View of the Age of Hadrian. Poets. Hours before Breakfast, No I. II. The Angler's Guide through Scotland, No I. II. III. IV. V. On the Egotism of the Lake Poets, more especially of Wordsworth. A Friendly Remonstrance with John Wilson, Esq. on some of the Principles of Poetic Composition adopted by him in his " City of the Plague." Life of Zachary Boyd, with some extracts from his Works, published and unpublished. Memoir of the Literary Life of John On the Marriage-Law of Scotland. vict. A Complete Guide through the Lakes of England. Specimens of Oxford Prize Poetry, with Critical Remarks. An Essay on Marine Poetry. On Academical Abuses. Addressed to John Young, Esq. Professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow. Review of the "Political Works" of James Graham, Esq. Advocate. A series of Essays on the more obscure, but meritorious Modern Poets. On the Poets of the West End of the Town, No I. On the Cockney School of Poetry, No II. III. Accounts of various living Scottish Versifiers in the lower Ranks of Society, with Specimens; No I. Letter addressed to C. K. Sharpe, Esq. on his mode of commenting on Church History. Essays on the Genius of the living Artists of Scotland. No I. Allan. Three Essays on the English, Scotch, and Irish Characters. On Pastoral Poetry. On Public Opinion regarding Literature. On what Coleridge calls the "Reading Public" Ought not Poets to be the best Critics on Poetry? Is Superstition necessarily pernicious? On Capital Punishment. On the Profession of the Law,-an On the absurd belief that the study of the Mathematics strengthens the Power of Moral Reasoning. On Militar Genius, and the Education of a Soldier. An Account of different interesting Funeral Ceremonies. Scraps of Criticism, No I. II. III. Essays on British Zoology, No I. II. III. On the Old Maids of the Greeks, and the Mysogynaical Apophthegms of Greek Authors. Comparison between Ancient and Modern Eloquence, in a series of Essays. Two Letters to W. E. Leach, Esq. of the British Museum. On the Modern Method of manu facturing Encyclopædias, addressed to Macvey Napier, Esq. On "Translation," by Madame de Stael, her last Work, and never published in this Country. Notices of William Cleland, the Covenanter. A Dissertation on the "Periodical Criticism" of Great Britain, translated from the German of Schlegel. Curious Notices of Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. Remarks on the Melody of certain old Scots Airs. On the Character of Sappho. On Lyrical Poetry. No I. Of the Remarks on the mean Qualifications of all the English Lexicographers, and on the Etymological Genius of J. H. Tooke. On the Study of Anglo-Saxon. On the fashionable Dances of Scotland about the time of Queen Mary. "Vitruvius Iratus," addressed to the Magistrates of Edinburgh. MS. Tractate on Elves and Brownies, with Notes. Duke Hamilton's Ghost, or the Underminer countermined, a Poem, dated 1659. Account of some remarkable Trials omitted by Lord Fountainhall. Remarkable Interview between Francis Jeffrey and William Wordsworth; a Dream. On the Taste of Burger in altering our old Scottish and English Ballads. On a proposed New Poetical Version of the Psalms. On Byron's Imitation of the Lake School. Remarks on the Religion of the Edinburgh Review. On Literary and Critical Pretenders. A Peep into the Parliament-house. On old Scottish Proverbs on the Marriage State. On old Scottish Songs and Ballads on the same subject. Original Letters of King Charles II. Essays on the Living Poets of Britain. No I. Crabbe-in our January Number. Dialogues between the Dead and the Living, viz. I. Duke of Marlborough and Duke of Wellington.-II. Kant and Coleridge-III. Milton and Wordsworth. IV. Goldsmith and Crabbe.-V. Sterne and Mackenzie.-VI. Julius Cæsar and Napoleon.-VII. Cataline and Brougham.-VIII. Dennis and Jeffrey.-IX. Pope and Dr Thomas Brown.-X. Thersites and Leigh Hunt.-XI. Palladio and Bailie Johnstone.-XII. Plato and Forsyth.XIII. Aristotle and Francis Maximus M'Nab.-XIV. Adam Smith and James Graham, Esq. Advocate. A series of Letters from Lord Reay's Country. THE Public will observe, from the above List of Articles, that we intend our Magazine to be a Depository of Miscellaneous Information and Discussion. We shall admit every Communication of Merit, whatever may be the opinion of the writer, on Literature, Poetry, Philosophy, Statistics, Politics, Manners, and Human Life. Our own opinions, and those of our regular Correspondents, will be found uniformly consistent-but we invite all intelligent persons who choose it, to lay their ideas before the world in our Publication; and we only reserve to ourselves the right of commenting upon what we do not approve. No Anonymous Communication, either in Prose or Verse, however great its inerit, will be received or noticed. But every Contributor to our Work may depend upon the most inviolable secrecy ; and all Letters, addressed to us, will meet with a prompt and decisive Reply. