tinged with cynical
disgust towards man in certain aspects a temper which originally I will
presume to consider the most benign that can ever have been created—
occurred when I was yet in my twentieth year. In a poem under the title of
Saul, written many years ago by Mr. Sotheby, and perhaps now forgotten,
having never been popular, there occurs a passage of some pathos, in which
Saul is described as keeping amongst the splendid equipments of a royal
wardrobe that particular pastoral habit which he had worn in his days of
earliest manhood, whilst yet humble and undistinguished by honour, but
also yet innocent and happy. There, also, with the same care, he preserved

his shepherd's crook, which, in hands of youthful vigour, had been
connected with remembrances of heroic prowess. These memorials, in after
times of trouble or perplexity, when the burthen of royalty, its cares, or its
feverish temptations, pointed his thoughts backwards, for a moment's relief,
to scenes of pastoral gaiety and peace, the heart-wearied prince would
sometimes draw from their repository, and in solitude would apostrophise
them separately, or commune with the bitter-sweet remembrances which
they recalled. In something of the same spirit—but with a hatred to the
German philosopher such as men are represented as feeling towards the
gloomy enchanter, Zamiel or whomsoever, by whose hateful seductions
they have been placed within a circle of malign influences—did I at times
revert to Kant: though for me his power had been of the very opposite kind;
not an enchanter's, but the power of a disenchanter—and a disenchanter the
most profound. As often as I looked into his works, I exclaimed in my heart,
with the widowed queen of Carthage, using her words in an altered
application—

"Quæsivit lucem—ingemuitque repertâ."

Had the transcendental philosophy corresponded to my expectations, and
had it left important openings for further pursuit, my purpose then was to
have retired, after a few years spent in Oxford, to the woods of Lower
Canada. I had even marked out the situation for a cottage and a
considerable library, about seventeen miles from Quebec. I planned nothing
so ambitious as a scheme of Pantisocracy. My object was simply profound
solitude, such as cannot now be had in any part of Great Britain—with two
accessary advantages, also peculiar to countries situated in the
circumstances and under the climate of Canada: viz. the exalting presence
in an under-consciousness of forests endless and silent, the everlasting
sense of living amongst forms so ennobling and impressive, together with
the pleasure attached to natural agencies, such as frost, more powerfully
manifested than in English latitudes, and for a much longer period. I hope
there is nothing fanciful in all this. It is certain that in England, and in all
moderate climates, we are too slightly reminded of nature or the forces of
nature. Great heats, or great colds (and in Canada there are both), or great
hurricanes, as in the West Indian latitudes, recall us continually to the sense
of a powerful presence, investing our paths on every side; whereas in

England it is possible to forget that we live amongst greater agencies than
those of men and human institutions. Man, in fact, "too much man," as
Timon complained most reasonably in Athens, was then, and is now, our
greatest grievance in England. Man is a weed everywhere too rank. A
strange place must that be with us from which the sight of a hundred men is
not before us, or the sound of a thousand about us.
Nevertheless, being in this hotbed of man inevitably for some years, no
sooner had I dismissed my German philosophy than I relaxed a little that
spirit of German abstraction which it had prompted; and, though never
mixing freely with society, I began to look a little abroad. It may interest the
reader, more than anything else which I can record of this period, to recall
what I saw within the ten first years of the century that was at all noticeable
or worthy of remembrance amongst the literati, the philosophers, or the
poets of the time. For, though I am now in my academic period from 1804
to 1808, my knowledge of literary men—or men distinguished in some way
or other, either by their opinions, their accomplishments, or their position
and the accidents of their lives—began from the first year of the century, or,
more accurately, from the year 1800; which, with some difficulty and
demurs, and with some arguments from the Laureate Pye, the world was at
length persuaded to consider the last year of the eighteenth century.[20]

LITERARY & LAKE REMINISCENCES

CHAPTER I
A MANCHESTER SWEDENBORGIAN AND A
LIVERPOOL LITERARY COTERIE[21]

It was in the year 1801, whilst yet at school, that I made my first literary
acquaintance. This was with a gentleman now dead, and little, at any time,
known in the literary world; indeed, not at all; for his authorship was
confined to a department of religious literature as obscure and as narrow in
its influence as any that can be named—viz. Swedenborgianism.
Already, on the bare mention of that word, a presumption arises against any
man, that, writing much (or writing at all) for a body of doctrines so
apparently crazy as those of Mr. Swedenborg, a man must have bid adieu to
all good sense and manliness of mind. Indeed, this is so much of a settled
case, that even to have written against Mr. Swedenborg would be generally
viewed as a suspicious act, requiring explanation, and not very easily
admitting of it. Mr. Swedenborg I call him, because I understand that his
title to call himself "Baron" is imaginary; or rather he never did call himself
by any title of honour—that mistake having originated amongst his
followers in this country, who have chosen to designate him as the
"Honourable" and as the "Baron" Swedenborg, by way of translating, to the
ear of England, some one or other of those irrepresentable distinctions,
Legations-Rath, Hofrath, &c., which are tossed about with so much
profusion in the courts of continental Europe, on both sides the Baltic. For
myself, I cannot think myself qualified to speak of any man's writings
without a regular examination of some one or two among those which his
admirers regard as his best performances. Yet, as any happened to fall in my
way, I have looked into them; and the impression left upon my mind was

certainly not favourable to their author. They laboured, to my feeling, with
two opposite qualities of annoyance, but which I believe not uncommonly
found united in lunatics—excessive dulness or matter-of-factness in the
execution, with excessive extravagance in the conceptions. The result, at
least, was most unhappy: for, of all writers, Swedenborg is the only one I
ever heard of who has contrived to strip even the shadowy world beyond
the grave of all its mystery and all its awe. From the very heaven of
heavens, he has rent away the veil; no need for seraphs to "tremble while
they gaze"; for the familiarity with which all objects are invested makes it
impossible that even poor mortals should find any reason to tremble. Until I
saw this book, I had not conceived it possible to carry an atmosphere so
earthy, and steaming with the vapours of earth, into regions which, by early
connexion in our infant thoughts with the sanctities of death, have a hold
upon the reverential affections such as they rarely lose. In this view, I
should conceive that Swedenborg, if it were at all possible for him to
become a popular author, would, at the same time, become immensely
mischievous. He would dereligionize men beyond all other authors
whatsoever.
Little could this character of Swedenborg's writings—this, indeed, least of
all—have been suspected from the temper, mind, or manners of my new
friend. He was the most spiritual-looking, the most saintly in outward
aspect, of all human beings whom I have known throughout life. He was
rather tall, pale, and thin; the most unfleshly, the most of a sublimated spirit
dwelling already more than half in some purer world, that a poet could have
imagined. He was already aged when I first knew him, a clergyman of the
Church of England; which may seem strange in connexion with his
Swedenborgianism; but he was, however, so. He was rector of a large parish
in a large town, the more active duties of which parish were discharged by
his curate; but much of the duties within the church were still discharged by
himself, and with such exemplary zeal that his parishioners, afterwards
celebrating the fiftieth anniversary, or golden jubilee of his appointment to
the living (the twenty-fifth anniversary is called in German the silver—the
fiftieth, the golden jubilee), went farther than is usual in giving a public
expression and a permanent shape to their sentiments of love and
veneration. I am surprised, on reflection, that this venerable clergyman
should have been unvexed by Episcopal censures. He might, and I dare say

would, keep back the grosser parts of Swedenborg's views from a public
display; but, in one point, it would not be easy for a man so conscientious to
make a compromise between his ecclesiastical duty and his private belief;
for I have since found, though I did not then know it, that Swedenborg held
a very peculiar creed on the article of atonement. From the slight pamphlet
which let me into this secret I could not accurately collect the exact
distinctions of his creed; but it was very different from that of the English
Church.
However, my friend continued unvexed for a good deal more than fifty
years, enjoying that peace, external as well as internal, which, by so
eminent a title, belonged to a spirit so evangelically meek and dovelike. I
mention him chiefly for the sake of describing his interesting house and
household, so different from all which belong to this troubled age, and his
impressive style of living. The house seemed almost monastic; and yet it
stood in the centre of one of the largest, busiest, noisiest towns in England;
and the whole household seemed to have stepped out of their places in some
Vandyke, or even some Titian, picture, from a forgotten century and another
climate. On knocking at the door, which of itself seemed an outrage to the
spirit of quietness which brooded over the place, you were received by an
ancient manservant in the sober livery which belonged traditionally to Mr.
—— 's[22] family; for he was of a gentleman's descent, and had had the most
finished education of a gentleman. This venerable old butler put me in mind
always, by his noiseless steps, of the Castle of Indolence, where the porter
or usher walked about in shoes that were shod with felt, lest any rude
echoes might be roused. An ancient housekeeper was equally venerable,
equally gentle in her deportment, quiet in her movements, and inaudible in
her tread. One or other of these upper domestics,—for the others rarely
crossed my path,—ushered me always into some room expressing by its
furniture, its pictures, and its coloured windows, the solemn tranquillity
which, for half a century, had reigned in that mansion. Among the pictures
were more than one of St. John, the beloved apostle, by Italian masters.
Neither the features nor the expression were very wide of Mr. Clowes's own
countenance; and, had it been possible to forget the gross character of
Swedenborg's reveries, or to substitute for these fleshly dreams the awful
visions of the Apocalypse, one might have imagined easily that the pure,
saintly, and childlike evangelist had been once again recalled to this earth,

and that this most quiet of mansions was some cell in the island of Patmos.
Whence came the stained glass of the windows I know not, and whether it
were stained or painted. The revolutions of that art are known from Horace
Walpole's account; and, nine years after this period, I found that, in
Birmingham, where the art of staining glass was chiefly practised, no
trifling sum was charged even for a vulgar lacing of no great breadth round
a few drawing-room windows, which one of my friends thought fit to
introduce as an embellishment. These windows, however, of my clerical
friend were really "storied windows," having Scriptural histories
represented upon them. A crowning ornament to the library or principal
room was a sweet-toned organ, ancient, and elaborately carved in its wood-
work, at which my venerable friend readily sate down, and performed the
music of anthems as often as I asked him, sometimes accompanying it with
his voice, which was tremulous from old age, but neither originally
unmusical, nor (as might be perceived) untrained.
Often, from the storms and uproars of this world, I have looked back upon
this most quiet and, I believe, most innocent abode (had I said saintly I
should hardly have erred), conneacting it in thought with Little Gidding, the
famous mansion (in Huntingdonshire, I believe) of the Farrers, an
interesting family in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. Of the Farrers
there is a long and circumstantial biographical account, and of the
conventual discipline maintained at Little Gidding. For many years it was
the rule at Gidding—and it was the wish of the Farrers to have transmitted
that practice through succeeding centuries—that a musical or cathedral
service should be going on at every hour of night and day in the chapel of
the mansion. Let the traveller, at what hour he would, morning or evening,
summer or winter, and in what generation or century soever, happen to
knock at the gate of Little Gidding, it was the purpose of Nicholas Farrer—
a sublime purpose—that always he should hear the blare of the organ,
sending upwards its surging volumes of melody, God's worship for ever
proceeding, anthems of praise for ever ascending, and jubilates echoing
without end or known beginning. One stream of music, in fact, never
intermitting, one vestal fire of devotional praise and thanksgiving, was to
connect the beginnings with the ends of generations, and to link one century
into another. Allowing for the sterner asceticism of N. Farrer—partly
arising out of the times, partly out of personal character, and partly, perhaps,

out of his travels in Spain—my aged friend's arrangement of the day, and
the training of his household, might seem to have been modelled on the
plans of Mr. Farrer; whom, however, he might never have heard of. There
was also, in each house, the same union of religion with some cultivation of
the ornamental arts, or some expression of respect for them. In each case, a
monastic severity, that might, under other circumstances, have terminated in
the gloom of a La Trappe, had been softened by English sociality, and by
the habits of a gentleman's education, into a devotional pomp, reconcilable
with Protestant views. When, however, remembering this last fact in Mr.
Clowes's case (the fact I mean of his liberal education), I have endeavoured
to explain the possibility of one so much adorned by all the
accomplishments of a high-bred gentleman, and one so truly pious, falling
into the grossness, almost the sensuality, which appears to besiege the
visions of Swedenborg, I fancy that the whole may be explained out of the
same cause which occasionally may be descried, through a distance of two
complete centuries, as weighing heavily upon the Farrers—viz. the dire
monotony of daily life, when visited by no irritations either of hope or fear
—no hopes from ambition, no fears from poverty.
Nearly (if not quite) sixty years did my venerable friend inhabit that same
parsonage house, without any incident more personally interesting to
himself than a cold or a sore throat. And I suppose that he resorted to
Swedenborg—reluctantly, perhaps, at the first—as to a book of fairy tales
connected with his professional studies. And one thing I am bound to add in
candour, which may have had its weight with him, that more than once, on
casually turning over a volume of Swedenborg, I have certainly found most
curious and felicitous passages of comment—passages which extracted a
brilliant meaning from numbers, circumstances, or trivial accidents,
apparently without significance or object, and gave to things, without a
place or a habitation in the critic's regard, a value as hieroglyphics or
cryptical ciphers, which struck me as elaborately ingenious. This
acknowledgment I make not so much in praise of Swedenborg, whom I
must still continue to think a madman, as in excuse for Mr. Clowes. It may
easily be supposed that a person of Mr. Clowes's consideration and
authority was not regarded with indifference by the general body of the
Swedenborgians. At his motion it was, I believe, that a society was formed
for procuring and encouraging a translation into English of Swedenborg's

entire works, most of which are written in Latin. Several of these
translations are understood to have been executed personally by Mr.
Clowes; and in this obscure way, for anything I know, he may have been an
extensive author. But it shows the upright character of the man that never, in
one instance, did he seek to bias my opinions in this direction. Upon every
other subject, he trusted me confidentially—and, notwithstanding my
boyish years (15-16), as his equal. His regard for me, when thrown by
accident in his way, had arisen upon his notice of my fervent simplicity, and
my unusual thoughtfulness. Upon these merits, I had gained the honourable
distinction of a general invitation to his house, without exception as to days
and hours, when few others could boast of any admission at all. The
common ground on which we met was literature—more especially the
Greek and Roman literature; and much he exerted himself, in a spirit of the
purest courtesy, to meet my animation upon these themes. But the interest
on his part was too evidently a secondary interest in me, for whom he
talked, and not in the subject: he spoke much from memory, as it were of
things that he had once felt, and little from immediate sympathy with the
author; and his animation was artificial, though his courtesy, which
prompted the effort, was the truest and most unaffected possible.
The connexion between us must have been interesting to an observer; for,
though I cannot say with Wordsworth, of old Daniel and his grandson, that
there were "ninety good years of fair and foul weather" between us, there
were, however, sixty, I imagine, at the least; whilst as a bond of connexion
there was nothing at all that I know of beyond a common tendency to
reverie, which is a bad link for a social connexion. The little ardour,
meantime, with which he had, for many years, participated in the interests
of this world, or all that it inherits, was now rapidly departing. Daily and
consciously he was loosening all ties which bound him to earlier
recollections; and, in particular, I remember—because the instance was
connected with my last farewell visit, as it proved—that for some time he
was engaged daily in renouncing with solemnity (though often enough in
cheerful words) book after book of classical literature in which he had once
taken particular delight. Several of these, after taking his final glance at a
few passages to which a pencil reference in the margin pointed his eye, he
delivered to me as memorials in time to come of himself. The last of the
books given to me under these circumstances was a Greek "Odyssey," in

Clarke's edition. "This," said he, "is nearly the sole book remaining to me of
my classical library—which, for some years, I have been dispersing
amongst my friends. Homer I retained to the last, and the 'Odyssey,' by
preference to the 'Iliad,' both in compliance with my own taste, and because
this very copy was my chosen companion for evening amusement during
my freshman's term at Trinity College, Cambridge—whither I went early in
the spring of 1743. Your own favourite Grecian is Euripides; but still you
must value—we must all value—Homer. I, even as old as I am, could still
read him with delight; and, as long as any merely human composition ought
to occupy my time, I should have made an exception in behalf of this
solitary author. But I am a soldier of Christ; the enemy, the last enemy,
cannot be far off; sarcinas colligere is, at my age, the watchword for every
faithful sentinel, hourly to keep watch and ward, to wait and to be vigilant.
This very day I have taken my farewell glance at Homer, for I must no more
be found seeking my pleasure amongst the works of man; and, that I may
not be tempted to break my resolution, I make over this my last book to
you."
Words to this effect, uttered with his usual solemnity, accompanied his gift;
and, at the same time, he added, without any separate comment, a little
pocket Virgil—the one edited by Alexander Cunningham, the bitter
antagonist of Bentley—with a few annotations placed at the end. The act
was in itself a solemn one; something like taking the veil for a nun—a final
abjuration of the world's giddy agitations. And yet to him—already and for
so long a time linked so feebly to anything that could be called the world,
and living in a seclusion so profound—it was but as if an anchorite should
retire from his outer to his inner cell. Me, however, it impressed powerfully
in after years; because this act of self-dedication to the next world, and of
parting from the intellectual luxuries of this, was also, in fact, though
neither of us at the time knew it to be such, the scene of his final parting
with myself. Immediately after his solemn speech, on presenting me with
the "Odyssey," he sat down to the organ, sang a hymn or two, then chanted
part of the liturgy, and, finally, at my request, performed the anthem so well
known in the English Church service—the collect for the seventh Sunday
after Trinity—(Lord of all power and might, &c.) It was summer—about
half after nine in the evening; the light of day was still lingering, and just
strong enough to illuminate the Crucifixion, the Stoning of the Protomartyr,

and other grand emblazonries of the Christian faith, which adorned the rich
windows of his library. Knowing the early hours of his household, I now
received his usual fervent adieus—which, without the words, had the sound
and effect of a benediction—felt the warm pressure of his hand, saw dimly
the outline of his venerable figure, more dimly his saintly countenance, and
quitted that gracious presence, which, in this world, I was destined no more
to revisit. The night was one in the first half of July 1802; in the second half
of which, or very early in August, I quitted school clandestinely, and
consequently the neighbourhood of Mr. Clowes. Some years after, I saw his
death announced in all the public journals, as having occurred at
Leamington Spa, then in the springtime of its medicinal reputation.
Farewell, early friend! holiest of men whom it has been my lot to meet! Yes,
I repeat, thirty-five years are past since then, and I have yet seen few men
approaching to this venerable clergyman in paternal benignity—none
certainly in child-like purity, apostolic holiness, or in perfect alienation of
heart from the spirit of this fleshly world.
I have delineated the habits and character of Mr. Clowes at some length,
chiefly because a connexion is rare and interesting between parties so
widely asunder in point of age—one a schoolboy, and the other almost an
octogenarian, to quote a stanza from one of the most spiritual sketches of
Wordsworth—

"We talked with open heart and tongue,
Affectionate and free—
A pair of friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-three."

I have stated a second reason for this record, in the fact that Mr. Clowes was
the first of my friends who had any connexion with the press. At one time I
have reason to believe that this connexion was pretty extensive, though not
publicly avowed, and so far from being lucrative that at first I believe it to
have been expensive to him, and whatever profits might afterwards arise
were applied, as much of his regular income, to the benefit of others.[23]
Here, again, it seems surprising that a spirit so beneficent and, in the
amplest sense, charitable, could coalesce in any views with Swedenborg,
who, in some senses, was not charitable. Swedenborg had been scandalized
by a notion which, it seems, he found prevalent amongst the poor of the

Continent—viz., that, if riches were a drag and a negative force on the road
to religious perfection, poverty must be positive title per se to the favour of
Heaven. Grievously offended with this error, he came almost to hate
poverty as a presumptive indication of this offensive heresy; scarcely would
he allow it an indirect value, as removing in many cases the occasions or
incitements of evil. No: being in itself neutral and indifferent, he argued that
it had become erroneously a ground of presumptuous hope; whilst the rich
man, aware of his danger, was, in some degree, armed against it by fear and
humility. And, in this course of arguing and of corresponding feeling, Mr.
Swedenborg had come to hate the very name of a poor candidate for
Heaven, as bitterly as a sharking attorney hates the applications of a pauper
client. Yet so entirely is it true that "to the pure, all things are pure," and that
perfect charity "thinketh no ill," but is gifted with a power to transmute all
things into its own resemblance—so entirely is all this true, that this most
spiritual, and, as it were, disembodied of men, could find delight in the
dreams of the very "fleshliest incubus" that has intruded amongst heavenly
objects; and, secondly, this benignest of men found his own pure feelings
not outraged by one who threw a withering scowl over the far larger half of
his fellow-creatures.

Concurrently with this acquaintance, so impressive and so elevating to me,
from the unusual sanctity of Mr. Clowes's character, I formed another with a
well-known coterie, more avowedly, and in a more general sense, literary,
resident at Liverpool or its neighbourhood. In my sixteenth year [1801] I
had accompanied my mother and family on a summer's excursion to
Everton, a well-known village upon the heights immediately above
Liverpool; though by this time I believe it has thrown out so many fibres of
connexion as to have become a mere quarter or suburban "process" (to
speak by anatomical phrase) of the great town below it. In those days,
however, distant by one third of a century from ours, Everton was still a
distinct village (for a mile of ascent is worth three of level ground in the
way of effectual separation); it was delightfully refreshed by marine
breezes, though raised above the sea so far that its thunders could be heard
only under favourable circumstances. There we had a cottage for some
months; and the nearest of our neighbours happened to be that Mr. Clarke,
the banker, to whom acknowledgments are made in the Lorenzo the
Magnificent, for aid in procuring MSS. and information from Italy. This

gentleman called on my mother, merely in the general view of offering
neighbourly attentions to a family of strangers. I, as the eldest of my
brothers, and already with strong literary propensities, had received a
general invitation to his house. Thither I went, indeed, early and late; and
there I met Mr. Roscoe, Dr. Currie (who had just at that time published his
Life and Edition of Burns), and Mr. Shepherd of Gatacre, the author of
some works on Italian literature (particularly a Life of Poggio Bracciolini),
and, since then, well known to all England by his Reform politics.
There were other members of this society—some, like myself, visitors
merely to that neighbourhood; but those I have mentioned were the chief.
Here I had an early opportunity of observing the natural character and
tendencies of merely literary society—by which society I mean all such as,
having no strong distinctions in power of thinking or in native force of
character, are yet raised into circles of pretension and mark by the fact of
having written a book, or of holding a notorious connexion with some
department or other of the periodical press. No society is so vapid and
uninteresting in its natural quality, none so cheerless and petrific in its
influence upon others. Ordinary people, in such company, are in general
repressed from uttering with cordiality the natural expression of their own
minds or temperaments, under a vague feeling of some peculiar homage
due, or at least customarily paid, to those lions: such people are no longer at
their ease, or masters of their own natural motions in their own natural
freedom; whilst indemnification of any sort is least of all to be looked for
from the literary dons who have diffused this unpleasant atmosphere of
constraint. They disable others, and yet do nothing themselves to fill up the
void they have created. One and all—unless by accident people of unusual
originality, power, and also nerve, so as to be able without trepidation to
face the expectations of men—the literary class labour under two opposite
disqualifications for a good tone of conversation. From causes visibly
explained, they are either spoiled by the vices of reserve, and of over-
consciousness directed upon themselves—this is one extreme; or, where
manliness of mind has prevented this, beyond others of equal or inferior
natural power, they are apt to be desperately commonplace. The first defect
is an accident arising out of the rarity of literary pretensions, and would
rapidly subside as the proportion became larger of practising literati to the
mass of educated people. But the other is an adjunct scarcely separable

from the ordinary prosecution of a literary career, and growing in fact out of
literature per se, as literature is generally understood. That same day, says
Homer, which makes a man a slave robs him of half his value. That same
hour which first awakens a child to the consciousness of being observed,
and to the sense of admiration, strips it of its freedom and unpremeditated
graces of motion. Awkwardness at the least—and too probably, as a
consequence of that, affectation and conceit—follow hard upon the
consciousness of special notice or admiration. The very attempt to disguise
embarrassment too often issues in a secondary and more marked
embarrassment.
Another mode of reserve arises with some literary men, who believe
themselves to be in possession of novel ideas. Cordiality of communication,
or ardour of dispute, might betray them into a revelation of those golden
thoughts, sometimes into a necessity of revealing them, since, without such
aid, it might be impossible to maintain theirs in the discussion. On this
principle it was—a principle of deliberate unsocial reserve—that Adam
Smith is said to have governed his conversation; he professed to put a bridle
on his words, lest by accident a pearl should drop out of his lips amongst
the vigilant bystanders. And in no case would he have allowed himself to be
engaged in a disputation, because both the passions of dispute and the
necessities of dispute are alike apt to throw men off their guard. A most
unamiable reason it certainly is, which places a man in one constant attitude
of self-protection against petty larceny. And yet, humiliating as that may be
to human nature, the furtive propensities or instincts of petty larceny are
diffused most extensively through all ranks—directed, too, upon a sort of
property far more tangible and more ignoble, as respects the possible
motives of the purloiner, than any property in subjects purely intellectual.
Rather more than ten years ago, a literary man of the name of Alton
published, some little time before his own death, a very searching essay
upon this chapter of human integrity—arraying a large list of common cases
(cases of hats, gloves, umbrellas, books, newspapers, &c.) where the claim
of ownership, left to itself and unsupported by accidents of shame and
exposure, appeared to be weak indeed amongst classes of society
prescriptively "respectable." And yet, for a double reason, literary larceny is
even more to be feared; both because it is countenanced by a less ignoble
quality of temptation, and because it is far more easy of achievement—so

easy, indeed, that it may be practised without any clear accompanying
consciousness.
I have myself witnessed or been a party to a case of the following kind:—A
new truth—suppose for example, a new doctrine or a new theory—was
communicated to a very able man in the course of conversation, not
didactically, or directly as a new truth, but polemically,—communicated as
an argument in the current of a dispute. What followed? Necessarily it
followed that a very able man would not be purely passive in receiving this
new truth; that he would co-operate with the communicator in many ways
—as by raising objections, by half dissipating his own objections, and in a
variety of other co-agencies. In such cases, a very clever man does in effect
half-generate the new idea for himself, but then he does this entirely under
your leading; you stand ready at each point of possible deviation, to warn
him away from the wrong turn—from the turn which leads nowhither or the
turn which leads astray. Yet the final result has been that the catechumen,
under the full consciousness of self-exertion, has so far confounded his just
and true belief of having contributed to the evolution of the doctrine, quoad
his own apprehension of it, with the far different case of having evolved the
truth itself into light, as to go off with the firm impression that the doctrine
had been a product of his own.[24] There is therefore ground enough for the
jealousy of Adam Smith, since a robbery may be committed unconsciously;
though, by the way, it is not a peril peculiarly applicable to himself, who
has not so much succeeded in discovering new truths as in establishing a
logical connexion amongst old ones.
On the other hand, it is not by reserve, whether of affectation or of Smithian
jealousy, that the majority of literary people offend—at least not by the
latter; for, so far from having much novelty to protect against pirates, the
most general effect of literary pursuits is to tame down all points of
originality to one standard of insipid monotony. I shall not go into the
reasons for this. I make my appeal to the matter of fact. Try a Parisian
populace, very many of whom are highly cultivated by reading, against a
body of illiterate rustics. Mr. Scott of Aberdeen,[25] in his "Second Tour to
Paris" (1815), tells us that, on looking over the shoulder of poor stall
women selling trifles in the street, he usually found them reading Voltaire,
Rousseau, or even (as I think he adds) Montesquieu; but, notwithstanding
the polish which such reading both presumes as a previous condition and

produces as a natural effect, yet no people could be more lifeless in their
minds, or more barren of observing faculties, than they; and so he describes
them. Words! words! nothing but words! On the other hand, listen to the
conversation of a few scandalous village dames collected at a tea-table.
Vulgar as the spirit may be which possesses them, and not seldom
malicious, still how full of animation and of keen perception it will
generally be found, and of a learned spirit of connoisseurship in human
character, by comparison with the fade generalities and barren recollections
of mere literati!
All this was partially illustrated in the circle to which I was now presented.
Mr. Clarke was not an author, and he was by much the most interesting
person of the whole. He had travelled, and, particularly, he had travelled in
Italy—then an aristocratic distinction; had a small, but interesting, picture
gallery; and, at this time, amused himself by studying Greek, for which
purpose he and myself met at sunrise every morning through the summer,
and read Æschylus together. These meetings, at which we sometimes had
the company of any stranger who might happen to be an amateur in Greek,
were pleasant enough to my schoolboy vanity—placing me in the position
of teacher and guide to men old enough to be my grandfathers. But the
dinner parties, at which the literati sometimes assembled in force, were far
from being equally amusing. Mr. Roscoe[26] was simple and manly in his
demeanour; but there was the feebleness of a mere belle-lettrist, a mere man
of virtù, in the style of his sentiments on most subjects. Yet he was a
politician, and took an ardent interest in politics, and wrote upon politics—
all which are facts usually presuming some vigour of mind. And he wrote,
moreover, on the popular side, and with a boldness which, in that day, when
such politics were absolutely disreputable, seemed undeniably to argue
great moral courage. But these were accidents arising out of his connexion
with the Whig party, or (to speak more accurately) with the Opposition
party in Parliament; by whom he was greatly caressed. Mr. Fox, the
Duchess of Devonshire, Mr. Sheridan, and all the powers on that side of the
question, showed him the most marked attention in a great variety of forms;
and this it was, not any native propensity for such speculations, which
drove him into pamphleteering upon political questions. Mr. Fox (himself
the very feeblest of party writers) was probably sincere in his admiration of
Mr. Roscoe's pamphlets; and did seriously think him, as I know that he

