THE FRIEND

BY S. T. COLERIDGE

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOLUME III

THE FRIEND:

A SERIES OF ESSAYS TO AID IN THE FORMATION

OF FIXED PRINCIPLES IN POLITICS, MORALS, AND

RELIGION. WITH LITERARY AMUSE-

MENTS INTERSPERSED.

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

THE FOURTH EDITION, WITH THE AUTHOR'S LAST CORRECTIONS

AND AN APPENDIX, AND WITH A SYNOPTICAL TABLE

OF THE CONTENTS OF THE WORK, BY

Now for the writing of this werke,
I, who am a lonesome clerke,
Purposed for to write a book

After the world, that whilome took
Its course in oldè days long passed:
But for men sayn, it is now lassed
In worser plight than it was tho,
I thought me for to touch also
The world which neweth every day—
So as I can, so as I may,

Albeit I sickness have and pain,

And long have had, yet would I fain
Do my mind's hest and besiness,
That in some part, so as I guess,
The gentle mind may be advised.

GOWER, Pro. to the Confess. Amantis.

THE FRIEND.

INTRODUCTION.

Παρὰ Σέξτου—τὴν ἔννοιαν τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν ζῆν καὶ τὸ σεμνὸν ἀπλάςως, -ὥςε κολακείας μὲν πάσης προσηνεφέραν εἶναι τὴν ὁμιλίαν αὐτοῦ, αἰδεσιμώτατον δὲ παρ' αὐτὸν ἐκεῖνον τὸν καιρὸν εἶναι· καὶ ἅμα μὲν ἀπαθέςατον εἶναι, ἅμα δὲ φιλοςοργότατον· καὶ τὸ ἰδεῖν ἄνθρωπον σαφῶς ἔλάχιςον τῶν ἑαυτοῦ καλῶν ἡγούμενον τὴν αὑτοῦ πολυμαθίην.—M. ANTONINUS.*

From Sextus, and from the contemplation of his character, I learned what it was to live a life in harmony with nature; and that seemliness and dignity of deportment, which insured the profoundest reverence at the very same time that his company was more winning than all the flattery in the world. To him I owe likewise that I have known a man at once the most dispassionate, and the most affectionate, and who of all his attractions set the least value on the multiplicity of his literary acquisitions.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE FRIEND.

IR,—I HOPE you will not ascribe to presump

Skion

tion the liberty I take in addressing you on the subject of your work. I feel deeply interested in the cause you have undertaken to support; and

* L. I. 9. But the passage is made up from, rather than found in, Antoninus.-Ed.