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You were life, you were light, you were all to But you laughed and danced, love, and sang in

From Blackwood's Magazine.

A CENTURY OF GREAT POETS, FROM 1750 DOWNWARDS.

NO. IV. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

taking no excuse from the height of
spiritual existence to which his other part
was elevated. This view of him must be
considered in its turn; but his first aspect
is as nearly that of sheer spirit, scarcely
conscious of the necessity of embodiment
a being composed of intellect, soul, and
heart, without any fleshly element –
as it
is possible for the imagination to con-
ceive.

enduring only the splendid torment of that longing to mount higher and ever higher, which is the form of their purgation. He is like a mountain with head ever held THE position of Coleridge in English high over the common ways of earth, literature is one of the most interesting sometimes enveloped in clouds and mists, and remarkable that can be imagined. but sometimes towering high above them To apportion him his place, and to justify into the blue serene which lies beyond. the importance of it, are things which are By such metaphors alone can we give an easy to that true instinct which is above idea of the nature of the man who, being all criticism, but become difficult from the man, was often blamable, and often seems moment that we attempt to explain and to have forgotten that though his head give the reason why. The poetic priest- was among the stars, his feet were bound hood, simple and austere, of Wordsworth to trace the lawful ways of earthly living, -the wonderful mightiness and fulness of invention, and the splendid personal history of Scott open to each of these great figures his appropriate pedestal, with a distinctness and simplicity which ease the critic from one of his most difficult labours. But Coleridge, in essence and soul more entirely a poet than either of them, dwelling more among the subjects and in the atmosphere of poetry than any man of his generation, is beyond all parallel This spirituality of his nature we use the most perplexing figure in the literary the word not in a religious sense, though history of his time. His soul is one of Coleridge's nature was at the same time those which, like Milton's, yet even more deeply religious-gives a certain effect emphatically than Milton's, dwells apart. and power to all that proceeds from him, His life belongs to this world solely by the which much surpasses its material imnecessities of flesh and blood, which bind portance. His acknowledged greatness as him whether he wills or no; but in reality a poet is built perhaps upon the very he has no more connection with the com- smallest matter-of-fact foundation that mon soil than the bonds of gravitation ever fame had. His so-called poems, good compel. Speaking not in a religious and bad, everything he has done in rhyme, sense, but with the humanly spiritual occupy but one small volume, in which meaning which may be applied to the there is included much, that is, of no parwords, we find no phrase so apt to express ticular importance, and some things which his habit and character as those words of are not poetry at all; while his three real St. Paul," Our conversation is in heaven." and great poems, the "Ancient Mariner," In heaven, yet not in paradise-in an in- "Christabel," and "Love," would not do termediate unknown region where Truth more than make up among them a tiny dwells, and all the lofty souls of things- brochure. Two of these are, in scope and was Coleridge's abode; a sublimer Limbo, construction, very far from intelligible to not below, but above humanity—such a to the common understanding. They conlimbo as might have been placed, had it tain none of the elements of ordinary popentered into the conception of a still ularity; they do not appeal to the primigreater poet, on the edge of the Purgatorio tive emotions, nor gain any fictitious instead of the Inferno - with great souls interest from that power of association and poets dwelling in it, like those on the which often carries a homely verse straight other side, who "without hope live in to the heart. Yet their power is so undesire;" but on this, with desire and questionable that the world has acknowlhope mingled, tracing afar off the angel edged it in its own despite, in a tremor of forms that stand around the throne, and wonder and perplexity and curiosity, not