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. The communication of Lupus is not admissible. D. B.'s Archæological Notices are rather heavy. We are obliged to our worthy Correspondent M. for his History of "Bowed David," but all the anecdotes of that personage are incredibly stupid, so let his bones rest in peace. When G.'s communications on Natural History are not anonymous, they will be attended to. Cornelius Webb will observe that we have availed ourselves of his Letter. We have received an interesting Note, enclosing a beautiful little Poem, from My Hector Macneil, the celebrated author of Will and Jean, and need not say how highly we value his communication. Mrs Grant's (of Laggan) beautiful Verses were unfortunately received after our last sheet had gone to press, but they will appear in our next. The beautiful Verses on Mungo Part will be inserted. Also "Edith and Nora," and "The Earthquake." "O were my Love, &c." is pretty, though not very original, but it will find a corner. Duck-lane, a Town Eclogue, by Leigh Hunt-and the Innocent Incest, by the same gentleman, are under consideration; their gross indecency must however be washed out. If we have been imposed upon by some wit, these compositions will not be inserted. Mr James Thomson, private secretary for the charities of the Dukes of York and Kent, is, we are afraid, a very bad Poet, nor can the Critical Opinions of the Princes of the Blood Royal be allowed to influence ours. Some Remarks on an interesting little volume, "Evening Hours," may perhaps appear. If not, the author of that work has our best wishes. Reason has been given for our declining to notice various other Communications. BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No VII. OCTOBER 1817. VOL. II. WHEN a man looks back on his past existence, and endeavours to recall the incidents, events, thoughts, feelings, and passions of which it was composed, he sees something like a glimmering land of dreams, peopled with phantasms and realities undistinguishably confused and intermingled-here illuminated with dazzling splendour, there dim with melancholy mists,-or it may be, shrouded in impenetrable darkness. To bring, visibly and distinctly before our memory, on the one hand, all our hours of mirth and joy, and hope and exultation, and, on the other, all our perplexities, and fears and sorrows, and despair and agony, (and who has been so uniformly wretched as not to have been often blest?-who so uniformly blest as not to have been often wretched?) -would be as impossible as to awaken, into separate remembrance, all the changes and varieties which the seasons brought over the material world, -every gleam of sunshine that beautified the Spring,-every cloud and tempest that deformed the Winter. In truth, were this power and domination over the past given unto us, and were we able to read the history of our lives all faithfully and perspicuously recorded on the tablets of the inner spirit,—those beings, whose existence had been most filled with important events and with energetic passions, would be the most averse to such overwhelming survey-would recoil from trains of thought which formerly agitated and disturbed, and led them, as it were, in triumph beneath the yoke of misery or happiness. The soul may be repelled from the contemplation of the past as much by the brightness and magnificence of scenes that shifted across the glorious drama of youth, as by the storms that scattered the fair array into disfigured fragments; and the melancholy that breathes from vanished delight is, perhaps, in its utmost intensity, as unendurable as the wretchedness left by the visitation of calamity. There are spots of sunshine sleeping on the fields of past existence too beautiful, as there are caves among its precipices too darksome, to be looked on by the eyes of memory; and to carry on an image borrowed from the analogy between the moral and physical world, the soul may turn away in sickness from the untroubled silence of a resplendent Lake, no less than from the haunted gloom of the thundering Cataract. It is from such thoughts, and dreams, and reveries, as these, that all men feel how terrible it would be to live over again their agonies and their transports; that the happiest would fear to do so as much as the most miserable; and that to look back to our cradle seems scarcely less awful than to