Coleridge's Writings.

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"Life of Sterling" remains by far the most lifelike description we have of the philosopher in his old age.1

Coleridge died in 1834, leaving nearly all his most brilliant projects unexecuted, but not without having left conclusive evidence that he was possessed of a genius so profound, so subtle, and so versatile, that if only strength of will ́had been added to it, he might have been ranked among our very greatest writers. As a poet his total work is not large, and what of it is really excellent might be comprised in a very tiny volume. It is a curious fact that nearly all his best poems, "Genevieve," "Kubla Khan," the "Ancient Mariner," and the first part of "Christabel," were written in a single year, 1797. On the peculiar and universal charm of works so familiar as these it is unnecessary to dwell. Most of his prose works were written after he, in 1816, took up his abode with Mr. Gilman. Among these are two "Lay Sermons," published in 1816 and 1817; the "Biographia Literaria" (1817), perhaps the most generally interesting of his prose works, containing as it does, amidst much irrelevant matter, a great store of valuable criticism and many original and profound observations; a revised and greatly enlarged edition of "The Friend" (1818), "a periodical of weekly essays, intended to help to the formation of opinions on moral, political, and artistic subjects, grounded upon true and permanent principles," carried on by Coleridge, at considerable pecuniary loss, between June 1809 and March 1810; and “Aids to Reflection" (1825). After his death appeared four volumes of "Literary Remains," of which the most valuable portions are the criticisms, often singularly just and subtle, on Shakespeare. By J. S. Mill, Coleridge was ranked with. Jeremy Bentham, the Utilitarian thinker, as the great seminal

1 It is a wonder that in these days of innumerable biographies no one has written a good Life of Coleridge. None such exists; and many particulars regarding his life and character are still shrouded in partial dark ness. So many reminiscences, &c., of Coleridge are to be found, that, with the necessary research, a very instructive and entertaining book might be written on the subject.

mind of his generation. No man, Mill declared some forty years ago, did so much to shape the opinions among younger men, who could be said to have any opinions at all. Coleridge may be said to have been the founder of the "Broad Church” School, many of whose earlier representatives could scarcely find words to express their admiration of him as a thinker. "Arnold . . . called him the greatest intellect that England had produced within his memory. Julius Hare spoke of him as 'the great religious philosopher, to whom the mind of our generation in England owes more than to any other man.' . . . Mr. Maurice has everywhere spoken with deeper reverence of him than of any other teacher of these latter times." To Coleridge belonged one of those rare intellects whose products are valuable not so much, it may be, for what they actually express, as because they open up new vistas of thought and speculation which the student may pursue for himself. To this a great part of the extraordinary influence which he at one time exerted is due. His vogue as a thinker has now in great measure gone by; what he did in that way was more adapted to the wants of his own age than to all time; and his style is, like his conversation, apt to be dreamy and long-winded.

1

Coleridge's eldest son, Hartley (so called after the celebrated philosopher), (1796-1849), deserves a word of mention here, as having inherited a considerable portion of his father's literary genius. Unfortunately, also, he inherited a more than considerable share of his weakness of will. While at the University he became a slave to intemperate habits, and never was able to free himself from the bondage. Of amiable, childlike nature, considerable scholarship, and fine poetic taste, he won the regard and pity of many friends, notably of Wordsworth. Many of his sonnets, especially those relating to himself, are singularly beautiful. His most important prose work is his "Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire," containing some excellent biographies. Coleridge's daughter Sara (1802–1852)

Principal Shairp's "Essay on Coleridge," originally published in North British Review for December 1865.

had no small share of her father's poetical and philosophical genius, added to scholarship almost unique in a woman.