described him in private letters, an antagonist well matched against Burke;
and that he afterwards became in form. The rest of the world wondered at
his presumption, or at his gross miscalculation of his own peculiar powers.
An eminent person, in after years (about 1815), speaking to me of Mr.
Roscoe's political writings, especially those which had connected his name
with Burke, declared that he always felt of him in that relation not so much
as of a feeble man, but absolutely as of a Sporus (that was his very
expression), or a man emasculated. Right or wrong in his views, he showed
the most painful defect of good sense and prudence in confronting his own
understanding, so plain and homely, with the Machiavelian Briareus of a
hundred arms—the Titan whom he found in Burke; all the advantages of a
living antagonist over a dead one could not compensate odds so fearful in
original power.
It was a striking illustration of the impotence of mere literature against
natural power and mother wit that the only man who was considered
indispensable in these parties, for giving life and impulse to their vivacity,
was a tailor; and not, I was often assured, a person deriving a designation
from the craft of those whose labours he supported as a capitalist, but one
who drew his own honest daily bread from his own honest needle, except
when he laid it aside for the benefit of drooping literati, who needed to be
watered with his wit. Wit, perhaps, in a proper sense, he had not—it was
rather drollery, and sometimes even buffoonery.
These, in the lamentable absence of the tailor, could be furnished of an
inferior quality by Mr. Shepherd,[27] who (as may be imagined from this
fact) had but little dignity in private life. I know not how far he might alter
in these respects; but certainly, at the time (1801-2), he was decidedly, or
could be, a buffoon, and seemed even ambitious of the title, by courting
notice for his grotesque manner and coarse stories, more than was
altogether compatible with the pretensions of a scholar and a clergyman. I
must have leave to think that such a man could not have emerged from any
great University, or from any but a sectarian training. Indeed, about Poggio
himself there were circumstances which would have indisposed any regular
clergyman of the Church of England, or of the Scottish Kirk, to usher him
into the literature of his country. With what coarseness and low buffoonery
have I heard this Mr. Shepherd in those days run down the bishops then
upon the bench, but especially those of any public pretensions or reputation,

as Horsley and Porteus, and, in connexion with them, the pious Mrs.
Hannah More! Her he could not endure.
Of this gentleman, having said something disparaging, I am bound to go on
and add, that I believe him to have been at least a truly upright man—
talking often wildly, but incapable of doing a conscious wrong to any man,
be his party what it might; and, in the midst of fun or even buffoonery, a
real, and, upon occasion, a stern patriot, Mr. Canning and others he opposed
to the teeth upon the Liverpool hustings, and would take no bribe, as others
did, from literary feelings of sympathy, or (which is so hard for an amiable
mind to resist) from personal applications of courtesy and respect. Amusing
it is to look back upon any political work of Mr. Shepherd's, as upon his
"Tour to France," published in 1815, and to know that the pale pink of his
Radicalism was then accounted deep, deep scarlet.
Nothing can better serve to expound the general force of intellect amongst
the Liverpool coterie than the quality of their poetry, and the general
standard which they set up in poetry. Not that even in their errors, as
regarded poetry, they were of a magnitude to establish any standard or
authority in their own persons. Imitable or seducing there could be nothing
in persons who wrote verses occasionally, and as a παρεργον (parergon) or
by-labour, and were themselves the most timid of imitators. But to me, who,
in that year, 1801, already knew of a grand renovation of poetic power—of
a new birth in poetry, interesting not so much to England as to the human
mind—it was secretly amusing to contrast the little artificial usages of their
petty traditional knack with the natural forms of a divine art—the difference
being pretty much as between an American lake, Ontario, or Superior, and a
carp pond or a tench preserve. Mr. Roscoe had just about this time
published a translation from the Balia of Luigi Tansillo—a series of dullish
lines, with the moral purpose of persuading young women to suckle their
own children. The brilliant young Duchess of Devonshire, some half
century ago, had, for a frolic—a great lady's caprice—set a precedent in this
way; against which, however, in that rank, medical men know that there is a
good deal to be said; and in ranks more extensive than those of the Duchess
it must be something of an Irish bull to suppose any general neglect of this
duty, since, upon so large a scale, whence could come the vicarious nurses?
There is, therefore, no great sense in the fundamental idea of the poem,
because the abuse denounced cannot be large enough; but the prefatory

sonnet, addressed to the translator's wife, as one at whose maternal breast
"six sons successive" had hung in infancy—this is about the one sole bold,
natural thought, or natural expression of feeling, to which Mr. Roscoe had
committed himself in verse. Everywhere else, the most timid and blind
servility to the narrowest of conventional usages, conventional ways of
viewing things, conventional forms of expression, marks the style. For
example, Italy is always Italia, Scotland Scotia, France Gallia; so
inveterately had the mind, in this school of feeling, been trained, alike in the
highest things and in the lowest, to a horror of throwing itself boldly upon
the great realities of life: even names must be fictions for their taste. Yet
what comparison between "France, an Ode," and "Gallia, an Ode"?
Dr. Currie was so much occupied with his professional duties that of him I
saw but little. His edition of Burns was just then published (I think in that
very month), and in everybody's hands. At that time, he was considered not
unjust to the memory of the man, and (however constitutionally phlegmatic,
or with little enthusiasm, at least in external show) not much below the
mark in his appreciation of the poet.[28]
So stood matters some twelve or fourteen years; after which period a
"craze" arose on the subject of Burns, which allowed no voice to be heard
but that of zealotry and violent partisanship. The first impulse to this arose
out of an oblique collision between Lord Jeffrey and Mr. Wordsworth; the
former having written a disparaging critique upon Burns's pretensions—a
little, perhaps, too much coloured by the fastidiousness of long practice in
the world, but, in the main, speaking some plain truths on the quality of
Burns's understanding, as expressed in his epistolary compositions. Upon
which, in his celebrated letter to Mr. James Gray, the friend of Burns,
himself a poet, and then a master in the High School of Edinburgh, Mr.
Wordsworth commented with severity, proportioned rather to his personal
resentments towards Lord Jeffrey than to the quantity of wrong inflicted
upon Burns. Mr. Wordsworth's letter, in so far as it was a record of
embittered feeling, might have perished; but, as it happened to embody
some profound criticisms, applied to the art of biography, and especially to
the delicate task of following a man of original genius through his personal
infirmities or his constitutional aberrations—this fact, and its relation to
Burns and the author's name, have all combined to embalm it.[29] Its
momentary effect, in conjunction with Lord Jeffrey's article, was to revive

the interest (which for some time had languished under the oppression of
Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron) in all that related to Burns. Fresh Lives
appeared in a continued succession, until, upon the death of Lord Byron in
1824, Mr. Allan Cunningham, who had personally known Burns, so far as a
boy could know a mature man, gave a new impulse to the interest, by an
impressive paper in which he contrasted the circumstances of Burns's death
with those of Lord Byron's, and also the two funerals—both of which, one
altogether, and the other in part, Mr. Cunningham had personally witnessed.
A man of genius, like Mr. Cunningham, throws a new quality of interest
upon all which he touches; and, having since brought fresh research and the
illustrative power of the arts to bear upon the subject, and all this having
gone on concurrently with the great modern revolution in literature—that is,
the great extension of a popular interest, through the astonishing reductions
of price—the result is, that Burns has, at length, become a national, and,
therefore, in a certain sense, a privileged subject; which, in a perfect sense,
he was not, until the controversial management of his reputation had
irritated the public attention. Dr. Currie did not address the same alert
condition of the public feeling, nor, by many hundred degrees, so diffused a
condition of any feeling which might imperfectly exist, as a man must
consciously address in these days, whether as the biographer or the critic of
Burns. The lower-toned enthusiasm of the public was not of a quality to
irritate any little enthusiasm which the worthy Doctor might have felt. The
public of that day felt with regard to Burns exactly as with regard to
Bloomfield—not that the quality of his poems was then the staple of the
interest, but the extraordinary fact that a ploughman or a lady's shoemaker
should have written any poems at all. The sole difference in the two cases,
as regarded by the public of that day, was that Burns's case was terminated
by a premature, and, for the public, a very sudden death: this gave a
personal interest to his case which was wanting in the other; and a direct
result of this was that his executors were able to lay before the world a
series of his letters recording his opinions upon a considerable variety of
authors, and his feelings under many ordinary occasions of life.
Dr. Currie, therefore, if phlegmatic, as he certainly was, must be looked
upon as upon a level with the public of his own day—a public how
different, different by how many centuries, from the world of this present
1837! One thing I remember which powerfully illustrates the difference.

Burns, as we all know, with his peculiarly wild and almost ferocious spirit
of independence, came a generation too soon. In this day, he would have
been forced to do that, clamorously called upon to do that, and would have
found his pecuniary interest in doing that, which in his own generation
merely to attempt doing loaded him with the reproach of Jacobinism. It
must be remembered that the society of Liverpool wits on whom my
retrospect is now glancing were all Whigs—all, indeed, fraternizers with
French Republicanism. Yet so it was that—not once, not twice, but daily
almost, in the numerous conversations naturally elicited by this Liverpool
monument to Burns's memory—I heard every one, clerk or layman, heartily
agreeing to tax Burns with ingratitude and with pride falsely directed,
because he sate uneasily or restively under the bridle-hand of his noble self-
called "patrons." Aristocracy, then, the essential spirit of aristocracy—this I
found was not less erect and clamorous amongst partisan democrats—
democrats who were such merely in a party sense of supporting his
Majesty's Opposition against his Majesty's Servants—than it was or could
be among the most bigoted of the professed feudal aristocrats. For my part,
at this moment, when all the world was reading Currie's monument to the
memory of Burns and the support of his family, I felt and avowed my
feeling most loudly—that Burns was wronged, was deeply, memorably
wronged. A £10 bank note, by way of subscription for a few copies of an
early edition of his poems—this is the outside that I could ever see proof
given of Burns having received anything in the way of patronage; and
doubtless this would have been gladly returned, but from the dire necessity
of dissembling.
Lord Glencairn is the "patron" for whom Burns appears to have felt the
most sincere respect. Yet even he—did he give him more than a seat at his
dinner table? Lord Buchan again, whose liberalities are by this time pretty
well appreciated in Scotland, exhorts Burns, in a tone of one preaching
upon a primary duty of life, to exemplary gratitude towards a person who
had given him absolutely nothing at all. The man has not yet lived to whose
happiness it was more essential that he should live unencumbered by the
sense of obligation; and, on the other hand, the man has not lived upon
whose independence as professing benefactors so many people practised, or
who found so many others ready to ratify and give value to their pretences.
[30]
Him, whom beyond most men nature had created with the necessity of

conscious independence, all men besieged with the assurance that he was,
must be, ought to be dependent; nay, that it was his primary duty to be
grateful for his dependence. I have not looked into any edition of Burns,
except once for a quotation, since this year 1801—when I read the whole of
Currie's edition, and had opportunities of meeting the editor—and once
subsequently, upon occasion of a fifth or supplementary volume being
published. I know not, therefore, how this matter has been managed by
succeeding editors, such as Allan Cunningham, far more capable of
understanding Burns's situation, from the previous struggles of their own
honourable lives, and Burns's feelings, from something of congenial power.
I, in this year, 1801, when in the company of Dr. Currie, did not forget, and,
with some pride I say that I stood alone in remembering, the very
remarkable position of Burns: not merely that, with his genius, and with the
intellectual pretensions generally of his family, he should have been called
to a life of early labour, and of labour unhappily not prosperous, but also
that he, by accident about the proudest of human spirits, should have been
by accident summoned, beyond all others, to eternal recognitions of some
mysterious gratitude which he owed to some mysterious patrons little and
great, whilst yet, of all men, perhaps, he reaped the least obvious or known
benefit from any patronage that has ever been put on record. Most men, if
they reap little from patronage, are liberated from the claims of patronage,
or, if they are summoned to a galling dependency, have at least the fruits of
their dependency. But it was this man's unhappy fate—with an early and
previous irritability on this very point—to find himself saddled, by his
literary correspondents, with all that was odious in dependency, whilst he
had every hardship to face that is most painful in unbefriended poverty.
On this view of the case, I talked, then, being a schoolboy, with and against
the first editor of Burns:—I did not, and I do not, profess to admire the
letters (that is, the prose), all or any, of Burns. I felt that they were liable to
the charges of Lord Jeffrey, and to others beside; that they do not even
express the natural vigour of Burns's mind, but are at once vulgar, tawdry,
coarse, and commonplace; neither was I a person to affect any profound
sympathy with the general character and temperament of Burns, which has
often been described as "of the earth, earthy"—unspiritual—animal—
beyond those of most men equally intellectual. But still I comprehended his
situation; I had for ever ringing in my ears, during that summer of 1801,

those groans which ascended to heaven from his over-burthened heart—
those harrowing words, "To give him leave to toil," which record almost a
reproach to the ordinances of God—and I felt that upon him, amongst all
the children of labour, the primal curse had fallen heaviest and sunk
deepest. Feelings such as these I had the courage to express: a personal
compliment, or so, I might now and then hear; but all were against me on
the matter. Dr. Currie said—"Poor Burns! such notions had been his ruin";
Mr. Shepherd continued to draw from the subject some scoff or growl at
Mr. Pitt and the Excise; the laughing tailor told us a good story of some
proud beggar; Mr. Clarke proposed that I should write a Greek inscription
for a cenotaph which he was to erect in his garden to the memory of Burns;
—and so passed away the solitary protestation on behalf of Burns's
jacobinism, together with the wine and the roses, and the sea-breezes of that
same Everton, in that same summer of 1801. Mr. Roscoe is dead, and has
found time since then to be half forgotten; Dr. Currie, the physician, has
been found "unable to heal himself"; Mr. Shepherd of Gatacre is a name and
a shadow; Mr. Clarke is a shadow without a name; the tailor, who set the
table in a roar, is dust and ashes; and three men at the most remain of all
who in those convivial meetings held it right to look down upon Burns as
upon one whose spirit was rebellious overmuch against the institutions of
man, and jacobinical in a sense which "men of property" and master
manufacturers will never brook, albeit democrats by profession.[31]

CHAPTER II
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE[32]

It was, I think, in the month of August, but certainly in the summer season,
and certainly in the year 1807, that I first saw this illustrious man. My
knowledge of him as a man of most original genius began about the year
1799. A little before that time Wordsworth had published the first edition (in
a single volume) of the "Lyrical Ballads,"[33] and into this had been
introduced Mr. Coleridge's poem of the "Ancient Mariner," as the
contribution of an anonymous friend. It would be directing the reader's
attention too much to myself if I were to linger upon this, the greatest event
in the unfolding of my own mind. Let me say, in one word, that, at a period
when neither the one nor the other writer was valued by the public—both
having a long warfare to accomplish of contumely and ridicule before they
could rise into their present estimation—I found in these poems "the ray of
a new morning," and an absolute revelation of untrodden worlds teeming
with power and beauty as yet unsuspected amongst men. I may here
mention that, precisely at the same time, Professor Wilson, entirely
unconnected with myself, and not even known to me until ten years later,
received the same startling and profound impressions from the same
volume.[34] With feelings of reverential interest, so early and so deep,
pointing towards two contemporaries, it may be supposed that I inquired
eagerly after their names. But these inquiries were self-baffled; the same
deep feelings which prompted my curiosity causing me to recoil from all
casual opportunities of pushing the inquiry, as too generally lying amongst
those who gave no sign of participating in my feelings; and, extravagant as
this may seem, I revolted with as much hatred from coupling my question
with any occasion of insult to the persons whom it respected, as a primitive

Christian from throwing frankincense upon the altars of Cæsar, or a lover
from giving up the name of his beloved to the coarse license of a
Bacchanalian party. It is laughable to record for how long a period my
curiosity in this particular was thus self-defeated. Two years passed before I
ascertained the two names. Mr. Wordsworth published his in the second and
enlarged edition of the poems[35]; and for Mr. Coleridge's I was "indebted"
to a private source; but I discharged that debt ill, for I quarrelled with my
informant for what I considered his profane way of dealing with a subject
so hallowed in my own thoughts. After this I searched, east and west, north
and south, for all known works or fragments of the same authors. I had
read, therefore, as respects Mr. Coleridge, the Allegory which he
contributed to Mr. Southey's "Joan of Arc."[36] I had read his fine Ode
entitled "France,"[37] his Ode to the Duchess of Devonshire, and various
other contributions, more or less interesting, to the two volumes of the
"Anthology" published at Bristol, about 1799-1800, by Mr. Southey[38]; and,
finally, I had, of course, read the small volume of poems published under
his own name. These, however, as a juvenile and immature collection, made
expressly with a view to pecuniary profit, and therefore courting expansion
at any cost of critical discretion, had in general greatly disappointed me.[39]
Meantime, it had crowned the interest which to me invested his name, that
about the year 1804 or 1805 I had been informed by a gentleman from the
English Lakes, who knew him as a neighbour, that he had for some time
applied his whole mind to metaphysics and psychology—which happened
to be my own absorbing pursuit. From 1803 to 1808, I was a student at
Oxford; and, on the first occasion when I could conveniently have sought
for a personal knowledge of one whom I contemplated with so much
admiration, I was met by a painful assurance that he had quitted England,
and was then residing at Malta, in the quality of secretary to the Governor. I
began to inquire about the best route to Malta; but, as any route at that time
promised an inside place in a French prison, I reconciled myself to waiting;
and at last, happening to visit the Bristol Hotwells in the summer of 1807, I
had the pleasure to hear that Coleridge was not only once more upon
English ground, but within forty and odd miles of my own station. In that
same hour I bent my way to the south; and, before evening, reaching a ferry
on the river Bridgewater, at a village called, I think, Stogursey (i.e., Stoke
de Courcy, by way of distinction from some other Stoke), I crossed it, and a

few miles farther attained my object—viz., the little town of Nether Stowey,
amongst the Quantock Hills. Here I had been assured that I should find Mr.
Coleridge, at the house of his old friend Mr. Poole. On presenting myself,
however, to that gentleman, I found that Coleridge was absent at Lord
Egmont's, an elder brother (by the father's side) of Mr. Perceval, the Prime
Minister, assassinated five years later; and, as it was doubtful whether he
might not then be on the wing to another friend's in the town of
Bridgewater, I consented willingly, until his motions should be ascertained,
to stay a day or two with this Mr. Poole—a man on his own account well
deserving a separate notice; for, as Coleridge afterwards remarked to me, he
was almost an ideal model for a useful member of Parliament.[40] I found
him a stout, plain-looking farmer, leading a bachelor life, in a rustic, old-
fashioned house; the house, however, upon further acquaintance, proving to
be amply furnished with modern luxuries, and especially with a good
library, superbly mounted in all departments bearing at all upon political
philosophy; and the farmer turning out a polished and liberal Englishman,
who had travelled extensively, and had so entirely dedicated himself to the
service of his humble fellow-countrymen—the hewers of wood and drawers
of water in this southern part of Somersetshire—that for many miles round
he was the general arbiter of their disputes, the guide and counsellor of their
difficulties; besides being appointed executor and guardian to his children
by every third man who died in or about the town of Nether Stowey.
The first morning of my visit, Mr. Poole was so kind as to propose,
knowing my admiration of Wordsworth, that we should ride over to
Alfoxton[41]—a place of singular interest to myself, as having been occupied
in his unmarried days by that poet, during the minority of Mr. St. Aubyn, its
present youthful proprietor. At this delightful spot, the ancient residence of
an ancient English family, and surrounded by those ferny Quantock Hills
which are so beautifully glanced at in the poem of "Ruth," Wordsworth,
accompanied by his sister, had passed a good deal of the interval between
leaving the University (Cambridge) and the period of his final settlement
amongst his native lakes of Westmoreland: some allowance, however, must
be made—but how much I do not accurately know—for a long residence in
France, for a short one in North Germany, for an intermitting one in
London, and for a regular domestication with his sister at Race Down in
Dorsetshire.

Returning late from this interesting survey, we found ourselves without
company at dinner; and, being thus seated tête-à-tête, Mr. Poole
propounded the following question to me, which I mention because it
furnished me with the first hint of a singular infirmity besetting Coleridge's
mind:—"Pray, my young friend, did you ever form any opinion, or, rather,
did it ever happen to you to meet with any rational opinion or conjecture of
others, upon that most revolting dogma of Pythagoras about beans? You
know what I mean: that monstrous doctrine in which he asserts that a man
might as well, for the wickedness of the thing, eat his own grandmother as
meddle with beans."[42]
"Yes," I replied; "the line is, I believe, in the Golden Verses. I remember it
well."
P.—"True: now, our dear excellent friend Coleridge, than whom God never
made a creature more divinely endowed, yet, strange it is to say, sometimes
steals from other people, just as you or I might do; I beg your pardon—just
as a poor creature like myself might do, that sometimes have not
wherewithal to make a figure from my own exchequer: and the other day, at
a dinner party, this question arising about Pythagoras and his beans,
Coleridge gave us an interpretation which, from his manner, I suspect to
have been not original. Think, therefore, if you have anywhere read a
plausible solution."
"I have: and it was a German author. This German, understand, is a poor
stick of a man, not to be named on the same day with Coleridge: so that, if
Coleridge should appear to have robbed him, be assured that he has done
the scamp too much honour."
P.—"Well: what says the German?"
"Why, you know the use made in Greece of beans in voting and balloting?
Well: the German says that Pythagoras speaks symbolically; meaning that
electioneering, or, more generally, all interference with political intrigues, is
fatal to a philosopher's pursuits and their appropriate serenity. Therefore,
says he, follower of mine, abstain from public affairs as you would from
parricide."

P.—"Well, then, Coleridge has done the scamp too much honour: for, by
Jove, that is the very explanation he gave us!"
Here was a trait of Coleridge's mind, to be first made known to me by his
best friend, and first published to the world by me, the foremost of his
admirers! But both of us had sufficient reasons:—Mr. Poole knew that,
stumbled on by accident, such a discovery would be likely to impress upon
a man as yet unacquainted with Coleridge a most injurious jealousy with
regard to all he might write: whereas, frankly avowed by one who knew
him best, the fact was disarmed of its sting; since it thus became evident
that, where the case had been best known and most investigated, it had not
operated to his serious disadvantage. On the same argument,—to forestall,
that is to say, other discoverers, who would make a more unfriendly use of
the discovery,—and also as matters of literary curiosity, I shall here point
out a few others of Coleridge's unacknowledged obligations, noticed by
myself in a very wide course of reading.[43]
1. The Hymn to Chamouni is an expansion of a short poem in stanzas, upon
the same subject, by Frederica Brun, a female poet of Germany, previously
known to the world under her maiden name of Münter. The mere
framework of the poem is exactly the same—an appeal to the most
impressive features of the regal mountain (Mont Blanc), adjuring them to
proclaim their author: the torrent, for instance, is required to say by whom it
had been arrested in its headlong raving, and stiffened, as by the petrific
touch of Death, into everlasting pillars of ice; and the answer to these
impassioned apostrophes is made by the same choral burst of rapture. In
mere logic, therefore, and even as to the choice of circumstances,
Coleridge's poem is a translation. On the other hand, by a judicious
amplification of some topics, and by its far deeper tone of lyrical
enthusiasm, the dry bones of the German outline have been awakened by
Coleridge into the fulness of life. It is not, therefore, a paraphrase, but a re-
cast of the original. And how was this calculated, if frankly avowed, to do
Coleridge any injury with the judicious?
2. A more singular case of Coleridge's infirmity is this:—In a very noble
passage of "France," a fine expression or two occur from "Samson
Agonistes." Now, to take a phrase or an inspiriting line from the great
fathers of poetry, even though no marks of quotation should be added,

carries with it no charge of plagiarism. Milton is justly presumed to be as
familiar to the ear as nature to the eye; and to steal from him as impossible
as to appropriate, or sequester to a private use, some "bright particular star."
And there is a good reason for rejecting the typographical marks of
quotation: they break the continuity of the passion, by reminding the reader
of a printed book; on which account Milton himself (to give an instance)
has not marked the sublime words, "tormented all the air" as borrowed; nor
has Wordsworth, in applying to an unprincipled woman of commanding
beauty the memorable expression "a weed of glorious feature," thought it
necessary to acknowledge it as originally belonging to Spenser. Some
dozens of similar cases might be adduced from Milton. But Coleridge,
when saying of republican France that,

"Insupportably advancing,
Her arm made mockery of the warrior's tramp,"

not satisfied with omitting the marks of acknowledgment, thought fit
positively to deny that he was indebted to Milton. Yet who could forget that
semi-chorus in the "Samson" where the "bold Ascalonite" is described as
having "fled from his lion ramp"? Or who, that was not in this point liable
to some hallucination of judgment, would have ventured on a public
challenge (for virtually it was that) to produce from the "Samson" words so
impossible to be overlooked as those of "insupportably advancing the foot"?
The result was that one of the critical journals placed the two passages in
juxtaposition and left the reader to his own conclusions with regard to the
poet's veracity. But, in this instance, it was common sense rather than
veracity which the facts impeach.
3. In the year 1810 I happened to be amusing myself by reading, in their
chronological order, the great classical circumnavigations of the earth; and,
coming to Shelvocke, I met with a passage to this effect:—That Hatley, his
second captain (i.e. lieutenant), being a melancholy man, was possessed by
a fancy that some long season of foul weather, in the solitary sea which they
were then traversing, was due to an albatross which had steadily pursued
the ship; upon which he shot the bird, but without mending their condition.
There at once I saw the germ of the "Ancient Mariner"; and I put a question
to Coleridge accordingly. Could it have been imagined that he would see
cause utterly to disown so slight an obligation to Shelvocke? Wordsworth, a
man of stern veracity, on hearing of this, professed his inability to
understand Coleridge's meaning; the fact being notorious, as he told me,
that Coleridge had derived from the very passage I had cited the original
hint for the action of the poem; though it is very possible, from something
which Coleridge said on another occasion, that, before meeting a fable in
which to embody his ideas, he had meditated a poem on delirium,
confounding its own dream-scenery with external things, and connected
with the imagery of high latitudes.
4. All these cases amount to nothing at all as cases of plagiarism, and for
this reason expose the more conspicuously that obliquity of feeling which
could seek to decline the very slight acknowledgments required. But now I

come to a case of real and palpable plagiarism; yet that, too, of a nature to
be quite unaccountable in a man of Coleridge's attainments. It is not very
likely that this particular case will soon be detected; but others will. Yet
who knows? Eight hundred or a thousand years hence, some reviewer may
arise who having read the "Biographia Literaria" of Coleridge, will
afterwards read the "Philosophical——"[44] of Schelling, the great Bavarian
professor—a man in some respects worthy to be Coleridge's assessor; and
he will then make a singular discovery. In the "Biographia Literaria" occurs
a dissertation upon the reciprocal relations of the Esse and the Cogitare,—
that is, of the objective and the subjective: and an attempt is made, by
inverting the postulates from which the argument starts, to show how each
might arise as a product, by an intelligible genesis, from the other. It is a
subject which, since the time of Fichte, has much occupied the German
metaphysicians; and many thousands of essays have been written on it, or
indirectly so, of which many hundreds have been read by many tens of
persons. Coleridge's essay, in particular, is prefaced by a few words in
which, aware of his coincidence with Schelling, he declares his willingness
to acknowledge himself indebted to so great a man in any case where the
truth would allow him to do so; but, in this particular case, insisting on the
impossibility that he could have borrowed arguments which he had first
seen some years after he had thought out the whole hypothesis proprio
marte. After this, what was my astonishment to find that the entire essay,
from the first word to the last, is a verbatim translation from Schelling, with
no attempt in a single instance to appropriate the paper by developing the
arguments or by diversifying the illustrations? Some other obligations to
Schelling, of a slighter kind, I have met with in the "Biographia Literaria";
but this was a barefaced plagiarism, which could in prudence have been
risked only by relying too much upon the slight knowledge of German
literature in this country, and especially of that section of the German
literature. Had, then, Coleridge any need to borrow from Schelling? Did he
borrow in forma pauperis? Not at all: there lay the wonder. He spun daily,
and at all hours, for mere amusement of his own activities, and from the
loom of his own magical brain, theories more gorgeous by far, and
supported by a pomp and luxury of images such as neither Schelling—no,
nor any German that ever breathed, not John Paul—could have emulated in
his dreams. With the riches of El Dorado lying about him, he would
condescend to filch a handful of gold from any man whose purse he

fancied, and in fact reproduced in a new form, applying itself to intellectual
wealth, that maniacal propensity which is sometimes well known to attack
enormous proprietors and millionaires for acts of petty larceny. The last
Duke of Anc—— could not abstain from exercising his furtive mania upon
articles so humble as silver spoons; and it was the nightly care of a pious
daughter, watching over the aberrations of her father, to have his pockets
searched by a confidential valet, and the claimants of the purloined articles
traced out.
Many cases have crossed me in life of people, otherwise not wanting in
principle, who had habits, or at least hankerings, of the same kind. And the
phrenologists, I believe, are well acquainted with the case, its signs, its
progress, and its history. Dismissing, however, this subject, which I have at
all noticed only that I might anticipate, and (in old English) that I might
prevent, the uncandid interpreter of its meaning, I will assert finally that,
after having read for thirty years in the same track as Coleridge—that track
in which few of any age will ever follow us, such as German
metaphysicians, Latin schoolmen, thaumaturgic Platonists, religious
Mystics—and having thus discovered a large variety of trivial thefts, I do,
nevertheless, most heartily believe him to have been as entirely original in
all his capital pretensions as any one man that ever has existed; as
Archimedes in ancient days, or as Shakspere in modern. Did the reader ever
see Milton's account of the rubbish contained in the Greek and Latin
Fathers?[45] Or did he ever read a statement of the monstrous chaos with
which an African Obeah man stuffs his enchanted scarecrows? Or, take a
more common illustration, did he ever amuse himself by searching the
pockets of a child—three years old, suppose—when buried in slumber after
a long summer's day of out-o'-doors intense activity? I have done this; and,
for the amusement of the child's mother, have analyzed the contents, and
drawn up a formal register of the whole. Philosophy is puzzled, conjecture
and hypothesis are confounded, in the attempt to explain the law of
selection which can have presided in the child's labours; stones remarkable
only for weight, old rusty hinges, nails, crooked skewers stolen when the
cook had turned her back, rags, broken glass, tea-cups having the bottom
knocked out, and loads of similar jewels, were the prevailing articles in this
procès-verbal. Yet, doubtless, much labour had been incurred, some sense
of danger perhaps had been faced, and the anxieties of a conscious robber

endured, in order to amass this splendid treasure. Such in value were the
robberies of Coleridge; such their usefulness to himself or anybody else;
and such the circumstances of uneasiness under which he had committed
them. I return to my narrative.
Two or three days had slipped away in waiting for Coleridge's re-
appearance at Nether Stowey, when suddenly Lord Egmont called upon Mr.
Poole, with a present for Coleridge: it was a canister of peculiarly fine
snuff, which Coleridge now took profusely. Lord Egmont, on this occasion,
spoke of Coleridge in the terms of excessive admiration, and urged Mr.
Poole to put him upon undertaking some great monumental work, that
might furnish a sufficient arena for the display of his various and rare
accomplishments; for his multiform erudition on the one hand, for his
splendid power of theorizing and combining large and remote notices of
facts on the other. And he suggested, judiciously enough, as one theme
which offered a field at once large enough and indefinite enough to suit a
mind that could not show its full compass of power unless upon very plastic
materials—a History of Christianity, in its progress and in its chief
divarications into Church and Sect, with a continual reference to the
relations subsisting between Christianity and the current philosophy; their
occasional connexions or approaches, and their constant mutual repulsions.
"But, at any rate, let him do something," said Lord Egmont; "for at present
he talks very much like an angel, and does nothing at all." Lord Egmont I
understood from everybody to be a truly good and benevolent man; and on
this occasion he spoke with an earnestness which agreed with my previous
impression. Coleridge, he said, was now in the prime of his powers—
uniting something of youthful vigour with sufficient experience of life;
having the benefit, beside, of vast meditation, and of reading unusually
discursive. No man had ever been better qualified to revive the heroic
period of literature in England, and to give a character of weight to the
philosophic erudition of the country upon the Continent. "And what a pity,"
he added, "if this man were, after all, to vanish like an apparition, and you,
I, and a few others, who have witnessed his grand bravuras of display, were
to have the usual fortune of ghost-seers, in meeting no credit for any
statements that we might vouch on his behalf!"
On this occasion we learned, for the first time, that Lord Egmont's carriage
had, some days before, conveyed Coleridge to Bridgewater, with a purpose

