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aspect of a mind, which was most present to him at the time when his estimate was drawn; the good and the beautiful, which he beheld at the moment, appeared in his eyes the very type of goodness and beauty: the subjects of it were transfigured before. him, and shone with unearthly hues and lineaments. Of principles he had the clearest intuition, for that which is without degree is in no danger of being exaggerated; nor was he liable, from his peculiar temperament, to miss poetic truth; because nature, as she lends to imagination all her colors, can never be misrepresented by the fullest expenditure of her own gifts upon herself. And even in his view of the particular and individual— though, as has been said of him in his literary character, "often like the sun, when looking at the planets, he only beheld his own image in the objects of his gaze, and often, when his eye darted on a cloud, would turn it into a rainbow""-yet possibly even here far more of truth revealed itself to his earnest gaze than the world, which ever observes too carelessly and superficially, was aware of. Many of his poems, in which persons are described in ecstatic language, were suggested by individuals, and doubtless did but portray them as they were constantly presented to him by his heart and imagination.

Such a temper is ever liable to be mistaken for one of fickleness, insincerity, and lightness of feeling; and even so has Coleridge at times been represented by persons, who, judging partially and superficially, conceived him to be wanting in depth of heart and substantial kindness, whose depths they had never explored, and with whose temperament and emotions there was no congeniality in their own. But it is not true, as others will eagerly testify, that the affections of Coleridge were slight and evanescent, his intellectual faculties alone vigorous and steadfast; though it is true that, in persons constituted like him, the former will be more dependent on the latter, more readily excited and determined through the powers of thought and imagination than in ordinary His heart was as warm as his intellectual being was lifesome and active, nay it was from warmth of heart and keenness of feeling that his imagination derived its glow and vivacity; the

cases.

23 See Guesses at Truth, 2d edit., p. 241.

condition of the latter, at least, was intimately connected with that of the former. He loved to share all he had with others; and it is the opinion of one who knew him well and early, that, had he possessed wealth in his earlier years, he would have given great part of it away. If there are any who conceive that his affections were apt to evaporate in words, I think it right to protest against such a notion of his character. Kind words are not to be contrasted with good deeds, except where they are substituted for them, and those kindly feelings which, in the present instance, so often overflowed in words, were just as ready to shape themselves into deeds, as far as the heart was concerned ;-how far the hand can answer to the heart depends on circumstances with which the last has no concern. Had there been this tenuity and shallowness in his spirit, he could never have made that sort of impression as an author, which many thoughtful persons have received from his works, much less as a man have inspired such deep love and esteem as still waits upon his memory from some who are themselves loved and honored by all that know them well." That the object of his affections oftener changed than consisted with, or could have arisen in, a happy even tenor of life, was, in his case, no symptom of that variableness which results from the union of a lively fancy with a shallow heart; if he soon formed attachments, this arose from the quickness of his sympathies-the ease with which he could enter into each man's individual being, loving and admiring whatever it contained of amiable or admirable; from a "constitutional communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul," which, speedily attracting others to him, rendered them again on this account doubly interesting in his eyes; if he "stood aloof," during portions of his life, from any once dear to him, this was rather occasioned by a morbid intensity and tenacity of feeling than any opposite quality of mind, the same disposition which led him to heighten the lights of every object, while its bright side was turned towards himself, inclining him to deepen its shadows, when the chances and changes of life presented to him its darker

24 Some persons appear to have confounded the general courtesy and bland overflowing of his manners with the state of his affections, and because the feelings which prompted the former flitted over the surface of his heart, to suppose that the latter were flitting and superficial too.

aspect-the same temper which led him to over-estimate marks of regard, rendering him too keenly sensible of, or quick to imagine, short-comings of love and esteem, his claims to which he not unnaturally reckoned by his readiness to bestow, which was boundless, rather than his fitness to receive, which he ever acknowledged to be limited. He was apt to consider affection as due simply to affection, irrespectively of merit in any other shape, and felt that such a "fund of love" as his, and that too from one so highly endowed as few denied him to be, ought “almost" to supply desert." He too much desired to idolize and be idolized, to fix his eye, even in this mortal life, only on perfection, to have the imperfections which he recognised in himself severely noted by himself alone.

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"For to be loved is all I need,

And whom I love, I love indeed."

This turn of mind was at least partly the cause of such change and fluctuation in his attachments through life as may have sub. jected his conduct to unfavorable construction; another cause he himself indicated, at an early period of his career, when, after speaking of the gifts assigned him by heaven, he sadly exclaims, and from my graspless hand

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Drop friendship's precious pearls like hour-glass sand!"

