Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

170

Mr. Coleridge referred to Claudian's first Idyll:—"Oceani summo circumfluus cequore lucus Trans Indos Eurumque viret," &c. See the lines—

"Hic neque concepto fetu, nec semine surgit;Sed pater est prolesque sibi, nulloque creanteEmeritos artus foecunda morte reformat,Et petit alternam totidem per funera vitam.…Et cumulum texens pretiosa fronde SabaeumComponit bustumque sibi partumque futurum.…O senium positure rogo, falsisque sepulcrisNatales habiture vices, qui saepe renasciExitio, proprioque soles pubescere leto,Accipe principium rursus.…Parturiente rogo—…Victuri cineres—…Qm fuerat genitor, natus nunc prosilit idem,Succeditque novus–…O felix, haeresque tui! quo solvimur omnes,Hoc tibi suppeditat vires; praebetur origoPer cinerem; moritur te non pereunte senectus."—ED.

171

Mr. Coleridge considered the character of the father, the elder Shandy, as by much the finer delineation of the two. I fear his low opinion of the Sentimental Journey will not suit a thorough Sterneist; but I could never get him to modify his criticism. He said, "The oftener you read Sterne, the more clearly will you perceive the great difference between Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey. There is truth and reality in the one, and little beyond a clever affectation in the other."—ED.

172

[Greek: 'H de (arhet_e) poi_etou synezeyktai t_e tou anthrh_opou kai ouch oion te agathon genesthai poi_et_en, m_e prhoterhon gen_ethenta angrha agathon.]—Lib. I. p. 33. folio.

"For, if men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man's being the good poet without first being a good man."

173

This opinion, I need not say, is in direct opposition to the conclusion of Foster and Mitford, and scarcely reconcilable with the apparent meaning of the authorities from the old critics and grammarians. Foster's opponent was for rejecting the accents and attending only to the syllabic quantity;—Mr. C. would, in prose, attend to the accents only as indicators of the quantity, being unable to conceive any practical distinction between time and tone in common speech. Yet how can we deal with the authority of Dionysius of Halicarnassus alone, who, on the one hand, discriminates quantity so exquisitely as to make four degrees of shortness in the penultimates of [Greek: —hodos hr odos, tz opos] and [Greek: —stz ophos], and this expressly [Greek: —eu logois psilois], or plain prose, as well as in verse; and on the other hand declares, according to the evidently correct interpretation of the passage, that the difference between music and ordinary speech consists in the number only, and not in the quality, of tones:—[Greek: **to Poso diallattousa taes su odais kahi oznauois, kahi ouchi to Poio. (Pezhi Sun. c. 11.?]) The extreme sensibility of the Athenian ear to the accent in prose is, indeed, proved by numerous anecdotes, one of the most amusing of which, though, perhaps, not the best authenticated as a fact, is that of Demosthenes in the Speech for the Crown, asking, "Whether, O Athenians, does Aeschines appear to you to be the mercenary ([Greek: **misthothos]} of Alexander, or his guest or friend ([Greek: **xenos])?" It is said that he pronounced [Greek: **misthothos] with a false accent on the antepenultima, as [Greek: **misthotos], and that upon the audience immediately crying out, by way of correction, [Greek: **misthothos], with an emphasis, the orator continued coolly,—[Greek: **achoueis a legousi]—"You yourself hear what they say!" Demosthenes is also said, whether affectedly, or in ignorance, to have sworn in some speech by [Greek: Asklaepios], throwing the accent falsely on the antepenultima, and that, upon being interrupted for it, he declared, in his justification, that the pronunciation was proper, for that the divinity was [Greek: aepios], mild. The expressions in Plutarch are very striking:—"[Greek: **Thozuxon ekinaesen, omnue dhe kahi thon' Asklaepion, pzopasoxunon' Asklaepion, kai pazedeiknuen autohn ozthos legonta' einai gahz tohn thehon aepion' kahi epi outo polakis hethozuzaethae." Dec. Orat._—Ed.

174

See his Chiliads. The sort of verses to which Mr. Coleridge alluded are the following, which those who consider the scansion to be accentual, take for tetrameter catalectic iambics, like—

[Greek: –] (

Chil. I.

I 'll climb the frost | y mountains high |, and there I 'll coin | the weather;

I'll tear the rain | bow from the sky |, and tie both ends | together.

Some critics, however, maintain these verses to be trochaics, although very loose and faulty. See Foster, p. 113. A curious instance of the early confusion of accent and quantity may be seen in Prudentius, who shortens the penultima in eremus and idola, from [Greek: ezaemos] and [Greek: eidola].

Cui jejuna eremi saxa loquacibus Exundant scatebris, &c. Cathemer. V. 89.

–cognatumque malum, pigmenta, Camoenas, Idola, conflavit fallendi trina potestas. Cont. Symm. 47.—ED.

