man, though I dare appeal to the most adequate judges - as Sir G. Beaumont, the Bishop of Durham, Mr. Sotheby-and afterwards to Mr. Rogers and Lord Byron-whether there is one single principle in Schlegel's work, (which is not an admitted drawback frow its merits,) that was not established and applied in detail by me. Plutarch tells us, that egotism is a venial fault in the unfortunate, and justifiable in the calumniated,—yet, I should not have done this violence to me, but that Mr. Wordsworth, for whose fame I had felt and fought with an ardour that amounted to absolute self-oblivion, and to which I owe mainly the rancour of the Edinburgh clan, and (far more injurious to me) the coldness, neglect, and equivocal compliments of the Quarterly Review, has affirmed in print,that a German critic first taught us to think correctly concerning Shakspeare.

In laying before the reader the following letter, I beg him to understand, that I never had it in my power to render the writer of it services of any kind, which could deserve the grateful acknowledgments it contains. They must be ascribed solely to the amiable character of Coleridge, which always led him to estimate warmly the most trivial attentions of his friends. The letter, in other respects, is an interesting specimen of the grasp of his discursive intellect; commencing with himself—passing to French politics-glancing at some leading features of our own constitution; and ending with the then much agitated question of the resumption of cash payments. It is. curious, that he lived to see the partial accomplishment of what, at the time of writing this letter, must have appeared most unlikely, however desirable it might have been, under the alternative he has stated. I allude to the French occupation of Algiers. His view of the question was profound and statesman-like.

No deficiency in the sense, no defect in the feeling, of acknowledgement for your kindness in the very kind notice with which you have both honored and served me, has occasioned my silence-and the most emphatic proof I can afford to my own heart, of my gratitude, is the earnest sincerity with which I pray that you may never have reason to sympathize with-tho' I persuade myself that you would readily sympathize for-the pain and distress of body and the utter prostration of spirits (prostration with a weight on the prostrated, dúre et forte) which I have suffered since I last saw you-and then the dread, lest I should fail in my lectures! If you knew the history, in detail, of Mr. Hazlitt's frantic hatred towards me, unprovoked by any intentional or known act or speech of mine, unless a more than brother's zeal and kindness be (as I really believe) the provocation, you would perhaps have avoided the condescension of mentioning his name. It was, as I am given to understand, this same gentleman who, against his own knowledge, set about the report, that the GERALDINE in my Christabel was a man in disguise, and that the whole Poem had an obscene purpose, referring to me at the same time with a shrug of malicious anticipation-curse him! how he'll stare!—And one of his clan has had the effrontery, in a published pamphlet, to declare the Christabel "the most obscene Poem in the English language.' At Sir George Beamont's, at Colverton, I found a tract, in which Milton is described as "the blind monster who has newly dared put in print an obscene Poem, called Paradise Lost." So you see, I am every way in most unexpected good company.

I fear, that my respected and kind acquaintance, Dr. goes too far, and politically, at least, is only too consistent and persevering in his anti-Caze-ism. Surely, it cannot be rationally expected, I am not satisfied even that it ought to be wished, that a great nation should condemn their so dearly purchased revolution in toto, or not cling to some of the fairer or more plausible results. But Doctor has formed a very high opinion, both of the character and the still remaining influence, of the class in France, whom he described to me as corresponding to our country gentlemen in England. Ignorant as I am, and wholly uninformed (except by an able letter which the Doctor was so good as to write me about a twelvemonth ago) concerning the old landed interest in France, I am not qualified to form any decisive opinion. But I cannot exclude some troublesome doubts-having never myself met with any Frenchman who appeared to possess, or even to comprehend, that two-fold spirit of compromise, and of volunteership, that seems to me the condition of the practicability of our wonderous constitution, the very hinges on which the portals of the temple of English law and liberty are hung-and (most remarkably in our

