of paramount importance, his spiritual relation to the people under his charge-remove even the fact of his being a man necessarily possessed of some education, and compelled to exterior decorum of conduct; and say has there been no advantage to the country in the single circumstance of this portion of the produce of the soil devolving, by a different law of succession, and therefore never, except by some improbable accident, transmitted into the same hands with the rest? For the purpose of argument, we will consider tithes only as they affect landed property; they are, let us say a portion of the landed property of the country. Consider the tendency of such property to accumulate in the same hands. All the laws of the country were even more favourable than they at present are, to such accumulation; but they still favour it, and the feelings in which these laws had their origin, have outlived the forms in which they were first manifested. Though entails of property are substantially done away with, and serve now for little more than the reasonable purposes of securing a provision for children against the improvidence of parents during the period of minority, yet the feeling in which they originated subsists-the natural vanity survives, which would regard some one individual as the representative of a family; and all the wishes and acts of persons possessed of landed property are influenced by it. To this a feeling predominating over natural justice, which would suggest something of an equal division of property among children in the same circumstances to this, a feeling predominating over the strongest instincts of nature which could suggest the fitness of providing with most anxious care, for the youngest, as likely to be most unprotected, for females are less capable, at any time, of protecting themselves to this, a feeling prevailing even over the intense selfishness of man, as the interests of the individual are forgotten in that of the name, and to be the founder of a family is a distinction which would be pretty surely disclaimed by any one understanding, or rather feeling, the vanity of which we speak to this feeling, which (coun teracted and controlled by our free institutions, by commercial enterprise, by the influences above all of the army and those professions in which younger members of the families of our landed proprietors, with the same feeling of birth, and home, and kindred, pursue their animating course) gives to life much that is graceful-much that is generous-and assuredly adds, in every way, to human happiness;-if it be a prejudice, which it scarcely is, it is one which, regarding it as subdued and affected by the influences we have pointed to, has its value in being at least a serviceable antagonist to the worse prejudices of official rank, and of wealth, and the power which they would else everywhere command. But to this feeling in its full, and unmitigated strength, was owing the iron servitude of feudalism, preserved for ages, and only now crumbling. To the evils arising from a state of things, the tendencies of which are to give to one the whole landed property of an extensive territory, is there nothing of importance in the way of counteraction-in the circumstances of rights over land, co-extensive with the landlord's rights? is there nothing in this favourable to the growth of an intermediate independent class, distinguished from the lord on the one hand, and the peasant upon the other, and which class could only assert their own rights on principles which involved the establishment of rights for the vassal, and exhibited the lord as one whose power, even when it seemed most absolute, was limited and defined? The contest against feudalism was one in which the cause "of the poor against the mighty" was successfully fought by the Church, in which the victory gained was one of those victories of principle, the value of which is once and for ever. Having succeeded in freeing the people of England from domestic tyranny, the church was again the great instrument of freeing the country from foreign vassalage and foreign tribute. The history of the Church in England is the history of English liberty--and be its fate what it may-for three hundred years of greater civilization than any other country ever enjoyed, the history of the English Church is the history of the literature of England. We would wish the republication of where all that is evil naturally congrethose books of Mr. Coleridge because gates, and in her manufacturing towns they everywhere seek to exhibit not the which have outgrown the church estab faults of inen or of measures, but the lishment, and are, so far, an argument principle sought to be expressed in our for its increase-think of England as great institutions which even by those she is, and remember to what an who are not among the assailants, are extent the education of the English is less valued, we fear, than at any former in the hands of churchmen; for in time. The defenders of our existing thinking of the church institutions of institutions are assailed, as if their the country, we are not alone to think object was to perpetuate some such of the beneficed clergy and parish degradation of the bulk of the people, ministers, but of those members of the as the law of caste involves, as if the establishment-the masters and assistexisting institutions of England-for ants in public places of education, the a moment we entreat our reader, for tutors in the families of the nobility the sake of understanding what we and gentry, those who have formed would say, to shut out from his view the higher classes of the English into the anomalous condition of Ireland, what they are, and contribute to make whatever he may think of it, or may England what she still is, the first and imagine us to think-as if, we repeat, freest country in the world. Think those institutions were, in fact, an im- for a moment of this one English pediment to every advance from the institution, and when you have suchumbler classes, instead of being, as ceeded in bringing the case fairly they undoubtedly are at present, and --however inadequately-before your for centuries have been--the certain mind, ask yourself whether all these means of aiding them in every object, enviable distinctions of English educanot alone of reasonable desire, but cation are to be flung away; and even of the most ambitious hope, that when you have stripped the church of a man can entertain in any country, her property-we know you are quite although we were to allow him to dishonest enough to do so if you canfancy an Utopia of his own; for Sir say have you provided means to supply THOMAS MORE'S would never do for the chasm that will thus be left? By one of our reformers. Never, proba- whom is the business of education to be bly, was there an institution so deci- conducted? What shall be the new dedly beneficial to a nation as the books, and who are to be the instrucChurch has been in England-not a tors of the land? What new system, family in the land, as Mr. Coleridge fresh from France is to replace the has well observed, that has not a direct, BooK OF GOD? In spite of all we and-it is in no feeling of depreciation can do to disguise it from ourselves-we use a word unhappily equivocal- for it is hard to look intently on a even a selfish interest in its continu- prospect, that, as it exhibits our nature ance. Improve it—yes, in all imagi- degraded, it is painful to look uponnable ways improve it-divide the point in controversy is this, shall its wealth inore