Some of these precious pearls he let fall, not from wanting a deep sense of their value, or any lightness of feeling, but because he lacked resolution to hold them fast, or " stoop" to recover what he yet "wept" to lose. Still it was but a cruel half truth, when one strangely converted from a friend into an enemy, ever shooting out his arrows, even bitter words, spoke of him thus: "There is a man all intellect but without a will!" Sometimes indeed to will was present with him when he found not how to perform; all the good that he would he did not; but his performance, taken upon the whole, his involuntary defects considered, inspired his many friends with the belief that he was not only a wise, but humanly speaking, a good man." Good and great" some say: whether or no he was the latter, and how far, let others declare, time being the umpire; it signifies, comparatively, nothing to the persons most interested in and for him what the decision on this point

may be; but the good qualities of his heart must be borne witness to by those in the present day who knew him best in private. Thus much may be said for the correctness of his intuitions and the clearness of his moral sense, that, through life, his associates, with few exceptions, were distinguished by high qualities of head and heart; from first to last of his course here below he was a discoverer and a proclaimer of excellence both in books and men.

MR. COLERIDGE'S RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

Their formation; misconceptions and misrepresentations on the subject. SUCH imputations as those I have had the painful task of discussing, are apt to circulate rapidly and meet a ready credence from part of the public, when they concern a writer whose opinions are obnoxious to various parties in politics and religion, and who has never secured the favor and admiration of the light reading and little thinking world. For one man who will fully and deeply examine any portion of the opinions, religious or philosophical, of a full and deep thinker, there are hundreds capable of comparing the run of sentences and paragraphs and being entertained by a charge of plagiarism; if some are grateful to him for light thrown, as their eyes tell them, upon truth, far more are offended because this same light reveals to them the untruth which they would fain not see in its proper hues and proportions; who not being prepared to overthrow his reasonings by a direct attack are glad to come at them obliquely, by lowering his personal character and thereby weakening his authority. The whole Romish world was bent on convicting Luther of Antinomianism, and as they could not discover it in his writings, they were resolved, if possible, to find it in his life, and as it was not forthcoming in either, they put it into both; they took all his rhetoric the wrong way up and hunted for unsoundness in his mind and libertinism in his conduct, as vultures hunt for things corrupt in nature.1 The spirit evidenced in this procedure-that "ancient 'I believe that Bayle's article caused a dead silence on the subject of

spirit is not dead;" religious writers, even at the present day, are far too prone to discredit a man's opinions at second-hand by tracing them to some averred evil source in his character, or perverting influence in the circumstances of his life. This seems exceptionable, however gently done, first because it is a very circuitous and uncertain mode of arriving at truth; a man's opinions we know on his own statements of them; but in attempting to discover the means through which they have been formed, we are searching in the dark, or the duskiest and most deceptive twilight, and, having no clear light to guide us, are apt to be led astray by some ignis fatuus of our own prejudices and delusions. Let the opinions be tried on their own merits, and if this is beside the inquirer's purpose, and he chooses to assume the truth of those he himself holds, considering them too certain and too sacred to be made a question of, in the same spirit let him disdain to snatch an argument in their favor, out of themselves, from doubtful considerations. Alas! how many of those who hold this lofty tone, calling their own belief the truth, and other men's belief mere opinion, only because they have an opinion of the validity of a certain test of truth which others cannot assent to, will yet resort to questionable methods of recommending this their unquestionable creed, and bring elaborate sophisms and partial representations, fit only to impose upon prepossessed and ductile readers, to the aid of "practical infallibility!"

But the second and even stronger objection to this mode of proceeding is, that the desire to find the origin of a man's way of thinking in the facts of his history, brings the inquirer under great temptation to depart from strict truth in regard to the facts themselves, to mould them, often perhaps unconsciously, into such a shape as best suits his purpose.

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Of late years it as

the great Reformer's personal "carnality " for ages. been revived, and there is a faint attempt to bring up some of the old stories circulated against him, to the effect that he made liberty a cloak for licentiousness. (See on Luther's Life and Opinions Hare's Mission of the Comforter, vol. ii., pp. 656-878.) It was an easy feat" to put Pantheism nto the "bottom of Luther's doctrine and personal character" (Essay on Development, p. 84), because the bottom of doctrine is, one knows not where; and Pantheism, as modern polemics employ the term, one knows not what; but to fasten dissoluteness on his conduct is by no means easy.

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