him "some of the brightest gems in his poetic wreath itself." It is thus that two couplets, exemplifying the Homeric and Ovidian metres," are described by his candid judge; and in the same spirit he describes my Father as having sought to conceal the fact, that they were translated from Schiller, a poet whose works are, perhaps, as generally read here as those of Shakspeare in Germany.

The expression, "brightest gems," however, is meant to include Lines on a Cataract, which are somewhat more conspicuous in Coleridge's poetic wreath than the pair of distiches; in these he is said to have closely adopted the metre, language, and thoughts of another man. Now, the metre, language, and thoughts of Stolberg's poem are all in Coleridge's expansion of it, but those of the latter are not all contained in the former, any more than the budding rose contains all the riches of the rose fullblown. "It is but a shadow," says the critic, "a glorified shadow, perhaps," but still only a shadow cast from another man's "substance." Is not such glory the substance, or part of the substance, of poetic merit? How much of admired poetry must we not unsubstantialize, if the reproduction of what was before, with additions and improvements, is to be made a shadow of? That which is most exquisite in the Lines on a Cataract is Cole

19 He pronounces them in part worse, in no respect a whit better than the originals.

Im pentameter drauf fällt sie melodisch herab.

In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

To my ear, as 1 fancy, the light dactylic flow of the latter half of the pentameter, is still more exquisite in the English than in the German, though the spondee which commences the latter is an advantage. The English line is rather the more liquid of the two, and the word " back," with which it closes, almost imitates the plash of the refluent water against the ground.

Even from the sentence on the inferiority of Coleridge's Homeric verses there might perhaps be an appeal: but neither in German nor in English could a pair of hexameters be made to present such variety in unity, such a perfect little whole, as the elegiac distich.

Readers may compare the translated verses with the original in the last edition of Coleridge's Poems in one volume; where they will also find the poem of Stolberg, which suggested, and partly produced, my Father's Lines on a Cataract.

ridge's own though some may even prefer Stolberg's striking original. These and the verses from Schiller were added to the poetical works of Mr. Coleridge by his late Editor. Had the author superintended the edition, into which they were first inserted, himself, he would, perhaps, have made reference to Schiller and Stolberg in these instances, as he had done in others; if he neglected to do so, it could not have been in any expectation of keeping to himself what he had borrowed from them..

Lastly, Mr. Coleridge's obligations to Schelling in Lecture VIII., on Poesy and Art, are spoken of by the writer in Blackwood, after his own manner.

It is true, that the most important principles delivered in that Lecture are laid down by the German Sage in his Oration on the relationship of the Plastic Arts to Nature,"—yet I cannot think it quite correct to say that it is "closely copied and in many parts translated" from Schelling's discourse. It not only omits a great deal that the other contains, but adds, and, as it seems to me, materially, to what is borrowed: neither, as far as I can find, after a second careful perusal of the latter, has it any passage translated from Schelling, only a few words here and there being the same as in that great philosopher's treatise.

.

Let me add, that Mr. Coleridge did not publish this Lecture himself. Whenever it is re-published, what it contains of Schelling's will be stated precisely. Would that an equal restitution could be made in all quarters of all that has been borrowed, with change of shape but little or no alteration of substance! In this case, not a few writers, whose originality is now unquestioned, would lose more weight from their coinage than my Father will do, by subtraction of that which he took without disguise from Schelling and others :-for how commonly do men imagine themselves producing and creating, when they are but metamorphosing!

"That Coleridge was tempted into this course by vanity," says the writer in Blackwood towards the end of his article, "by the paltry desire of applause, or by any direct intention to

20 Phil. Schrift., p. 343.

believe; this never was Truly I believe not; but

defraud others of their due, we do not believed and never will be believed." no thanks to the accuser who labors to convict him of "wanting rectitude and truth;" who reads his apologies the wrong way, as witches say their prayers backward ;—who hatches a grand project for Schelling in order to bring him in guilty of a design to steal it; who uses language respecting him which the merest vanity and dishonesty alone could deserve. This never has been or will be believed by the generous and intelligent, though men inclined to fear and distrust his opinions are strengthened in their prejudices by such imputations upon their maintainer, and many are prevented from acquiring a true knowledge of him and of them. What Schelling himself thought on the subject will be seen from the following extract of a letter of Mr. Stanley, author of the Life of Dr. Arnold, kindly communicated to me by Archdeacon Hare. "Schelling's remarks about Coleridge were too generally expressed, I fear, to be of any use in a vindication of him, except so far as proving his own friendly feeling towards him. But as far as I can reconstruct his sentence, it was much as follows, being in answer to a question whether he had known Coleridge personally: Whether I have seen Coleridge or not, I cannot tell; if he called upon me at Jena, it was before his name had become otherwise known to me, and amongst the numbers of young Englishmen, whom I then saw, I cannot recall the persons of individuals. But I have read what he has written with great pleasure, and I took occasion in my lectures to vindieate him from the charge, which has been brought against him, of plagiarizing from me; and I said that it was I rather who owed much to him, and that, in the Essay on Prometheus, Cole. ridge in his remark, that "Mythology was not allegorical but tautegorical," had concentrated, in one striking expression (in einem schlagenden Ausdruck), what I had been laboring to represent with much toil and trouble. This is all that I can be sure of."