of staying one single day at that place, and then returning to Mr. Poole's.
From the sort of laugh with which Lord Egmont taxed his own simplicity,
in having confided at all in the stability of any Coleridgian plan, I now
gathered that procrastination in excess was, or had become, a marking
feature in Coleridge's daily life. Nobody who knew him ever thought of
depending on any appointment he might make: spite of his uniformly
honourable intentions, nobody attached any weight to his assurances in re
futura: those who asked him to dinner or any other party, as a matter of
course, sent a carriage for him, and went personally or by proxy to fetch
him; and, as to letters, unless the address were in some female hand that
commanded his affectionate esteem, he tossed them all into one general
dead-letter bureau, and rarely, I believe, opened them at all.[46] Bourrienne
mentions a mode of abridging the trouble attached to a very extensive
correspondence, by which infinite labour was saved to himself, and to
Napoleon, when First Consul. Nine out of ten letters, supposing them letters
of business with official applications of a special kind, he contends, answer
themselves: in other words, time alone must soon produce events which
virtually contain the answer. On this principle the letters were opened
periodically, after intervals, suppose, of six weeks; and, at the end of that
time, it was found that not many remained to require any further more
particular answer. Coleridge's plan, however, was shorter: he opened none, I
understood, and answered none. At least such was his habit at that time.
But, on that same day, all this, which I heard now for the first time, and
with much concern, was fully explained; for already he was under the full
dominion of opium, as he himself revealed to me, and with a deep
expression of horror at the hideous bondage, in a private walk of some
length which I took with him about sunset.
Lord Egmont's information, and the knowledge now gained of Coleridge's
habits, making it very uncertain when I might see him in my present
hospitable quarters, I immediately took my leave of Mr. Poole, and went
over to Bridgewater. I had received directions for finding out the house
where Coleridge was visiting; and, in riding down a main street of
Bridgewater, I noticed a gateway corresponding to the description given
me. Under this was standing, and gazing about him, a man whom I will
describe. In height he might seem to be about five feet eight (he was, in
reality, about an inch and a-half taller, but his figure was of an order which

drowns the height); his person was broad and full, and tended even to
corpulence; his complexion was fair, though not what painters technically
style fair, because it was associated with black hair; his eyes were large, and
soft in their expression; and it was from the peculiar appearance of haze or
dreaminess which mixed with their light that I recognised my object. This
was Coleridge.[47] I examined him steadfastly for a minute or more; and it
struck me that he saw neither myself nor any other object in the street. He
was in a deep reverie; for I had dismounted, made two or three trifling
arrangements at an inn-door, and advanced close to him, before he had
apparently become conscious of my presence. The sound of my voice,
announcing my own name, first awoke him; he started, and for a moment
seemed at a loss to understand my purpose or his own situation; for he
repeated rapidly a number of words which had no relation to either of us.
There was no mauvaise honte in his manner, but simple perplexity, and an
apparent difficulty in recovering his position amongst daylight realities.
This little scene over, he received me with a kindness of manner so marked
that it might be called gracious. The hospitable family with whom he was
domesticated were distinguished for their amiable manners and enlightened
understandings: they were descendants from Chubb, the philosophic writer,
and bore the same name. For Coleridge they all testified deep affection and
esteem—sentiments in which the whole town of Bridgewater seemed to
share; for in the evening, when the heat of the day had declined, I walked
out with him; and rarely, perhaps never, have I seen a person so much
interrupted in one hour's space as Coleridge, on this occasion, by the
courteous attentions of young and old.
All the people of station and weight in the place, and apparently all the
ladies, were abroad to enjoy the lovely summer evening; and not a party
passed without some mark of smiling recognition, and the majority stopping
to make personal inquiries about his health, and to express their anxiety that
he should make a lengthened stay amongst them. Certain I am, from the
lively esteem expressed towards Coleridge at this time by the people of
Bridgewater, that a very large subscription might, in that town, have been
raised to support him amongst them, in the character of a lecturer, or
philosophical professor. Especially I remarked that the young men of the
place manifested the most liberal interest in all that concerned him; and I
can add my attestation to that of Mr. Coleridge himself, when describing an

evening spent amongst the enlightened tradesmen of Birmingham, that
nowhere is more unaffected good sense exhibited, and particularly nowhere
more elasticity and freshness of mind, than in the conversation of the
reading men in manufacturing towns. In Kendal, especially, in Bridgewater,
and in Manchester, I have witnessed more interesting conversations, as
much information, and more natural eloquence in conveying it, than usually
in literary cities, or in places professedly learned. One reason for this is that
in trading towns the time is more happily distributed; the day given to
business and active duties—the evening to relaxation; on which account,
books, conversation, and literary leisure are more cordially enjoyed: the
same satiation never can take place which too frequently deadens the genial
enjoyment of those who have a surfeit of books and a monotony of leisure.
Another reason is that more simplicity of manner may be expected, and
more natural picturesqueness of conversation, more open expression of
character, in places where people have no previous name to support. Men in
trading towns are not afraid to open their lips for fear they should
disappoint your expectations, nor do they strain for showy sentiments that
they may meet them. But, elsewhere, many are the men who stand in awe of
their own reputation: not a word which is unstudied, not a movement in the
spirit of natural freedom, dare they give way to, because it might happen
that on review something would be seen to retract or to qualify—something
not properly planed and chiselled to build into the general architecture of an
artificial reputation. But to return:—
Coleridge led me to a drawing-room, rang the bell for refreshments, and
omitted no point of a courteous reception. He told me that there would be a
very large dinner party on that day, which, perhaps, might be disagreeable
to a perfect stranger; but, if not, he could assure me of a most hospitable
welcome from the family. I was too anxious to see him under all aspects to
think of declining this invitation. That point being settled, Coleridge, like
some great river, the Orellana, or the St. Lawrence, that, having been
checked and fretted by rocks or thwarting islands, suddenly recovers its
volume of waters and its mighty music, swept at once, as if returning to his
natural business, into a continuous strain of eloquent dissertation, certainly
the most novel, the most finely illustrated, and traversing the most spacious
fields of thought by transitions the most just and logical, that it was possible
to conceive. What I mean by saying that his transitions were "just" is by

way of contradistinction to that mode of conversation which courts variety
through links of verbal connexions. Coleridge, to many people, and often I
have heard the complaint, seemed to wander; and he seemed then to wander
the most when, in fact, his resistance to the wandering instinct was greatest
—viz., when the compass and huge circuit by which his illustrations moved
travelled farthest into remote regions before they began to revolve. Long
before this coming round commenced most people had lost him, and
naturally enough supposed that he had lost himself. They continued to
admire the separate beauty of the thoughts, but did not see their relations to
the dominant theme. Had the conversation been thrown upon paper, it might
have been easy to trace the continuity of the links; just as in Bishop
Berkeley's "Siris,"[48] from a pedestal so low and abject, so culinary, as Tar
Water, the method of preparing it, and its medicinal effects, the dissertation
ascends, like Jacob's ladder, by just gradations, into the Heaven of Heavens
and the thrones of the Trinity. But Heaven is there connected with earth by
the Homeric chain of gold; and, being subject to steady examination, it is
easy to trace the links; whereas, in conversation, the loss of a single word
may cause the whole cohesion to disappear from view. However, I can
assert, upon my long and intimate knowledge of Coleridge's mind, that
logic the most severe was as inalienable from his modes of thinking as
grammar from his language.
On the present occasion, the original theme, started by myself, was Hartley
and the Hartleian theory. I had carried as a little present to Coleridge a
scarce Latin pamphlet, "De Ideis," written by Hartley about 1746,—that is,
about three years earlier than the publication of his great work. He had also
preluded to this great work in a little English medical tract upon Joanna
Stephens's medicine for the stone; for indeed Hartley was the person upon
whose evidence the House of Commons had mainly relied in giving to that
same Joanna a reward of £5000 for her idle medicines—an application of
public money not without its use, in so far as it engaged men by selfish
motives to cultivate the public service, and to attempt public problems of
very difficult solution; but else, in that particular instance, perfectly idle, as
the groans of three generations since Joanna's era have too feelingly
established. It is known to most literary people that Coleridge was, in early
life, so passionate an admirer of the Hartleian philosophy that "Hartley" was

the sole baptismal name which he gave to his eldest child; and in an early
poem, entitled "Religious Musings," he has characterized Hartley as

"Him of mortal kind
Wisest, him first who mark'd the ideal tribes
Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain
Pass in fine surges."

But at present (August 1807) all this was a forgotten thing. Coleridge was
so profoundly ashamed of the shallow Unitarianism of Hartley, and so
disgusted to think that he could at any time have countenanced that creed,
that he would scarcely allow to Hartley the reverence which is undoubtedly
his due; for I must contend that, waiving all question of the extent to which
Hartley would have pushed it (as though the law of association accounted
not only for our complex pleasures and pains, but also might be made to
explain the act of ratiocination),—waiving also the physical substratum of
nervous vibrations and miniature vibrations to which he has chosen to
marry his theory of association;—all this apart, I must contend that the
"Essay on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations" stands forward
as a specimen almost unique of elaborate theorizing, and a monument of
absolute beauty in the impression left of its architectural grace. In this
respect it has, to my mind, the spotless beauty and the ideal proportions of
some Grecian statue. However, I confess that, being myself, from my
earliest years, a reverential believer in the doctrine of the Trinity, simply
because I never attempted to bring all things within the mechanic
understanding, and because, like Sir Thomas, Browne, my mind almost
demanded mysteries in so mysterious a system of relations as those which
connect us with another world, and also because the farther my
understanding opened the more I perceived of dim analogies to strengthen
my creed, and because nature herself, mere physical nature, has mysteries
no less profound; for these, and for many other "becauses," I could not
reconcile with my general reverence for Mr. Coleridge the fact, so often
reported to me, that he was a Unitarian. But, said some Bristol people to
me, not only is he a Unitarian—he is also a Socinian. In that case, I replied,
I cannot hold him a Christian. I am a liberal man, and have no bigotry or
hostile feelings towards a Socinian; but I can never think that man a
Christian who has blotted out of his scheme the very powers by which only

the great offices and functions of Christianity can be sustained; neither can I
think that any man, though he make himself a marvellously clever
disputant, ever could tower upwards into a very great philosopher unless he
should begin or should end with Christianity. Kant is a dubious exception.
Not that I mean to question his august pretensions, so far as they went, and
in his proper line. Within his own circle none durst tread but he. But that
circle was limited. He was called by one who weighed him well, the alles-
zermalmender, the world-shattering Kant. He could destroy—his intellect
was essentially destructive. He was the Gog and he was the Magog of
Hunnish desolation to the existing schemes of Philosophy. He probed them;
he showed the vanity of vanities which besieged their foundations—the
rottenness below, the hollowness above. But he had no instincts of creation
or restoration within his Apollyon mind; for he had no love, no faith, no
self-distrust, no humility, no childlike docility; all which qualities belonged
essentially to Coleridge's mind, and waited only for manhood and for
sorrow to bring them forward.
Who can read without indignation of Kant that, at his own table, in social
sincerity and confidential talk, let him say what he would in his books, he
exulted in the prospect of absolute and ultimate annihilation; that he planted
his glory in the grave, and was ambitious of rotting for ever? The King of
Prussia, though a personal friend of Kant's, found himself obliged to level
his state thunders at some of his doctrines, and terrified him in his advance;
else I am persuaded that Kant would have formally delivered Atheism from
the professor's chair, and would have enthroned the horrid Ghoulish creed
(which privately he professed) in the University of Königsberg. It required
the artillery of a great king to make him pause: his menacing or warning
letter to Kant is extant. The general notion is, that the royal logic applied so
austerely to the public conduct of Kant in his professor's chair was of that
kind which rests its strength "upon thirty legions." My own belief is that the
king had private information of Kant's ultimate tendencies as revealed in his
table-talk. The fact is that, as the stomach has been known, by means of its
own potent acid secretion, to attack not only whatsoever alien body is
introduced within it, but also (as John Hunter first showed) sometimes to
attack itself and its own organic structure, so, and with the same
preternatural extension of instinct, did Kant carry forward his destroying
functions, until he turned them upon his own hopes and the pledges of his

own superiority to the dog, the ape, the worm. But "exoriare aliquis"—and
some philosopher, I am persuaded, will arise; and "one sling of some
victorious arm" ("Paradise Lost," B. x.) will yet destroy the destroyer, in so
far as he has applied himself to the destruction of Christian hope. For my
faith is that, though a great man may, by a rare possibility, be an infidel, an
intellect of the highest order must build upon Christianity. A very clever
architect may choose to show his power by building with insufficient
materials; but the supreme architect must require the very best, because the
perfection of the forms cannot be shown but in the perfection of the matter.
On these accounts I took the liberty of doubting, as often as I heard the
reports I have mentioned of Coleridge; and I now found that he disowned
most solemnly (and I may say penitentially) whatever had been true in these
reports. Coleridge told me that it had cost him a painful effort, but not a
moment's hesitation, to abjure his Unitarianism, from the circumstance that
he had amongst the Unitarians many friends, to some of whom he was
greatly indebted for great kindness. In particular, he mentioned Mr. Estlin of
Bristol, a distinguished Dissenting clergyman, as one whom it grieved him
to grieve. But he would not dissemble his altered views. I will add, at the
risk of appearing to dwell too long on religious topics, that, on this my first
introduction to Coleridge, he reverted with strong compunction to a
sentiment which he had expressed in earlier days upon prayer. In one of his
youthful poems, speaking of God, he had said—

"Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love
Aught to implore were impotence of mind."

This sentiment he now so utterly condemned that, on the contrary, he told
me, as his own peculiar opinion, that the act of praying was the very highest
energy of which the human heart was capable; praying, that is, with the
total concentration of the faculties; and the great mass of worldly men, and
of learned men, he pronounced absolutely incapable of prayer.
For about three hours he had continued to talk, and in the course of this
performance he had delivered many most striking aphorisms, embalming
more weight of truth, and separately more deserving to be themselves
embalmed, than would easily be found in a month's course of select
reading. In the midst of our conversation, if that can be called conversation

which I so seldom sought to interrupt, and which did not often leave
openings for contribution, the door opened, and a lady entered. She was in
person full and rather below the common height; whilst her face showed to
my eye some prettiness of rather a commonplace order. Coleridge paused
upon her entrance; his features, however, announced no particular
complacency, and did not relax into a smile. In a frigid tone he said, whilst
turning to me, "Mrs. Coleridge"; in some slight way he then presented me
to her: I bowed; and the lady almost immediately retired. From this short
but ungenial scene, I gathered, what I afterward learned redundantly, that
Coleridge's marriage had not been a very happy one. But let not the reader
misunderstand me. Never was there a baser insinuation, viler in the motive,
or more ignoble in the manner, than that passage in some lampoon of Lord
Byron's, where, by way of vengeance on Mr. Southey (who was the sole
delinquent), he described both him and Coleridge as having married "two
milliners from Bath." Everybody knows what is meant to be conveyed in
that expression, though it would be hard, indeed, if, even at Bath, there
should be any class under such a fatal curse, condemned so irretrievably,
and so hopelessly prejudged, that ignominy must, at any rate, attach, in
virtue of a mere name or designation, to the mode by which they gained
their daily bread, or possibly supported the declining years of a parent.
However, in this case, the whole sting of the libel was a pure falsehood of
Lord Byron's. Bath was not the native city, nor at any time the residence, of
the ladies in question, but Bristol. As to the other word, "milliners," that is
not worth inquiring about. Whether they, or any one of their family, ever did
exercise this profession, I do not know; they were, at all events, too young,
when removed by marriage from Bristol, to have been much tainted by the
worldly feelings which may beset such a mode of life. But, what is more to
the purpose, I heard, at this time, in Bristol, from Mr. Cottle, the author, a
man of high principle, as also from his accomplished sisters,—from the
ladies, again, who had succeeded Mrs. Hannah More in her school, and who
enjoyed her entire confidence,—that the whole family of four or five sisters
had maintained an irreproachable character, though naturally exposed, by
their personal attractions, to some peril, and to the malevolence of envy.
This declaration, which I could strengthen by other testimony equally
disinterested, if it were at all necessary, I owe to truth; and I must also add,
upon a knowledge more personal, that Mrs. Coleridge was, in all
circumstances of her married life, a virtuous wife and a conscientious

mother; and, as a mother, she showed at times a most meritorious energy. In
particular, I remember that, wishing her daughter to acquire the Italian
language, and having in her retirement at Keswick no means of obtaining a
master, she set to work resolutely, under Mr. Southey's guidance, to learn
the language herself, at a time of life when such attainments are not made
with ease or pleasure. She became mistress of the language in a very
respectable extent, and then communicated her new accomplishment to her
most interesting daughter.
I go on, therefore, to say, that Coleridge afterwards made me, as doubtless
some others, a confidant in this particular. What he had to complain of was
simply incompatibility of temper and disposition. Wanting all cordial
admiration, or indeed comprehension, of her husband's intellectual powers,
Mrs. Coleridge wanted the original basis for affectionate patience and
candour. Hearing from everybody that Coleridge was a man of most
extraordinary endowments, and attaching little weight, perhaps, to the
distinction between popular talents and such as by their very nature are
doomed to a slower progress in the public esteem, she naturally looked to
see, at least, an ordinary measure of worldly consequence attend upon their
exercise. Now, had Coleridge been as persevering and punctual as the great
mass of professional men, and had he given no reason to throw the onus of
the different result upon his own different habits, in that case this result
might, possibly and eventually, have been set down to the peculiar
constitution of his powers, and their essential mal-adaptation to the English
market. But, this trial having never fairly been made, it was natural to
impute his non-success exclusively to his own irregular application, and to
his carelessness in forming judicious connexions. In circumstances such as
these, however, no matter how caused or how palliated, was laid a sure
ground of discontent and fretfulness in any woman's mind, not unusually
indulgent or unusually magnanimous. Coleridge, besides, assured me that
his marriage was not his own deliberate act, but was in a manner forced
upon his sense of honour by the scrupulous Southey, who insisted that he
had gone too far in his attentions to Miss Fricker for any honourable retreat.
On the other hand, a neutral spectator of the parties protested to me, that, if
ever in his life he had seen a man under deep fascination, and what he
would have called desperately in love, Coleridge, in relation to Miss F., was
that man. Be that as it might, circumstances occurred soon after the

marriage which placed all the parties in a trying situation for their candour
and good temper. I had a full outline of the situation from two of those who
were chiefly interested, and a partial one from a third: nor can it be denied
that all the parties offended in point of prudence. A young lady became a
neighbour, and a daily companion of Coleridge's walks, whom I will not
describe more particularly than by saying that intellectually she was very
much superior to Mrs. Coleridge. That superiority alone, when made
conspicuous by its effects in winning Coleridge's regard and society, could
not but be deeply mortifying to a young wife. However, it was moderated to
her feelings by two considerations:—1. That the young lady was much too
kind-hearted to have designed any annoyance in this triumph, or to express
any exultation; 2. That no shadow of suspicion settled upon the moral
conduct or motives of either party: the young lady was always attended by
her brother; she had no personal charms; and it was manifest that mere
intellectual sympathies, in reference to literature and natural scenery, had
associated them in their daily walks.
Still, it is a bitter trial to a young married woman to sustain any sort of
competition with a female of her own age for any part of her husband's
regard, or any share of his company. Mrs. Coleridge, not having the same
relish for long walks or rural scenery, and their residence being, at this time,
in a very sequestered village, was condemned to a daily renewal of this
trial.[49] Accidents of another kind embittered it still further: often it would
happen that the walking party returned drenched with rain; in which case,
the young lady, with a laughing gaiety, and evidently unconscious of any
liberty that she was taking, or any wound that she was inflicting, would run
up to Mrs. Coleridge's wardrobe, array herself, without leave asked, in Mrs.
Coleridge's dresses, and make herself merry with her own
unceremoniousness and Mrs. Coleridge's gravity. In all this, she took no
liberty that she would not most readily have granted in return; she confided
too unthinkingly in what she regarded as the natural privileges of
friendship; and as little thought that she had been receiving or exacting a
favour, as, under an exchange of their relative positions, she would have
claimed to confer one. But Mrs. Coleridge viewed her freedoms with a far
different eye: she felt herself no longer the entire mistress of her own house;
she held a divided empire; and it barbed the arrow to her womanly feelings
that Coleridge treated any sallies of resentment which might sometimes

escape her as narrow-mindedness; whilst, on the other hand, her own
female servant, and others in the same rank of life, began to drop
expressions which alternately implied pity for her as an injured woman, or
contempt for her as a very tame one.
The reader will easily apprehend the situation, and the unfortunate results
which it boded to the harmony of a young married couple, without further
illustration. Whether Coleridge would not, under any circumstances, have
become indifferent to a wife not eminently capable of enlightened sympathy
with his own ruling pursuits, I do not undertake to pronounce. My own
impression is, that neither Coleridge nor Lord Byron could have failed,
eventually, to quarrel with any wife, though a Pandora sent down from
heaven to bless him. But, doubtless, this consummation must have been
hastened by a situation which exposed Mrs. Coleridge to an invidious
comparison with a more intellectual person; as, on the other hand, it was
most unfortunate for Coleridge himself to be continually compared with
one so ideally correct and regular in his habits as Mr. Southey. Thus was
their domestic peace prematurely soured: embarrassments of a pecuniary
nature would be likely to demand continual sacrifices; no depth of affection
existing, these would create disgust or dissension; and at length each would
believe that their union had originated in circumstances overruling their
own deliberate choice.
The gloom, however, and the weight of dejection which sat upon
Coleridge's countenance and deportment at this time could not be accounted
for by a disappointment (if such it were) to which time must, long ago, have
reconciled him. Mrs. Coleridge, if not turning to him the more amiable
aspects of her character, was at any rate a respectable partner. And the
season of youth was now passed. They had been married about ten years;
had had four children, of whom three survived; and the interests of a father
were now replacing those of a husband. Yet never had I beheld so profound
an expression of cheerless despondency. And the restless activity of
Coleridge's mind, in chasing abstract truths, and burying himself in the dark
places of human speculation, seemed to me, in a great measure, an attempt
to escape out of his own personal wretchedness. I was right. In this
instance, at least, I had hit the mark; and Coleridge bore witness himself at
an after period to the truth of my divination by some impressive verses. At
dinner, when a very numerous party had assembled, he knew that he was

expected to talk, and exerted himself to meet the expectation. But he was
evidently struggling with gloomy thoughts that prompted him to silence,
and perhaps to solitude: he talked with effort, and passively resigned
himself to the repeated misrepresentations of several amongst his hearers.
The subject chiefly discussed was Arthur Young, not for his Rural
Economy, but for his Politics.[50] It must be to this period of Coleridge's life
that Wordsworth refers in those exquisite "Lines written in my pocket copy
of the 'Castle of Indolence.'" The passage which I mean comes after a
description of Coleridge's countenance, and begins in some such terms as
these:—

"A piteous sight it was to see this man,
When he came back to us, a wither'd flow'r," &c.

Withered he was, indeed, and to all appearance blighted. At night he entered
into a spontaneous explanation of this unhappy overclouding of his life, on
occasion of my saying accidentally that a toothache had obliged me to take
a few drops of laudanum. At what time or on what motive he had
commenced the use of opium, he did not say; but the peculiar emphasis of
horror with which he warned me against forming a habit of the same kind
impressed upon my mind a feeling that he never hoped to liberate himself
from the bondage. My belief is that he never did. About ten o'clock at night
I took leave of him; and, feeling that I could not easily go to sleep after the
excitement of the day, and fresh from the sad spectacle of powers so
majestic already besieged by decay, I determined to return to Bristol
through the coolness of the night. The roads, though, in fact, a section of the
great highway between seaports so turbulent as Bristol and Plymouth, were
as quiet as garden-walks. Once only I passed through the expiring fires of a
village fair or wake: that interruption excepted, through the whole stretch of
forty miles from Bridgewater to the Hot-wells, I saw no living creature but
a surly dog, who followed me for a mile along a park-wall, and a man, who
was moving about in the half-way town of Cross. The turnpike-gates were
all opened by a mechanical contrivance from a bedroom window; I seemed
to myself in solitary possession of the whole sleeping country. The summer
night was divinely calm; no sound, except once or twice the cry of a child
as I was passing the windows of cottages, ever broke upon the utter silence;

and all things conspired to throw back my thoughts upon that extraordinary
man whom I had just quitted.
The fine saying of Addison is familiar to most readers—that Babylon in
ruins is not so affecting a spectacle, or so solemn, as a human mind
overthrown by lunacy. How much more awful, then, when a mind so regal
as that of Coleridge is overthrown, or threatened with overthrow, not by a
visitation of Providence, but by the treachery of its own will, and by the
conspiracy, as it were, of himself against himself! Was it possible that this
ruin had been caused or hurried forward by the dismal degradations of
pecuniary difficulties? That was worth inquiring. I will here mention briefly
that I did inquire two days after; and, in consequence of what I heard, I
contrived that a particular service should be rendered to Mr. Coleridge, a
week after, through the hands of Mr. Cottle of Bristol, which might have the
effect of liberating his mind from anxiety for a year or two, and thus
rendering his great powers disposable to their natural uses. That service was
accepted by Coleridge.[51] To save him any feelings of distress, all names
were concealed; but, in a letter written by him about fifteen years after that
time, I found that he had become aware of all the circumstances, perhaps
through some indiscretion of Mr. Cottle's. A more important question I
never ascertained, viz. whether this service had the effect of seriously
lightening his mind. For some succeeding years, he did certainly appear to
me released from that load of despondency which oppressed him on my
first introduction. Grave, indeed, he continued to be, and at times absorbed
in gloom; nor did I ever see him in a state of perfectly natural cheerfulness.
But, as he strove in vain, for many years, to wean himself from his captivity
to opium, a healthy state of spirits could not be much expected. Perhaps,
indeed, where the liver and other organs had, for so large a period in life,
been subject to a continual morbid stimulation, it might be impossible for
the system ever to recover a natural action. Torpor, I suppose, must result
from continued artificial excitement; and, perhaps, upon a scale of
corresponding duration. Life, in such a case, may not offer a field of
sufficient extent for unthreading the fatal links that have been wound about
the machinery of health, and have crippled its natural play.
Meantime—to resume the thread of my wandering narrative—on this
serene summer night of 1807, as I moved slowly along, with my eyes
continually settling upon the northern constellations, which, like all the

fixed stars, by their immeasurable and almost spiritual remoteness from
human affairs, naturally throw the thoughts upon the perishableness of our
earthly troubles, in contrast with their own utter peace and solemnity—I
reverted, at intervals, to all I had ever heard of Coleridge, and strove to
weave it into some continuous sketch of his life. I hardly remember how
much I then knew; I know but little now: that little I will here jot down
upon paper.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the son of a learned clergyman—the vicar of
Ottery St. Mary, in the southern quarter of Devonshire.[52] It is painful to
mention that he was almost an object of persecution to his mother; why, I
could never learn. His father was described to me, by Coleridge himself, as
a sort of Parson Adams, being distinguished by his erudition, his
inexperience of the world, and his guileless simplicity. I once purchased in
London, and, I suppose, still possess, two elementary books on the Latin
language by this reverend gentleman; one of them, as I found, making
somewhat higher pretensions than a common school grammar.[53] In
particular, an attempt is made to reform the theory of the cases; and it gives
a pleasant specimen of the rustic scholar's naïveté, that he seriously
proposes to banish such vexatious terms as the accusative; and, by way of
simplifying the matter to tender minds, that we should call it, in all time to
come, the "quale-quare-quidditive" case, upon what incomprehensible
principle I never could fathom. He used regularly to delight his village
flock, on Sundays, with Hebrew quotations in his sermons, which he always
introduced as the "immediate language of the Holy Ghost." This proved
unfortunate to his successor: he also was a learned man, and his
parishioners admitted it, but generally with a sigh for past times, and a
sorrowful complaint that he was still far below Parson Coleridge—for that
he never gave them any "immediate language of the Holy Ghost." I
presume that, like the reverend gentleman so pleasantly sketched in "St.
Ronan's Well," Mr. Coleridge, who resembled that person in his oriental
learning, in his absence of mind, and in his simplicity, must also have
resembled him in shortsightedness, of which his son used to relate this
ludicrous instance. Dining in a large party, one day, the modest divine was
suddenly shocked by perceiving some part, as he conceived, of his own
snowy shirt emerging from a part of his habiliments, which we will suppose
to have been his waistcoat. It was not that; but for decorum we will so call

it. The stray portion of his own supposed tunic was admonished of its errors
by a forcible thrust back into its proper home; but still another limbus
persisted to emerge, or seemed to persist, and still another, until the learned
gentleman absolutely perspired with the labour of re-establishing order.
And, after all, he saw with anguish that some arrears of the snowy
indecorum still remained to reduce into obedience. To this remnant of
rebellion he was proceeding to apply himself—strangely confounded,
however, at the obstinacy of the insurrection—when, the mistress of the
house rising to lead away the ladies from the table, and all parties naturally
rising with her, it became suddenly apparent to every eye that the worthy
Orientalist had been most laboriously stowing away into the capacious
receptacles of his own habiliments—under the delusion that it was his own
shirt—the snowy folds of a lady's gown, belonging to his next neighbour;
and so voluminously that a very small portion of it, indeed, remained for the
lady's own use; the natural consequence of which was, of course, that the
lady appeared inextricably yoked to the learned theologian, and could not in
any way effect her release, until after certain operations upon the vicar's
dress, and a continued refunding and rolling out of snowy mazes upon
snowy mazes, in quantities which at length proved too much for the gravity
of the company. Inextinguishable laughter arose from all parties, except the
erring and unhappy doctor, who, in dire perplexity, continued still refunding
with all his might—perspiring and refunding—until he had paid up the last
arrears of his long debt, and thus put an end to a case of distress more
memorable to himself and his parishioners than any "quale-quare-
quidditive" case that probably had ever perplexed his learning.
In his childish days, and when he had become an orphan, Coleridge was
removed to the heart of London, and placed on the great foundation of
Christ's Hospital.[54] He there found himself associated, as a school-fellow,
with several boys destined to distinction in after life; particularly the
brilliant Leigh Hunt, and more closely with one who, if not endowed with
powers equally large and comprehensive as his own, had, however, genius
not less original or exquisite—viz. the inimitable Charles Lamb. But, in
learning, Coleridge outstripped all competitors, and rose to be the captain of
the school. It is, indeed, a memorable fact to be recorded of a boy, that,
before completing his fifteenth year, he had translated the Greek Hymns of
Synesius into English Anacreontic verse. This was not a school task, but a

labour of love and choice. Before leaving school, Coleridge had an
opportunity of reading the sonnets of Bowles, which so powerfully
impressed his poetic sensibility that he made forty transcripts of them with
his own pen, by way of presents to youthful friends. From Christ's Hospital,
by the privilege of his station at school, he was transferred to Jesus College,
Cambridge.[55] It was here, no doubt, that his acquaintance began with the
philosophic system of Hartley, for that eminent person had been a Jesus
man. Frend also, the mathematician, of heretical memory (he was judicially
tried, and expelled from his fellowship, on some issue connected with the
doctrine of the Trinity), belonged to that college, and was probably
contemporary with Coleridge.[56] What accident, or imprudence, carried him
away from Cambridge before he had completed the usual period of study, I
never heard. He had certainly won some distinction as a scholar, having
obtained the prize for a Greek ode in Sapphic metre, of which the
sentiments (as he observes himself) were better than the Greek. Porson was
accustomed, meanly enough, to ridicule the Greek lexis of this ode; which
was to break a fly upon the wheel. The ode was clever enough for a boy;
but to such skill in Greek as could have enabled him to compose with
critical accuracy Coleridge never made pretensions.
The incidents of Coleridge's life about this period, and some account of a
heavy disappointment in love, which probably it was that carried him away
from Cambridge, are to be found embodied (with what modifications I
know not) in the novel of "Edmund Oliver," written by Charles Lloyd. It is
well known that, in a frenzy of unhappy feeling at the rejection he met with
from the lady of his choice, Coleridge enlisted as a private into a dragoon
regiment.[57] He fell off his horse on several occasions, but perhaps not more
than raw recruits are apt to do when first put under the riding-master. But
Coleridge was naturally ill framed for a good horseman.
He is also represented in "Edmund Oliver" as having found peculiar
difficulty or annoyance in grooming his horse. But the most romantic
incident in that scene of his life was in the circumstances of his discharge. It
is said (but I vouch for no part of the story) that Coleridge, as a private,
mounted guard at the door of a room in which his officers were giving a
ball. Two of them had a dispute upon some Greek word or passage when
close to Coleridge's station. He interposed his authentic decision of the case.
The officers stared as though one of their own horses had sung "Rule