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comprehending but feeling, and bowing | paritions from another world, from a world down before its natural king. Though we spiritual, unseen, between heaven and hear of adverse criticism, and though his earth, unknown except in so far as the first great poem, being published with seer chooses to reveal them, yet haunting them, naturally shared the fate of Words- our visible life in a mysterious neighbourworth's Lyrical Ballads, yet we find no hood, weaving themselves in with our aftrace of the determined opposition against fairs, accounting for a thousand mysteries. which Wordsworth had to fight his way to The power which his knowledge of them greatness, in the case of the companion and of the invisible gives him affects us whose vivid imaginations were above criti- more suddenly, more certainly, more vivcism. "The sweet, soft, still breath of idly, than any other kind of poetry. It praise," says Professor Wilson, in one of impresses not so much the understanding his own most beautiful and poetical essays, as a kindred imagination which is latent in rose from many a secret place where every one of us, and which is more rapid genius and simplicity abided; and Cole- and potent than even the intellect. Thus ridge, amid the simpers of the silly, and hosts of people who could give no explathe laughter of the light, and the scorn of nation of the Ancient Mariner, or of its the callous, and the abuse of the brutal, effect upon their minds - no more than received the laurel crown woven by the the wedding-guest could, who is the first hands of all the best of his brother bards." great example of this influence have His poetry was not to be questioned; it been moved by it as all the lofty musings was strange, wild, original, like nothing and fine philosophy of the "Excursion else in earth or heaven; but it thrilled could never move them. We do not pause every competent spectator with conscious- here to say how profoundly this influence ness of a new power, a new light revealing was felt by all who listened to the magical the unseen. His images and metaphors monologue of the poet in those days when are all drawn from that spiritual Debatable he had ceased to put his thoughts into Land in which he dwelt. They are the verse. Our object now is simply to point utterance of one who sees what we cannot out that his nature, the predominance see, and hears what we do not hear. His of spirit in him, his position as an almost whole mind and soul are uplifted to the entirely intellectual and spiritual being, — magic hill-top on which he chants his song, is the very essence of his poetry, and has with his singing-garments round him and carried it straight to that innermost region his head among the stars. Thus the of feeling which is one of the highest posstrains, so few in number, so strange in sessions of humanity a thing at once character, affect the mind more powerfully deeper and wider than intellect. Thus he than even the avowedly great poems which who has written less, and less intelligibly are written under more ordinary condi- (so to speak), than any of his great contions. It is as if an angel sang to us; yet temporaries - whose productions are to not an angel, a great, powerful, wander- those of Wordsworth, of Byron, of Shelley, ing, wayward spirit, more deeply sympa- even of Keats, as a drop is to an oceanthetic with earth and its anguishes than holds a position unsurpassed by any of with the realm of celestial bliss-aware them, and greater in actual power and inof a thousand occult forces unknown to fluence than most. The others have laus, strange beings, good and bad, whom boured incomparably more, but they have he does not imagine, but sees with those attained no higher a result so far as fame larger other eyes than ours, which are his is concerned. For in all of the others by right of his nature. The ship that there are coarser elements - the visible drifts against the sunset with its weird prose of art as well as its higher inspiraplayers; the beautiful angel who looks the tion the scaffolding and tools and prepaknight in the face, and whom he knows to rations which are necessary to every morbe a fiend; the loathly yet lovely lady, tal structure, and betray when and how it "beautiful exceedingly," who throws her was made. But Coleridge needs no scafmagic over Christabel,—all these are ap-foldings, no implements. His is pure poe

66

try, as his nature is all spirit. "The body childish petting which the youngest son that does us grievous wrong" is never had received at home, as depressed, visible, scarce necessary except for the moping, friendless, poor orphan, half mere voice, its most ethereal part. It has starved; " and piteous is the tale that folno active power in the matter. The song lows -the sketch of Christ's Hospital, in comes forth to us chanted softly, with now its then condition, and of the hungry and then a rising swell of inspiration, out lonely boy, with genius swelling in his of the undiscovered world between earth heart, and an unsatisfied boy's appetite and heaven. There is not even any effort of thought or invention, any strain of discovery. "What we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears "—in this is the great secret of his fame.

"I was a poor friendless boy; my parents, and those who should have cared for me, were far away. Those few acquaintances of theirs, whom they could reckon upon being kind to me in the great city, after a little forced notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my first arrival in town, soon grew tired of my holiday visits. They seemed to them to recur too often, though I thought them few enough. One after another, they all failed me, and I felt mythe cruelty of separating a poor lad from his self alone among six hundred playmates. Oh have towards it in those unfledged years! early homestead! The yearnings which I used to

making his cheeks hollow, and his desires ravenous. The following affecting narrative, written in Coleridge's person by the tender-hearted Elia, gives the best view possible of this scanty and suffering comColeridge was born in 1772, in the little mencement of life. At that time, it may town of Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire. be premised, the dietary of Christ's HosHis father was vicar of the parish, and pital was of the lowest : breakfast consistmaster of the grammar-school, a man of ing of a "quarter of penny loaf, moistened learning and piety, who died, as it seems with attenuated small beer in wooden pigto be almost necessary that a poet's father gins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack should die, when his son was very young. it was poured from;" and the weekly Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the young- rule giving "three banyan-days to four est of ten children. His elder brothers meat-days." and sisters seem to have belonged altogether to an antecedent generation, and from those more near to him he seems to have been very soon and very completely detached; though his early recollections of the visionary time, when he was the plaything and pet of the family, and specially of his father, who was already an old man at his birth, and whose delight he are pathetically clear and vivid. The child, however, was only nine years old when he lost this pious and tender father, whom all his life long he laments as his one irremediable loss. A year after- in my dreams would my native town come back wards the little fellow was sent to Christ's (far in the west), with its churches and trees Hospital, a presentation to which had and faces! The long warm days of been secured to him by Judge Buller, summer never return but they bring with them once one of his father's pupils. From this a gloom from the haunting memory of those time his mother's house, his family and whole days' leave, when, by some strange arhome, seemed to disappear altogether from rangement, we were turned out for the livelong about him. We hear absolutely no more day, upon our own hands, whether we had of them. Whether the subsequent ad- friends to go to or none. I remember those vancement of the race in the world is due bathing excursions to the New River which to their own qualities entirely, or is in any Lamb recalls with so much relish, better, I degree owing to the fame of the poet, for think, than he can- for he was a home-seeking whom neither they nor the world did lad, and did not care much for such water-parties. How we would sally forth into the fields, much, is beyond our power of judging; and strip under the first warmth of the sun, and but certainly the parson's family of Ottery wanton like young dace in the streams, getting St. Mary seems to have lent little moral appetites for the noon; which those of us that backing or affectionate support to its gift-were penniless (our scanty morning crust long ed child. He describes himself, in the since exhausted) had not the means of allaying second hard chapter of his life, after the

was

How

- while the cattle and the birds and the fishes