175

Genesis, c. vi. vii. Par. Lost, book xi. v. 728, &c.

176

Yet Diego de Mendoza, the author of Lazarillo de Tormes, himself a veteran diplomatist, describes his brethren of the craft, and their duties, in the reigns of Charles the Emperor and Philip the Second, in the following terms:—

O embajadores, puros majaderos,Que si los reyes quieren engañar,Comienzan por nosotros los primeros.Nuestro mayor negocio es, no dañar,  Y jamas hacer cosa, ni dezilla,  Que no corramos riesgo de enseñar.

What a pity it is that modern diplomatists, who, for the most part, very carefully observe the precept contained in the last two lines of this passage, should not equally bear in mind the importance of the preceding remark—that their principal business is just to do no mischief.—ED.

177

Lucan died by the command of Nero, A.D. 65, in his twenty-sixth year. I think this should be printed at the beginning of every book of the Pharsalia.—ED.

178

Aulus Persius Flaccus died in the 30th year of his age, A.D. 62.—ED.

179

Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was born A.D. 348, in Spain.—ED.

180

See the fragment from the Leontium:—

[Greek: HOi_en men philos huios an_egagen OiagrhoioAgrhiop_en, THr_essan steilamenos kithar_enAidothen k. t. l.] Athen. xiii. s. 71—ED.

181

"Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound,Now, serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground;In quibbles angel and archangel join,And God the Father turns a school divine."1 Epist. 2d book of Hor. v. 99.

182

Greek: Paides, Athanaia numphan mian en poka Th_ezais po_olu ti kai pezi d_e philato tan hetezan, mateza Teizesiao, kai oupoka ch_ozis egento k.t.l. v 57, &c.

183

Let me borrow Mr. Wordsworth's account of, and quotation from, this poem:—

"Finally, I will refer to Cotton's 'Ode upon Winter,' an admirable composition, though stained with some peculiarities of the age in which he lived, for a general illustration of the characteristics of Fancy. The middle part of this ode contains a most lively description of the entrance of Winter, with his retinue, as 'a palsied king,' and yet a military monarch, advancing for conquest with his army; the several bodies of which, and their arms and equipments, are described with a rapidity of detail, and a profusion of fanciful comparisons, which indicate, on the part of the poet, extreme activity of intellect, and a correspondent hurry of delightful feeling. He retires from the foe into his fortress, where—

a magazineOf sovereign juice is cellared in;Liquor that will the siege maintainShould Phoebus ne'er return again."

Though myself a water-drinker, I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing what follows, as an instance still more happy of Fancy employed in the treatment of feeling than, in its preceding passages, the poem supplies of her management of forms.

'Tis that, that gives the Poet rage,And thaws the gelly'd blood of Age;Matures the Young, restores the Old,And makes the fainting coward bold.It lays the careful head to rest,Calms palpitations in the breast,Renders our lives' misfortune sweet;* * * * *Then let the chill Scirocco blow,And gird us round with hills of snow;Or else go whistle to the shore,And make the hollow mountains roar:Whilst we together jovial sitCareless, and crowned with mirth and wit;Where, though bleak winds confine us home,Our fancies round the world shall roam.We'll think of all the friends we know,And drink to all worth drinking to;When, having drunk all thine and mine,We rather shall want healths than wine.But where friends fail us, we'll supplyOur friendships with our charity;Men that remote in sorrows liveShall by our lusty brimmers thrive.We'll drink the wanting into wealth,And those that languish into health,Th' afflicted into joy, th' opprestInto security and rest.The worthy in disgrace shall findFavour return again more kind,And in restraint who stifled lieShall taste the air of liberty.The brave shall triumph in success,The lovers shall have mistresses,Poor unregarded virtue, praise,And the neglected poet, bays.Thus shall our healths do others good,Whilst we ourselves do all we would;For, freed from envy and from care,What would we be but what we are?

Preface to the editions of Mr. W.'s Poems, in 1815 and 1820.—ED.]

184

The passage in Mr. Coleridge's mind was, I suppose, the following:—"He (the fisherman) set it before him, and while he looked upon it attentively, there came out a very thick smoke, which obliged him to retire two or three paces from it. The smoke ascended to the clouds, and extending itself along the sea, and upon the shore, formed a great mist, which, we may well imagine, did mightily astonish the fisherman. When the smoke was all out of the vessel, it reunited itself, and became a solid body, of which there was formed a genie twice as high as the greatest of giants." Story of the Fisherman. Ninth Night.—ED.

185

Melancthon's words are:—"Tuo judicio prorsus assentior. Affirmo etiam vestros magistratus juste fecisse quod hominem blasphemum, re ordine judicata, interfecerunt." 14th Oct. 1554.—ED.