country gentlemen)-the mixt attachment to the few remaining feudal privileges, and yet to equal law and Publicolism, their equal education with, and yet distinct manners and feelings from, the mercantile men of fortune-in short, one can feel better than describe it. It is enough for a thinking man to bring before his mind the religious and cheerful obedience of our large social parties to the gentleman in the chairthe delight in a submission of our own free choice-the Justices of Peace throughout the kingdom-our vestries-our enigmatic juries. Were the small sprinklings of democracy in our House of Commons unhappily increased, all would fall abroad-so very large a quantum of democratic power is actively exerted in our municipalities. The distinction, again, between our House of Commons and the House of Lords, foreigners, the French especially, do not understand—indeed, not many among ourselves. The ludicrous absurdity of the balance between monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy in our legislature is not yet exploded. Something like it once existed in the Parliaments of Sweden and of Denmark, and to the history of these countries our honest reformers might be profitably referred. The result of all this is, that I fear, the more outside likeness the French constitution bears to our's, the greater will be the real dissonance-and what will suit them, I am at a loss to conjecture-nothing, I fear, that will at the same time suit their neighbors or the peace of the world. But I have sometimes wished that the Mediterranean coasts of Africa might be given up to their ambition. I would rather see from Tunis to Tangiers in their hands, than the least of their present possessions in the East Indies.

Cash payments! Is Mr. Tierney, can he be, honest in the opinions, he supports? I am a Cropperite-inasmuch as I think a wise man ought to consider the practicable only as an object of desire. One argument occurs to me that I do not remember to have seen advanced-viz. the increasing population, by civilization, of the enormous empire of Russia, the various causes in action that will at once call for a rapid increase of circulating medium, and yet defer, to a very distant period, the possibility of substitutes for the precious metals-the balance of trade necessarily in favor of every semi-barbarized country, but more particularly of Russia and the undeniable fact, that a country which cannot do without gold coin, will, directly or indirectly, give more for it than a country which can do without it-nay, which would of its own accord do without it, tho' the cash payments were resumed to-morrow. But the necessity of a standard, or rather the want of insight into the important truth, that in a given degree of trade and commerce, already more than attained in this country, the standard must be ideal, not a real commodity, itself to be measured-this is the fundamental error; all confutation, short of this, is but a gash in one head of a hydra.

hope that some Saturday, or Sunday, you may be able to gratify us with a visit-we can get you a bed here, and would defer our Saturday's dinner to six o'clock, if that would be more convenient-and you might return, on the Sunday evening, by the last stage. A day's fore-notice will be enough.

Mr. G- desires to be remembered to you-and our excellent neighbor, Mr.M—.

I forget now what I said of Hazlitt; but I can hardly imagine it was anything very favorable; for I knew the man well, and, besides having the greatest contempt for his turgid nothings and bombastic paradoxes, (which passed for fine writing with some,) I thoroughly disliked his cold, artificial character, and his malignant disposition.

These lectures, so eminently worthy of every encouragement, attracted but scanty audiences. If, instead of deep philosophy, various erudition, eloquent disquisition, and the stores of an exuberant imagination, Coleridge had invited the intellectual people of London to see a man swallow a sword, or toss about brass balls, he would have put money in his pocket. As it was, he gained nothing; if indeed he were not absolutely a loser by the experiment. His anxieties and disappointments formed the theme of most of the letters I received from him at that time. In one, he says,

When I tell you, that yester-evening's receipts were somewhat better than many of the preceding: and that these did not equal one half of the costs of the room, and of the stage and hackney coach, (the advertisements in the Times and Morning

Chronicle, and the printer's prospectus bill not included), you will find no difficulty in understanding the warmth with which I express my sense of your kindness to-Dear Sir-Your's, with grateful respects,

In another,

S. T. COLERidge.

I hope you will come, and give the farewell shake by the hand to my Shakspeare. The Romeo and Juliet pleased even beyond my anticipation; but, alas! scanty are my audiences! But, poverty and I have been such old cronies, that I ought not to be angry with her for sticking close to my skirts.

In a third, "You saw, and I doubt not regretted, for my sake, how scanty an audience I had yester-evening." A fourth was as follows, after temporary indisposition had compelled him to intermit his Lectures for a week:

Ah! dear Sir! That week's break was indeed unfortunate; but, I imagine, that my ill health and despondency that barely enable me to give the lectures themselves respectably, but utterly unfit me for all awkward exertion and canvassing, that these, joined with my solitariness, and unconnection with parties of any kind, literary, religious, or political, are the main causes of my failure. God grant that life may henceforward have sunnier weather for you: for I am, from what I I have seen of you, in no every day sense of the words, with esteem and regard, your obliged,

S. T. COLERidge.

In another, he says, "Alas! dear sir! these Lectures are my only resource. I have worked hard, very hard, for the last years of my life, but from Literature I cannot gain even bread." Another, is to the following effect: "I was very sorry to miss you last night, because my lecture gave, and, I believe, would have given even you, more than ordinary satisfaction. But alas! the audience (excluding free tickets) were scarcely enough to pay the rooms. Perhaps the Christmas parties are inauspicious; but I must derive my best consolation (for the heart though not the purse) that this scant of attendants has evidently not been occasioned by any disappointment of those who have attended. If we cannot command success, we will deserve it. The quotation is somewhat of the stalest."