look forward to the grave. But if this unwillingness to bring before our souls, in distinct array, the more solemn and important events of our lives, be a natural and perhaps a wise feeling, how much more averse must every reflecting man be to the ransacking of his inmost spirit for all its hidden emotions and passions, to the tearing away that shroud which oblivion may have kindly flung over his vices and his follies, or that fins and delicate veil which Christian hu mility draws over his virtues and acts of benevolence. To scrutinize and dissect the character of others is an idle and unprofitable task; and the most skilful anatomist will often be forced to withhold his hand when he unexpectedly meets with something he does not understand-some conformation of the character of his patient which is not explicable on his theory of human nature. To become operators on our own shrinking spirits is something worse; for by probing the wounds of the soul, what can ensue but callousness or irritability. And it may be remarked, that those persons who have busied themselves most with inquiries into the causes, and motives, and impulses of their actions, have exhibited, in their conduct, the most lamentable contrast to their theory, and have seemed blinder in their knowledge than others in their ignor ance. It will not be supposed that any thing we have now said in any way bears against the most important duty of self-examination. Many causes there are existing, both in the best and the worst parts of our nature, which must render nugatory and deceitful any continued diary of what passes through the human soul; and no such confessions could, we humbly conceive, be of use either to ourselves or to the world. But there are hours of solemn inquiry in which the soul reposes on itself; the true confessional is not the bar of the public, but it is the altar of religion; there is a Being before whom we may humble ourselves without being debased; and there are feelings for which human language has no expression, and which, in the silence of solitude and of nature, are known only unto the Eternal. The objections, however, which might thus be urged against the writing and publishing accounts of all our feelings,—all the changes of our moral constitution,-do not seem to apply with equal force to the narration of our mere speculative opinions. Their rise, progress, changes, and maturity, may be pretty accurately ascertained; and as the advance to truth is generally step by step, there seems to be no great difficulty in recording the leading causes that have formed the body of our opinions, and created, modified, and coloured our intellec tual character. Yet this work would be alike useless to ourselves and others, unless pursued with a true magnanimity. It requires, that we should stand aloof from ourselves, and look down, as from an eminence, on our souls toiling up the hill of knowledge; that we should faithfully record all the assistance we received from guides or brother pilgrims ;—that we should mark the limit of our utmost ascent, and, without exaggeration, state the value of our acquisitions. When we consider how many temptations there are even here to delude ourselves, and by a seeming air of truth and candour to impose upon others, it will be allowed, that, instead of composing memoirs of himself, a man of genius and talent would be far better employed in generalizing the observations and experiences of his life, and giving them to the world in the form of philosophic reflections, applicable not to himself alone, but to the universal mind of Man. What good to mankind has ever flowed from the confessions of Rousseau, or the autobiographical sketch of Hume? From the first we rise with a confused and miserable sense of weakness and of power-of lofty as pirations and degrading appetenciesof pride swelling into blasphemy, and humiliation pitiably grovelling in the dust-of purity of spirit soaring on the wings of imagination, and grossness of instinct brutally wallowing in "Epicurus' stye"-of lofty contempt for the opinion of mankind, yet the most slavish subjection to their most fatal prejudices of a sublime piety towards God, and a wild violation of his holiest laws. From the other we rise with feelings of sincere compassion for the ignorance of the most enlightened. All the prominent features of Hume's character were invisible to his own eyes; and in that meagre sketch which has been so much admired, what is there to instruct, to rouse, or to elevate-what light thrown over the duties of this life or the hopes of that to come? We wish to speak with tenderness of a man whose moral character was respectable, and whose talents