reasonably-make its Christianity continue the religion of schools and colleges more effective the country? To efface this is among restore somewhat of its discipline-and the hopes of the infidel party in Engwith all these changes you but render land, as it has been on the continent; it more like what its framers wished it for this there is no language too strong to be ;-take from it its courts of civil for the radical press. Day after day, law, and we fancy you will not find the in every form in which the wisdom church anxious to preserve them. In that is foolishness, and the mirth your plans for its reform restore, if which is unaccompanied with gaiety, you will, its convocation, that its own and which is followed by heaviness of independent voice may be again heard; heart, can array itself-in laborious but suppose it even as it is, unchanged essays-in poems called philosophical, -even as it is, think of its effects but most of all, in the unstamped think of what England is in her higher publications, which, in defiance of classes, in her middle ranks, in her law, are printed, and command extenvillages and farms-think of England sive circulation-do we meet with that everywhere but in her large cities, scoffing spirit which insults everything at all above itself, and exhibits little kindness or consideration for anything below its own level. We have exceeded the space which can be reasonably allowed for this article; in the Biographia Literaria of Mr. Coleridge will be found some account of his early life and education, some affectionate notices of his early instructors; the book is one which we wish may be reprinted, as it is impossible to read it without loving the man. There is in it a minute account of his studies, and of his opinions on Metaphysics and the principal systems both of England and of the Continent. The part of the book which we most value, however, is the poetical criticism, which occupies more than a volume. In the year after its publication he went to reside at Highgate, with Mr. and Mrs. Gillman-friends in all things worthy of Coleridge; for the last nineteen years of his life he resided in their house, and we can well imagine the bereavement which they, above all others on earth must now feel-during those years the new edition of The Friend was published, the Aids to Reflection, the Essay on Church and State, and his contributions to the Encyclopædia Metropolitan, and to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Li terature, were written; and there seems to have been awakening a second dawn of poetical life. The few verses written in late years are among the most beautiful even of his poems. In the Aids to Reflection many of the passages are poetry of the highest order, and almost flow into metrical form; and have a music of their own richer and truer than any of our poets, except Spenser, of whose fluent versification they almost remind us. Mr. Coleridge's studies during all this period, were, we believe, philosophical and theological; and a religious man always, his piety increased as life advanced. One of the most beautiful things we have ever read is his letter to a godchild, written a few days before his death, which we regret has not been preserved in these volumes. The volumes which his nephew publishes are inscribed to Mr. and Mrs. Gillman. When" The Friend" was published by Mr. Coleridge in 1818, it was inscribed to Mr. and Mrs. Gillman, by Mr. Coleridge, in the follow ing words, which ought to be preserved in every record of the poet's life "Friend! were an author privileged to name his own judge-in addition to moral and intellectual competence I should look round for some man, whose know : : and ledge and opinions had for the greater the practical habits of whose life had put part been acquired experimentally him on his guard with respect to all speculative reasoning, without rendering him insensible to the desirableness of principles more secure than the shifting 1ules and theories generalized from observations merely empirical, or unconscious in how many departments of knowledge, and with how large a portion even of professional men, such principles are still a desideratum. I would select too one who felt kindly, nay, even partially, toward me; but one whose partiality had its strongest foundations in hope, and more prospective than retrospective would make him quick-sighted in the detection, and unreserved in the exposure of the deficiencies and defects of each present work, in the anticipation of a more developed future. In you, honored friend, 1 have found all these requisites combined and realized and the improvement, which these essays have derived from your judgment and judicious suggestions, would, of itself, have justified me in accompanying them with a public acknowledgment of the same. But knowing, as you cannot but know, that I owe in great measure the power of having written at all to your medical skill, and to the characteristic good sense which directed its exertion in my behalf; and whatever I may have written in happier vein to the influence of your society and to the daily proofs of your disinterested attachment— knowing too in how entire a sympathy with your feelings in this respect the partner of your name has blended the affectionate regards of a sister or daughter with almost a mother's watchful and unwearied solicitudes alike for my health, interest, and tranquillity ;-you will not, I trust, be pained, you ought not, I am sure, to be surprised that to Mr. and Mrs. GILLMAN, of Highgate, these volumes are dedicated, in testimony of high respect and grateful affection, by their Friend, "S. T. COLERIDGE. "Highgate, Oct. 7, 1818." 11. SONNET; WHICH MAY ILLUSTRATE THE LAST STANZA OF THE PRECEDING POEM. Thou whose meek eyes are bending o'er my page! Of elder being? Dreams-dim dreams from thence In the drear desart. Oh, for a glimpse to come In our bright hours, the angel thoughts whose motion Tho' here the Wards of fleeting Time, are we !* III.-LINES FOR MUSIC. To fly the world for thoughts of thee, To think of thee till choked with sighs, To weep for thee till sorrow dies In dull despairing vacancy, If this be Love, I love thee! To feel it life when thou art near, A living death when thou art gone, To heave with Hope, to faint with Fear,- To blush when thou art named, to feel My heart beat quick with gentle care Now, now-to weep the golden past, This Platonic conception of human life is really independent of the support of the theories or romances of philosophy. However the fact may be explained by metaphysicians, it is a fact, that these shadowy reminiscences of a something past, to which we can assign no definite date or locality, do make part of the experience of most reflecting and of many unreflecting persons. How often do we find ourselves, in the midst of some interesting scene, tacitly asking, " Have we not felt all this before ?" This illusory memory-if it be an illusion-of course, (like all other singular phenomena of the mind,) scarcely admits of any intelligible description to those who have never been conscious of it; but I have myself had the personal testimony of numbers to confirm my own experience of its existence. An interesting passage from the Eastern Drama of Sacontala is apropos to this subject. Perhaps," says one of the interlocutors, "the sadness of men otherwise in happiness, on gazing on lovely objects, and hearing delicious songs, originates in a dim recollection of ancient delights, and the remnants of a connection with some antecedent existence." |