God; and the great privilege of a Christian is, that, through faith, these doctrines are as comprehensible to him, however humble, as to Coleridge, who, independently of faith, is no more than on a footing with an enlightened heathen-a fact of which he shows himself to be at times aware, yet he persists in perplexing himself with the pursuit of an intellectual faculty, which is to set us above ourselves.* In fact, Coleridge has himself remarked, that "revelation would cease to be revelation, were its mysteries within the reach of human capacity;" and that "nothing has tended more to atheism, than the attempt to penetrate the inscrutable councils, or discover the sacred essence, of the Eternal." And may we not truly be said to have made considerable advances towards the demolition of atheism, infidelity, materialism, and the sceptical legion generally, when reflecting minds become reconciled to the Scriptural doctrine of incomprehensibility? A comprehensible mystery is a palpable absurdity! Yet what angry * Veritas, id est arcanum summi Dei, qui fecit omnia, ingenio ac propriis sensibus non potest comprehendi; alioqui nihil inter Deum hominemque distaret, si consilia, et dispositiones illius majestatis æternæ cogitatio assequeretur humana. Quod quia fieri non potuit, ut homini per seipsum ratio divina notesceret; non est passus hominem Deus, lumen sapientiæ requirentem, diutius oberrare, ac sine ullo laboris effectu vagari per tenebras inextricabiles; aperuit oculos ejus aliquando, et notionem veritatis munus suum fecit, ut et humanam sapientiam nullam esse monstraret, et erranti ac vago viam consequendæ immortalitatis ostenderet. Lactant. Div. Inst. lib. i. s. 1.-Dr. H. conflicts have gone on in the world, to bring matters of faith under the dominion of reason. Whilst, on the other hand, there has been an equally great and detrimental impatience to give up reason and common sense altogether, in the consideration of matters of faith, which, however far above, can never be contrary to, right reason. Some of Coleridge's expositions of particular Scriptural doctrines are admirable; but they are so only when his enlightened mind exerts itself in strict conformity with the enunciations of Holy Writ. If there were nothing else to throw suspicion on the doctrine of pure reason, as expounded by the metaphysicians, its total inapplicability to the world in general, would be a sufficient bar to its adoption. Not one person in a hundred is capable of entering upon the disquisition at all, much less of coming to any valid opinion upon it. As a rule of conduct, therefore, it can be of no extensive benefit to mankind. Whereas, the humblest Christian may learn, as I have already said, by ever so simple a process of reasoning, to appreciate the grounds of his faith, and thence appropriate to himself the sublimest truths and lessons of the Bible, with a confidence far beyond that which the disciple of the pure rationalist can derive from the most subtle exercise of his natural intellect, the greatest achievement of which must ever be, that it has arrived at the same point from which the Bible starts. B B No one was ever, perhaps, endowed by nature with a more deeply contemplative mind than Coleridge ; but he was constitutionally indolent, and indulged, at times, there is no doubt, in the pernicious use of alcohol and opium, under whatever excuse or pretence he may have been induced at first to do so. It is, therefore, the less wonderful that his writings should be far from exempt from glaring inconsistencies, or that he should have been hurried at times, by an impassioned imagination, beyond the terra firma of sound sense and learning. But let us not too curiously persist in raking out faults from the ashes of this great man, and, in heart, this truly Christian philosopher. He seems to have become more and more aware, as his life drew towards a close, that metaphysics have no secure fulcrum in the mind of man, no test of truth beyond the precincts of revelation; * Fraser, to whom we are indebted for so much interesting information respecting Coleridge, informs us, on the authority of Coleridge himself, and I have heard the same from his friend Chester, that "after his return from Germany, he had an attack of acute-rheumatism; on which occasion, he was attended by a medical gentleman from whom he borrowed a load of medical books, in one of which he found a case similar to his own, where a marvellous cure had been performed by rubbing in laudanum, at the same time that a dose was administered inwardly. He tried it, and finding it answer, was induced to continue it medicinally from time to time, as he found occasion. Wretched delusion!" he concludes, "but I owe it to myself to declare before God, that this, the curse and slavery of my life, did not commence in any low craving for sensation, in any desire or wish to stimulate or exhilirate myself; in fact, my nervous spirits and my mental activity were such as never required it; but wholly in rashness, and delusion, and presumptuous quackery, and afterwards in pure terror." and, in earlier life, his motto was, as he has himself told us," Debeo amicis opitulari, sed usque ad Deos" "it behoves me to side with my friends, but only as far as the Gods."* This "rule of life," he often, it has been admitted, put to its utmost stretch; and it was with reference to the inconsistencies into which he was occasionally betrayed, and the frequent struggle which appears to have arisen between the aspirations of his spiritual, and the debasing influence of his animal, nature, that I once wrote the following epigram :— "Coleridge! thy frailties and thy worth That neither seems quite right without thee." Lines which, it behoves me to say, accord much better with him at a time when he was capable of writing such an epitaph as the following upon himself: * The celebrated saying, I can yield every thing to a friend but my religion, in which Pericles demonstrated both his friendship and his piety, and which Coleridge adopted as his motto, appears to have been very justly assumed as the real declaration of his principles. There can be no doubt that in every period of his life, his religious profession was sincere, however he might have modified his opinions as he grew older and wiser; and it does not seem that, with the desire of benefitting himself or gratifying another, he ever compromised his faith or disguised his feelings. The origin of the apophthegm is related by Aulus Gellius, who gives it in these words: δεῖ μὲ συμπράττειν τοῖς φίλοις, ἀλλὰ μέχρι βωμῶν. But Plutarch repeats it more succinctly, thus : μέχρι του βωμοῦ φίλος ειμί. It is strange that Coleridge should have preferred a faulty and inadequate Latin version of these words; for if a translation was desirable, such a maxim would have looked well in brief and perspicuous English only.—Dr. H. "Here lies poor Cole-quite dead, and without seeming, Who died, as he had always lived, a dreaming— Shot, as with pistol, by the gout within Alone, and quite unknown-in Edinbro', at an inn :* than with that truly pious state of mind in which we find him, when the period of his earthly existence really drew nigh. Where shall we meet with a better letter from a dying Christian to a young friend, than that with which I shall close these remarks? 66 "TO ADAM STEINMETZ KINNAIRD. My dear godchild,-I offer up the same fervent prayer for you now, as I did kneeling before the altar, when you were baptized into Christ, and solemnly received as a living member of his spiritual body, the * A month or two before his death, when in a very different state of mind from that in which he composed the above epitaph, he wrote another on himself, which is here given as transcribed from the obituary of the "Gentleman's Magazine," where it is justly described as "humble and affectionate." A poet lies, or that which once seemed he, O, 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 asked, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same." From the fourth line it would seem that he thought with Johnson, that the prayers of the living might avail the dead somewhat; a notion which, however characteristic it may be of affection and humility, is in violation of the plainest declaration of Holy Writ. |