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almost to anticipate our wishes, then we feel not the want of the consolations of religion: but when fortune frowns, or friends forsake us; when sorrow, or sickness, or old age comes upon us, then it is that the superiority of the pleasures of religion is established over those of dissipation and vanity, which are ever apt to fly from us when we are most in want of their aid. There is scarcely a more melancholy sight to a considerate mind than that of an old man who is a stranger to those only true sources of satisfaction. How affecting, and at the same time how disgusting, is it to see such a one awkwardly catching at the pleasures of his younger years, which are now beyond his reach; or feebly attempting to retain them, while they mock his endeavors and elude his grasp! To such a one gloomily, indeed, does the evening of life set in! All is sour and cheerless. He can neither look backward with complacency, nor forward with hope; while the aged Christian, relying on the assured mercy of his Redeemer, can calmly reflect that his dismission is at hand; that his redemption draweth nigh. While his strength declines, and his faculties decay, he can quietly repose himself on the fidelity of God; and at the very entrance of the valley of the shadow of death, he can lift up an eye, dim perhaps and feeble, yet occasionally sparkling with hope, and confidently looking forward to the near possession of his heavenly inheritance, "to those joys which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man." What striking lessons have we had of the precarious tenure of all sublunary possessions! Wealth, and power, and prosperity, how peculiarly transitory and uncertain! religion dispenses her choicest cordials in the seasons of exigence, in poverty, in exile, in sickness, and in death. The essential superiority of that support which is derived from religion is less felt, at least it is less apparent, when the Christian is in full possession of riches, and splendor, and rank, and all the gifts of nature and fortune. But when all these are swept away by the rude hand of time or the rough blasts of adversity, the true Christian stands, like the glory of the forest, erect and vigorous; stripped, indeed, of his summer foliage, but more than ever discovering to the observing eye the solid strength of his substantial texture.

But

One extract from his private Journal, as a specimen of the spirit of the whole, it is due to his memory to make, as showing his spiritual-mindedness and habitual self-examination. It is written at the close of the year 1802:—

FROM HIS JOURNAL.

How many and great corruptions does the House of Commons discover to me in myself! What love of worldly estimation, vanity, earthly-mindedness! How different should be the frame of a real Christian, who, poor in spirit, and feeling himself a stranger and a

pilgrim on earth, is looking for the coming of his Lord and Saviour; who longs to be delivered from the present evil world, and to see God as he is! I know that this world is passing away, and that the favor of God, and a share in the blessings of the Redeemer's purchase, are alone worthy of the pursuit of a rational being: but, alas! alas! I scarcely dare say I love God and his ways. If I have made any progress, it is in the clearer discovery of my own exceeding sinfulness and weakness. Yet I am convinced it is my own fault. Let me not acquiesce then in my sinful state, as if it were not to be escaped from. Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, we may, I may, become holy. Press forward then, O my soul. Strive more vigorously. God and Christ will not refuse their help. And may the emotions I have been now experiencing be the gracious motions of the divine Spirit, quickening my dead heart, and bringing me from the power of Satan unto God.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 1772-1834.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, "the most imaginative of modern poets," was the son of the Rev. John Coleridge, vicar of Ottery, and was born at that place, in the year 1772. Losing his father in early life, he obtained, by the kindness of a friend, a presentation to Christ Church Hospital, London. "I enjoyed," he says, "the inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time a very severe master, the Rev. James Bowyer, who early moulded my taste to the preference of Demosthenes to Cicero, of Homer and Theocritus to Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid, &c." He made extraordinary advances in scholarship, and amassed a vast variety of miscellaneous knowledge, but in that random, desultory manner which through life prevented him from accomplishing what his great abilities qualified him from achieving. His reputation at Christ Church promised a brilliant career at Cambridge, which university he entered in 1790, in his nineteenth year. In 1794, he became acquainted with the poet Southey, then a student at Baliol College, Oxford, and a warm friendship soon ripened between them; and at Bristol they formed the resolution, along with a third poet, Lovell, of founding what they termed a Pantisocracy, or a republic of pure freedom, on the banks of the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania. In 1795, the three poets married three sisters, the Misses Fricker, of Bristol, and thus the whole pantisocratic scheme was upset.2

After his marriage, Coleridge settled at Clevedon, near Bristol, and projected many plans of industrious occupation in the fields of literature; but he soon became tired of this retreat, and removed to Bristol, where he was materially aided

Biographia Literaria.

a Coleridge married Sarah, and Southey Edith Fricker.

in his designs of publication by that most generous and sympathizing publisher, Joseph Cottle. He first started a weekly political paper, called the "Watchman," most of which he wrote himself; but from his indolent irregularity, the work stopped at the tenth number. Failing in this, he retired, in the latter part of 1796, to a cottage in Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, on the grounds of his friend and benefactor, Mr. Poole, and near Mr. Wordsworth. He was at this time in the habit of contributing verses to one of the London papers, as a means of subsistence; and it was while residing here that the greater part of his poems were composed, though many were not published till later: these were his "Lyrical Ballads," "Christabel," the "Ancient Mariner," and his tragedy of "Remorse."

