right principle, I must observe, that in seeking to strengthen our own faith by casting any measure of discredit on minds which have not received it, we rather show our zeal in its behalf, than any true sense of its intrinsic excellence or confidence in its power. When a critic or biographer has a man's whole life,whole body of opinions-under review, he may fairly enough,— though it is always a most difficult process, attempt to show how, and to what extent, his character and modes of thought were affected by external circumstances; but I cannot help thinking it very unfair to pre-occupy a reader's mind with two or three points of a man's life selected out of his personal history, previously to introducing a few of his opinions to their notice. Every man who is in error, who cannot see the truth when it is before him, labors under some defect, intellectual or moral, and this may have been brought out,—I think such defects are never caused or implanted, by circumstances; but it is hardly fair play to impute such defects to a writer or describe them as having corrupted his opinions, when the nature of the opinions themselves is adhuc sub lite among Christians and good men."

My principal objection, however, to the statements I have quoted is that they are incorrect either in the letter or the spirit, or both. It is plain enough that the real aim of the Miscellanist was not to exhibit the amount of Catholicity in an individual mind, but to spread what he considered to be Catholic truth, and to this my Father's character as a man was made subservient. On first reading his prefix I regarded one of its assertions as a pure mistake, and on this subject received the following testimonial from

tion, except those who represent the Edinburgh Review, of twenty and thirty years ago.

2 I wish the reader to observe that I attach little or no importance to the remarks of the Chr. Miscellany, in themselves; as an index of a state of feeling in certain quarters, and an instance of what is daily practised, to the production of injury and irritation more than any real good, they are not insignificant. Personality is a poisoned weapon in religious warfare; and all religious statements in these days are necessarily a warfare, open or undeclared. Personal character should never be dealt with at second hand; it should be left to those who undertake the trouble and responsibility, while they possess the zeal, of the biographer.

Mr. Wordsworth, with whose great and honored name it must ever be the pride and pleasure of the friends of Coleridge to associate his.

—“ I feel absolutely certain that your Father never was Editor of any periodical publication whatsoever except The Watchman and The Friend, neither of which, as you know, was long continued, and The Friend expressly excluded even allusion to temporary topics; nor, to the best of my remembrance, had The Watchman anything of the character of a newspaper. When he was very young he published several sonnets in a London newspaper. Afterwards he was in strict connexion with the editors or at least proprietors of one or more newspapers, The Courier and The Morning Post; and in one of these, I think it was the latter, your Father wrote a good deal."—

"So convinced was I of the great service that your Father rendered Mr. Stuart's paper, that I urged him to put in his claim to be admitted a proprietor; but this he declined, having a great disinclination to any tie of the kind. In fact he could not bear being shackled in any way. I have heard him say that he should be sorry, if any one offered him an estate, for he should feel the possession would involve cares and duties that would be a clog to him."_

The Newspaper" which is supposed to have retarded my Father's growth in Catholicism, it now occurs to me, may have been The Watchman, as in that miscellany the domestic and foreign policy of the preceding days was reported and discussed; but I still think, that the impression which this statement, together with the inference drawn from it, is calculated to convey, is far from just. To be for any length of time the editor of a periodical work, which is the successful organ of a party, whatever principles that party may profess, nay even if they call themselves Catholic, is indeed to be in a situation of some danger to the moral and spiritual sense: but such was never my father's situation. When he is described as having been impaired in his religious mind by editing a newspaper, would any one guess

* The reader is referred to chap. v. of the Biographical Supplement for an account of Mr. C.'s connexion with Mr. Stuart.

the fact to be this, that, in his youth, he put forth ten numbers of a miscellaneous work, one portion of which was devoted to the politics of the times, and was unable to make it answer because he would not adapt it to the ways of the world and of newspapers in general? Let those who have been led to think that Mr. Coleridge's services to public journals may have deadened his religious susceptibilities consider, not only the principles which he professes and the frame of mind which he displays on this very subject in the tenth chapter of the present work, but the character of his newspaper essays themselves; had the writer, to whose remarks I refer, done this, before he pronounced judgment, I think he could not have failed to see that my Father conformed the publications he aided to himself and his own high views, in proportion to the extent of his connexion with them, not himself to vulgar periodical writing. The Edinburgh Reviewers indeed, in the year 1847, flung in his teeth, “Ministerial Editor." With them the reproach lay in the word Ministerial. Tempora mutantur-but the change of times has not yet brought truth to the service of my Father, or made him generally understood.