I ventured to suggest to him, that he made his lectures too long for a mixed auditory, more especially as their matter was not of that flimsy, superficial character, that would admit of the attention being withdrawn and brought back at pleasure, without sustaining any intermediate loss. His reasonings were so close and subtle, and the series of his illustrations and demonstrations so beautifully connected, that like a problem in mathematics, if you missed any one of the propositions there was an end of the interest you felt in the deductions. But Coleridge, full of his subject, and his mind teeming with images, and facts, and illustrations, went on, without once considering, (though his delivery was not rapid,) how exhausting it was to those who really listened with a desire to follow him through the whole. In reply to this suggestion, he says, "I thank you for your kind and in all points judicious letter. In my last night's lecture I had pre-determined to avail myself of it-yet, still exceeded. I will try hard that my next Monday's shall be within the limits, which, I fully agree with you, is the utmost that a lecturer ought to inflict on a subject demanding any catenation of thought."

It is a melancholy thing to see a man of unquestioned genius, and with all those high wrought sensibilities which are inseparable from true genius, thus tossed to and fro upon the vexed waters of life. Let any one who has read the wild and wonderous ballad of the " Ancient Mariner," "Christabel," the tragedy of "Remorse," the fine poetical musings in the " Sibylline Leaves," reflect that the writer of these, and many other noble productions, confesses, that "from literature he could not even gain bread," while men of gross and groveling minds, so illiterate, they can scarcely write their

names, so ignorant, they could not teach a parish school, gather for themselves wealth, the mere superfluities of which, squandered in sensual or frivolous pursuits, would shed sun-light upon the path of a hundred children of philosophy and the muse, and he may imagine what anguish of mind must often be the companion of those solitary hours which the author who delights him, gives to the composition of the works with which he is delighted. Many a dejected spirit has turned from these lonely labors, to seek his pillow, who might have exclaimed, as he thought of all his blighted prospects, in the words of an old, and now forgotten, writer of Elizabeths' reign, (George Peele)

I lay me down laden with many cares,

My bed-fellows almost these twenty years!

The remaining letters of Coleridge which I propose to give in the present number, will require little of introduction or connecting narrative. He was a zealous advocate, and pleaded warmly, for the Cotton Factory children—a cause which has since been dignified, and to a certain degree successfully vindicated, by the eloquent philanthropy of Mr. Sadler. On one occasion, two gentlemen from Manchester called upon me with the following letter of introduction.

I scarcely remember being more anxious, from mere personal feeling, to see any one than yourself. The excellent men, who are now calling on you in order to have a curious mistake corrected, with regard to the attestation of a gentleman, by the name of Symmonds, a surgeon highly esteemed at Manchester, will, I am sure, receive every courtesy from you. Thank God! the cause they have been de puted to watch over, is likely to be victorious-and what I want to impress on the friends of government-and good English anti-jacobinical, anti-physiocratic government-is the manifest effect produced on the lower clases, in the overthrow of jacobinism in their very hearts. But I have much to say to you, for I regard every as a part of your couversation, the same as if we were personally present. Be assured that you possess the esteem and regard of your humble fellow-laborer, in the same general cause.

S. T. COLEridge.

On another occasion, I received the following letter from him, on the same subject.