Robert Southey, the last of the Lake trio, did not approach either of the other two in poetical genius. Indeed, we do not risk much by saying that his poems, with the exception of a few short pieces, which hold their ground in books of extracts, are now almost forgotten. But he has many other claims to remembrance. Master of a prose style clear, simple, and elegant, he takes much higher rank as a prose writer than as a poet, while his pure and blameless life, his large-hearted charity, his unswerving industry, and his intense devotion to literature should keep his memory alive in the hearts of all who can appreciate a true, honest, and courageous life, Southey was born at Bristol in 1774, educated at Westminster and Cambridge, and, like Wordsworth and Coleridge, was in his youth an ardent partisan of the French Revolution and of Radical opinions generally. As he grew older, however, he resembled his friends in veering to the other extreme of the scale; indeed, no more unbending Tory, no more strenuous advocate of “the established constitution in Church and State," could have been found than was in his later years the man who had begun his literary career by the writing in 1794 of a revolutionary poem, "Wat Tyler," published many years later by an unscrupulous bookseller, who wished to annoy the author by taunting him with the opinions he had advocated in his hot youth. While at college Southey also wrote an epic poem, "Joan of Arc," published in 1796. Previous to this date he had become acquainted with Coleridge, and the young men, along with one or two others, had spent much time unprofitably, but no doubt pleasantly, in discussing socialistic schemes, including a "Pantisocracy" on the banks of the Susquehanna, where they could live a pure and innocent life according to Nature, untrammelled by the iron tyranny and conventionalism of the Old World. Want of money put an end to the enterprise, and its only important result was that in 1795 Southey, unknown to his relatives, married Edith Fricker, sister of the wife of one of the "Pantisocrats." Her sister Sarah married

Coleridge. Immediately after the marriage ceremony was over, Southey reluctantly bade his wife farewell, being obliged by dire pecuniary necessity to start for the Continent with his uncle, Mr. Hill. He spent six months in Portugal, thus acquiring that knowledge of the language and literature of Spain and Portugal which was afterwards so serviceable to him. On his return to England, Southey, aided by the generous assistance of a friend, commenced the study of the law. But he soon found that it was utterly uncongenial to him, and gave it up after a year's trial. In 1801 he became private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland. This office too he abandoned after six months' trial. Literature was the avocation for which nature had designed him, and to literature he was attracted by an irresistible impulse. In 1803 he fixed his residence at Greta Hall, Keswick, and fairly began his earnest career of literary labour, almost unparalleled in its constant assiduity. There, too, he gave shelter to the family of Coleridge, and to Mrs. Lovell, a widowed sister of his wife's, never complaining of the burden, though his means were far from abundant, but accepting it cheerfully and bravely.

To enumerate all Southey's writings would be tedious and unnecessary. His most ambitious poetical works were "Thalaba" (1801), "Madoc" (1805), "The Curse of Kehama" (1810), "Roderick, the Last of the Goths" (1814). None of them was very successful in point of sale or otherwise; but the always sanguine author consoled himself by thinking that their copyright would eventually prove a mine of wealth-a hope never fulfilled. In 1807 he obtained from Government a pension of about £160 net. In 1813 he accepted the laureateship, which had been declined by Scott; and in 1835 Sir Robert Peel conferred on him a pension of £300 a year. Until he received the last-named amount Southey had to live from hand to mouth. With so many claims upon him as he had, duty and inclination alike called upon him to exert himself to the utmost. His most profitable literary connection was that with the Quarterly Review, to

Southey's Writings.

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which he contributed largely, receiving sometimes as much as £100 for an article. But his writings in it were only a small portion of his labours. He wrote a "History of Brazil," a "History of the Peninsular War," "Colloquies on Society" (the theme of Macaulay's famous article on Southey), "Lives of the British Admirals," Lives of Wesley, of Kirke White, of Chatterton, of Cowper, of Nelson, of Bunyan, &c., &c. His most popular prose work is his admirable sketch of Nelson (1813). The secret of how Southey managed to get through such an immense amount of work, and the secret also, it must be added, of the inferiority of a great deal of it, was that he laboured continually, day by day, hour by hour, not waiting for moments of inspiration, but performing each day his allotted task. No wonder that he broke down under the burden, and that the three years previous to his death in 1843 were passed in a state of mental decay. "This ["work, continually work"], for thirty or forty years, he had punctually and impetuously done. No man so habitual, we were told; gave up his poetry at a given hour, on stroke of the clock, and took to prose, &c., &c.; and as to diligence and velocity, employed his very walking hours-walked with a book in his hand; and by these methods of his had got through perhaps a greater amount of work, counting quantity and quality, than any other man whatever in those years of his, till all suddenly ended. I likened him to one of those huge sandstone grinding cylinders which I had seen at Manchester, turning with inconceivable velocity (in the condemned room of the iron factory, where'men die of lung disease at forty,' but are permitted to smoke in their damp cellar, and think that a rich recompense !)—screaming harshly, and shooting out each of them its sheet of fire (yellow, starlight, &c., according as it is brass or any other kind of metal that you grind or polish there) -beautiful sheets of fire, pouring out each as if from the paper cap of its low-stooping-backed grinder, when you look from rearward. For many years these stones grind so, at such a rate, till at last (in some cases) comes a moment when the stone's cohesion is quite worn out, overcome by the stupen