In 1798, he was enabled, through the munificence of Mr. Thomas Wedgewood, to travel in Germany, and to study at some of its famed universities. He was very industrious in the study of the literature and philosophy of that country, and may be considered as the introducer of German philosophy to the notice of British scholars. After his return from Germany, Coleridge settled with his family at Keswick, in Cumberland, near the "Lakes," in which region Wordsworth and Southey resided, and hence the appellation of "Lake Poets," given to these three individuals. In the mean time, his habit of opium-eating, into which he had been seduced from its apparent medicinal effects, had gained tremendously upon him, and had undermined his health. There is no portion of literary history more sad than that which reveals the tyrannical power which that dreadful habit had over him, and his repeated but vain struggles to overcome it. It made him its victim, and held him, bound hand and foot, with a giant's strength. In consequence of his enfeebled health, he went to Malta in 1804, and returned in 1806. From this period till about 1816, he led a sort of wandering life, sometimes with one friend and sometimes with another, and much of the time separated from his family, supporting himself by lecturing, publishing, and writing for the London papers. The great defect in his character was the want of resoluteness of will. He saw that his pernicious habit was destroying his own happiness, and that of those dearest to him, entangling him in meanness, deceit, and dishonesty, and yet he had not the strength of will to break it off.

In 1816, he placed himself under the care of Mr. Gilman, a physician in Highgate, London, and with his generous family he resided till his death. Most of his prose works he published between the years 1817 and 1825-the two "Lay Sermons," the "Biographia Literaria," the "Friend," in three volumes, and the "Aids to Reflection," and the "Constitution of the Church and State." After his death, which took place on the 25th of July, 1834, collections were made of his "Table Talk," and other "Literary Remains." 2

1 Read the painfully interesting account in "Cottle's Reminiscences," and the most faithful Christian letter of Cottle to Coleridge, together with the answer of the latter.

2 A few months before his death, Mr. Coleridge wrote his own humble and affectionate epitaph:

Stop, Christian passer-by! Stop, child of God,
And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he;—

Oh, lift a thought in prayer for S. T. C.!
That he, who many a year with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here find life in death!
Mercy for praise, to be forgiven for fame

He ask'd, and hoped in Christ. Do thou the same.

Few men have exerted a greater influence upon the thinking mind of the nineteenth century than Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whether we regard his poetry or his prose writings. He wrote, however, for the scholastic few rather than for the reading many. Hence he has never become what may be called a popular writer, and never will be. But if he exerted not so great an influence upon the popular mind directly, he did indirectly through those who have studied and admired his works, and have themselves popularized his own recondite conceptions. His "Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character," is a book full of wisdom, of sound Christian morality, and of the most just observations on life and duty; and from his "Series of Essays-the Friend," might be culled gems of rich, and beautiful, and profound thought that would make a volume of priceless worth. His poetry unites great vividness of fancy to a lofty elevation of moral feeling and unsurpassed melody of versification; but then much of it must be said to be obscure. He himself, in fact, admits this, when he says, in a later edition of one of his poems, that where he appears unintelligible, “the deficiency is in the reader."1 Still, there is enough that is clear left to delight, instruct, and exalt the mind; and few authors have left to the world, both in prose and poetry, so much delicious and invigorating food on which the worn spirit may feed with pleasure and profit, and gain renewed strength for the conflicts of the world, as this philosophic poet and poetic philosopher.2

In conversation, Coleridge particularly shone. Here, probably, he never had his equal, so that he gained the title of the "Great Conversationalist." "It is deeply to be regretted," says an admiring critic, "that his noble genius was, to a great extent, frittered away in conversation, which he could pour forth, unpremeditatedly, for hours, in uninterrupted streams of vivid, dazzling, original thinking." "Did you ever hear me preach ?" said Coleridge to Lamb. "I never heard you do any thing else," was his friend's reply. Certainly through this medium he watered with his instructions a large circle of discipleship; but what treasures of thought has the world lost by his unwillingness to make his pen the mouthpiece of his mind!3

In reference to that singularly wild and striking poem, "The Ancient Mariner," he is said to have written the following epigram, addressed to himself:

"Your poem must eternal be,
Dear sir! it cannot fail;
For 'tis incomprehensible,
And without head or tail."

a "I think, with all his faults, old Sam was more of a great man than any one who has lived within the four seas, in my memory. It is refreshing to see such a union of the highest philosophy and poetry, with so full a knowledge, in so many points at least, of particular facts."-ARNOLD; Letter to W. W. Hull, Esq.

The following is the testimony of Dr. Dibdin to Coleridge's conversational powers: "I shall never forget the effect his conversation made upon me at the first meeting, at a dinner party. It struck me as something not only quite out of the ordinary course of things, but an intellectual exhibition altogether matchless. The viands were unusually costly, and the banquet was at once rich and varied; but there seemed to be no dish like Coleridge's conversation to feed upon-and no information so instructive as his own. The orator rolled himself up, as it were, in his chair, and gave the most unrestrained indulgence to his speech; and how fraught with acuteness and originality was that speech, and in what copious and eloquent periods did it flow, The auditors seemed to be wrapt in wonder and delight, as one conversation, more profound or clothed in more forcible language than another, fell from his tongue. He spoke nearly for two hours with unhesitating and uninterrupted fluency. As I returned homeward to Kensington, I thought a second Johnson had visited the earth to

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNY.

[Besides the rivers Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides; and within a few paces of the glaciers the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."]

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star

In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc !
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base

Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,

Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer,
I worshipp'd the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy;
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing-there,

As in her natural form, swell'd vast to heaven.
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole Sovran of the Vale!
Oh struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's ROSY STAR,' and of the dawn
Co-herald! wake, oh wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who call'd you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,

make wise the sons of men; and regretted that I could not exercise the powers of a secon Boswell to record the wisdom and the eloquence that fell from the orator's lips."

Read Edinburgh Review, xxvii. 58, xxviii. 448, lxi. 129; London Quarterly, xi. 173, lii. » liii. 79, lix. 1; and American Quarterly, xix. 1.

'The glaciers assume in the sunshine all manner of colors.

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