Such was this truly great man's feeling about the wrongs that he had sustained from my Father. Had the writer in Blackwood

21 Remains, Vol. II.

pointed out his part in the Biographia Literaria without one word of insult to the author's memory, he would have proved his zeal for the German Philosopher, and for the interests of literature, more clearly than now, because more purely, and deserved only feelings of respect and obligation from all who love and honor the name of Coleridge.

It will already have been seen, that no attempt is here made to justify my Father's literary omissions and inaccuracies, or to deny that they proceeded from anything defective in his frame of mind; I would only maintain that this fault has not been fairly reported or becomingly commented upon. That a man who has been "more highly gifted than his fellows" is therefore to have less required of him in the way of " rectitude and truth ;" that he is to be "held less amenable to the laws which ought to bind all human beings," is a proposition which no one sets up except for the sake of taking it down again, and some man of genius along with it; but there is another proposition, confounded by some, perhaps, with the aforesaid, which is true, and ought, in justice and charity, to be borne in mind-I mean that men of "peculiar intellectual conformation," who have peculiar powers of intellect, are very often peculiar in the rest of their constitution, to such a degree that points in their conduct, which, in persons of ordinary faculties and habits of mind, could only result from conscious wilful departure from the rule of right, may in their case have a different origin, and though capable, more or less, of being controlled by the will, may not arise out of it. Marked gifts are often attended by marked deficiencies even in the intellect: those best acquainted with my Father are well aware that there was in him a special intellectual flaw; Archdeacon Hare has said, that his memony was "notoriously irretentive;" and it is true that, on a certain class of subjects, it was extraordinarily confused and inaccurate; matter of fact, as such, laid no hold upon his mind; of all he heard and saw, he readily caught and well retained the spirit, but the letter escaped him; he seemed incapable of paying the due regard to it. That it is the duty of any man, who has such a peculiarity, to watch over it and endeavor to remedy it, is unquestionable; I would only suggest that this defect, which belonged not to the moral

being of Coleridge but to the frame of his intellect, and was in close connexion with that which constituted his peculiar intellectual strength, his power of abstracting and referring to universal principles, often rendered him unconscious of incorrectness of statement, of which men in general scarcely could have been unconscious, and that to it, and not to any deeper cause, such neglects and transgressions of established rules as have been alleged against him, ought to be referred."

22 At all times his incorrectness of quotation and of reference, and in the relation of particular circumstances, was extreme; it seemed as if the door betwixt his memory and imagination was always open, and though the former was a large strong room, its contents were perpetually mingling with those of the adjoining chamber. I am sure that if I had not had the facts of my Father's life at large before me, from his letters and the relations of friends, I should not have believed such confusions as his, possible in a man of sound mind. To give two out of numberless instances,-in a manuscript intended to be perused by his friend Mr. Green, he speaks of a composition by Mr. Green himself, as if he, S. T. Coleridge, were the author of it. A man, who thus forgets, will oftener ascribe the thoughts of another, when they have a great cognateness with, and a deep interest for, his own mind, to himself, than such cognate and interesting thoughts to another; but my Father's forgetfulness was not always in the way of appropriation, as this story, written to me by Mrs. Julius Hare, will show. She says, it was "told him (Archdeacon Hare) many years ago by the Rev. Robert Tennant, who was then his Curate, but afterwards went to Florence and died there. He had a great reverence and admiration for Mr. Coleridge, and used occasionally to call upon him. During one of these visits, Mr. C. spoke of a book (Mr. Hare thinks it was on Political Economy) in which there were some valuable remarks bearing upon the subject of their conversation. Mr. Tennant immediately purchased the book on this recommendation, but on reading it was surprised to find no such passages as Mr. C. had referred to. Some time after he saw the same book at the house of a friend, and mentioned the circumstance to him; upon which his friend directed him to the margin of the volume before him, and there he found the very remarks in Mr. C.'s own writing, which he had written in as marginalia, and forgotten that they were his own and not the author's. Mr. Hare had always intended asking Mr. T. to give him this story in detail in writing, but unfortunately delayed it too long till Mr. T.'s very sudden death prevented it altogether; but he can vouch for its general correctness."

My Father trusted to his memory, knowing it to be powerful and not aware that it was inaccurate, in order to save his legs and his eyes. 1 suspect that he quoted even longish passages in Greek without copying