Not however the connexion with newspapers merely, but the profession of literature is specified as one among other causes, which alienated my Father's mind from Catholicity. The peculiar disadvantages of the "trade of authorship" Mr. Coleridge has himself described in this biographical fragment; he has shown that literature can scarcely be made the means of living without being debased; but he himself failed in it, as the means of living, because he would not thus debase it,—would not sacrifice higher aims for the sake of immediate popularity. Literature, pursued not as a mere trade, is naturally the ally, rather than the adversary, of religion. It is indeed against our blessed Lord, if not for him; but though it has its peculiar danger, inasmuch as it satisfies the soul more than any other, and is thus more liable to become a permanent substitute for religion with the higher sort of characters, yet surely, by exercising the habits of abstraction and reflection, it better disciplines the mind for that life which consists in seeking the things that are above while we are yet in the flesh, than worldly business or pleasure.

Inferior pursuits may sooner weary and disgust, but during their continuance they more unfit the mind for higher ones; and the departure of one set of guests does not leave the soul an empty apartment, swept and garnished for the reception of others more worthy.

And how should literature indispose men towards Catholic views in religion? The common argument in behalf of those which are commonly so called rests upon historical testimony and outward evidence; why should the profession of literature render men less able to estimate proof of this nature? A pursuit it is which leads to reflection and inquiry, and what can be said for the soundness of that system to which these are adverse? Some, indeed, maintain that our persuasions in such matters depend little upon argument; that none can truly enter into the merits of the Church system, save those who have been in the habit of obeying it, and that from their youth up. Now, it is not, of course, contended that my Father was, during his whole life, in the best position for appreciating Catholicity and becoming attached to it; but this may be fairly maintained, that he never was so circumstanced, as to be precluded from drawing nigh to any truthful system, existing in the world, and in due time coming under its habitual sway.

Again in what sense can it be truly said of Coleridge that he disregarded authority? It would be difficult to instance a thinker more disposed to weigh the thoughts of other thinkers, more ready to modify his views by consideration of theirs or the grounds on which they rest. Can those who bring the charge against him substantiate of it more than this, that he had not their convictions respecting the authority attributable to a certain set of writers of a certain age? And does it not appear that this theory of the consentient teaching of the Fathers and its "practical infallibility" involves the depreciation of authority, at least in one very important sense? He who binds himself by it, strictly, must needs hold human intelligence to be of little avail in the determination of religious questions, since it is the leading principle of this theory of faith, that our belief has been fixed by an outward revelation, the commentary of tradition upon Scripture, and that we are not to look upon the reason and con

science of man, interpreted by the understanding, as the everlasting organ of the Spirit of Truth? The weakest intellect can receive doctrine implicitly as well as the strongest, and to hand on that which has been already settled and defined requires no great depth or subtlety of intellect. If the weightiest matters on which the thoughts of man can be employed are already so determined by an outward oracle, that all judgment upon them is precluded, and the highest faculties of the human mind have no concern in establishing or confirming their truth, authority, as the weight which the opinion of the good and wise carries along with it, in regard to the most important questions, is superseded and set aside. And the fact is, I believe, that professors of this sort of Catholicity, whether for good or for bad, whether from narrowness or from exaltedness, are by no means remarkable for a spirit of respect towards highly endowed men, or for entering into the merits of a large proportion of those who have conciliated the esteem and gratitude of earnest and thoughtful persons. None are burning and shining lights for them except such as exclusively irradiate their own sphere (which is none of the widest); and their radiance appears the stronger to their eyes because they see nothing but darkness elsewhere. Let it be clearly understood that I here refer to that antiquarian theory, according to which every doctrine bearing upon religion, held by the Fathers, even though the matter of the doctrine be rather scientific and metaphysical than directly spiritual and practical,—as, for instance, the doctrine of free will,-constitutes Catholic consent, is the voice of the Holy Catholic Church, and, therefore, the voice of its heavenly Head; that the early Christian writers, where they agree, are to be considered practically infallible, on account of their external position in reference to the Apostles; that succeeding writers are of no authority, except so far as they deliver what is agreeable to "Catholic doctrine," so understood, and in so far as they differ from it are at once to be considered unsound and unworthy of attention. If such a theory is not, as I imagine, maintained by a certain class of High Churchmen, I shall be very glad to find that it is only a shadow; though in this case I should be more than ever perplexed to understand what it is that the Catholic and orthodox so much disapprove in