Britannia"; questioned him; heard his story; pitied his misfortune; and
finally subscribed to purchase his discharge. So the story has been told; and
also otherwise.[58] Not very long after this, Coleridge became acquainted
with the two celebrated Wedgwoods of Etruria, both of whom, admiring his
fine powers, subscribed to send him into North Germany, where, at the
University of Göttingen, he completed his education according to his own
scheme. The most celebrated professor whose lectures he attended was the
far-famed Blumenbach, of whom he continued to speak through life with
almost filial reverence. Returning to England, he attended Mr. Thomas
Wedgwood, as a friend, throughout the afflicting and anomalous illness
which brought him to the grave. It was supposed by medical men that the
cause of Mr. Wedgwood's continued misery was a stricture of the colon.
The external symptoms were torpor and morbid irritability, together with
everlasting restlessness. By way of some relief to this latter symptom, Mr.
Wedgwood purchased a travelling carriage, and wandered up and down
England, taking Coleridge as his companion. And, as a desperate attempt to
rouse and irritate the decaying sensibility of his system, I have been
assured, by a surviving friend, that Mr. Wedgwood at one time opened a
butcher's shop, conceiving that the affronts and disputes to which such a
situation would expose him might act beneficially upon his increasing
torpor. This strange expedient[59] served only to express the anguish which
had now mastered his nature; it was soon abandoned; and this accomplished
but miserable man at length sank under his sufferings. What made the case
more memorable was the combination of worldly prosperity which forced
into strong relief and fiery contrast this curse written in the flesh. He was
rich, he was young, he was popular, distinguished for his scientific
attainments, publicly honoured for patriotic services, and had before him,
when he first fell ill, every prospect of a career even nationally splendid.
By the death of Mr. Wedgwood, Coleridge succeeded to a regular annuity of
£75, which that gentleman had bequeathed to him. The other Mr.
Wedgwood granted him an equal allowance. Now came his marriage, his
connexion with politics and political journals, his residence in various parts
of Somersetshire, and his consequent introduction to Mr. Wordsworth. In
his politics, Mr. Coleridge was most sincere and most enthusiastic. No man
hailed with profounder sympathy the French Revolution; and, though he
saw cause to withdraw his regard from many of the democratic zealots in

this country, and even from the revolutionary interest as it was subsequently
conducted, he continued to worship the original revolutionary cause in a
pure Miltonic spirit; and he continued also to abominate the policy of Mr.
Pitt in a degree which I myself find it difficult to understand. The very
spirited little poem of "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter," who are supposed to
meet in conference, to describe their horrid triumphs, and then to ask in a
whisper who it was that unchained them,—to which each in turn replies,

"Letters four do form his name!"—

expresses his horror of Mr. Pitt personally in a most extravagant shape, but
merely for the purpose of poetic effect; for he had no real unkindness in his
heart towards any human being; and I have often heard him disclaim the
hatred which is here expressed for Mr. Pitt, as he did also very elaborately
and earnestly in print. Somewhere about this time, Coleridge attempted,
under Sheridan's countenance, to bring a tragedy upon the stage of Drury
Lane; but his prospect of success, as I once heard or read, was suddenly
marred by Mr. Sheridan's inability to sacrifice what he thought a good jest.
One scene presented a cave with streams of water weeping down the sides;
and the first words were, in a sort of mimicry of the sound, "Drip, drip,
drip!" Upon which Sheridan repeated aloud to the assembled green-room,
expressly convoked for the purpose of hearing the play read, "Drip, drip,
drip!—why, God bless me, there's nothing here but dripping!" and so arose
a chorus of laughter amongst the actors fatal for the moment to the
probationary play.
About the latter end of the century, Coleridge visited North Germany again,
in company with Mr. and Miss Wordsworth.[60] Their tour was chiefly
confined to the Hartz Forest and its neighbourhood. But the incident most
worthy of remembrance in their excursion was a visit made to Klopstock;
either at Hamburgh, or, perhaps, at the Danish town of Altona, on the same
river Elbe; for Klopstock was a pensioner of the Danish king. An
anonymous writer, who attacked Coleridge most truculently in an early
number of "Blackwood," and with an acharnement that must astonish the
neutral reader, has made the mistake of supposing Coleridge to have been
the chief speaker, who did not speak at all. The case was this: Klopstock
could not speak English, though everybody remembers the pretty broken
English[61] of his second wife. Neither Coleridge nor Wordsworth, on the

other hand, was able to speak German with any fluency. French, therefore,
was the only medium of free communication; that being pretty equally
familiar to Wordsworth and to Klopstock. But Coleridge found so much
difficulty even in reading French that, wherever (as in the case of Leibnitz's
"Theodicée") there was a choice between an original written in French and
a translation, though it might be a very faulty one, in German, he always
preferred the latter. Hence it happened that Wordsworth, on behalf of the
English party, was the sole supporter of the dialogue. The anonymous critic
says another thing, which certainly has an air of truth—viz. that Klopstock
plays a very secondary rôle in the interview (or words to that effect). But
how was this to be avoided in reporting the case, supposing the fact to have
been such? Now, the plain truth is that Wordsworth, upon his own ground,
was an incomparable talker; whereas "Klubstick" (as Coleridge used to call
him) was always a feeble and slovenly one, because a loose and incoherent
thinker. Besides, he was now old and decaying. Nor at any time, nor in any
accomplishment, could Klopstock have shone, unless in the respectable art
of skating. There he had a real advantage. The author of "The Messiah," I
have authority for saying, skated with the ease and grace of a regular artist;
whereas the poet of the "Excursion" sprawled upon the ice like a cow
dancing a cotillon. Wordsworth did the very opposite of that with which he
was taxed; for, happening to look down at Klopstock's swollen legs, and
recollecting his age, he felt touched by a sort of filial pity for his
helplessness. And he came to the conclusion that it would not seem
becoming in a young and as yet obscure author to report too consciously the
real superiority which he found it easy to maintain in such a colloquy.
But neither had Klopstock the pretensions as a poet which the Blackwood
writer seems to take for granted. Germany, the truth is, wanted a great epic
poet. Not having produced one in that early and plastic stage of her literary
soil when such a growth is natural and spontaneous, the next thing was to
bespeak a substitute. The force of Coleridge's well-known repartee, when,
in reply to a foreigner asserting for Klopstock the rank of German Milton,
he said, "True, sir; a very German Milton," cannot be fully appreciated but
by one who is familiar with the German poetry, and the small proportion in
which it is a natural, racy, and domestic growth. It has been often noticed as
the misfortune of the Roman literature that it grew up too much under the
oppression of Grecian models, and of Grecian models depraved by

Alexandrian art—a fact, so far as it was a fact, which tended to cripple the
genial and characteristic spirit of the national mind. But this evil, after all,
did not take effect except in a partial sense. Rome had cast much of her
literature in her own moulds before these exotic models had begun to
domineer. In fact, the reproach is in a very narrow sense true. Not so with
Germany. Her literature, since its revival in the last century (and the revival
upon the impulse of what cattle!—Bodmer on the one hand, and Gottsched,
the never-enough-to-be-despised Gottsched, on the other!) has hardly
moved a step in the freedom of natural grace. England for nineteen, and
France for the twentieth, of all her capital works, has given the too servile
law: and, with regard to Klopstock, if ever there was a good exemplification
of the spurious and the counterfeit in literature, seek it in "The Messiah."
He is verily and indeed the Birmingham Milton. This Klopstockian
dialogue, by the way, was first printed (hardly published) in the original, or
Lake edition of "The Friend." In the recast of that work it was omitted; nor
has it been printed anywhere else that I am aware of.
About the close of the first revolutionary war it must have been, or in the
brief interval of peace, that Coleridge resorted to the English Lakes as a
place of residence.[62] Wordsworth had a natural connexion with that region,
by birth, breeding, and family alliances. Wordsworth must have attracted
Coleridge to the Lakes; and Coleridge, through his affinity to Southey,
eventually attracted him. Southey, as is known to all who take an interest in
the Lake colony, married a sister of Mrs. Coleridge's; and, as a singular
eccentricity in the circumstances of that marriage, I may mention that, on
his wedding-day, and from the very portico of the church, Southey left his
bride to embark for Lisbon. His uncle, Dr. Herbert, was chaplain to the
English factory in that city; and it was to benefit by the facilities in that way
opened to him for seeing Portugal that Southey now went abroad. He
extended his tour to Spain; and the result of his notices was communicated
to the world in a volume of travels. By such accidents of personal or family
connexion as I have mentioned was the Lake colony gathered; and the
critics of the day, unaware of the real facts, supposed them to have
assembled under common views in literature—particularly with regard to
the true functions of poetry, and the true theory of poetic diction. Under this
original blunder, laughable it is to mention that they went on to find in their
writings all the agreements and common characteristics which their blunder

had presumed; and they incorporated the whole community under the name
of the Lake School. Yet Wordsworth and Southey never had one principle in
common; their hostility was even flagrant. Indeed, Southey troubled himself
little about abstract principles in anything; and, so far from agreeing with
Wordsworth to the extent of setting up a separate school in poetry, he told
me himself (August 1812) that he highly disapproved both of Mr.
Wordsworth's theories and of his practice. It is very true that one man may
sympathize with another, or even follow his leading, unconscious that he
does so; or he may go so far as, in the very act of virtual imitation, to deem
himself in opposition; but this sort of blind agreement could hardly be
supposed of two men so discerning and so self-examining as Wordsworth
and Southey. And, in fact, a philosophic investigation of the difficult
questions connected with this whole slang about schools, Lake schools,
&c., would show that Southey has not, nor ever had, any peculiarities in
common with Wordsworth, beyond that of exchanging the old prescriptive
diction of poetry, introduced between the periods of Milton and Cowper, for
the simpler and profounder forms of daily life in some instances, and of the
Bible in others. The bold and uniform practice of Wordsworth was here
adopted, on perfectly independent views, by Southey. In this respect,
however, Cowper had already begun the reform; and his influence,
concurring with the now larger influence of Wordsworth, has operated so
extensively as to make their own original differences at this day less
perceptible.
By the way, the word colony reminds me that I have omitted to mention in
its proper place some scheme for migrating to America which had been
entertained by Coleridge and Southey about the year 1794-95, under the
learned name of Pantisocracy. So far as I ever heard, it differed little,
except in its Grecian name, from any other scheme for mitigating the
privations of a wilderness by settling in a cluster of families, bound together
by congenial tastes and uniform principles, rather than in self-depending,
insulated households. Steadily pursued, it might, after all, have been a
fortunate plan for Coleridge. "Soliciting my food from daily toil," a line in
which Coleridge alludes to the scheme, implies a condition of life that
would have upheld Coleridge's health and happiness somewhat better than
the habits of luxurious city life as now constituted in Europe. But,
returning[63] to the Lakes, and to the Lake colony of poets: So little were

Southey and Wordsworth connected by any personal intercourse in those
days, and so little disposed to be connected, that, whilst the latter had a
cottage in Grasmere, Southey pitched his tent at Greta Hall, on a little
eminence rising immediately from the river Greta and the town of Keswick.
Grasmere is in Westmoreland; Keswick in Cumberland; and they are
thirteen good miles apart. Coleridge and his family were domiciliated in
Greta Hall; sharing that house, a tolerably large one, on some principle of
amicable division, with Mr. Southey. But Coleridge personally was more
often to be found at Grasmere—which presented the threefold attractions of
loveliness so complete as to eclipse even the scenery of Derwentwater; a
pastoral state of society, free from the deformities of a little town like
Keswick; and, finally, for Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the society of
Wordsworth. Not before 1815 or 1816 could it be said that Southey and
Wordsworth were even upon friendly terms; so entirely is it untrue that they
combined to frame a school of poetry. Up to that time, they viewed each
other with mutual respect, but also with mutual dislike; almost, I might say,
with mutual disgust. Wordsworth disliked in Southey the want of depth, or
the apparent want, as regards the power of philosophic abstraction. Southey
disliked in Wordsworth the air of dogmatism, and the unaffable haughtiness
of his manner. Other more trivial reasons combined with these.
At this time, when Coleridge first settled at the Lakes, or not long after, a
romantic and somewhat tragical affair drew the eyes of all England, and, for
many years, continued to draw the steps of tourists, to one of the most
secluded Cumberland valleys, so little visited previously that it might be
described almost as an undiscovered chamber of that romantic district.
Coleridge was brought into a closer connexion with this affair than merely
by the general relation of neighbourhood; for an article of his in a morning
paper, I believe, unintentionally furnished the original clue for unmasking
the base impostor who figured as the central actor in this tale. The tale was
at that time dramatized, and scenically represented by some of the minor
theatres in London, as noticed by Wordsworth in the "Prelude." But other
generations have arisen since that time, who must naturally be unacquainted
with the circumstances; and on their account I will here recall them:—One
day in the Lake season there drove up to the Royal Oak, the principal inn at
Keswick, a handsome and well-appointed travelling carriage, containing
one gentleman of somewhat dashing exterior. The stranger was a

picturesque-hunter, but not of that order who fly round the ordinary tour
with the velocity of lovers posting to Gretna, or of criminals running from
the police; his purpose was to domiciliate himself in this beautiful scenery,
and to see it at his leisure. From Keswick, as his head-quarters, he made
excursions in every direction amongst the neighbouring valleys; meeting
generally a good deal of respect and attention, partly on account of his
handsome equipage, and still more from his visiting cards, which
designated him as "The Hon. Augustus Hope." Under this name, he gave
himself out for a brother of Lord Hopetoun's. Some persons had
discernment enough to doubt of this; for the man's breeding and
deportment, though showy, had an under-tone of vulgarity about it; and
Coleridge assured me that he was grossly ungrammatical in his ordinary
conversation. However, one fact, soon dispersed by the people of a little
rustic post-office, laid asleep all demurs; he not only received letters
addressed to him under this assumed name—that might be through
collusion with accomplices—but he himself continually franked letters by
that name. Now, this being a capital offence, being not only a forgery, but
(as a forgery on the Post-Office) sure to be prosecuted, nobody presumed to
question his pretensions any longer; and, henceforward, he went to all
places with the consideration attached to an earl's brother. All doors flew
open at his approach; boats, boatmen, nets, and the most unlimited sporting
privileges, were placed at the disposal of the "Honourable" gentleman: and
the hospitality of the district was put on its mettle, in offering a suitable
reception to the patrician Scotsman. It could be no blame to a shepherd girl,
bred in the sternest solitude which England has to show, that she should fall
into a snare which many of her betters had not escaped. Nine miles from
Keswick, by the nearest bridle-road through Newlands, but fourteen or
fifteen by any route which the honourable gentleman's travelling-carriage
could traverse, lies the Lake of Buttermere. Its margin, which is overhung
by some of the loftiest and steepest of the Cumbrian mountains, exhibits on
either side few traces of human neighbourhood; the level area, where the
hills recede enough to allow of any, is of a wild pastoral character, or almost
savage; the waters of the lake are deep and sullen; and the barrier
mountains, by excluding the sun for much of his daily course, strengthen
the gloomy impressions. At the foot of this lake (that is, at the end where its
waters issue) lie a few unornamented fields, through which rolls a little
brook-like river, connecting it with the larger lake of Crummock; and at the

edge of this miniature domain, upon the roadside, stands a cluster of
cottages, so small and few that in the richer tracts of England they would
scarcely be complimented with the name of hamlet. One of these, and I
believe the principal, belonged to an independent proprietor, called, in the
local dialect, a "Statesman"[64]; and more, perhaps, for the sake of attracting
a little society than with much view to pecuniary profit at that era, this
cottage offered the accommodations of an inn to the traveller and his horse.
Rare, however, must have been the mounted traveller in those days, unless
visiting Buttermere for itself, and as a terminus ad quem; since the road led
to no further habitations of man, with the exception of some four or five
pastoral cabins, equally humble, in Gatesgarthdale.
Hither, however, in an evil hour for the peace of this little brotherhood of
shepherds, came the cruel spoiler from Keswick. His errand was, to witness
or to share in the char-fishing; for in Derwentwater (the Lake of Keswick)
no char is found, which breeds only in the deep waters, such as
Windermere, Crummock, Buttermere, and Coniston—never in the shallow
ones. But, whatever had been his first object, that was speedily forgotten in
one more deeply interesting. The daughter of the house, a fine young
woman of eighteen, acted as waiter.[65] In a situation so solitary, the stranger
had unlimited facilities for enjoying her company, and recommending
himself to her favour. Doubts about his pretensions never arose in so simple
a place as this; they were overruled before they could well have arisen by
the opinion now general in Keswick, that he really was what he pretended
to be: and thus, with little demur, except in the shape of a few natural words
of parting anger from a defeated or rejected rustic admirer, the young
woman gave her hand in marriage to the showy and unprincipled stranger. I
know not whether the marriage was, or could have been, celebrated in the
little mountain chapel of Buttermere. If it were, I persuade myself that the
most hardened villain must have felt a momentary pang on violating the
altar of such a chapel; so touchingly does it express, by its miniature
dimensions, the almost helpless humility of that little pastoral community to
whose spiritual wants it has from generation to generation administered. It
is not only the very smallest chapel by many degrees in all England, but is
so mere a toy in outward appearance that, were it not for its antiquity, its
wild mountain exposure, and its consecrated connexion with the final hopes
and fears of the adjacent pastoral hamlet—but for these considerations, the

first movement of a stranger's feelings would be towards loud laughter; for
the little chapel looks not so much a mimic chapel in a drop-scene from the
Opera House as a miniature copy from such a scene; and evidently could
not receive within its walls more than half a dozen of households. From this
sanctuary it was—from beneath the maternal shadow, if not from the very
altar,[66] of this lonely chapel—that the heartless villain carried off the
flower of the mountains. Between this place and Keswick they continued to
move backwards and forwards, until at length, with the startling of a
thunder-clap to the affrighted mountaineers, the bubble burst: officers of
justice appeared: the stranger was easily intercepted from flight, and, upon a
capital charge, was borne away to Carlisle. At the ensuing assizes he was
tried for forgery on the prosecution of the Post-Office, found guilty, left for
execution, and executed accordingly.[67] On the day of his condemnation,
Wordsworth and Coleridge passed through Carlisle, and endeavoured to
obtain an interview with him. Wordsworth succeeded; but, for some
unknown reason, the prisoner steadily refused to see Coleridge; a caprice
which could not be penetrated. It is true that he had, during his whole
residence at Keswick, avoided Coleridge with a solicitude which had
revived the original suspicions against him in some quarters, after they had
generally gone to sleep. But for this his motive had then been sufficient: he
was of a Devonshire family, and naturally feared the eye, or the inquisitive
examination of one who bore a name immemorially associated with the
southern part of that county.
Coleridge, however, had been transplanted so immaturely from his native
region that few people in England knew less of its family connexions. That,
perhaps, was unknown to this malefactor; but, at any rate, he knew that all
motive was now at an end for disguise of any sort; so that his reserve, in
this particular, had now become unintelligible. However, if not him,
Coleridge saw and examined his very interesting papers. These were chiefly
letters from women whom he had injured, pretty much in the same way, and
by the same impostures, as he had so recently practised in Cumberland;
and, as Coleridge assured me, were in part the most agonizing appeals that
he had ever read to human justice and pity. The man's real name was, I
think, Hatfield. And amongst the papers were two separate
correspondences, of some length, with two young women, apparently of
superior condition in life (one the daughter of an English clergyman), whom

this villain had deluded by marriage, and, after some cohabitation,
abandoned,—one of them with a family of young children. Great was the
emotion of Coleridge when he recurred to his remembrance of these letters,
and bitter, almost vindictive, was the indignation with which he spoke of
Hatfield. One set of letters appeared to have been written under too certain
a knowledge of his villany to whom they were addressed; though still
relying on some possible remains of humanity, or perhaps (the poor writer
might think) on some lingering preference for herself. The other set was
even more distressing; they were written under the first conflicts of
suspicions, alternately repelling with warmth the gloomy doubts which
were fast arising, and then yielding to their afflicting evidence; raving in
one page under the misery of alarm, in another courting the delusions of
hope, and luring back the perfidious deserter,—here resigning herself to
despair, and there again labouring to show that all might yet be well.
Coleridge said often, in looking back upon that frightful exposure of human
guilt and misery, that the man who, when pursued by these heart-rending
apostrophes, and with this litany of anguish sounding in his ears, from
despairing women and from famishing children, could yet find it possible to
enjoy the calm pleasures of a Lake tourist, and deliberately to hunt for the
picturesque, must have been a fiend of that order which fortunately does not
often emerge amongst men. It is painful to remember that, in those days,
amongst the multitudes who ended their career in the same ignominious
way, and the majority for offences connected with the forgery of bank
notes, there must have been a considerable number who perished from the
very opposite cause—viz., because they felt, too passionately and
profoundly for prudence, the claims of those who looked up to them for
support. One common scaffold confounds the most flinty hearts and the
tenderest. However, in this instance, it was in some measure the heartless
part of Hatfield's conduct which drew upon him his ruin: for the
Cumberland jury honestly declared their unwillingness to hang him for
having forged a frank; and both they, and those who refused to aid his
escape when first apprehended, were reconciled to this harshness entirely
by what they heard of his conduct to their injured young fellow-
countrywoman.
She, meantime, under the name of The Beauty of Buttermere, became an
object of interest to all England; melodramas were produced in the London

suburban[68] theatres upon her story; and, for many a year afterwards, shoals
of tourists crowded to the secluded lake, and the little homely cabaret,
which had been the scene of her brief romance; It was fortunate for a person
in her distressing situation that her home was not in a town: the few and
simple neighbours, who had witnessed her imaginary elevation, having little
knowledge of worldly feelings, never for an instant connected with her
disappointment any sense of the ludicrous, or spoke of it as a calamity to
which her vanity might have co-operated. They treated it as unmixed injury,
reflecting shame upon nobody but the wicked perpetrator. Hence, without
much trial to her womanly sensibilities, she found herself able to resume
her situation in the little inn; and this she continued to hold for many years.
In that place, and that capacity, I saw her repeatedly, and shall here say a
word upon her personal appearance, because the Lake poets all admired her
greatly. Her figure was, in my eyes, good; but I doubt whether most of my
readers would have thought it such. She was none of your evanescent,
wasp-waisted beauties; on the contrary, she was rather large every way;
tallish, and proportionably broad. Her face was fair, and her features
feminine; and, unquestionably, she was what all the world would have
agreed to call "good-looking." But, except in her arms, which had
something of a statuesque beauty, and in her carriage, which expressed a
womanly grace, together with some degree of dignity and self-possession, I
confess that I looked in vain for any positive qualities of any sort or degree.
Beautiful, in any emphatic sense, she was not. Everything about her face
and bust was negative; simply without offence. Even this, however, was
more than could be said at all times; for the expression of her countenance
could be disagreeable. This arose out of her situation; connected as it was
with defective sensibility and a misdirected pride. Nothing operates so
differently upon different minds and different styles of beauty as the
inquisitive gaze of strangers, whether in the spirit of respectful admiration
or of insolence. Some I have seen upon whose angelic beauty this sort of
confusion settled advantageously, and like a softening veil; others, in whom
it meets with proud resentment, are sometimes disfigured by it. In Mary of
Buttermere it roused mere anger and disdain; which, meeting with the sense
of her humble and dependent situation, gave birth to a most unhappy aspect
of countenance. Men who had no touch of a gentleman's nature in their
composition sometimes insulted her by looks and by words, supposing that
they purchased the right to do this by an extra half-crown; and she too

readily attributed the same spirit of impertinent curiosity to every man
whose eyes happened to settle steadily upon her face. Yet, once at least, I
must have seen her under the most favourable circumstances: for, on my
first visit to Buttermere, I had the pleasure of Mr. Southey's company, who
was incapable of wounding anybody's feelings, and to Mary, in particular,
was well known by kind attentions, and I believe by some services. Then, at
least, I saw her to advantage, and perhaps, for a figure of her build, at the
best age; for it was about nine or ten years after her misfortune, when she
might be twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. We were alone, a solitary
pair of tourists: nothing arose to confuse or distress her. She waited upon us
at dinner, and talked to us freely. "This is a respectable young woman," I
said to myself; but nothing of that enthusiasm could I feel which beauty,
such as I have beheld at the Lakes, would have been apt to raise under a
similar misfortune. One lady, not very scrupulous in her embellishments of
facts, used to tell an anecdote of her which I hope was exaggerated. Some
friend of hers (as she affirmed), in company with a large party, visited
Buttermere within one day after that upon which Hatfield suffered; and she
protested that Mary threw upon the table, with an emphatic gesture, the
Carlisle paper containing an elaborate account of his execution.
It is an instance of Coleridge's carelessness that he, who had as little of
fixed ill-nature in his temper as any person whom I have ever known,
managed, in reporting this story at the time of its occurrence, to get himself
hooked into a personal quarrel, which hung over his head unsettled for nine
or ten years. A Liverpool merchant, who was then meditating a house in the
Vale of Grasmere, and perhaps might have incurred Coleridge's anger by
thus disturbing, with inappropriate intrusions, this loveliest of all English
landscapes, had connected himself a good deal with Hatfield during his
Keswick masquerade; and was said even to have carried his regard to that
villain so far as to have christened one of his own children by the names of
"Augustus Hope." With these and other circumstances, expressing the
extent of the infatuation amongst the swindler's dupes, Coleridge made the
public merry. Naturally, the Liverpool merchant was not amongst those who
admired the facetiousness of Coleridge on this occasion, but swore
vengeance whenever they should meet. They never did meet, until ten years
had gone by; and then, oddly enough, it was in the Liverpool man's own
house—in that very nuisance of a house which had, I suppose, first armed

Coleridge's wrath against him. This house, by time and accident, in no very
wonderful way, had passed into the hands of Wordsworth as tenant.
Coleridge, as was still less wonderful, had become the visitor of
Wordsworth on returning from Malta; and the Liverpool merchant, as was
also natural, either seeking his rent, or on the general errand of a friendly
visit, calling upon Wordsworth, met Coleridge in the hall. Now came the
hour for settling old accounts. I was present, and can report the case. Both
looked grave, and coloured a little. But ten years work wonders: an
armistice of that duration heals many a wound; and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, requesting his enemy's company in the garden, entered upon a
long metaphysical dissertation, bordering upon what you might call
philosophical rigmarole, and rather puzzling to answer. It seemed to be an
expansion, by Thomas Aquinas, of that parody upon a well-known passage
in Shenstone, where the writer says—

"He kick'd me down-stairs with such a sweet grace
That I thought he was handing me up."