were of the first order. But most deeply injurious to every thing lofty and high-toned in human Virtue, to every thing cheering, and consoling, and sublime in that Faith which sheds over this Earth a reflection of the heavens, is that memoir of a worldly-wise Man, in which he seems to contemplate with indifference the extinction of his own immortal soul, and jibes and jokes on the dim and awful verge of Eternity. We hope that our readers will forgive these very imperfect reflections on a subject of deep interest, and accompany us now on our examination of Mr Coleridge's "Literary Life," the very singular work which caused our ideas to run in that channel. It does not contain an account of his opinions and literary exploits alone, but lays open, not unfrequently, the character of the Man as well as of the Author; and we are compelled to think, that while it strengthens every argument against the composition of such Memoirs, it does, without benefitting the cause either of virtue, knowledge, or religion, exhibit many mournful sacrifices of personal dignity, after which it seems impossible that Mr Coleridge can be greatly respected either by the Public or himself. Considered merely in a literary point of view, the work is most execrable. He rambles from one subject to another in the most wayward and capricious manner; either from indolence, or ignorance, or weakness, he has never in one single instance finished a discussion; and while he darkens what was dark before into tenfold obscurity, he so treats the most ordinary common-places as to give them the air of mysteries, till we no longer know the faces of our old acquaintances beneath their cowl and hood, but witness plain flesh and blood matters of fact miraculously converted into a troop of phantoms. That he is a man of genius is certain; but he is not a man of a strong intellect nor of powerful talents. He has a great deal of fancy and imagination, but little or no real feeling, and certainly no judgment. He cannot form to himself any harmonious landscape such as it exists in nature, but beautified by the serene light of the imagination. He cannot conceive simple and majestic groupes of human figures and characters acting on the theatre of real existence. But his pictures of nature are fine only as imaging the dreaminess, and obscurity, and confusion of distempered sleep; while all his agents pass before our eyes like shadows, and only impress and affect us with a phantasmagorial splendour. It is impossible to read many pages of this work without thinking that Mr Coleridge conceives himself to be a far greater man than the Public is likely to admit; and we wish to waken him from what seems to us a most ludicrous delusion. He seems to believe that every tongue is wagging in his praise,-that every ear is open to imbibe the oracular breathings of his inspiration. Even when he would fain convince us that his soul is wholly occupied with some other illustrious character, he breaks out into laudatory exclamations concerning himself; no sound is so sweet to him as that of his own voice: the ground is hallowed on which his footsteps tread; and there seems to him something more than human in his very shadow. He will read no books that other people read; his scorn is as misplaced and extravagant as his admiration; opinions that seem to tally with his own wild ravings are holy and inspired; and, unless agreeable to his creed, the wisdom of ages is folly; and wits, whom the world worship, dwarfed when they approach his venerable side. His admiration of nature or of man,-we had almost said his religious feelings towards his God,- -are all narrowed, weakened, and corrupted and poisoned by inveterate and diseased egotism; and instead of his mind reflecting the beauty and glory of nature, he seems to consider the mighty universe itself as nothing better than a mirror, in which, with a grinning and idiot self-complacency, he may contemplate the Physiognomy of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Though he has yet done nothing in any one department of human knowledge, yet he speaks of his theories, and plans, and views, and discoveries, as if he had produced some memorable revolution in Science. He at all times connects his own name in Poetry with Shakspeare, and Spenser, and Milton; in politics with Burke, and Fox, and Pitt; in metaphysics with Locke, and Hartley, and Berkeley, and Kant ;feeling himself not only to be the worthy compeer of those illustrious Spirits, but to unite, in his own mighty intellect, all the glorious powers and faculties by which they were separately distinguished, as if his soul were endowed with all human power, and was |