Absence has been the cause of your letter, and present, not having been earlier acknowledged. Struggling with severe indisposition, I have yet been doing my best in hehalf of the poor cotton factory children, whose condition is an abomination, which has weighed on my feelings from earliest manhood, I having been, indeed, an eye-witness of the direful effects. I dare affirm, that few superstitions in religion have been so extensively pernicious to the intellectual and moral sanity of this country and France, as those of (so called) Political Economy. The very term, and that a most appropriate one, by which the French philophers, (royalist or republican, alike despotists,) designate this their darling science, namely, Physiocratie, implies the utter contempt of all that distinguishes, or rather that forms the chasm, the diversity in kind, between man and beast. It is a science which begins with abstractions, in order to exclude whatever is not subject to a technical calculation: in the face of all experience, it assumes these as the whole of human nature-and then, on an impossible hypothesis, builds up the most inhuman edifice, a temple of Tescalipora ! Wherever it suits the interests of the rich, i. e. their imaginary interests, not as men, but as rich, they can then discover that it is, like Geometry, an abstract science, from which in practice all sorts of deviations must be allowed, and to which, under the most favorable circumstances, an approximation only is possible. Thus, they find it most easy to justify a commercial minimum in the products of their own estates; but when morals, health, humanity, plead-O! they are then inviolable truths. Free labor must not be interfered with, &c. I beg, at some leasure hour, your perusal of one or two papers, which I have written; and that you will not be prejudiced against them by the vulgarity of their appearance. A great deal more, and to more purpose, I could have done, per

S

haps; but it is (and you must often have yourself found it to be such,) a narrow arc of oscillation, between error, which you will not fall into, and the full effective truth, which even good men, short-sighted partly by want of natural and improved power, and partly from their dread of this or that imagined consequence, allow to those who are disinterestedly contending for them.

I have re-perused your letters on Watson, with increased pleasure, from being able to read them all at once. I will not give to writing the few unimportant criticisms that have occurred to me-to the perishable voice belong perishable censures. But, I will reserve my remarks till I have the pleasure of seeing you, which, should you pass by or near Highgate, on any one of your rare holidays, I should be sincerely glad of. You have only treated the Bishop too gently. I have myself heard him boastfully profess opinions of the very lowest Socinianism. But of this hereafter.

In some subsequent number, I shall make further selections from the correspondence of Coleridge; and I shall follow them up by a critical notice of his poetical works, which, I am satisfied, will be acceptable, especially to those of my readers who may not be familiarly acquainted with the vigorous and terse simplicity of his style, on some occasions, and its Miltonic structure, on others.

GEOFFREY OLDCASTLE.

Since writing the above, I have seen the last number of the Quarterly Review, which opens with an admirable article upon the genius, the writings, and the character of Coleridge. It was written, while Coleridge was yet alive; but, alas! the following note, at the end of the number, feelingly informs us that his death took place before it was published.

"It is with deep regret that we announce the death of Mr. Coleridge.When the foregoing article on his poetry was printed, he was weak in body, but exhibited no obvious symptoms of so near a dissolution. The fatal change was sudden and decisive; and six days before his death, he knew, assuredly, that his hour was come. His worldly affairs had been long settled, and after many tender adieus, he expressed a wish that he might be as little interrupted as possible. His sufferings were severe and constant till within thirty-six hours of his end; but they had no power to affect the deep tranquillity of his mind, or the wonted sweetness of his address. His prayer from the beginning was, that God would not withdraw his Spirit; and that by the way in which he should bear the last struggle, he might be able to evince the sincerity of his faith in Christ. If ever man did so, Coleridge did. Mr. Coleridge wrote, a month or two ago, his own humble and affectionate epitaph. [This will be found at the head of the present article.]— He breathed his last at half-past six o'clock in the morning of Friday, .the 25th day of July last, under the roof of his dear and kind friends Mr. and Mrs. Gillman, of Highgate, and was interred, on the 2nd of August, in the vault of Highgate Church."

It would, I think, have been grateful to the spirit of my departed friend, had it pleased Heaven that he should read, in health of mind and body, the tribute to his genius in this number of the Quarterly Review; for it will have been observed, that in one of the above letters, he complains of the coldness, neglect, and equivocal compliments" of some former criticisms in the same periodical, as "far more injurious" to him, than " the rancour of the Edinburgh clan." But it was ordained otherwise!

The writer of the article in the last Quarterly has gone deeply and eloquently, not only into the poetical and philosophical character of Coleridge, but also into those wonderful powers of conversation which he possessed. "Perhaps our readers," says the reviewer, "may have heard repeated a saying of Mr. Wordsworth, that many men of this age had done wonderful things, as Davy, Scott, Cuvier, &c.; but that Coleridge was the only wonderful man he ever knew. Something, of course, must be allowed in this, as in all other such cases, for the antithesis; but we believe the fact really to be,