And, in the upshot, this conclusion eventuated (to speak Yankeeishly), that
purely on principles of good neighbourhood and universal philanthropy
could Coleridge have meditated or executed the insult offered in the
"Morning Post." The Liverpool merchant rubbed his forehead, and seemed
a little perplexed; but he was a most good-natured man; and he was
eminently a gentleman. At length, considering, perhaps, how very like Duns
Scotus, or Albertus Magnus, Coleridge had shown himself in this luminous
explanation, he might begin to reflect that, had any one of those
distinguished men offered a similar affront, it would have been impossible
to resent it; for who could think of kicking the "Doctor Seraphicus," or
would it tell to any man's advantage in history that he had caned Thomas
Aquinas? On these principles, therefore, without saying one word,
Liverpoliensis held out his hand, and a lasting reconciliation followed.
Not very long, I believe, after this affair of Hatfield, Coleridge went to
Malta.[69] His inducement to such a step must have been merely a desire to
see the most interesting regions of the Mediterranean under the shelter and
advantageous introduction of an official station. It was, however, an
unfortunate chapter of his life: for, being necessarily thrown a good deal
upon his own resources in the narrow society of a garrison, he there

confirmed and cherished, if he did not there form, his habit of taking opium
in large quantities. I am the last person in the world to press conclusions
harshly or uncandidly against Coleridge; but I believe it to be notorious that
he first began the use of opium, not as a relief from any bodily pains or
nervous irritations (since his constitution was strong and excellent), but as a
source of luxurious sensations. It is a great misfortune, at least it is a great
peril, to have tasted the enchanted cup of youthful rapture incident to the
poetic temperament. That fountain of high-wrought sensibility once
unlocked experimentally, it is rare to see a submission afterwards to the
insipidities of daily life. Coleridge, to speak in the words of Cervantes,
wanted better bread than was made of wheat; and, when youthful blood no
longer sustained the riot of his animal spirits, he endeavoured to excite them
by artificial stimulants.
At Malta he became acquainted with Commodore Decatur and other
Americans of distinction; and this brought him afterwards into connexion
with Allston, the American artist. Of Sir Alexander Ball, one of Lord
Nelson's captains in the battle of the Nile, and Governor of Malta, he spoke
and wrote uniformly in a lavish style of panegyric, for which plainer men
found it difficult to see the slightest ground. It was, indeed, Coleridge's
infirmity to project his own mind, and his own very peculiar ideas, nay,
even his own expressions and illustrative metaphors, upon other men, and
to contemplate these reflex images from himself as so many characters
having an absolute ground in some separate object. "Ball and Bell"—"Bell
and Ball,"[70] were two of these pet subjects; he had a "craze" about each of
them; and to each he ascribed thoughts and words to which, had they been
put upon the rack, they never would have confessed.
From Malta, on his return homewards,[71] he went to Rome and Naples. One
of the cardinals, he tells us, warned him, by the Pope's wish, of some plot,
set on foot by Bonaparte, for seizing him as an anti-Gallican writer. This
statement was ridiculed by the anonymous assailant in "Blackwood" as the
very consummation of moonstruck vanity; and it is there compared to John
Dennis's frenzy in retreating from the sea-coast, under the belief that Louis
XIV had commissioned emissaries to land on the English shore and make a
dash at his person. But, after all, the thing is not so entirely improbable. For
it is certain that some orator of the Opposition (Charles Fox, as Coleridge
asserts) had pointed out all the principal writers in the "Morning Post" to

Napoleon's vengeance, by describing the war as a war "of that journal's
creation."[72] And, as to the insinuation that Napoleon was above throwing
his regards upon a simple writer of political essays, that is not only
abundantly confuted by many scores of established cases, but also is
specially put down by a case circumstantially recorded in the Second Tour
to Paris by the celebrated John Scott of Aberdeen.[73] It there appears that,
on no other ground whatever than that of his connexion with the London
newspaper press, some friend of Mr. Scott's had been courted most
assiduously by Napoleon during the Hundred Days. Assuredly Coleridge
deserved, beyond all other men that ever were connected with the daily
press, to be regarded with distinction. Worlds of fine thinking lie buried in
that vast abyss, never to be disentombed or restored to human admiration.
Like the sea, it has swallowed treasures without end, that no diving-bell will
bring up again. But nowhere, throughout its shoreless magazines of wealth,
does there lie such a bed of pearls confounded with the rubbish and
"purgamenta" of ages, as in the political papers of Coleridge. No more
appreciable monument could be raised to the memory of Coleridge than a
republication of his essays in the "Morning Post," and afterwards in the
"Courier." And here, by the way, it may be mentioned that the sagacity of
Coleridge, as applied to the signs of the times, is illustrated by this fact, that
distinctly and solemnly he foretold the restoration of the Bourbons, at a
period when most people viewed such an event as the most romantic of
visions, and not less chimerical than that "march upon Paris" of Lord
Hawkesbury's which for so many years supplied a theme of laughter to the
Whigs.
Why Coleridge left Malta, is as difficult to explain upon any principles of
ordinary business, as why he had ever gone thither. The post of secretary, if
it imposed any official attendance of a regular kind, or any official
correspondence, must have been but poorly filled by him; and Sir Alexander
Ball, if I have collected his character justly, was not likely to accept the
gorgeous philosophy of Coleridge as an indemnification for irregular
performance of his public duties. Perhaps, therefore, though on the best
terms of mutual regard, mutually they might be pleased to part. Part they
did, at any rate, and poor Coleridge was sea-sick the whole of his
homeward (as he had been through the whole of his outward) voyage.

It was not long after this event that my own introduction to Coleridge
occurred. At that time some negotiation was pending between him and the
Royal Institution,which ended in their engaging him to deliver a course of
lectures on Poetry and the Fine Arts during the ensuing winter. For this
series (twelve or sixteen, I think) he received a sum of one hundred guineas.
And, considering the slightness of the pains which he bestowed upon them,
he was well remunerated. I fear that they did not increase his reputation; for
never did any man treat his audience with less respect, or his task with less
careful attention. I was in London for part of the time, and can report the
circumstances, having made a point of attending duly at the appointed
hours. Coleridge was at that time living uncomfortably enough at the
"Courier" office, in the Strand.[74] In such a situation, annoyed by the sound
of feet passing his chamber-door continually to the printing-rooms of this
great establishment, and with no gentle ministrations of female hands to
sustain his cheerfulness, naturally enough his spirits flagged; and he took
more than ordinary doses of opium. I called upon him daily, and pitied his
forlorn condition. There was no bell in the room; which for many months
answered the double purpose of bedroom and sitting-room. Consequently, I
often saw him, picturesquely enveloped in nightcaps, surmounted by
handkerchiefs indorsed upon handkerchiefs, shouting from the attics of the
"Courier" office, down three or four flights of stairs, to a certain "Mrs.
Brainbridge," his sole attendant, whose dwelling was in the subterranean
regions of the house. There did I often see the philosopher, with the most
lugubrious of faces, invoking with all his might this uncouth name of
"Brainbridge," each syllable of which he intonated with long-drawn
emphasis, in order to overpower the hostile hubbub coming downwards
from the creaking press, and the roar from the Strand, which entered at all
the front windows. "Mistress Brainbridge! I say, Mistress Brainbridge!" was
the perpetual cry, until I expected to hear the Strand, and distant Fleet
Street, take up the echo of "Brainbridge!" Thus unhappily situated, he sank
more than ever under the dominion of opium; so that, at two o'clock, when
he should have been in attendance at the Royal Institution, he was too often
unable to rise from bed. Then came dismissals of audience after audience,
with pleas of illness; and on many of his lecture days I have seen all
Albemarle Street closed by a "lock" of carriages, filled with women of
distinction, until the servants of the Institution or their own footmen
advanced to the carriage-doors with the intelligence that Mr. Coleridge had

been suddenly taken ill. This plea, which at first had been received with
expressions of concern, repeated too often, began to rouse disgust. Many in
anger, and some in real uncertainty whether it would not be trouble thrown
away, ceased to attend. And we that were more constant too often found
reason to be disappointed with the quality of his lecture. His appearance
was generally that of a person struggling with pain and overmastering
illness. His lips were baked with feverish heat, and often black in colour;
and, in spite of the water which he continued drinking through the whole
course of his lecture, he often seemed to labour under an almost paralytic
inability to raise the upper jaw from the lower. In such a state, it is clear that
nothing could save the lecture itself from reflecting his own feebleness and
exhaustion, except the advantage of having been precomposed in some
happier mood. But that never happened: most unfortunately he relied upon
his extempore ability to carry him through. Now, had he been in spirits, or
had he gathered animation, and kindled by his own motion, no written
lecture could have been more effectual than one of his unpremeditated
colloquial harangues. But either he was depressed originally below the
point from which any re-ascent was possible, or else this re-action was
intercepted by continual disgust from looking back upon his own ill-
success; for, assuredly, he never once recovered that free and eloquent
movement of thought which he could command at any time in a private
company. The passages he read, moreover, in illustrating his doctrines, were
generally unhappily chosen, because chosen at haphazard, from the
difficulty of finding at a moment's summons those passages which his
purpose required. Nor do I remember any that produced much effect, except
two or three, which I myself put ready marked into his hands, among the
Metrical Romances edited by Ritson.
Generally speaking, the selections were as injudicious and as inappropriate
as they were ill delivered; for, amongst Coleridge's accomplishments, good
reading was not one; he had neither voice (so, at least, I thought) nor
management of voice. This defect is unfortunate in a public lecturer; for it is
inconceivable how much weight and effectual pathos can be communicated
by sonorous depth and melodious cadences of the human voice to
sentiments the most trivial; nor, on the other hand, how the grandest are
emasculated by a style of reading which fails in distributing the lights and
shadows of a musical intonation. However, this defect chiefly concerned the

immediate impression; the most afflicting to a friend of Coleridge's was the
entire absence of his own peculiar and majestic intellect; no heart, no soul,
was in anything he said; no strength of feeling in recalling universal truths;
no power of originality or compass of moral relations in his novelties: all
was a poor faint reflection from jewels once scattered in the highway by
himself in the prodigality of his early opulence—a mendicant dependence
on the alms dropped from his own overflowing treasury of happier times.
The next opportunity I had of seeing Coleridge was at the Lakes, in the
winter of 1809, and up to the autumn of the following year. During this
period it was that he carried on the original publication of "The Friend"[75];
and for much the greater part of the time I saw him daily. He lived as a
visitor in the house occupied by Mr. Wordsworth. This house (Allan Bank
by name) was in Grasmere; and in another part of the same vale, at a
distance of barely one mile, I myself had a cottage, and a considerable
library. Many of my books being German, Coleridge borrowed them in
great numbers. Having a general license from me to use them as he would,
he was in the habit of accumulating them so largely at Allan Bank (the
name of Mr. Wordsworth's house) that sometimes as many as five hundred
were absent at once: which I mention in order to notice a practice of
Coleridge's, indicating his very scrupulous honour in what regarded the
rights of ownership. Literary people are not always so strict in respecting
property of this description; and I know more than one celebrated man who
professes as a maxim that he holds it no duty of honour to restore a
borrowed book; not to speak of many less celebrated persons, who, without
openly professing such a principle, do however, in fact, exhibit a lax
morality in such cases. The more honourable it was to poor Coleridge, who
had means so trifling of buying books for himself, that, to prevent my
flocks from mixing and being confounded with the flocks already folded at
Allan Bank (his own and Wordsworth's), or rather that they might mix
without danger, he duly inscribed my name in the blank leaves of every
volume; a fact which became rather painfully made known to me; for, as he
had chosen to dub me Esquire, many years after this it cost myself and a
female friend some weeks of labour to hunt out these multitudinous
memorials and to erase this heraldic addition; which else had the
appearance to a stranger of having been conferred by myself.

"The Friend," in its original publication, was, as a pecuniary speculation,
the least judicious, both for its objects and its means, I have ever known. It
was printed at Penrith, a town in Cumberland, on the outer verge of the
Lake district, and precisely twenty-eight miles removed from Coleridge's
abode. This distance, enough of itself, in all conscience, was at least trebled
in effect by the interposition of Kirkstone, a mountain which is scaled by a
carriage ascent of three miles long, and so steep in parts that, without four
horses, no solitary traveller can persuade the neighbouring innkeepers to
carry him. Another road, by way of Keswick, is subject to its own separate
difficulties. And thus, in any practical sense, for ease, for certainty, and for
despatch, Liverpool, ninety-five miles distant, was virtually nearer. Dublin
even, or Cork, was more eligible. Yet, in this town, so situated as I have
stated, by way of purchasing such intolerable difficulties at the highest
price, Coleridge was advised, and actually persuaded, to set up a printer, to
buy, to lay in a stock of paper, types, &c., instead of resorting to some
printer already established in Kendal, a large and opulent town not more
than eighteen miles distant, and connected by a daily post, whereas between
himself and Penrith there was no post at all. Building his mechanical
arrangements upon this utter "upside-down" inversion of all common sense,
it is not surprising (as "madness ruled the hour") that in all other
circumstances of plan or execution the work moved by principles of
downright crazy disregard to all that a judicious counsel would have
suggested. The subjects were chosen obstinately in defiance of the popular
taste; they were treated in a style studiously disfigured by German modes of
thinking, and by a German terminology; no attempt was made to win or
conciliate public taste; and the plans adopted for obtaining payment were of
a nature to insure a speedy bankruptcy to the concern. Coleridge had a list
—nobody could ever say upon whose authority gathered together—of
subscribers. He tells us himself that many of these renounced the work from
an early period; and some (as Lord Corke) rebuked him for his presumption
in sending it unordered, but (as Coleridge asserts) neither returned the
copies nor remitted the price. And even those who were conscientious
enough to do this could not remit four or five shillings for as many numbers
without putting Coleridge to an expense of treble postage at the least. This
he complains of bitterly in his "Biographia Literaria," forgetting evidently
that the evil was due exclusively to his own defective arrangements. People
necessarily sent their subscriptions through such channels as were open to

them, or such as were pointed out by Coleridge himself. It is also utterly
unworthy of Coleridge to have taxed, as he does, many of his subscribers
(or really, for anything that appears, the whole body) with neglecting to pay
at all. Probably not one neglected. And some ladies, to my knowledge,
scrupulously anxious about transmitting their subscriptions, paid three times
over. Managed as the reader will collect from these indications, the work
was going down-hill from the first. It never gained any accessions of new
subscribers; from what source, then, was the continual dropping off of
names to be supplied? The printer became a bankrupt: Coleridge was as
much in arrear with his articles as with his lectures at the Royal Institution.
That he was from the very first; but now he was disgusted and desponding;
and with No. 28 or 29 the work came to a final stop. Some years after, it
was re-cast and re-published. But, in fact, this re-cast was altogether and
absolutely a new work. The sole contributors to the original work had been,
first of all, Wordsworth who gave a very valuable paper on the principles
concerned in the composition of Epitaphs; and, secondly, Professor Wilson,
who, in conjunction with Mr. (now Dr.) Blair, an early friend,[76] then
visiting Mr. W. on Windermere, wrote the letter signed "Mathetes," the
reply to which came from Wordsworth.
At the Lakes, and summoned abroad by scenery so exquisite—living, too,
in the bosom of a family endeared to him by long friendship and by
sympathy the closest with all his propensities and tastes—Coleridge (it may
be thought) could not sequester himself so profoundly as at the "Courier"
Office within his own shell, or shut himself out so completely from that
large dominion of eye and ear amongst the hills, the fields, and the woods,
which once he had exercised so delightfully to himself, and with a
participation so immortal, through his exquisite poems, to all generations.
He was not now reduce to depend upon "Mrs. Brainbridge"—— (Mistress
Brain—Brain—Brainbridge, I say—— Oh heavens! is there, can there, was
there, will there ever at any future period be, an undeniable use in saying
and in pressing upon the attention of the Strand and Fleet Street at their
earliest convenience the painful subject of Mistress Brain—Brain—
Brainbridge, I say—— Do you hear, Mrs. Brain—Brain—Brainbridge
——? Brain or Bain, it matters little—Bran or Brain, it's all one, I
conceive):—here, on the contrary, he looked out from his study windows
upon the sublime hills of Seat Sandal and Arthur's Chair, and upon pastoral

cottages at their feet; and all around him he heard hourly the murmurings of
happy life, the sound of female voices, and the innocent laughter of
children. But apparently he was not happy; opium, was it, or what was it,
that poisoned all natural pleasure at its sources? He burrowed continually
deeper into scholastic subtleties and metaphysical abstractions; and, like
that class described by Seneca in the luxurious Rome of his days, he lived
chiefly by candlelight. At two or four o'clock in the afternoon he would
make his first appearance. Through the silence of the night, when all other
lights had disappeared in the quiet cottages of Grasmere, his lamp might be
seen invariably by the belated traveller, as he descended the long steep from
Dunmailraise; and at seven or eight o'clock in the morning, when man was
going forth to his labour, this insulated son of reverie was retiring to bed.
Society he did not much court, because much was not to be had; but he did
not shrink from any which wore the promise of novelty. At that time the
leading person about the Lakes, as regarded rank and station, amongst those
who had any connexion with literature, was Dr. Watson, the well-known
Bishop of Llandaff.[77] This dignitary I knew myself as much as I wished to
know him; he was interesting; yet also not interesting; and I will speak of
him circumstantially. Those who have read his Autobiography, or are
otherwise acquainted with the outline of his career, will be aware that he
was the son of a Westmoreland schoolmaster. Going to Cambridge, with no
great store of classical knowledge, but with the more common
accomplishment of Westmoreland men, and one better suited to Cambridge,
viz. a sufficient basis of mathematics, and a robust though commonplace
intellect for improving his knowledge according to any direction which
accident should prescribe—he obtained the Professorship of Chemistry
without one iota of chemical knowledge up to the hour when he gained it;
and then, setting eagerly to work, that he might not disgrace the choice
which had thus distinguished him, long before the time arrived for
commencing his prelections he had made himself capable of writing those
beautiful essays on that science which, after a revolution and a counter-
revolution so great as succeeding times have witnessed, still remain a
cardinal book of introductory discipline to such studies: an opinion
deliberately expressed to myself by the late Sir Humphry Davy, and in
answer to an earnest question which I took the liberty of proposing to him
on that point. Sir Humphry said that he could scarcely imagine a time, or a

condition of the science, in which the Bishop's "Essays" would be
superannuated.[78] With this experimental proof that a Chemical Chair might
be won and honoured without previous knowledge even of the chemical
alphabet, he resolved to play the same feat with the Royal Chair of
Divinity; one far more important for local honour and for wealth. Here,
again, he succeeded; and this time he extended his experiment; for, whereas
both Chairs had been won without previous knowledge, he resolved that in
this case it should be maintained without after knowledge. He applied
himself simply to the improvement of its income, which he raised from
£300 to at least £1000 per annum. All this he had accomplished before
reaching the age of thirty-five.
Riches are with us the parent of riches; and success, in the hands of an
active man, is the pledge of further success. On the basis of this Cambridge
preferment Dr. Watson built upwards, until he had raised himself, in one
way or other, to a seat in the House of Lords, and to a commensurate
income. For the latter half of his life, he—originally a village
schoolmaster's son—was able to associate with the magnates of the land
upon equal terms. And that fact, of itself, without another word, implies, in
this country, a degree of rank and fortune which one would think a
sufficient reward even for merit as unquestionable as was that of Dr.
Watson, considering that in quality it was merit of so vulgar a class. Yet he
was always a discontented man, a railer at the government and the age
which could permit merit such as his to pine away ingloriously in one of the
humblest amongst the bishoprics, with no other addition to its emoluments
than the richest professorship in Europe, and such other accidents in life as
gave him in all, perhaps, not above five thousand per annum! Poor man!—
only five thousand per annum! What a trial to a man's patience!—and how
much he stood in need of philosophy, or even of religion, to face so dismal
a condition!
This bishop was himself, in a secondary way, no uninteresting study. What I
mean is, that, though originally the furthest removed from an interesting
person, being a man remarkable indeed for robust faculties, but otherwise
commonplace in his character, worldly-minded, and coarse, even to
obtuseness, in his sensibilities, he yet became interesting from the strength
of degree with which these otherwise repulsive characteristics were
manifested. He was one of that numerous order in whom even the love of

knowledge is subordinate to schemes of advancement; and to whom even
his own success, and his own honour consequent upon that success, had no
higher value than according to their use as instruments for winning further
promotion. Hence it was that, when by such aids he had mounted to a
certain eminence, beyond which he saw little promise of further ascent
through any assistance of theirs—since at this stage it was clear that party
connexion in politics must become his main reliance—he ceased to regard
his favourite sciences with interest. The very organs of his early
advancement were regarded with no gratitude or tenderness, when it
became clear that they could yield no more. Even chemistry was now
neglected. This, above all, was perplexing to one who did not understand
his character. For hither one would have supposed he might have retreated
from his political disappointments, and have found a perpetual consolation
in honours which no intrigues could defeat, and in the esteem, so pure and
untainted, which still attended the honourable exertions of his youth. But he
had not feeling enough for that view; he looked at the matter in a very
different light. Other generations had come since then, and "other palms
were won." To keep pace with the advancing science, and to maintain his
station amongst his youthful competitors, would demand a youthful vigour
and motives such as theirs. But, as to himself, chemistry had given all it
could give. Having first raised himself to distinction by that, he had since
married into an ancient family—one of the leaders amongst the landed
aristocracy of his own county: he had thus entitled himself to call the head
of that family—a territorial potentate with ten thousand per annum—by the
contemptuous sobriquet of "Dull Daniel"; he looked down upon numbers
whom, twenty years before, he scarcely durst have looked up to, except
perhaps as a cat is privileged to look at a king; he had obtained a bishopric.
Chemistry had done all this for him; and had, besides, co-operating with
luck, put him in the way of reaping a large estate from the gratitude and
early death of his pupil, Mr. Luther. All this chemistry had effected. Could
chemistry do anything more? Clearly not. It was a burnt-out volcano. And
here it was that, having lost his motives for cultivating it farther, he
regarded the present improvers of the science, not with the feelings natural
to a disinterested lover of such studies on their own account, but with
jealousy, as men who had eclipsed or had bedimmed his own once brilliant
reputation. Two revolutions had occurred since his own "palmy days"; Sir
Humphry Davy, he said, might be right; and all might be gold that

glistened; but, for his part, he was too old to learn new theories—he must
be content to hobble to his grave with such old-fashioned creeds as had
answered in his time, when, for aught he could see, men prospered as much
as in this newfangled world. Such was the tone of his ordinary talk; and, in
one sense—as regards personal claims, I mean—it was illiberal enough; for
the leaders of modern chemistry never overlooked his claims. Professor
Thomson of Glasgow always spoke of his "Essays" as of a book which
hardly any revolution could antiquate; and Sir Humphry Davy, in reply to a
question which I put to him upon that point in 1813, declared that he knew
of no book better qualified as one of introductory discipline to the youthful
experimenter, or as an apprenticeship to the taste in elegant selection of
topics.
Yet, querulous and discontented as the bishop was, when he adverted either
to chemistry or to his own position in life, the reader must not imagine to
himself the ordinary "complement" and appurtenances of that character—
such as moroseness, illiberality, or stinted hospitalities. On the contrary, his
lordship was a joyous, jovial, and cordial host. He was pleasant, and even
kind, in his manners; most hospitable in his reception of strangers, no
matter of what party; and I must say that he was as little overbearing in
argument, and as little stood upon his privilege in his character of a church
dignitary, as any "big wig" I have happened to know. He was somewhat
pompous, undoubtedly; but that, in an old academic hero, was rather
agreeable, and had a characteristic effect. He listened patiently to all your
objections; and, though steeped to the lips in prejudice, he was really
candid. I mean to say that, although, generally speaking, the unconscious
pre-occupation of his understanding shut up all avenues to new convictions,
he yet did his best to open his mind to any views that might be presented at
the moment. And, with regard to his querulous egotism, though it may
appear laughable enough to all who contrast his real pretensions with their
public appreciation as expressed in his acquired opulence and rank, and
who contrast, also, his case with that of other men in his own profession—
with that of Paley, for example—yet it cannot be denied that fortune had
crossed his path, latterly, with foul winds, no less strikingly than his early
life had been seconded by her favouring gales. In particular, Lord
Holland[79] mentioned to a friend of my own the following anecdote:
—"What you say of the bishop may be very true" (they were riding past his

grounds at the time, which had turned the conversation upon his character
and public claims): "but to us" (Lord Holland meant to the Whig party) "he
was truly honourable and faithful; insomuch that my uncle" (meaning, of
course, Charles Fox) "had agreed with Lord Grenville to make him
Archbishop of York, sede vacante;—all was settled; and, had we staid in
power a little longer, he would, beyond a doubt, have had that dignity."
Now, if the reader happens to recollect how soon the death of Dr. Markham
followed the sudden dissolution of that short-lived administration in 1807,
he will see how narrowly Dr. Watson missed this elevation; and one must
allow for a little occasional spleen under such circumstances. How grand a
thing, how princely, to be an English archbishop! Yet, what an archbishop!
He talked openly, at his own table, as a Socinian; ridiculed the miracles of
the New Testament, which he professed to explain as so many chemical
tricks, or cases of legerdemain; and certainly had as little of devotional
feeling as any man that ever lived. It is, by comparison, a matter of little
consequence that, so slightly regarding the Church of which he called
himself a member in her spiritual interest, he should, in her temporal
interests, have been ready to lay her open to any assaults from almost any
quarter. He could naturally have little reverence for the rights of the
shepherds, having so very little for the pastoral office itself, or for the
manifold duties it imposes. All his public, all his professional duties, he
systematically neglected. He was a lord in Parliament, and for many a year
he never attended in his place: he was a bishop, and he scarcely knew any
part of his diocese by sight, living three hundred miles away from it: he was
a professor of divinity, holding the richest professorship in Europe—the
weightiest, for its functions, in England—drawing, by his own admission,
one thousand per annum from its endowments (deducting some stipend to
his locum tenens at Cambridge), and for thirty years he never read a lecture,
or performed a public exercise. Spheres how vast of usefulness to a man as
able as himself!—subjects of what bitter anguish on his deathbed to one
who had been tenderly conscientious! In his political purism, and the
unconscious partisanship of his constitutional scruples, he was a true Whig,
and thoroughly diverting. That Lord Lonsdale or that the Duke of
Northumberland should interfere with elections, this he thought scandalous
and awful; but that a lord of the house of Cavendish or Howard, a Duke of
Devonshire or Norfolk, or an Earl of Carlisle, should traffic in boroughs, or

exert the most despotic influence as landlords, mutato nomine, he viewed as
the mere natural right of property; and so far was he from loving the pure-
hearted and unfactious champions of liberty, that, in one of his printed
works, he dared to tax Milton with having knowingly, wilfully, deliberately
told a falsehood.[80]
Could Coleridge—was it possible that he could reverence a man like this?
Ordinary men might, because they were told that he had defended
Christianity against the vile blasphemers and impotent theomachists of the
day. But Coleridge had too pure an ideal of a Christian philosopher, derived
from the age of the English Titans in theology, to share in that estimate. It is
singular enough, and interesting to a man who has ever heard Coleridge
talk, but especially to one who has assisted (to speak in French phrase) at a
talking party between Coleridge and the Bishop, to look back upon an
article in the "Quarterly Review," where, in connexion with the Bishop's
Autobiography, some sneers are dropped with regard to the intellectual
character of the neighbourhood in which he had settled. I have been told, on
pretty good authority, that this article was written by the late Dr. Whittaker
of Craven, the topographical antiquarian; a pretty sort of person, doubtless,
to assume such a tone, in speaking of a neighbourhood so dazzling in its
intellectual pretensions as that region at that time. Listen, reader, and judge!
The Bishop had fixed his abode on the banks of Windermere. In a small, but
by the necessity of its situation a beautiful park, he had himself raised a
plain, but handsome and substantial mansion; Calgarth, or Calgarth Park,
was its name. Now, at Keswick (I am looking back to the sneer of the
"Quarterly Review") lived Southey; twenty miles distant, it is true, but still,
for a bishop with a bishop's equipage, not beyond a morning's drive. At
Grasmere, about eight miles from Calgarth, were to be found Wordsworth
and Coleridge. At Brathay, about four miles from Calgarth, lived Charles
Lloyd; and he, far as he might be below the others I have mentioned, could
not in candour be considered a common man. Common! he was a man
never to be forgotten! He was somewhat too Rousseauish; but he had, in
conversation, the most extraordinary powers for analysis of a certain kind,
applied to the philosophy of manners, and the most delicate nuances of
social life; and his translation of "Alfieri," together with his own poems,
shows him to have been an accomplished scholar. Then, not much above a
mile from Calgarth, at his beautiful creation of Elleray, lived Professor

Wilson; of whom I need not speak. He, in fact, and Mr. Lloyd were on the
most intimate terms with the Bishop's family. The meanest of these persons
was able to have "taken the conceit" out of Dr. Whittaker and all his tribe.
But even in the town of Kendal, about nine miles from Calgarth, there were
many men of information, at least as extensive as Dr. Watson's, and amply
qualified to have met him upon equal terms in conversation. Mathematics, it
is well known, are extensively cultivated in the north of England. Sedburgh,
for many years, was a sort of nursery or rural chapel-of-ease to Cambridge.
Dawson of Sedburgh was a luminary better known than ever Dr. Watson
was, by mathematicians both foreign and domestic. Gough, the blind
mathematician and botanist of Kendal, is known to this day; but many
others in that town had accomplishments equal to his; and, indeed, so
widely has mathematical knowledge extended itself throughout Northern
England that, even amongst the poor Lancashire weavers, mechanic
labourers for their daily bread, the cultivation of pure geometry, in the most
refined shape, has long prevailed; of which some accounts have been
recently published. Local pique, therefore, must have been at the bottom of
Dr. Whittaker's sneer. At all events, it was ludicrously contrasted with the
true state of the case, as brought out by the meeting between Coleridge and
the Bishop.
Coleridge was armed, at all points, with the scholastic erudition which bore
upon all questions that could arise in polemic divinity. The philosophy of
ancient Greece, through all its schools, the philosophy of the schoolmen
technically so called, Church history, &c., Coleridge had within his call.
Having been personally acquainted, or connected as a pupil, with Eichhorn
and Michaelis, he knew the whole cycle of schisms and audacious
speculations through which Biblical criticism or Christian philosophy has
revolved in Modern Germany. All this was ground upon which the Bishop
of Llandaff trod with the infirm footing of a child. He listened to what
Coleridge reported with the same sort of pleasurable surprise, alternating
with starts of doubt or incredulity, as would naturally attend a detailed
report from Laputa—which aërial region of speculation does but too often
recur to a sober-minded person in reading of the endless freaks in
philosophy of Modern Germany, where the sceptre of Mutability, that
potentate celebrated by Spenser, gathers more trophies in a year than
elsewhere in a century; "the anarchy of dreams" presides in her philosophy;

and the restless elements of opinion, throughout every region of debate,
mould themselves eternally, like the billowy sands of the desert as beheld
by Bruce, into towering columns, soar upwards to a giddy altitude, then
stalk about for a minute, all aglow with fiery colour, and finally unmould
and "dislimn," with a collapse as sudden as the motions of that eddying
breeze under which their vapoury architecture had arisen. Hartley and
Locke, both of whom the bishop made into idols, were discussed; especially
the former, against whom Coleridge alleged some of those arguments which
he has used in his "Biographia Literaria." The bishop made but a feeble
defence; and upon some points none at all. He seemed, I remember, much
struck with one remark of Coleridge's, to this effect:—"That, whereas
Hartley fancied that our very reasoning was an aggregation, collected
together under the law of association, on the contrary, we reason by
counteracting that law: just," said he, "as, in leaping, the law of gravitation
concurs to that act in its latter part; but no leap could take place were it not
by a counteraction of the law." One remark of the bishop's let me into the
secret of his very limited reading. Coleridge had used the word
"apperception," apparently without intention; for, on hearing some
objection to the word, as being "surely not a word that Addison would have
used," he substituted transcendental consciousness. Some months
afterwards, going with Charles Lloyd to call at Calgarth, during the time
when "The Friend" was appearing, the bishop again noticed this obnoxious
word, and in the very same terms:—"Now, this word apperception, which
Mr. Coleridge uses in the last number of 'The Friend,' surely, surely it would
not have been approved by Addison; no, Mr. Lloyd, nor by Swift; nor even,
I think, by Arbuthnot." Somebody suggested that the word was a new word
of German mintage, and most probably due to Kant—of whom the bishop
seemed never to have heard. Meantime the fact was, and to me an amusing
one, that the word had been commonly used by Leibnitz, a classical author
on such subjects, 120 years before.