186

She was a native of Avila in Old Castile, and a Carmelite nun. Theresa established an order which she called the "Reformed," and which became very powerful. Her works are divided into ten books, of which her autobiography forms a remarkable part. She died in 1582, and was canonised by Gregory XV. in 1622—ED.

187

In his essay, "Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseyns Gottes."—"The only possible argument or ground of proof for a demonstration of the existence of God." It was published in 1763; the "Critique" in 1781.—ED.

188

Eighteen years before, Mr. Coleridge entertained the same feelings towards Chaucer:—"Through all the works of Chaucer there reigns a cheerfulness, a manly hilarity, which makes it almost impossible to doubt a correspondent habit of feeling in the author himself." Biog. Lit., vol. i. p. 32.—ED.

189

"This poet's well-merited epithet is that of the 'well-languaged Daniel;' but, likewise, and by the consent of his contemporaries, no less than of all succeeding critics, the 'prosaic Daniel.' Yet those who thus designate this wise and amiable writer, from the frequent incorrespondency of his diction with his metre, in the majority of his compositions, not only deem them valuable and interesting on other accounts, but willingly admit that there are to be found throughout his poems, and especially in his Epistles and in his Hymen's Triumph, many and exquisite specimens of that style, which, as the neutral ground of prose and verse, is common to both."—Biog. Lit., vol. ii. p. 82.

190

Mr. Coleridge called Shakspeare "the myriad-minded man," [Greek: au_az muzioyous]—" a phrase," said he, "which I have borrowed from a Greek monk, who applies it to a patriarch of Constantinople. I might have said, that I have reclaimed, rather than borrowed, it, for it seems to belong to Shakspeare _de jure singulari, et ex privilegio naturae." See Biog. Lit., vol. ii. p. 13.—ED.

191

In the memoir prefixed to the correspondence with Sir H. Mann. Lord Byron's words are:—"He is the ultimus Romanorum, the author of the 'Mysterious Mother,' a tragedy of the highest order, and not a puling love play. He is the father of the first romance, and of the last tragedy, in our language; and surely worthy of a higher place than any living author, be he who he may."—Preface to Marino Faliero. Is not "Romeo and Juliet" a love play? —But why reason about such insincere, splenetic trash?—ED.

192

I refer the reader to the five concluding essays of the third volume of the "Friend," as a specimen of what Mr. C. might have done as a biographer if an irresistible instinct had not devoted him to profounder labours. As a sketch—and it pretends to nothing more—is there any thing more perfect in our literature than the monument raised in those essays to the memory of Sir Alexander Ball?—and there are some touches added to the character of Nelson, which the reader, even of Southey's matchless Life of our hero, will find both new and interesting.—ED.

193

Hans Sachse was born 1494, and died 1576.—ED

194

Part II. c. 2. v.29.

195

——"Forth rush'd with whirlwind soundThe chariot of Paternal Deity,Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel undrawn,Itself instinct with spirit, but convoy'dBy four cherubic shapes; four faces eachHad wonderous; as with stars their bodies allAnd wings were set with eyes; with eyes the wheelsOf beryl, and careering fires between;Over their heads a crystal firmament,Whereon a sapphire throne, inlaid with pureAmber, and colours of the showery arch.He, in celestial panoply all arm'dOf radiant Urim, work divinely wrought,Ascended; at his right hand VictorySat eagle-wing'd; beside him hung his bowAnd quiver, with three-bolted thunder stored;And from about him fierce effusion roll'dOf smoke, and bickering flame, and sparkles dire;Attended with ten thousand thousand saints,He onward came; far off their coming shone;And twenty thousand (I their number heard)Chariots of God, half on each hand, were seen:He on the wings of cherub rode sublimeOn the crystalline sky, in sapphire throned,Illustrious far and wide; but by his ownFirst seen."—P. L. b. vi. v. 749, &c.

196

——"and call'dHis legions, angel forms, who lay intrancedThick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooksIn Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades,High over arch'd, embower; or scatter'd sedgeAfloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'dHath vex'd the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrewBusiris, and his Memphian chivalry,While with perfidious hatred they pursuedThe sojourners of Goshen, who beheldFrom the safe shore their floating carcassesAnd broken chariot wheels; so thick bestrewn,Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,Under amazement of their hideous change.He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deepOf Hell resounded."—P. L. b. i. v. 300, &c.

197

"Having, at his being in Rome, made acquaintance with a pleasant priest, who invited him, one evening, to hear their vesper music at church; the priest, seeing Sir Henry stand obscurely in a corner, sends to him by a boy of the choir this question, writ in a small piece of paper;—'Where was your religion to be found before Luther?' To which question Sir Henry presently underwrit;—'My religion was to be found then, where yours is not to be found now—in the written word of God.'"—Isaak Walton's Life of Sir Henry Wotton.