In the autumn of 1810, Coleridge left the Lakes; and, so far as I am aware,
for ever. I once, indeed, heard a rumour of his having passed through with
some party of tourists—some reason struck me at the time for believing it
untrue—but, at all events, he never returned to them as a resident. What
might be his reason for this eternal self-banishment from scenes which he
so well understood in all their shifting forms of beauty, I can only guess.

Perhaps it was the very opposite reason to that which is most obvious: not,
possibly, because he had become indifferent to their attractions, but because
his undecaying sensibility to their commanding power had become
associated with too afflicting remembrances, and flashes of personal
recollections, suddenly restored and illuminated—recollections which will

"Sometimes leap
From hiding-places ten years deep,"

and bring into collision the present with some long-forgotten past, in a form
too trying and too painful for endurance. I have a brilliant Scotch friend,
who cannot walk on the seashore—within sight of its ανηριθμον γελασμα
(anêrithmon gelasma), the multitudinous laughter of its waves, or within
hearing of its resounding uproar, because they bring up, by links of old
association, too insupportably to his mind the agitations of his glittering, but
too fervid youth. There is a feeling—morbid, it may be, but for which no
anodyne is found in all the schools from Plato to Kant—to which the human
mind is liable at times: it is best described in a little piece by Henry More,
the "Platonist." He there represents himself as a martyr to his own too
passionate sense of beauty, and his consequent too pathetic sense of its
decay. Everywhere—above, below, around him, in the earth, in the clouds,
in the fields, and in their "garniture of flowers"—he beholds a beauty
carried to excess; and this beauty becomes a source of endless affliction to
him, because everywhere he sees it liable to the touch of decay and mortal
change. During one paroxysm of this sad passion, an angel appears to
comfort him; and, by the sudden revelation of her immortal beauty, does, in
fact, suspend his grief. But it is only a suspension; for the sudden
recollection that her privileged condition, and her exemption from the
general fate of beauty, is only by way of exception to a universal rule,
restores his grief: "And thou thyself," he says to the angel—

"And thou thyself, that com'st to comfort me,
Wouldst strong occasion of deep sorrow bring,
If thou wert subject to mortality!"

Every man who has ever dwelt with passionate love upon the fair face of
some female companion through life must have had the same feeling, and
must often, in the exquisite language of Shakspere's sonnets, have

commanded and adjured all-conquering Time, there, at least, and upon that
one tablet of his adoration,

"To write no wrinkle with his antique hand."

Vain prayer! Empty adjuration! Profitless rebellion against the laws which
season all things for the inexorable grave! Yet not the less we rebel again
and again; and, though wisdom counsels resignation, yet our human
passions, still cleaving to their object, force us into endless rebellion.
Feelings the same in kind as these attach themselves to our mental power,
and our vital energies. Phantoms of lost power, sudden intuitions, and
shadowy restorations of forgotten feelings, sometimes dim and perplexing,
sometimes by bright but furtive glimpses, sometimes by a full and steady
revelation, overcharged with light—throw us back in a moment upon scenes
and remembrances that we have left full thirty years behind us. In solitude,
and chiefly in the solitudes of nature, and, above all, amongst the great and
enduring features of nature, such as mountains, and quiet dells, and the
lawny recesses of forests, and the silent shores of lakes, features with which
(as being themselves less liable to change) our feelings have a more abiding
association—under these circumstances it is that such evanescent hauntings
of our past and forgotten selves are most apt to startle and to waylay us.
These are positive torments from which the agitated mind shrinks in fear;
but there are others negative in their nature—that is, blank mementoes of
powers extinct, and of faculties burnt out within us. And from both forms of
anguish—from this twofold scourge—poor Coleridge fled, perhaps, in
flying from the beauty of external nature. In alluding to this latter, or
negative form of suffering—that form, I mean, which presents not the too
fugitive glimpses of past power, but its blank annihilation—Coleridge
himself most beautifully insists upon and illustrates the truth that all which
we find in Nature must be created by ourselves; and that alike whether
Nature is so gorgeous in her beauty as to seem apparelled in her wedding-
garment or so powerless and extinct as to seem palled in her shroud. In
either case,

"O, Lady, we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live;
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud.

It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life whose fountains are within."
This was one, and the most common, shape of extinguished power from
which Coleridge fled to the great city. But sometimes the same decay came
back upon his heart in the more poignant shape of intimations and
vanishing glimpses, recovered for one moment from the paradise of youth,
and from fields of joy and power, over which, for him, too certainly, he felt
that the cloud of night was settling for ever. Both modes of the same
torment exiled him from nature; and for the same reasons he fled from
poetry and all commerce with his own soul; burying himself in the
profoundest abstractions from life and human sensibilities.

"For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient all I can;
And haply by abstruse research to steal,
From my own nature, all the natural man;
This was my sole resource, my only plan;
Till that, which suits a part, infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the habit of my soul."

Such were, doubtless, the true and radical causes which, for the final
twenty-four years of Coleridge's life, drew him away from those scenes of
natural beauty in which only, at an earlier stage of life, he found strength
and restoration. These scenes still survived; but their power was gone,
because that had been derived from himself, and his ancient self had
altered. Such were the causes; but the immediate occasion of his departure
from the Lakes, in the autumn of 1810, was the favourable opportunity then
presented to him of migrating in a pleasant way. Mr. Basil Montagu, the
Chancery barrister, happened at that time to be returning to London, with
Mrs. Montagu, from a visit to the Lakes, or to Wordsworth.[81] His travelling
carriage was roomy enough to allow of his offering Coleridge a seat in it;
and his admiration of Coleridge was just then fervent enough to prompt a
friendly wish for that sort of close connexion (viz. by domestication as a
guest under Mr. Basil Montagu's roof) which is the most trying to

friendship, and which in this instance led to a perpetual rupture of it. The
domestic habits of eccentric men of genius, much more those of a man so
irreclaimably irregular as Coleridge, can hardly be supposed to promise
very auspiciously for any connexion so close as this. A very extensive house
and household, together with the unlimited licence of action which belongs
to the ménage of some great Dons amongst the nobility, could alone have
made Coleridge an inmate perfectly desirable. Probably many little
jealousies and offences had been mutually suppressed; but the particular
spark which at length fell amongst the combustible materials already
prepared, and thus produced the final explosion, took the following shape:
—Mr. Montagu had published a book against the use of wine and
intoxicating liquors of every sort.[82] Not out of parsimony or under any
suspicion of inhospitality, but in mere self-consistency and obedience to his
own conscientious scruples, Mr. Montagu would not countenance the use of
wine at his own table. So far all was right. But doubtless, on such a system,
under the known habits of modern life, it should have been made a rule to
ask no man to dinner: for to force men, without warning, to a single (and,
therefore, thoroughly useless) act of painful abstinence, is what neither I nor
any man can have a right to do. In point of sense, it is, in fact, precisely the
freak of Sir Roger de Coverley, who drenches his friend the "Spectator"
with a hideous decoction: not, as his confiding visitor had supposed, for
some certain and immediate benefit to follow, but simply as having a
tendency (if well supported by many years' continuance of similar drenches)
to abate the remote contingency of the stone. Hear this, ye Gods of the
Future! I am required to perform a most difficult sacrifice; and forty years
hence I may, by persisting so long, have some dim chance of reward. One
day's abstinence could do no good on any scheme: and no man was likely to
offer himself for a second. However, such being the law of the castle, and
that law well known to Coleridge, he nevertheless, thought fit to ask to
dinner Colonel (then Captain) Pasley, of the Engineers, well known in those
days for his book on the "Military Policy of England," and since for his
"System of Professional Instruction." Now, where or in what land abides
that

"Captain, or Colonel, or Knight-in-arms,"

to whom wine in the analysis of dinner is a neutral or indifferent element?
Wine, therefore, as it was not of a nature to be omitted, Coleridge took care
to furnish at his own private cost. And so far, again, all was right. But why
must Coleridge give his dinner to the captain in Mr. Montagu's house?
There lay the affront; and, doubtless, it was a very inconsiderate action on
the part of Coleridge. I report the case simply as it was then generally borne
upon the breath, not of scandal, but of jest and merriment. The result,
however, was no jest; for bitter words ensued—words that festered in the
remembrance; and a rupture between the parties followed, which no
reconciliation has ever healed.
Meantime, on reviewing this story, as generally adopted by the learned in
literary scandal, one demur rises up. Dr. Parr, a lisping Whig pedant,
without personal dignity or conspicuous power of mind, was a frequent and
privileged inmate at Mr. Montagu's. Him now—this Parr—there was no
conceivable motive for enduring; that point is satisfactorily settled by the
pompous inanities of his works. Yet, on the other hand, his habits were in
their own nature far less endurable than Samuel Taylor Coleridge's; for the
monster smoked;—and how? How did the "Birmingham Doctor"[83] smoke?
Not as you, or I, or other civilized people smoke, with a gentle cigar—but
with the very coarsest tobacco. And those who know how that abomination
lodges and nestles in the draperies of window-curtains will guess the horror
and detestation in which the old Whig's memory is held by all enlightened
women. Surely, in a house where the Doctor had any toleration at all,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge might have enjoyed an unlimited toleration.[84]

From Mr. Montagu's Coleridge passed, by favour of what introduction I
never heard, into a family as amiable in manners and as benign in
disposition as I remember to have ever met with. On this excellent family I
look back with threefold affection, on account of their goodness to
Coleridge, and because they were then unfortunate, and because their union
has long since been dissolved by death. The family was composed of three
members: of Mr. M——, once a lawyer, who had, however, ceased to
practise; of Mrs. M——, his wife, a blooming young woman, distinguished

for her fine person; and a young lady, her unmarried sister.[85] Here, for
some years, I used to visit Coleridge; and, doubtless, as far as situation
merely, and the most delicate attentions from the most amiable women,
could make a man happy, he must have been so at this time; for both the
ladies treated him as an elder brother, or as a father. At length, however, the
cloud of misfortune, which had long settled upon the prospects of this
excellent family, thickened; and I found, upon one of my visits to London,
that they had given up their house in Berners Street, and had retired to a
cottage in Wiltshire. Coleridge had accompanied them; and there I visited
them myself, and, as it eventually proved, for the last time. Some time after
this, I heard from Coleridge, with the deepest sorrow, that poor M—— had
been thrown into prison, and had sunk under the pressure of his
misfortunes. The gentle ladies of his family had retired to remote friends;
and I saw them no more, though often vainly making inquiries about them.
Coleridge, during this part of his London life, I saw constantly—generally
once a day, during my own stay in London; and sometimes we were jointly
engaged to dinner parties. In particular, I remember one party at which we
met Lady Hamilton—Lord Nelson's Lady Hamilton—the beautiful, the
accomplished, the enchantress! Coleridge admired her, as who would not
have done, prodigiously; and she, in her turn, was fascinated with
Coleridge. He was unusually effective in his display; and she, by way of
expressing her acknowledgments appropriately, performed a scene in Lady
Macbeth—how splendidly, I cannot better express than by saying that all of
us who then witnessed her performance were familiar with Mrs. Siddons's
matchless execution of that scene, and yet, with such a model filling our
imaginations, we could not but acknowledge the possibility of another, and
a different perfection, without a trace of imitation, equally original, and
equally astonishing. The word "magnificent" is, in this day, most lavishly
abused: daily I hear or read in the newspapers of magnificent objects, as
though scattered more thickly than blackberries; but for my part I have seen
few objects really deserving that epithet. Lady Hamilton was one of them.
She had Medea's beauty, and Medea's power of enchantment. But let not the
reader too credulously suppose her the unprincipled woman she has been
described. I know of no sound reason for supposing the connexion between
Lord Nelson and her to have been other than perfectly virtuous. Her public
services, I am sure, were most eminent—for that we have indisputable

authority; and equally sure I am that they were requited with rank
ingratitude.
After the household of the poor M—— s had been dissolved, I know not
whither Coleridge went immediately: for I did not visit London until some
years had elapsed. In 1823-24 I first understood that he had taken up his
residence as a guest with Mr. Gillman, a surgeon, in Highgate. He had then
probably resided for some time at that gentleman's: there he continued to
reside on the same terms, I believe, of affectionate friendship with the
members of Mr. Gillman's family as had made life endurable to him in the
time of the M—— s; and there he died in July of the present year. If,
generally speaking, poor Coleridge had but a small share of earthly
prosperity, in one respect at least he was eminently favoured by Providence:
beyond all men who ever perhaps have lived, he found means to engage a
constant succession of most faithful friends; and he levied the services of
sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, from the hands of strangers—attracted to
him by no possible impulses but those of reverence for his intellect, and
love for his gracious nature. How, says Wordsworth—

----"How can he expect that others should
Sow for him, reap for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no thought at all?"

How can he, indeed? It is most unreasonable to do so: yet this expectation,
if Coleridge ought not to have entertained, at all events he realized. Fast as
one friend dropped off, another, and another, succeeded: perpetual relays
were laid along his path in life, of judicious and zealous supporters, who
comforted his days, and smoothed the pillow for his declining age, even
when it was beyond all human power to take away the thorns which stuffed
it.
And what were those thorns?—and whence derived? That is a question on
which I ought to decline speaking, unless I could speak fully. Not, however,
to make any mystery of what requires none, the reader will understand that
originally his sufferings, and the death within him of all hope—the palsy, as
it were, of that which is the life of life, and the heart within the heart—came
from opium. But two things I must add—one to explain Coleridge's case,
and the other to bring it within the indulgent allowance of equitable judges:

—First, the sufferings from morbid derangements, originally produced by
opium, had very possibly lost that simple character, and had themselves re-
acted in producing secondary states of disease and irritation, not any longer
dependent upon the opium, so as to disappear with its disuse: hence, a more
than mortal discouragement to accomplish this disuse, when the pains of
self-sacrifice were balanced by no gleams of restorative feeling. Yet,
secondly, Coleridge did make prodigious efforts to deliver himself from this
thraldom; and he went so far at one time in Bristol, to my knowledge, as to
hire a man for the express purpose, and armed with the power of resolutely
interposing between himself and the door of any druggist's shop. It is true
that an authority derived only from Coleridge's will could not be valid
against Coleridge's own counter-determination: he could resume as easily as
he could delegate the power. But the scheme did not entirely fail; a man
shrinks from exposing to another that infirmity of will which he might else
have but a feeble motive for disguising to himself; and the delegated man,
the external conscience, as it were, of Coleridge, though destined—in the
final resort, if matters came to absolute rupture, and to an obstinate duel, as
it were, between himself and his principal—in that extremity to give way,
yet might have long protracted the struggle before coming to that sort of
dignus vindice nodus: and in fact, I know, upon absolute proof, that, before
reaching that crisis, the man showed fight, and, faithful to his trust, and
comprehending the reasons for it, declared that, if he must yield, he would
"know the reason why."
Opium, therefore, subject to the explanation I have made, was certainly the
original source of Coleridge's morbid feelings, of his debility, and of his
remorse. His pecuniary embarrassments pressed as lightly as could well be
expected upon him. I have mentioned the annuity of £150 made to him by
the two Wedgwoods. One half, I believe, could not be withdrawn, having
been left by a regular testamentary bequest. But the other moiety, coming
from the surviving brother, was withdrawn on the plea of commercial
losses, somewhere, I think, about 1815. That would have been a heavy blow
to Coleridge; and assuredly the generosity is not very conspicuous of
having ever suffered an allowance of that nature to be left to the mercy of
accident. Either it ought not to have been granted in that shape—viz. as an
annual allowance, giving ground for expecting its periodical recurrence—or
it ought not to have been withdrawn. However, this blow was broken to

Coleridge by the bounty of George IV, who placed Coleridge's name in the
list of twelve to whom he granted an annuity of 100 guineas per annum.
This he enjoyed so long as that Prince reigned. But at length came a heavier
blow than that from Mr. Wedgwood: a new King arose, who knew not
Joseph. Yet surely he was not a King who could so easily resolve to turn
adrift twelve men of letters, many of them most accomplished men, for the
sake of appropriating a sum no larger to himself than 1200 guineas—no less
to some of them than the total freight of their earthly hopes?—No matter:
let the deed have been from whose hand it might, it was done: ἑιργασται
(heirgastai), it was perpetrated, as saith the Medea of Euripides; and it will
be mentioned hereafter, "more than either once or twice." It fell with
weight, and with effect upon the latter days of Coleridge; it took from him
as much heart and hope as at his years, and with his unworldly prospects,
remained for man to blight: and, if it did not utterly crush him, the reason
was—because for himself he had never needed much, and was now
continually drawing near to that haven in which, for himself, he would need
nothing; secondly, because his children were now independent of his aid;
and, finally, because in this land there are men to be found always of minds
large enough to comprehend the claims of genius, and with hearts, by good
luck, more generous, by infinite degrees, than the hearts of Princes.
Coleridge, as I now understand, was somewhere about sixty-two years of
age when he died.[86] This, however, I take upon the report of the public
newspapers; for I do not, of my own knowledge, know anything accurately
upon that point.

It can hardly be necessary to inform any reader of discernment or of much
practice in composition that the whole of this article upon Mr. Coleridge,
though carried through at intervals, and (as it has unexpectedly happened)
with time sufficient to have made it a very careful one, has, in fact, been
written in a desultory and unpremeditated style. It was originally
undertaken on the sudden but profound impulse communicated to the
writer's feelings by the unexpected news of this great man's death; partly,
therefore, to relieve, by expressing, his own deep sentiments of reverential
affection to his memory, and partly, in however imperfect a way, to meet the
public feeling of interest or curiosity about a man who had long taken his
place amongst the intellectual potentates of the age. Both purposes required

that it should be written almost extempore: the greater part was really and
unaffectedly written in that way, and under circumstances of such extreme
haste as would justify the writer in pleading the very amplest privilege of
licence and indulgent construction which custom concedes to such cases.
Hence it had occurred to the writer, as a judicious principle, to create a sort
of merit out of his own necessity, and rather to seek after the graces which
belong to the epistolary form, or to other modes of composition professedly
careless, than after those which grow out of preconceived biographies,
which, having originally settled their plan upon a regular foundation, are
able to pursue a course of orderly development, such as his slight sketch
had voluntarily renounced from the beginning. That mode of composition
having been once adopted, it seemed proper to sustain it, even after delays
and interruption had allowed time for throwing the narrative into a more
orderly movement, and modulating it, as it were, into a key of the usual
solemnity. The qualis ab incepto processerit—the ordo prescribed by the
first bars of the music predominated over all other considerations, and to
such an extent that he had purposed to leave the article without any regular
termination or summing up—as, on the one hand, scarcely demanded by the
character of a sketch so rapid and indigested, whilst, on the other, he was
sensible that anything of so much pretension as a formal peroration
challenged a sort of consideration to the paper which it was the author's
chief wish to disclaim. That effect, however, is sufficiently parried by the
implied protest now offered; and, on other reasons, it is certainly desirable
that a general glance, however cursory, should be thrown over the
intellectual claims of Mr. Coleridge by one who knew him so well, and
especially in a case where those very claims constitute the entire and sole
justification of the preceding personal memoir. That which furnishes the
whole moving reason for any separate notice at all, and forms its whole
latent interest, ought not, in mere logic, to be left without some notice itself,
though as rapidly executed as the previous biographical sketch, and, from
the necessity of the subject, by many times over more imperfect.
To this task, therefore, the writer now addresses himself; and by way of
gaining greater freedom of movement and of resuming his conversational
tone, he will here again take the liberty of speaking in the first person.
If Mr. Coleridge had been merely a scholar—merely a philologist—or
merely a man of science—there would be no reason apparent for travelling

in our survey beyond the field of his intellect, rigorously and narrowly so
called. But, because he was a poet, and because he was a philosopher in a
comprehensive and a most human sense, with whose functions the moral
nature is so largely interwoven, I shall feel myself entitled to notice the
most striking aspects of his character (using that word in its common
limited meaning), of his disposition, and his manners, as so many reflex
indications of his intellectual constitution. But let it be well understood that
I design nothing elaborate, nothing comprehensive or ambitious: my
purpose is merely to supply a few hints and suggestions drawn from a very
hasty retrospect, by way of adding a few traits to any outline which the
reader may have framed to himself, either from some personal knowledge,
or from more full and lively memorials.
One character in which Mr. Coleridge most often came before the public
was that of politician. In this age of fervent partisanship, it will, therefore,
naturally occur as a first question to inquire after his party and political
connexions: was he Whig, Tory, or Radical? Or, under a new classification,
were his propensities Conservative or Reforming? I answer that, in any
exclusive or emphatic sense, he was none of these; because, as a
philosopher, he was, according to circumstances, and according to the
object concerned, all of these by turns. These are distinctions upon which a
cloud of delusion rests. It would not be difficult to show that in the
speculations built upon the distinction of Whig and Tory, even by as
philosophic a politician as Edmund Burke, there is an oversight of the
largest practical importance. But the general and partisan use of these terms
superadds to this πρωτον ψευδος (prôton pseudos) a second which is much
more flagrant. It is this: the terms Whig or Tory, used by partisans, are taken
extra gradum, as expressing the ideal or extreme cases of the several
creeds; whereas, in actual life, few such cases are found realized, by far the
major part of those who answer to either one or the other denomination
making only an approximation (differing by infinite degrees) to the ideal or
abstract type. A third error there is, relating to the actual extent of the
several denominations, even after every allowance made for the faintest
approximations. Listen to a Whig, or to a Tory, and you will suppose that
the great bulk of society range under his banner: all, at least, who have any
property at stake. Listen to a Radical, and you will suppose that all are
marshalled in the same ranks with himself, unless those who have some

private interest in existing abuses, or have aristocratic privileges to defend.
Yet, upon going extensively into society as it is, you find that a vast
majority of good citizens are of no party whatsoever, own no party
designation, care for no party interest, but carry their good wishes by turns
to men of every party, according to the momentary purpose they are
pursuing. As to Whig and Tory, it is pretty clear that only two classes of
men, both of limited extent, acknowledge these as their distinctions: first,
those who make politics in some measure their profession or trade—
whether by standing forward habitually in public meetings as leaders or as
assistants, or by writing books and pamphlets in the same cause; secondly,
those whose rank, or birth, or position in a city, or a rural district, almost
pledges them to a share in the political struggles of the day, under the
penalty of being held fainéans, truants, or even malignant recusants, if they
should decline a warfare which often, perhaps, they do not love in secret.
These classes, which, after all, are not numerous, and not entirely sincere,
compose the whole extent of professing Whigs and Tories who make any
approach to the standards of their two churches; and, generally speaking,
these persons have succeeded to their politics and their party ties, as they
have to their estates, viz. by inheritance. Not their way of thinking in
politics has dictated their party connexions; but these connexions,
traditionally bequeathed from one generation to another, have dictated their
politics. With respect to the Radical or the Reformer, the case is otherwise;
for it is certain that in this, as in every great and enlightened nation,
enjoying an intense and fervid communication of thought through the press,
there is, and must be, a tendency widely diffused to the principles of sane
reform—an anxiety to probe and examine all the institutions of the land by
the increasing lights of the age—and a salutary determination that no
acknowledged abuse shall be sheltered by prescription, or privileged by its
antiquity. In saying, therefore, that his principles are spread over the length
and breadth of the land, the Reformer says no more than the truth. Whig and
Tory, as usually understood, express only two modes of aristocratic
partisanship: and it is strange, indeed, to find people deluded by the notion
that the reforming principle has any more natural connexion with the first
than the last. Reformer, on the other hand, to a certain extent expresses the
political creed and aspect of almost every enlightened citizen: but, then,
how? Not, as the Radical would insinuate, as pledging a man to a specific
set of objects, or to any visible and apparent party, having known leaders

and settled modes of action. British society, in its large majority, may be
fairly described as Reformers, in the sense of being favourably disposed to a
general spirit of ventilation and reform carried through all departments of
public business, political or judicial; but it is so far from being, therefore,
true that men in general are favourably disposed to any known party, in or
out of Parliament, united for certain objects and by certain leaders, that, on
the contrary, this reforming party itself has no fixed unity, and no generally
acknowledged heads. It is divided both as to persons and as to things: the
ends to be pursued create as many schisms as the course of means proper
for the pursuit, and the choice of agents for conducting the public wishes. In
fact, it would be even more difficult to lay down the ideal standard of a
Reformer, or his abstract creed, than of a Tory: and, supposing this done, it
would be found, in practice, that the imperfect approximations to the pure
faith would differ by even broader shades as regarded the reforming creed
than as regarded that of the rigorous or ultra Tory.
With respect to Mr. Coleridge: he was certainly a friend to all enlightened
reforms; he was a friend, for example, to Reform in Parliament. Sensible as
he was of the prodigious diffusion of knowledge and good sense amongst
the classes immediately below the gentry in British society, he could not but
acknowledge their right to a larger and a less indirect share of political
influence. As to the plan, and its extent, and its particular provisions,—upon
those he hesitated and wavered; as other friends to the same views have
done, and will continue to do. The only avowed objects of modern
Reformers which he would strenuously have opposed, nay, would have
opposed with the zeal of an ancient martyr, are those which respect the
Church of England, and, therefore, most of those which respect the two
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. There he would have been found in
the first ranks of the Anti-Reformers. He would also have supported the
House of Peers, as the tried bulwark of our social interests in many a
famous struggle, and sometimes, in the hour of need, the sole barrier against
despotic aggressions on the one hand, and servile submissions on the other.
Moreover, he looked with favour upon many modes of aristocratic influence
as balances to new-made commercial wealth, and to a far baser tyranny
likely to arise from that quarter when unbalanced. But, allowing for these
points of difference, I know of little else stamped with the general seal of
modern reform, and claiming to be a privileged object for a national effort,

which would not have had his countenance. It is true,—and this I am
sensible will be objected,—that his party connexions were chiefly with the
Tories; and it adds a seeming strength to this objection, that these
connexions were not those of accident, nor those which he inherited, nor
those of his youthful choice. They were sought out by himself, and in his
maturer years; or else they were such as sought him for the sake of his
political principles; and equally, in either case, they argued some affinity in
his political creed. This much cannot be denied. But one consideration will
serve greatly to qualify the inference from these facts. In those years when
Mr. Coleridge became connected with Tories, what was the predominating
and cardinal principle of Toryism, in comparison with which all else was
willingly slighted? Circumstances of position had thrown upon the Tories
the onus of a great national struggle, the greatest which History anywhere
records, and with an enemy the most deadly. The Whigs were then out of
power: they were therefore in opposition; and that one fact, the simple fact,
of holding an anti-ministerial position, they allowed, by a most fatal
blunder, to determine the course of their foreign politics. Napoleon was to
be cherished simply because he was a thorn in Mr. Pitt's side. So began their
foreign policy—and in that pettiest of personal views. Because they were
anti-ministerial, they allowed themselves passively to become anti-national.
To be a Whig, therefore, in those days, implied little more than a strenuous
opposition to foreign war; to be a Tory pledged a man to little more than
war with Napoleon Bonaparte. And this view of our foreign relations it was
that connected Coleridge with Tories,—a view which arose upon no
motives of selfish interest (as too often has been said in reproach), but upon
the changes wrought in the spirit of the French Republic, which gradually
transmuted its defensive warfare (framed originally to meet a conspiracy of
kings crusading against the new-born democracy of French institutions,
whilst yet in their cradle) into a warfare of aggression and sanguinary
ambition. The military strength evoked in France by the madness of
European kings had taught her the secret of her own power—a secret too
dangerous for a nation of vanity so infinite, and so feeble in all means of
moral self-restraint. The temptation to foreign conquest was too strong for
the national principles; and, in this way, all that had been grand and pure in
the early pretensions of French Republicanism rapidly melted away before
the common bribes of vulgar ambition. Unoffending states, such as
Switzerland, were the first to be trampled under foot; no voice was heard

any more but the "brazen throat of war"; and, after all that had been vaunted
of a golden age, and a long career opened to the sceptre of pure political
justice, the clouds gathered more gloomily than ever; and the sword was
once more reinstated, as the sole arbiter of right, with less disguise and less
reserve than under the vilest despotism of kings. The change was in the
French Republicans, not in their foreign admirers; they, in mere
consistency, were compelled into corresponding changes, and into final
alienation of sympathy, as they beheld, one after one, all titles forfeited by
which that grand explosion of pure democracy had originally challenged
and sustained their veneration. The mighty Republic had now begun to
revolve through those fierce transmigrations foreseen by Burke, to every
one of which, by turns, he had denounced an inevitable "purification by fire
and blood": no trace remained of her primitive character: and of that awful
outbreak of popular might which once had made France the land of hope
and promise to the whole human race, and had sounded a knell to every
form of oppression or abuse, no record was to be found, except in the
stupendous power which cemented its martial oligarchy. Of the people, of
the democracy—or that it had ever for an hour been roused from its
slumbers—one sole evidence remained; and that lay in the blank power of
destruction, and its perfect organization, which none but a popular
movement, no power short of that, could have created. The people, having
been unchained, and as if for the single purpose of creating a vast system of
destroying energies, had then immediately recoiled within their old limits,
and themselves become the earliest victim of their own stratocracy. In this
way France had become an object of jealousy and alarm. It remained to see
to what purpose she would apply her new energies. That was soon settled;
her new-born power was wielded from the first by unprincipled and by
ambitious men; and, in 1800, it fell under the permanent control of an
autocrat, whose unity of purpose, and iron will, left no room for any hope of
change.
Under these circumstances, under these prospects, coupled with this
retrospect, what became the duty of all foreign politicians? of the English
above all, as natural leaders in any hopeful scheme of resistance? The
question can scarcely be put with decency. Time and season, place or
considerations of party, all alike vanished before an elementary duty to the
human race, which much transcended any duty of exclusive patriotism.

Plant it, however, on that narrower basis, and the answer would have been
the same for all centuries, and for every land under a corresponding state of
circumstances. Of Napoleon's real purposes there cannot now be any
reasonable doubt. His confessions—and, in particular, his indirect
revelations at St. Helena—have long since removed all demurs or scruples
of scepticism. For England, therefore, as in relation to a man bent upon her
ruin, all distinctions of party were annihilated—Whig and Tory were
merged and swallowed up in the transcendent duties of patriots,
Englishmen, lovers of liberty. Tories, as Tories, had here no peculiar or
separate duties—none which belonged to their separate creed in politics.
Their duties were paramount; and their partisanship had here no application
—was perfectly indifferent, and spoke neither this way nor that. In one
respect only they had peculiar duties, and a peculiar responsibility; peculiar,
however, not by any difference of quality, but in its supreme degree; the
same duties which belonged to all, belonged to them by a heavier
responsibility. And how, or why? Not as Tories had they, or could they
have, any functions at all applying to this occasion; it was as being then the
ministerial party, as the party accidentally in power at the particular crisis:
in that character it was that they had any separate or higher degree of
responsibility; otherwise, and as to the kind of their duty apart from this
degree, the Tories stood in the same circumstances as men of all other
parties. To the Tories, however, as accidentally in possession of the supreme
power, and wielding the national forces at that time, and directing their
application—to them it was that the honour belonged of making a
beginning: on them had devolved the privilege of opening and authorizing
the dread crusade. How and in what spirit they acquitted themselves of that
most enviable task—enviable for its sanctity, fearful for the difficulty of its
adequate fulfilment—how they persevered, and whether, at any crisis, the
direst and most ominous to the righteous cause, they faltered or gave sign of
retreating—History will tell—History has already told. To the Whigs
belonged the duty of seconding their old antagonists: and no wise man
could have doubted that, in a case of transcendent patriotism, where none of
those principles could possibly apply by which the two parties were divided
and distinguished, the Whigs would be anxious to show that, for the
interests of their common country, they could cheerfully lay aside all those
party distinctions, and forget those feuds which now had no pertinence or
meaning. Simply as Whigs, had they stood in no other relation, they

probably would have done so. Unfortunately, however, for their own good
name and popularity in after times, they were divided from the other party,
not merely as Whigs opposed to Tories, but also upon another and a more
mortifying distinction, which was not, like the first, a mere inert question of
speculation or theory, but involved a vast practical difference of honours
and emoluments:—they were divided, I say, on another and more vexatious
principle, as the Outs opposed to the Ins. Simply as Whigs, they might have
coalesced with the Tories quoad hoc, and merely for this one purpose. But,
as men out of power, they could not coalesce with those who were in. They
constituted "his Majesty's Opposition"; and, in a fatal hour, they determined
that it was fitting to carry their general scheme of hostility even into this
sacred and privileged ground. That resolution once taken, they found it
necessary to pursue it with zeal. The case itself was too weighty and too
interesting to allow of any moderate tone for the abetters or opposers.
Passion and personal bitterness soon animated the contest: violent and rash
predictions were hazarded—prophecies of utter ruin and of captivity for our
whole army were solemnly delivered: and it soon became evident, as indeed
mere human infirmity made it beforehand but too probable, that, where so
much personal credit was at stake upon the side of our own national
dishonour, the wishes of the prophet had been pledged to the same result as
the credit of his political sagacity. Many were the melancholy illustrations
of the same general case. Men were seen fighting against the evidences of
some great British victory with all the bitterness and fierce incredulity
which usually meet the first rumours of some private calamity: that was in
effect the aspect in their eyes of each national triumph in its turn. Their
position, connected with the unfortunate election made by the Whig leaders
of their tone, from the very opening of the contest, gave the character of a
calamity for them and for their party to that which to every other heart in
Britain was the noblest of triumphs in the noblest of causes; and, as a party,
the Whigs mourned for years over those events which quickened the pulses
of pleasure and sacred exultation in every other heart. God forbid that all
Whigs should have felt in this unnatural way! I speak only of the tone set by
the Parliamentary leaders. The few who were in Parliament, and exposed to
daily taunts from the just exultation of their irritated opponents, had their
natural feelings poisoned and envenomed. The many who were out of
Parliament, and not personally interested in this warfare of the Houses,

were left open to natural influences of patriotic pride, and to the contagion
of public sympathy: and these, though Whigs, felt as became them.
These are things too unnatural to be easily believed, or, in a land where the
force of partisanship is less, to be easily understood. Being true, however,
they ought not to be forgotten:- and at present it is almost necessary that
they should be stated for the justification of Coleridge. Too much has been
written upon this part of his life, and too many reproaches thrown out upon
his levity or his want of principle in his supposed sacrifice of his early
political connexions, to make it possible for any reverencer of Coleridge's
memory to pass over the case without a full explanation. That explanation is
involved in the strange and scandalous conduct of the Parliamentary Whigs.
Coleridge passed over to the Tories only in that sense in which all patriots
did so at that time, and in relation to our great foreign interest—viz. by
refusing to accompany the Whigs in their almost perfidious demeanour
towards Napoleon Bonaparte. Anti-ministerial they affect to style their
policy, but in the most eminent sense it was anti-national. It was thus far—
viz. exclusively, or almost exclusively, in relation to our great feud with
Napoleon—that Coleridge adhered to the Tories. But, because this feud was
so capital and so earth-shaking a quarrel that it occupied all hearts and all
the councils of Christendom, suffering no other question almost to live in its
neighbourhood, hence it happened that he who acceded to the Tories in this
one chapter of their policy was regarded as an ally in the most general
sense. Domestic politics were then, in fact, forgotten; no question, in any
proper sense a Tory one, ever arose in that era; or, if it had, the public
attention would not have settled upon it, and it would speedily have been
dismissed.
Hence I deduce as a possibility, and, from my knowledge of Coleridge, I
deduce it as a fact, that his adhesion to the Tories was bounded by his
approbation of their foreign policy; and even of that rarely in its executive
details, rarely even in its military plans (for these he assailed with more
keenness of criticism than to me the case seemed to justify), but solely in its
animating principle, its moving and sustaining force, viz. the doctrine and
entire faith that Napoleon Bonaparte ought to be resisted, was not a proper
object of diplomacy or negotiation, and could be resisted hopefully and
triumphantly. Thus far he went along with the Tories: in all else he belonged
quite as much to other parties—so far as he belonged to any. And that he

did not follow any bias of private interest in connecting himself with Tories,
or rather in allowing Tories to connect themselves with him, appears (rather
more indeed than it ought to have appeared) on the very surface of his life.
From Tory munificence he drew nothing at all, unless it should be imputed
to his Tory connexions that George IV selected him for one of his
academicians. But this slight mark of royal favour he owed, I believe, to
other considerations; and I have reason to think that this way of treating
political questions, so wide of dogmatism, and laying open so vast a field to
scepticism that might else have gone unregarded, must have been held as
evidence of too latitudinarian a creed to justify a title to Toryism. And, upon
the whole, I am of opinion that few events of Mr. Coleridge's life were
better calculated to place his disinterested pursuit of truth in a luminous
aspect. In fact, his carelessness of all worldly interests was too notorious to
leave him open to suspicions of that nature: nor was this carelessness kept
within such limits as to be altogether meritorious. There is no doubt that his
indolence concurred, in some degree, to that line of conduct and to that
political reserve which would, at all events, have been pursued, in a degree
beyond what honour the severest, or delicacy the most nervous, could have
enjoined.
It is a singular anecdote, after all, to report of Coleridge, who incurred the
reproach of having ratted solely by his inability to follow the friends of his
early days into what his heart regarded as a monstrous and signal breach of
patriotism, that in any eminent sense he was not a patriot. His
understanding, in this, as in many instances, was too active, too restless, for
any abiding feelings to lay hold of him, unless when they coincided with
some palpable command of nature. Parental love, for instance, was too holy
a thing to be submitted for an instant to any scrutiny or any jealousy of his
hair-splitting understanding. But it must be something as sacred and as
profound as that which with Coleridge could long support the endless
attrition of his too active intellect. In this instance, he had the same defect,
derived in part from the same cause, as a contemporary, one of the idols of
the day, more celebrated, and more widely celebrated, than Coleridge, but
far his inferior in power and compass of intellect. I speak of Goethe: he also
was defective, and defective under far stronger provocations and
excitement, in patriotic feeling. He cared little for Weimar, and less for
Germany. And he was, thus far, much below Coleridge—that the passion

which he could not feel Coleridge yet obliged himself practically to obey in
all things which concerned the world, whereas Goethe disowned this
passion equally in his acts, his words, and his writings. Both are now gone
—Goethe and Coleridge; both are honoured by those who knew them, and
by multitudes who did not. But the honours of Coleridge are perennial, and
will annually grow more verdant; whilst from those of Goethe every
generation will see something fall away, until posterity will wonder at the
subverted idol, whose basis, being hollow and unsound, will leave the
worship of their fathers an enigma to their descendants.
NOTE REFERRED TO ON PAGE 143
I have somewhere seen it remarked with respect to these charges of
plagiarism, that, however incontrovertible, they did not come with any
propriety or grace from myself as the supposed friend of Coleridge, and as
writing my sketch of slight reminiscences on the immediate suggestion of
his death. My answer is this: I certainly was the first person (first, I believe,
by some years) to point out the plagiarisms of Coleridge, and above all
others that circumstantial plagiarism, of which it is impossible to suppose
him unconscious, from Schelling. Many of his plagiarisms were probably
unintentional, and arose from that confusion between things floating in the
memory and things self-derived which happens at times to most of us that
deal much with books on the one hand, and composition on the other. An
author can hardly have written much and rapidly who does not sometimes
detect himself, and perhaps, therefore, sometimes fail to detect himself, in
appropriating the thoughts, images, or striking expressions of others. It is
enough for his conscientious self-justification, that he is anxiously vigilant
to guard himself from such unacknowledged obligations, and forward to
acknowledge them as soon as ever they are pointed out. But no excess of
candour the most indulgent will allow us to suppose that a most profound
speculation upon the original relations inter se of the subjective and the
objective, literally translated from the German, and stretching over some
pages, could, after any interval of years, come to be mistaken by the
translator for his own. This amounted to an entire essay. But suppose the
compass of the case to lie within a single word, yet if that word were so
remarkable, so provocative to the curiosity, and promising so much weight
of meaning (which reasonably any great departure from ordinary diction
must promise), as the word esemplastic,[87] we should all hold it impossible

for a man to appropriate this word inadvertently. I, therefore, greatly
understated the case against Coleridge, instead of giving to it an undue
emphasis. Secondly, in stating it at all, I did so (as at the time I explained)
in pure kindness. Well I knew that, from the direction in which English
philosophic studies were now travelling, sooner or later these
appropriations of Coleridge must be detected; and I felt that it would break
the force of the discovery, as an unmitigated sort of police detection, if first
of all it had been announced by one who, in the same breath, was professing
an unshaken faith in Coleridge's philosophic power. It could not be argued
that one of those who most fervently admired Coleridge had professed such
feelings only because he was ignorant of Coleridge's obligations to others.
Here was a man who had actually for himself, unguided and unwarned,
discovered these obligations; and yet, in the very act of making that
discovery, this man clung to his original feelings and faith. But, thirdly, I
must inform the reader that I was not, nor ever had been, the "friend" of
Coleridge in any sense which could have a right to restrain my frankest
opinions upon his merits. I never had lived in such intercourse with
Coleridge as to give me an opportunity of becoming his friend. To him I
owed nothing at all; but to the public, to the body of his own readers, every
writer owes the truth, and especially on a subject so important as that which
was then before me.
With respect to the comparatively trivial case of Pythagoras, an author of
great distinction in literature and in the Anglican Church has professed
himself unable to understand what room there could be for plagiarism in a
case where the solution ascribed to Coleridge was amongst the
commonplaces of ordinary English academic tuition. Locally this may have
been so; but hardly, I conceive, in so large an extent as to make that solution
publici juris. Yet, however this may be, no help is given to Coleridge; since,
according to Mr. Poole's story, whether the interpretation of the riddle were
or were not generally diffused, Coleridge claimed it for his own.—[In Mrs.
Sandford's Thomas Poole and his Friends (1888), vol. ii. pp. 304-6, there is
printed a letter of Mr. Poole's, dated June 1835, doubting the accuracy of De
Quincey's story of their discourse in 1807, respecting Coleridge's
plagiarisms.—M.]
Finally—for distance from the press and other inconveniences of unusual
pressure oblige me to wind up suddenly—the whole spirit of my record at

the time (twenty years ago), and in particular the special allusion to the last
Duke of Ancaster's case, as one which ran parallel to Coleridge's, involving
the same propensity to appropriate what generally were trifles in the midst
of enormous and redundant wealth, survives as an indication of the animus
with which I approached this subject, starting even from the assumption
that I was bound to consider myself under the restraints of friendship—
which, for the second time let me repeat, I was not. In reality, the notes
contributed to the Aldine edition of the "Biographia Literaria," by
Coleridge's admirable daughter, have placed this whole subject in a new
light; and, in doing this, have unavoidably reflected some degree of
justification upon myself. Too much so, I understand to be the feeling in
some quarters. This lamented lady is thought to have shown partialities in
her distributions of praise and blame upon this subject. I will not here enter
into that discussion. But, as respects the justification of her father, I regard
her mode of argument as unassailable. Filial piety the most tender never
was so finely reconciled with candour towards the fiercest of his
antagonists. Wherever the plagiarism was undeniable, she has allowed it;
whilst palliating its faultiness by showing the circumstances under which it
arose. But she has also opened a new view of other circumstances under
which an apparent plagiarism arose that was not real. I myself, for instance,
knew cases where Coleridge gave to young ladies a copy of verses, headed
thus—"Lines on——, from the German of Hölty." Other young ladies made
transcripts of these lines; and, caring nothing for the German authorship,
naturally fathered them upon Coleridge, the translator. These lines were
subsequently circulated as Coleridge's, and as if on Coleridge's own
authority. Thus arose many cases of apparent plagiarism. And, lastly, as his
daughter most truly reports, if he took—he gave. Continually he fancied
other men's thoughts his own; but such were the confusions of his memory
that continually, and with even greater liberality, he ascribed his own
thoughts to others.

CHAPTER III
THE LAKE POETS: WILLIAM
WORDSWORTH[88]

In 1807 it was, at the beginning of winter, that I first saw William
Wordsworth. I have already mentioned[89] that I had introduced myself to his
notice by letter as early as the spring of 1803. To this hour it has continued,
I believe, a mystery to Wordsworth why it was that I suffered an interval of
four and a half years to slip away before availing myself of the standing
invitation with which I had been honoured to the poet's house. Very
probably he accounted for this delay by supposing that the new-born liberty
of an Oxford life, with its multiplied enjoyments, acting upon a boy just
emancipated from the restraints of a school, and, in one hour, elevated into
what we Oxonians so proudly and so exclusively denominate "a man,"[90]
might have tempted me into pursuits alien from the pure intellectual
passions which had so powerfully mastered my youthful heart some years
before. Extinguished such a passion could not be; nor could he think so, if
remembering the fervour with which I had expressed it, the sort of
"nympholepsy" which had seized upon me, and which, in some imperfect
way, I had avowed with reference to the very lakes and mountains amongst
which the scenery of this most original poetry had chiefly grown up and
moved. The very names of the ancient hills—Fairfield, Seat Sandal,
Helvellyn, Blencathara, Glaramara; the names of the sequestered glens—
such as Borrowdale, Martindale, Mardale, Wasdale, and Ennerdale; but,
above all, the shy pastoral recesses, not garishly in the world's eye, like
Windermere or Derwentwater, but lurking half unknown to the traveller of
that day—Grasmere, for instance, the lovely abode of the poet himself,
solitary, and yet sowed, as it were, with a thin diffusion of humble

dwellings—here a scattering, and there a clustering, as in the starry heavens
—sufficient to afford, at every turn and angle, human remembrances and
memorials of time-honoured affections, or of passions (as the "Churchyard
amongst the Mountains" will amply demonstrate) not wanting even in
scenic and tragical interest: these were so many local spells upon me,
equally poetic and elevating with the Miltonic names of Valdarno and
Vallombrosa.
Deep are the voices which seem to call, deep is the lesson which would be
taught, even to the most thoughtless of men,

"Could field, or grove, or any spot of earth,
Show to his eye an image of the pangs
Which it hath witnessed; render back an echo
Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod."[91]

Meantime, my delay was due to anything rather than to waning interest. On
the contrary, the real cause of my delay was the too great profundity, and
the increasing profundity, of my interest in this regeneration of our national
poetry, and the increasing awe, in due proportion to the decaying
thoughtlessness of boyhood, which possessed me for the character of its
author. So far from neglecting Wordsworth, it is a fact that twice I had
undertaken a long journey expressly for the purpose of paying my respects
to Wordsworth; twice I came so far as the little rustic inn (then the sole inn
of the neighbourhood) at Church Coniston; and on neither occasion could I
summon confidence enough to present myself before him. It was not that I
had any want of proper boldness for facing the most numerous company of
a mixed or ordinary character: reserved, indeed, I was, perhaps even shy—
from the character of my mind, so profoundly meditative, and the character
of my life, so profoundly sequestered—but still, from counteracting causes,
I was not deficient in a reasonable self-confidence towards the world
generally. But the very image of Wordsworth, as I prefigured it to my own
planet-struck eye, crushed my faculties as before Elijah or St. Paul. Twice,
as I have said, did I advance as far as the Lake of Coniston; which is about
eight miles from the church of Grasmere, and once I absolutely went
forwards from Coniston to the very gorge of Hammerscar, from which the
whole Vale of Grasmere suddenly breaks upon the view in a style of almost
theatrical surprise, with its lovely valley stretching before the eye in the

distance, the lake lying immediately below, with its solemn ark-like island
of four and a half acres in size seemingly floating on its surface, and its
exquisite outline on the opposite shore, revealing all its little bays[92] and
wild sylvan margin, feathered to the edge with wild flowers and ferns. In
one quarter, a little wood, stretching for about half a mile towards the outlet
of the lake; more directly in opposition to the spectator, a few green fields;
and beyond them, just two bowshots from the water, a little white cottage
gleaming from the midst of trees, with a vast and seemingly never-ending
series of ascents rising above it to the height of more than three thousand
feet. That little cottage was Wordsworth's from the time of his marriage, and
earlier; in fact, from the beginning of the century to the year 1808.
Afterwards, for many a year, it was mine. Catching one hasty glimpse of
this loveliest of landscapes, I retreated like a guilty thing, for fear I might be
surprised by Wordsworth, and then returned faintheartedly to Coniston, and
so to Oxford, re infectâ.
This was in 1806. And thus far, from mere excess of nervous distrust in my
own powers for sustaining a conversation with Wordsworth, I had for nearly
five years shrunk from a meeting for which, beyond all things under
heaven, I longed. In early youth I laboured under a peculiar embarrassment
and penury of words, when I sought to convey my thoughts adequately
upon interesting subjects: neither was it words only that I wanted; but I
could not unravel, I could not even make perfectly conscious to myself, the
subsidiary thoughts into which one leading thought often radiates; or, at
least, I could not do this with anything like the rapidity requisite for
conversation. I laboured like a sibyl instinct with the burden of prophetic
woe, as often as I found myself dealing with any topic in which the
understanding combined with deep feelings to suggest mixed and tangled
thoughts: and thus partly—partly also from my invincible habit of reverie—
at that era of my life, I had a most distinguished talent "pour le silence."
Wordsworth, from something of the same causes, suffered (by his own
report to myself) at the same age from pretty much the same infirmity. And
yet, in more advanced years—probably about twenty-eight or thirty—both
of us acquired a remarkable fluency in the art of unfolding our thoughts
colloquially. However, at that period my deficiencies were what I have
described. And, after all, though I had no absolute cause for anticipating
contempt, I was so far right in my fears, that since that time I have had

occasion to perceive a worldly tone of sentiment in Wordsworth, not less
than in Mrs. Hannah More and other literary people, by which they were led
to set a higher value upon a limited respect from a person high in the
world's esteem than upon the most lavish spirit of devotion from an obscure
quarter. Now, in that point, my feelings are far otherwise.
Meantime, the world went on; events kept moving; and, amongst them, in
the course of 1807, occurred the event of Coleridge's return to England
from his official station in the Governor's family at Malta. At Bridgewater,
as I have already recorded, in the summer of 1807, I was introduced to him.
Several weeks after he came with his family to the Bristol Hot-Wells, at
which, by accident, I was then visiting. On calling upon him, I found that he
had been engaged by the Royal Institution to lecture at their theatre in
Albemarle Street during the coming winter of 1807-8, and, consequently,
was embarrassed about the mode of conveying his family to Keswick. Upon
this, I offered my services to escort them in a post-chaise. This offer was
cheerfully accepted; and at the latter end of October we set forwards—Mrs.
Coleridge, viz., with her two sons—Hartley, aged nine, Derwent, about
seven—her beautiful little daughter,[93] about five, and, finally, myself.
Going by the direct route through Gloucester, Bridgenorth, &c., on the third
day we reached Liverpool, where I took up my quarters at a hotel, whilst
Mrs. Coleridge paid a visit of a few days to a very interesting family, who
had become friends of Southey during his visit to Portugal. These were the
Misses Koster, daughters of an English gold-merchant of celebrity, who had
recently quitted Lisbon on the approach of the French army under Junot.
Mr. Koster did me the honour to call at my quarters, and invite me to his
house; an invitation which I very readily accepted, and had thus an
opportunity of becoming acquainted with a family the most accomplished I
had ever known. At dinner there appeared only the family party—several
daughters, and one son, a fine young man of twenty, but who was
consciously dying of asthma. Mr. Koster, the head of the family, was
distinguished for his good sense and practical information; but, in
Liverpool, even more so by his eccentric and obstinate denial of certain
notorious events; in particular, some two years later, he denied that any such
battle as Talavera had ever been fought, and had a large wager depending
upon the decision. His house was the resort of distinguished foreigners; and,
on the first evening of my dining there, as well as afterwards, I there met

that marvel of women, Madame Catalani. I had heard her repeatedly; but
never before been near enough to see her smile and converse—even to be
honoured with a smile myself. She and Lady Hamilton were the most
effectively brilliant women I ever saw. However, on this occasion, the
Misses Koster outshone even La Catalani; to her they talked in the most
fluent Italian; to some foreign men, in Portuguese; to one in French; and to
most of the party in English; and each, by turns, seemed to be their native
tongue. Nor did they shrink, even in the presence of the mighty enchantress,
from exhibiting their musical skill.
Leaving Liverpool, after about a week's delay, we pursued our journey
northwards. We had slept on the first day at Lancaster. Consequently, at the
rate of motion which then prevailed throughout England—which, however,
was rarely equalled on that western road, where all things were in arrear by
comparison with the eastern and southern roads of the kingdom—we found
ourselves, about three o'clock in the afternoon, at Ambleside, fourteen miles
to the north-west of Kendal, and thirty-six from Lancaster. There, for the
last time, we stopped to change horses; and about four o'clock we found
ourselves on the summit of the White Moss, a hill which rises between the
second and third milestones on the stage from Ambleside to Keswick, and
which then retarded the traveller's advance by a full fifteen minutes, but is
now evaded by a lower line of road. In ascending this hill, from weariness
of moving so slowly, I, with the two Coleridges, had alighted; and, as we all
chose to refresh ourselves by running down the hill into Grasmere, we had
left the chaise behind us, and had even lost the sound of the wheels at times,
when all at once we came, at an abrupt turn of the road, in sight of a white
cottage, with two yew-trees breaking the glare of its white walls. A sudden
shock seized me on recognising this cottage, of which, in the previous year,
I had gained a momentary glimpse from Hammerscar, on the opposite side
of the lake. I paused, and felt my old panic returning upon me; but just then,
as if to take away all doubt upon the subject, I saw Hartley Coleridge, who
had gained upon me considerably, suddenly turn in at a garden gate; this
motion to the right at once confirmed me in my belief that here at last we
had reached our port; that this little cottage was tenanted by that man
whom, of all the men from the beginning of time, I most fervently desired
to see; that in less than a minute I should meet Wordsworth face to face.
Coleridge was of opinion that, if a man were really and consciously to see

an apparition, in such circumstances death would be the inevitable result;
and, if so, the wish which we hear so commonly expressed for such
experience is as thoughtless as that of Semele in the Grecian Mythology, so
natural in a female, that her lover should visit her en grand costume—
presumptuous ambition, that unexpectedly wrought its own ruinous
chastisement! Judged by Coleridge's test, my situation could not have been
so terrific as his who anticipates a ghost; for, certainly, I survived this
meeting; but at that instant it seemed pretty much the same to my own
feelings.
Never before or since can I reproach myself with having trembled at the
approaching presence of any creature that is born of woman, excepting
only, for once or twice in my life, woman herself. Now, however, I did
tremble; and I forgot, what in no other circumstances I could have
forgotten, to stop for the coming up of the chaise, that I might be ready to
hand Mrs. Coleridge out. Had Charlemagne and all his peerage been behind
me, or Cæsar and his equipage, or Death on his pale horse, I should have
forgotten them at that moment of intense expectation, and of eyes fascinated
to what lay before me, or what might in a moment appear. Through the little
gate I pressed forward; ten steps beyond it lay the principal door of the
house. To this, no longer clearly conscious of my own feelings, I passed on
rapidly; I heard a step, a voice, and, like a flash of lightning, I saw the
figure emerge of a tallish man, who held out his hand, and saluted me with
most cordial expressions of welcome. The chaise, however, drawing up to
the gate at that moment, he (and there needed no Roman nomenclator to tell
me that this he was Wordsworth) felt himself summoned to advance and
receive Mrs. Coleridge. I, therefore, stunned almost with the actual
accomplishment of a catastrophe so long anticipated and so long postponed,
mechanically went forward into the house. A little semi-vestibule between
two doors prefaced the entrance into what might be considered the principal
room of the cottage. It was an oblong square, not above eight and a half feet
high, sixteen feet long, and twelve broad; very prettily wainscoted from the
floor to the ceiling with dark polished oak, slightly embellished with
carving. One window there was—a perfect and unpretending cottage
window, with little diamond panes, embowered at almost every season of
the year with roses, and in the summer and autumn with a profusion of
jasmine and other fragrant shrubs. From the exuberant luxuriance of the

vegetation around it, and from the dark hue of the wainscoting, this
window, though tolerably large, did not furnish a very powerful light to one
who entered from the open air. However, I saw sufficiently to be aware of
two ladies just entering the room, through a doorway opening upon a little
staircase, The foremost, a tallish young woman, with the most winning
expression of benignity upon her features, advanced to me, presenting her
hand with so frank an air that all embarrassment must have fled in a
moment before the native goodness of her manner. This was Mrs.
Wordsworth, cousin of the poet, and, for the last five years or more, his
wife.[94] She was now mother of two children, a son and a daughter; and she
furnished a remarkable proof how possible it is for a woman neither
handsome nor even comely according to the rigour of criticism—nay,
generally pronounced very plain—to exercise all the practical fascination of
beauty, through the mere compensatory charms of sweetness all but angelic,
of simplicity the most entire, womanly self-respect and purity of heart
speaking through all her looks, acts, and movements. Words, I was going to
have added; but her words were few. In reality, she talked so little that Mr.
Slave-Trade Clarkson used to allege against her that she could only say
"God bless you!" Certainly, her intellect was not of an active order; but, in a
quiescent, reposing, meditative way, she appeared always to have a genial
enjoyment from her own thoughts; and it would have been strange, indeed,
if she, who enjoyed such eminent advantages of training, from the daily
society of her husband and his sister, failed to acquire some power of
judging for herself, and putting forth some functions of activity. But
undoubtedly that was not her element: to feel and to enjoy in a luxurious
repose of mind—there was her forte and her peculiar privilege; and how
much better this was adapted to her husband's taste, how much more
adapted to uphold the comfort of his daily life, than a blue-stocking
loquacity, or even a legitimate talent for discussion, may be inferred from
his verses, beginning—

"She was a phantom of delight,
When first she gleam'd upon my sight."

Once for all,[95] these exquisite lines were dedicated to Mrs. Wordsworth;
were understood to describe her—to have been prompted by the feminine
graces of her character; hers they are, and will remain for ever. To these,

therefore, I may refer the reader for an idea of what was most important in
the partner and second self of the poet. And I will add to this abstract of her
moral portrait these few concluding traits of her appearance in a physical
sense. Her figure was tolerably good. In complexion she was fair, and there
was something peculiarly pleasing even in this accident of the skin, for it
was accompanied by an animated expression of health, a blessing which, in
fact, she possessed uninterruptedly. Her eyes, the reader may already know,
were

"Like stars of twilight fair;
Like twilight, too, her dark brown hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn."

Yet strange it is to tell that, in these eyes of vesper gentleness, there was a
considerable obliquity of vision; and much beyond that slight obliquity
which is often supposed to be an attractive foible in the countenance: this
ought to have been displeasing or repulsive; yet, in fact, it was not. Indeed
all faults, had they been ten times more and greater, would have been
neutralized by that supreme expression of her features to the unity of which
every lineament in the fixed parts, and every undulation in the moving
parts, of her countenance, concurred, viz. a sunny benignity—a radiant
graciousness—such as in this world I never saw surpassed.
Immediately behind her moved a lady, shorter, slighter, and perhaps, in all
other respects, as different from her in personal characteristics as could
have been wished for the most effective contrast. "Her face was of Egyptian
brown"; rarely, in a woman of English birth, had I seen a more determinate
gipsy tan. Her eyes were not soft, as Mrs. Wordsworth's, nor were they
fierce or bold; but they were wild and startling, and hurried in their motion.
Her manner was warm and even ardent; her sensibility seemed
constitutionally deep; and some subtle fire of impassioned intellect
apparently burned within her, which, being alternately pushed forward into
a conspicuous expression by the irrepressible instincts of her temperament,
and then immediately checked, in obedience to the decorum of her sex and
age, and her maidenly condition, gave to her whole demeanour, and to her
conversation, an air of embarrassment, and even of self-conflict, that was
almost distressing to witness. Even her very utterance and enunciation often

suffered, in point of clearness and steadiness, from the agitation of her
excessive organic sensibility. At times, the self-counteraction and self-
baffling of her feelings caused her even to stammer, and so determinately to
stammer that a stranger who should have seen her and quitted her in that
state of feeling would have certainly set her down for one plagued with that
infirmity of speech as distressingly as Charles Lamb himself. This was Miss
Wordsworth, the only sister of the poet—his "Dorothy"; who naturally
owed so much to the lifelong intercourse with her great brother in his most
solitary and sequestered years; but, on the other hand, to whom he has
acknowledged obligations of the profoundest nature; and, in particular, this
mighty one, through which we also, the admirers and the worshippers of
this great poet, are become equally her debtors—that, whereas the intellect
of Wordsworth was, by its original tendency, too stern, too austere, too
much enamoured of an ascetic harsh sublimity, she it was—the lady who
paced by his side continually through sylvan and mountain tracks, in
Highland glens, and in the dim recesses of German charcoal-burners—that
first couched his eye to the sense of beauty, humanized him by the gentler
charities, and engrafted, with her delicate female touch, those graces upon
the ruder growths of his nature which have since clothed the forest of his
genius with a foliage corresponding in loveliness and beauty to the strength
of its boughs and the massiness of its trunks. The greatest deductions from
Miss Wordsworth's attractions, and from the exceeding interest which
surrounded her in right of her character, of her history, and of the relation
which she fulfilled towards her brother, were the glancing quickness of her
motions, and other circumstances in her deportment (such as her stooping
attitude when walking), which gave an ungraceful, and even an unsexual
character to her appearance when out-of-doors. She did not cultivate the
graces which preside over the person and its carriage. But, on the other
hand, she was a person of very remarkable endowments intellectually; and,
in addition to the other great services which she rendered to her brother, this
I may mention, as greater than all the rest, and it was one which equally
operated to the benefit of every casual companion in a walk—viz. the
exceeding sympathy, always ready and always profound, by which she
made all that one could tell her, all that one could describe, all that one
could quote from a foreign author, reverberate, as it were, à plusieurs
reprises, to one's own feelings, by the manifest impression it made upon
hers. The pulses of light are not more quick or more inevitable in their flow

and undulation, than were the answering and echoing movements of her
sympathizing attention. Her knowledge of literature was irregular, and
thoroughly unsystematic. She was content to be ignorant of many things;
but what she knew and had really mastered lay where it could not be
disturbed—in the temple of her own most fervid heart.
Such were the two ladies who, with himself and two children, and at that
time one servant, composed the poet's household. They were both, I believe,
about twenty-eight years old; and, if the reader inquires about the single
point which I have left untouched in their portraiture—viz. the style of their
manners—I may say that it was, in some points, naturally of a plain
household simplicity, but every way pleasing, unaffected, and (as respects
Mrs. Wordsworth) even dignified. Few persons had seen so little as this
lady of the world. She had seen nothing of high life, for she had seen little
of any. Consequently, she was unacquainted with the conventional modes of
behaviour, prescribed in particular situations by high breeding. But, as these
modes are little more than the product of dispassionate good sense, applied
to the circumstances of the case, it is surprising how few deficiencies are
perceptible, even to the most vigilant eye—or, at least, essential deficiencies
—in the general demeanour of any unaffected young woman, acting
habitually under a sense of sexual dignity and natural courtesy. Miss
Wordsworth had seen more of life, and even of good company; for she had
lived, when quite a girl, under the protection of Dr. Cookson, a near
relative, canon of Windsor, and a personal favourite of the Royal Family,
especially of George III. Consequently, she ought to have been the more
polished of the two; and yet, from greater natural aptitudes for refinement
of manner in her sister-in-law, and partly, perhaps, from her more quiet and
subdued manner, Mrs. Wordsworth would have been pronounced very
much the more lady-like person.
From the interest which attaches to anybody so nearly connected as these
two ladies with a great poet, I have allowed myself a larger latitude than
else might have been justifiable in describing them. I now go on with my
narrative:—
I was ushered up a little flight of stairs, fourteen in all, to a little drawing-
room, or whatever the reader chooses to call it. Wordsworth himself has
described the fireplace of this room as his

"Half-kitchen and half-parlour fire."

It was not fully seven feet six inches high, and, in other respects, pretty
nearly of the same dimensions as the rustic hall below. There was, however,
in a small recess, a library of perhaps three hundred volumes, which seemed
to consecrate the room as the poet's study and composing room; and such
occasionally it was. But far oftener he both studied, as I found, and
composed, on the high road. I had not been two minutes at the fireside,
when in came Wordsworth, returning from his friendly attentions to the
travellers below, who, it seemed, had been over-persuaded by hospitable
solicitations to stay for this night in Grasmere, and to make out the
remaining thirteen miles of their road to Keswick on the following day.
Wordsworth entered. And "what-like"—to use a Westmoreland as well as a
Scottish expression—"what-like" was Wordsworth? A reviewer in "Tait's
Magazine," noticing some recent collection of literary portraits, gives it as
his opinion that Charles Lamb's head was the finest among them.[96] This
remark may have been justified by the engraved portraits; but, certainly, the
critic would have cancelled it, had he seen the original heads—at least, had
he seen them in youth or in maturity; for Charles Lamb bore age with less
disadvantage to the intellectual expression of his appearance than
Wordsworth, in whom a sanguine complexion had, of late years, usurped
upon the original bronze-tint; and this change of hue, and change in the
quality of skin, had been made fourfold more conspicuous, and more
unfavourable in its general effect, by the harsh contrast of grizzled hair
which had displaced the original brown. No change in personal appearance
ever can have been so unfortunate; for, generally speaking, whatever other
disadvantages old age may bring along with it, one effect, at least in male
subjects, has a compensating tendency—that it removes any tone of vigour
too harsh, and mitigates the expression of power too unsubdued. But, in
Wordsworth, the effect of the change has been to substitute an air of animal
vigour, or, at least, hardiness, as if derived from constant exposure to the
wind and weather, for the fine sombre complexion which he once wore,
resembling that of a Venetian senator or a Spanish monk.
Here, however, in describing the personal appearance of Wordsworth, I go
back, of course, to the point of time at which I am speaking. He was, upon
the whole, not a well-made man. His legs were pointedly condemned by all
female connoisseurs in legs; not that they were bad in any way which would

force itself upon your notice—there was no absolute deformity about them;
and undoubtedly they had been serviceable legs beyond the average
standard of human requisition; for I calculate, upon good data, that with
these identical legs Wordsworth must have traversed a distance of 175,000
to 180,000 English miles—a mode of exertion which, to him, stood in the
stead of alcohol and all other stimulants whatsoever to the animal spirits; to
which, indeed, he was indebted for a life of unclouded happiness, and we
for much of what is most excellent in his writings. But, useful as they have
proved themselves, the Wordsworthian legs were certainly not ornamental;
and it was really a pity, as I agreed with a lady in thinking, that he had not
another pair for evening dress parties—when no boots lend their friendly
aid to mask our imperfections from the eyes of female rigorists—those
elegantes formarum spectatrices. A sculptor would certainly have
disapproved of their contour. But the worst part of Wordsworth's person was
the bust; there was a narrowness and a droop about the shoulders which
became striking, and had an effect of meanness, when brought into close
juxtaposition with a figure of a more statuesque build. Once on a summer
evening, walking in the Vale of Langdale with Wordsworth, his sister, and
Mr. J—-, a native Westmoreland clergyman, I remember that Miss
Wordsworth was positively mortified by the peculiar illustration which
settled upon this defective conformation. Mr. J—-, a fine towering figure,
six feet high, massy and columnar in his proportions, happened to be
walking, a little in advance, with Wordsworth; Miss Wordsworth and myself
being in the rear; and from the nature of the conversation which then
prevailed in our front rank, something or other about money, devises,
buying and selling, we of the rear-guard thought it requisite to preserve this
arrangement for a space of three miles or more; during which time, at
intervals, Miss Wordsworth would exclaim, in a tone of vexation, "Is it
possible,—can that be William? How very mean he looks!" And she did not
conceal a mortification that seemed really painful, until I, for my part, could
not forbear laughing outright at the serious interest which she carried into
this trifle. She was, however, right, as regarded the mere visual judgment.
Wordsworth's figure, with all its defects, was brought into powerful relief
by one which had been cast in a more square and massy mould; and in such
a case it impressed a spectator with a sense of absolute meanness, more
especially when viewed from behind and not counteracted by his
countenance; and yet Wordsworth was of a good height (five feet ten), and

not a slender man; on the contrary, by the side of Southey, his limbs looked
thick, almost in a disproportionate degree. But the total effect of
Wordsworth's person was always worst in a state of motion. Meantime, his
face—that was one which would have made amends for greater defects of
figure. Many such, and finer, I have seen amongst the portraits of Titian,
and, in a later period, amongst those of Vandyke, from the great era of
Charles I, as also from the court of Elizabeth and of Charles II, but none
which has more impressed me in my own time.
Haydon, in his great picture of "Christ's Entry into Jerusalem," has
introduced Wordsworth in the character of a disciple attending his Divine
Master, and Voltaire in the character of a sneering Jewish elder. This fact is
well known; and, as the picture itself is tolerably well known to the public
eye, there are multitudes now living who will have seen a very impressive
likeness of Wordsworth—some consciously, some not suspecting it. There
will, however, always be many who have not seen any portrait at all of
Wordsworth; and therefore I will describe its general outline and effect. It
was a face of the long order, often falsely classed as oval: but a greater
mistake is made by many people in supposing the long face which prevailed
so remarkably in the Elizabethan and Carolinian periods to have become
extinct in our own. Miss Ferrier, in one of her novels ("Marriage," I think),
makes a Highland girl protest that "no Englishman with his round face"
shall ever wean her heart from her own country; but England is not the land
of round faces; and those have observed little, indeed, who think so: France
it is that grows the round face, and in so large a majority of her provinces
that it has become one of the national characteristics. And the remarkable
impression which an Englishman receives from the eternal recurrence of the
orbicular countenance proves of itself, without any conscious testimony,
how the fact stands; in the blind sense of a monotony, not felt elsewhere,
lies involved an argument that cannot be gainsaid. Besides, even upon an a
priori argument, how is it possible that the long face so prevalent in
England, by all confession, in certain splendid eras of our history, should
have had time, in some five or six generations, to grow extinct? Again, the
character of face varies essentially in different provinces. Wales has no
connexion in this respect with Devonshire, nor Kent with Yorkshire, nor
either with Westmoreland. England, it is true, tends, beyond all known
examples, to a general amalgamation of differences, by means of its

unrivalled freedom of intercourse. Yet, even in England, law and necessity
have opposed as yet such and so many obstacles to the free diffusion of
labour that every generation occupies, by at least five-sixths of its numbers,
the ground of its ancestors.
The movable part of a population is chiefly the higher part; and it is the
lower classes that, in every nation, compose the fundus, in which lies latent
the national face, as well as the national character. Each exists here in racy
purity and integrity, not disturbed in the one by alien intermarriages, nor in
the other by novelties of opinion, or other casual effects, derived from
education and reading. Now, look into this fundus, and you will find, in
many districts, no such prevalence of the round orbicular face as some
people erroneously suppose; and in Westmoreland, especially, the ancient
long face of the Elizabethan period, powerfully resembling in all its
lineaments the ancient Roman face, and often (though not so uniformly) the
face of northern Italy in modern times. The face of Sir Walter Scott, as
Irving, the pulpit orator, once remarked to me, was the indigenous face of
the Border: the mouth, which was bad, and the entire lower part of the face,
are seen repeated in thousands of working-men; or, as Irving chose to
illustrate his position, "in thousands of Border horse-jockeys." In like
manner, Wordsworth's face was, if not absolutely the indigenous face of the
Lake district, at any rate a variety of that face, a modification of that
original type. The head was well filled out; and there, to begin with, was a
great advantage over the head of Charles Lamb, which was absolutely
truncated in the posterior region—sawn off, as it were, by no timid sawyer.
The forehead was not remarkably lofty—and, by the way, some artists, in
their ardour for realizing their phrenological preconceptions, not suffering
nature to surrender quietly and by slow degrees her real alphabet of signs
and hieroglyphic characters, but forcing her language prematurely into
conformity with their own crude speculations, have given to Sir Walter
Scott a pile of forehead which is unpleasing and cataphysical, in fact, a
caricature of anything that is ever seen in nature, and would (if real) be
esteemed a deformity; in one instance—that which was introduced in some
annual or other—the forehead makes about two-thirds of the entire face.
Wordsworth's forehead is also liable to caricature misrepresentations in
these days of phrenology: but, whatever it may appear to be in any man's
fanciful portrait, the real living forehead, as I have been in the habit of

seeing it for more than five-and-twenty years, is not remarkable for its
height; but it is, perhaps, remarkable for its breadth and expansive
development. Neither are the eyes of Wordsworth "large," as is erroneously
stated somewhere in "Peter's Letters"[97]; on the contrary, they are (I think)
rather small; but that does not interfere with their effect, which at times is
fine, and suitable to his intellectual character. At times, I say, for the depth
and subtlety of eyes, even their colouring (as to condensation or dilation),
varies exceedingly with the state of the stomach; and, if young ladies were
aware of the magical transformations which can be wrought in the depth
and sweetness of the eye by a few weeks' walking exercise, I fancy we
should see their habits in this point altered greatly for the better. I have seen
Wordsworth's eyes oftentimes affected powerfully in this respect; his eyes
are not, under any circumstances, bright, lustrous, or piercing; but, after a
long day's toil in walking, I have seen them assume an appearance the most
solemn and spiritual that it is possible for the human eye to wear. The light
which resides in them is at no time a superficial light; but, under favourable
accidents, it is a light which seems to come from unfathomed depths: in
fact, it is more truly entitled to be held "the light that never was on land or
sea," a light radiating from some far spiritual world, than any the most
idealizing that ever yet a painter's hand created. The nose, a little arched, is
large; which, by the way (according to a natural phrenology, existing
centuries ago amongst some of the lowest amongst the human species), has
always been accounted an unequivocal expression of animal appetites
organically strong. And that expressed the simple truth: Wordsworth's
intellectual passions were fervent and strong: but they rested upon a basis of
preternatural animal sensibility diffused through all the animal passions (or
appetites); and something of that will be found to hold of all poets who
have been great by original force and power, not (as Virgil) by means of
fine management and exquisite artifice of composition applied to their
conceptions. The mouth, and the whole circumjacencies of the mouth,
composed the strongest feature in Wordsworth's face; there was nothing
specially to be noticed that I know of in the mere outline of the lips; but the
swell and protrusion of the parts above and around the mouth are both
noticeable in themselves, and also because they remind me of a very
interesting fact which I discovered about three years after this my first visit
to Wordsworth.

Being a great collector of everything relating to Milton, I had naturally
possessed myself, whilst yet very young, of Richardson the painter's thick
octavo volume of notes on the "Paradise Lost."[98] It happened, however,
that my copy, in consequence of that mania for portrait collecting which has
stripped so many English classics of their engraved portraits, wanted the
portrait of Milton. Subsequently I ascertained that it ought to have had a
very good likeness of the great poet; and I never rested until I procured a
copy of the book which had not suffered in this respect by the fatal
admiration of the amateur. The particular copy offered to me was one which
had been priced unusually high, on account of the unusually fine specimen
which it contained of the engraved portrait. This, for a particular reason, I
was exceedingly anxious to see; and the reason was—that, according to an
anecdote reported by Richardson himself, this portrait, of all that were
shown to her, was the only one acknowledged by Milton's last surviving
daughter to be a strong likeness of her father. And her involuntary gestures
concurred with her deliberate words:—for, on seeing all the rest, she was
silent and inanimate; but the very instant she beheld that crayon drawing
from which is derived the engraved head in Richardson's book, she burst
out into a rapture of passionate recognition; exclaiming—"That is my
father! that is my dear father!" Naturally, therefore, after such a testimony,
so much stronger than any other person in the world could offer to the
authentic value of this portrait, I was eager to see it.[99]
Judge of my astonishment when, in this portrait of Milton, I saw a likeness
nearly perfect of Wordsworth, better by much than any which I have since
seen of those expressly painted for himself. The likeness is tolerably
preserved in that by Carruthers, in which one of the little Rydal waterfalls,
&c., composes a background; yet this is much inferior, as a mere portrait of
Wordsworth, to the Richardson head of Milton; and this, I believe, is the
last which represents Wordsworth in the vigour of his power. The rest,
which I have not seen, may be better as works of art (for anything I know to
the contrary), but they must labour under the great disadvantage of
presenting the features when "defeatured," in the degree and the way I have
described, by the peculiar ravages of old age, as it affects this family; for it
is noticed of the Wordsworths, by those who are familiar with their
peculiarities, that in their very blood and constitutional differences lie
hidden causes that are able, in some mysterious way,

"Those shocks of passion to prepare
That kill the bloom before its time,
And blanch, without the owner's crime,
The most resplendent hair."

Some people, it is notorious, live faster by much than others, the oil is
burned out sooner in one constitution than another: and the cause of this
may be various; but in the Wordsworths one part of the cause is, no doubt,
the secret fire of a temperament too fervid; the self-consuming energies of
the brain, that gnaw at the heart and life-strings for ever. In that account
which "The Excursion" presents to us of an imaginary Scotsman who, to
still the tumult of his heart, when visiting the cataracts of a mountainous
region, obliges himself to study the laws of light and colour as they affect
the rainbow of the stormy waters, vainly attempting to mitigate the fever
which consumed him by entangling his mind in profound speculations;
raising a cross-fire of artillery from the subtilizing intellect, under the vain
conceit that in this way he could silence the mighty battery of his
impassioned heart: there we read a picture of Wordsworth and his own
youth. In Miss Wordsworth every thoughtful observer might read the same
self-consuming style of thought. And the effect upon each was so powerful
for the promotion of a premature old age, and of a premature expression of
old age, that strangers invariably supposed them fifteen to twenty years
older than they were. And I remember Wordsworth once laughingly
reporting to me, on returning from a short journey in 1809, a little personal
anecdote, which sufficiently showed what was the spontaneous impression
upon that subject of casual strangers, whose feelings were not confused by
previous knowledge of the truth. He was travelling by a stage-coach, and
seated outside, amongst a good half-dozen of fellow-passengers. One of
these, an elderly man, who confessed to having passed the grand
climacterical year (9 multiplied into 7) of 63, though he did not say
precisely by how many years, said to Wordsworth, upon some anticipations
which they had been mutually discussing of changes likely to result from
enclosures, &c., then going on or projecting—"Ay, ay, another dozen of
years will show us strange sights; but you and I can hardly expect to see
them."—"How so?" said Wordsworth. "How so, my friend? How old do
you take me to be?"—"Oh, I beg pardon," said the other; "I meant no
offence—but what?" looking at Wordsworth more attentively—"you'll

never see threescore, I'm of opinion"; meaning to say that Wordsworth had
seen it already. And, to show that he was not singular in so thinking, he
appealed to all the other passengers; and the motion passed (nem. con.) that
Wordsworth was rather over than under sixty. Upon this he told them the
literal truth—that he had not yet accomplished his thirty-ninth year. "God
bless me!" said the climacterical man; "so then, after all, you'll have a
chance to see your childer get up like, and get settled! Only to think of
that!" And so closed the conversation, leaving to Wordsworth an undeniable
record of his own prematurely expressed old age in this unaffected
astonishment, amongst a whole party of plain men, that he could really
belong to a generation of the forward-looking, who live by hope; and might
reasonably expect to see a child of seven years old matured into a man. And
yet, as Wordsworth lived into his 82d year,[100] it is plain that the premature
expression of decay does not argue any real decay.
Returning to the question of portraits, I would observe that this Richardson
engraving of Milton has the advantage of presenting, not only by far the
best likeness of Wordsworth, but of Wordsworth in the prime of his powers
—a point essential in the case of one so liable to premature decay. It may be
supposed that I took an early opportunity of carrying the book down to
Grasmere, and calling for the opinions of Wordsworth's family upon this
most remarkable coincidence. Not one member of that family but was as
much impressed as myself with the accuracy of the likeness. All the
peculiarities even were retained—a drooping appearance of the eyelids, that
remarkable swell which I have noticed about the mouth, the way in which
the hair lay upon the forehead. In two points only there was a deviation
from the rigorous truth of Wordsworth's features—the face was a little too
short and too broad, and the eyes were too large. There was also a wreath of
laurel about the head, which (as Wordsworth remarked) disturbed the
natural expression of the whole picture[101]; else, and with these few
allowances, he also admitted that the resemblance was, for that period of
his life, perfect, or as nearly so as art could accomplish.
I have gone into so large and circumstantial a review of my recollections on
this point as would have been trifling and tedious in excess, had these
recollections related to a less important man; but I have a certain knowledge
that the least of them will possess a lasting and a growing interest in
connexion with William Wordsworth. How peculiar, how different from the

interest which we grant to the ideas of a great philosopher, a great
mathematician, or a great reformer, is that burning interest which settles on
the great poets who have made themselves necessary to the human heart;
who have first brought into consciousness, and have clothed in words, those
grand catholic feelings that belong to the grand catholic situations of life
through all its stages; who have clothed them in such words that human wit
despairs of bettering them! Mighty were the powers, solemn and serene is
the memory, of Archimedes; and Apollonius shines like "the starry Galileo"
in the firmament of human genius; yet how frosty is the feeling associated
with these names by comparison with that which, upon every sunny lawn,
by the side of every ancient forest, even in the farthest depths of Canada,
many a young innocent girl, perhaps at this very moment—looking now
with fear to the dark recesses of the infinite forest, and now with love to the
pages of the infinite poet, until the fear is absorbed and forgotten in the love
—cherishes in her heart for the name and person of Shakspere!
The English language is travelling fast towards the fulfilment of its destiny.
Through the influence of the dreadful Republic[102] that within the thirty last
years has run through all the stages of infancy into the first stage of
maturity, and through the English colonies—African, Canadian, Indian,
Australian—the English language (and, therefore, the English literature) is
running forward towards its ultimate mission of eating up, like Aaron's rod,
all other languages. Even the German and the Spanish will inevitably sink
before it; perhaps within 100 or 150 years. In the recesses of California, in
the vast solitudes of Australia, The Churchyard amongst the Mountains,
from Wordsworth's "Excursion," and many a scene of his shorter poems,
will be read, even as now Shakspere is read amongst the forests of Canada.
All which relates to the writer of these poems will then bear a value of the
same kind as that which attaches to our personal memorials (unhappily so
slender) of Shakspere.
Let me now attempt to trace, in a brief outline, the chief incidents in the life
of William Wordsworth, which are interesting, not only in virtue of their
illustrious subject, but also as exhibiting a most remarkable (almost a
providential) arrangement of circumstances, all tending to one result—that
of insulating from worldly cares, and carrying onward from childhood to
the grave, in a state of serene happiness, one who was unfitted for daily toil,
and, at all events, who could not, under such demands upon his time and

anxieties, have prosecuted those genial labours in which all mankind have
an interest.

William Wordsworth was born[103] at Cockermouth, a small town of
Cumberland, lying about a dozen miles to the north-west of Keswick, on
the high road from that town to Whitehaven. His father was a solicitor, and
acted as an agent for that Lord Lonsdale, the immediate predecessor of the
present,[104] who is not unfrequently described by those who still remember
him, as "the bad Lord Lonsdale." In what was he bad? Chiefly, I believe, in
this—that, being a man of great local power, founded on his rank, on his
official station of Lord-Lieutenant over two counties, and on a very large
estate, he used his power at times in a most oppressive way. I have heard it
said that he was mad; and, at any rate, he was inordinately capricious—
capricious even to eccentricity. But, perhaps, his madness was nothing more
than the intemperance of a haughty and a headstrong will, encouraged by
the consciousness of power, and tempted to abuses of it by the abject
servility which poverty and dependence presented in one direction,
embittering the contrast of that defiance which inevitably faced him in
another, throughout a land of freedom and amongst spirits as haughty as his
own. He was a true feudal chieftain; and, in the very approaches to his
mansion, in the style of his equipage, or whatever else was likely to meet
the public eye, he delighted to express his disdain of modern refinements,
and the haughty carelessness of his magnificence. The coach in which he
used to visit Penrith, the nearest town to his principal house of Lowther,
was old and neglected; his horses fine, but untrimmed; and such was the
impression diffused about him by his gloomy temper and his habits of
oppression, that the streets were silent as he traversed them, and an awe sat
upon many faces (so, at least, I have heard a Penrith contemporary of the
old despot declare), pretty much like that which may be supposed to attend
the entry into a guilty town of some royal commission for trying state
criminals. In his park you saw some of the most magnificent timber in the
kingdom—trees that were coeval with the feuds of York and Lancaster,
yews that possibly had furnished bows to Cœur de Lion, and oaks that
might have built a navy. All was savage grandeur about these native forests:
their sweeping lawns and glades had been unapproached, for centuries it
might be, by the hand of art; and amongst them roamed—not the timid
fallow deer—but thundering droves of wild horses.

Lord Lonsdale went to London less frequently than else he might have
done, because at home he was allowed to forget that in this world there was
any greater man than himself. Even in London, however, his haughty
injustice found occasions for making itself known. On a court day (I revive
an anecdote once familiarly known), St. James's Street was lined by cavalry,
and the orders were peremptory that no carriages should be allowed to pass,
except those which were carrying parties to court. Whether it were by
accident or by way of wilfully provoking such a collision, Lord Lonsdale's
carriage advanced; and the coachman, in obedience to orders shouted out
from the window, was turning down the forbidden route, when a trooper
rode up to the horses' heads, and stopped them; the thundering menaces of
Lord Lonsdale perplexed the soldier, who did not know but he might be
bringing himself into a scrape by persisting in his opposition; but the officer
on duty, observing the scene, rode up, and, in a determined tone, enforced
the order, causing two of his men to turn the horses' heads round into
Piccadilly. Lord Lonsdale threw his card to the officer, and a duel followed;
in which, however, the outrageous injustice of his lordship met with a
pointed rebuke; for the first person whom he summoned to his aid, in the
quality of second, though a friend, and, I believe, a relative of his own,
declined to sanction by any interference so scandalous a quarrel with an
officer for simply executing an official duty. In this dilemma (for probably
he was aware that few military men would fail to take the same
disapproving view of the affair) he applied to the present[105] Earl of
Lonsdale, then Sir William Lowther. Either there must have been some
needless discourtesy in the officer's mode of fulfilling his duty, or else Sir
William thought the necessity of the case, however wantonly provoked, a
sufficient justification for a relative giving his assistance, even under
circumstances of such egregious injustice. At any rate, it is due to Sir
William, in mere candour, to suppose that he did nothing in this instance but
what his conscience approved; seeing that in all others his conduct has been
such as to win him the universal respect of the two counties in which he is
best known. He it was that acted as second; and, by a will which is said to
have been dated the same day, he became eventually possessed of a large
property, which did not necessarily accompany the title.
Another anecdote is told of the same Lord Lonsdale which expresses, in a
more eccentric way, and a way that to many people will be affecting—to

some shocking—the moody energy of his passions. He loved, with
passionate fervour, a fine young woman, of humble parentage, in a
Cumberland farmhouse. Her he had persuaded to leave her father, and put
herself under his protection. Whilst yet young and beautiful, she died: Lord
Lonsdale's sorrow was profound; he could not bear the thought of a final
parting from that face which had become so familiar to his heart: he caused
her to be embalmed; a glass was placed over her features; and at intervals,
when his thoughts reverted to her memory, he found a consolation (or
perhaps a luxurious irritation) of his sorrow in visiting this sad memorial of
his former happiness. This story, which I have often heard repeated by the
country-people of Cumberland, strengthened the general feeling of this
eccentric nobleman's self-willed character, though in this instance
complicated with a trait of character that argued nobler capacities. By what
rules he guided himself in dealing with the various lawyers, agents, or
stewards whom his extensive estates brought into a dependency upon his
justice or his moderation—whether, in fact, he had no rule, but left all to
accident or caprice—I have never learned. Generally, I have heard it said
that in some years of his life he resisted the payment of all bills
indiscriminately which he had any colourable plea for supposing to contain
overcharges; some fared ill, because they were neighbours, and his lordship
could say that "he knew them to be knaves"; others fared worse, because
they were so remote that "how could his lordship know what they were?"
Of this number, and possibly for this reason left unpaid, was Wordsworth's
father. He died whilst his four sons and one daughter were yet helpless
children, leaving to them respectable fortunes, but which, as yet, were
unrealized and tolerably hypothetic, as they happened to depend upon so
shadowy a basis as the justice of Lord Lonsdale. The executors of the will,
and trustees of the children's interests, in one point acted wisely: foreseeing
the result of a legal contest with so potent a defendant as this leviathan of
two counties, and that, under any nominal award, the whole estate of the
orphans might be swallowed up in the costs of any suit that should be
carried into Chancery, they prudently withdrew from all active measures of
opposition, confiding the event to Lord Lonsdale's returning sense of
justice. Unfortunately for that nobleman's reputation, and also, as was
thought, for the children's prosperity, before this somewhat rusty quality of
justice could have time to operate, his lordship died.

However, for once the world was wrong in its malicious anticipations: the
successor to Lord Lonsdale's titles and Cumberland estates was made aware
of the entire case, in all its circumstances; and he very honourably gave
directions for full restitution being made. This was done; and in one respect
the result was more fortunate for the children than if they had been trained
from youth to rely upon their expectations: for, by the time this repayment
was made, three out of the five children were already settled in life, with the
very amplest prospects opening before them—so ample as to make their
private patrimonial fortunes of inconsiderable importance in their eyes; and
very probably the withholding of their inheritance it was, however unjust,
and however little contemplated as an occasion of any such effect, that
urged these three persons to the exertions requisite for their present success.
Two only of the children remained to whom the restoration of their
patrimony was a matter of grave importance; but it was precisely those two
whom no circumstances could have made independent of their hereditary
means by personal exertions—viz. William Wordsworth, the poet, and
Dorothy, the sole daughter of the house. The three others were:—Richard,
the eldest: he had become a thriving solicitor, at one of the inns of court in
London; and, if he died only moderately rich, and much below the
expectations of his acquaintance, in the final result of his laborious life, it
was because he was moderate in his desires, and, in his later years,
reverting to the pastoral region of his infancy and boyhood, chose rather to
sit down by a hearth of his own amongst the Cumberland mountains, and
wisely to woo the deities of domestic pleasures and health, than to follow
the chase after wealth in the feverish crowds of the capital. The third son (I
believe) was Christopher (Dr. Wordsworth), who, at an early age, became a
man of importance in the English Church, being made one of the chaplains
and librarians of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Manners Sutton, father
of the late Speaker, Lord Canterbury). He has since risen to the important
and dignified station—once held by Barrow, and afterwards by Bentley—of
Master of Trinity in Cambridge. Trinity in Oxford is not a first-rate college;
but Trinity, Cambridge, answers in rank and authority to Christ Church in
Oxford; and to be the head of that college is rightly considered a very
splendid distinction.
Dr. Wordsworth has distinguished himself as an author by a very useful
republication, entitled, "Ecclesiastical Biography," which he has enriched