Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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Claudian deserves more attention than is generally paid to him. He is the link between the old classic and the modern way of thinking in verse. You will observe in him an oscillation between the objective poetry of the ancients and the subjective mood of the moderns. His power of pleasingly reproducing the same thought in different language is remarkable, as it is in Pope. Read particularly the Phoenix, and see how the single image of renascence is varied.[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.]

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I think highly of Sterne—that is, of the first part of Tristram Shandy: for as to the latter part about the widow Wadman, it is stupid and disgusting; and the Sentimental Journey is poor sickly stuff. There is a great deal of affectation in Sterne, to be sure; but still the characters of Trim and the two Shandies[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.] are most individual and delightful. Sterne's morals are bad, but I don't think they can do much harm to any one whom they would not find bad enough before. Besides, the oddity and erudite grimaces under which much of his dirt is hidden take away the effect for the most part; although, to be sure, the book is scarcely readable by women.

August 20. 1833

HUMOUR AND GENIUS.—GREAT POETS GOOD MEN.—DICTION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT VERSION.—HEBREW.—VOWELS AND CONSONANTS

Men of humour are always in some degree men of genius; wits are rarely so, although a man of genius may amongst other gifts possess wit, as Shakspeare.

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Genius must have talent as its complement and implement, just as in like manner imagination must have fancy. In short, the higher intellectual powers can only act through a corresponding energy of the lower.

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Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people, because they have a power of looking at such persons as objects of amusement of another race altogether.

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I quite agree with Strabo, as translated by Ben Jonson in his splendid dedication of the Fox[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."]—that there can be no great poet who is not a good man, though not, perhaps, a goody man. His heart must be pure; he must have learned to look into his own heart, and sometimes to look at it; for how can he who is ignorant of his own heart know any thing of, or be able to move, the heart of any one else?

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I think there is a perceptible difference in the elegance and correctness of the English in our versions of the Old and New Testament. I cannot yield to the authority of many examples of usages which may be alleged from the New Testament version. St. Paul is very often most inadequately rendered, and there are slovenly phrases which would never have come from Ben Jonson or any other good prose writer of that day.

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Hebrew is so simple, and its words are so few and near the roots, that it is impossible to keep up any adequate knowledge of it without constant application. The meanings of the words are chiefly traditional. The loss of Origen's Heptaglott Bible, in which he had written out the Hebrew words in Greek characters, is the heaviest which biblical literature has ever experienced. It would have fixed the sounds as known at that time.

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Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants. It is natural, therefore, that the consonants should be marked first, as being the framework of the word; and no doubt a very simple living language might be written quite intelligibly to the natives without any vowel sounds marked at all. The words would be traditionally and conventionally recognized as in short hand—thus—Gd crtd th Hvn nd th Rth. I wish I understood Arabic; and yet I doubt whether to the European philosopher or scholar it is worth while to undergo the immense labour of acquiring that or any other Oriental tongue, except Hebrew.

August 23. 1833

GREEK ACCENT AND QUANTITY

The distinction between accent and quantity is clear, and was, no doubt, observed by the ancients in the recitation of verse. But I believe such recitation to have been always an artificial thing, and that the common conversation was entirely regulated by accent. I do not think it possible to talk any language without confounding the quantity of syllables with their high or low tones[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.]; although you may sing or recitative the difference well enough. Why should the marks of accent have been considered exclusively necessary for teaching the pronunciation to the Asiatic or African Hellenist, if the knowledge of the acuted syllable did not also carry the stress of time with it? If [Greek: **anthropos] was to be pronounced in common conversation with a perceptible distinction of the length of the penultima as well as of the elevation of the antepenultima, why was not that long quantity also marked? It was surely as important an ingredient in the pronunciation as the accent. And although the letter omega might in such a word show the quantity, yet what do you say to such words as [Greek: lelonchasi, tupsasa], and the like—the quantity of the penultima of which is not marked to the eye at all? Besides, can we altogether disregard the practice of the modern Greeks? Their confusion of accent and quantity in verse is of course a barbarism, though a very old one, as the versus politici of John Tzetzes[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.] in the twelfth century and the Anacreontics prefixed to Proclus will show; but these very examples prove a fortiori what the common pronunciation in prose then was.

August 24. 1833

CONSOLATION IN DISTRESS.–MOCK EVANGELICALS.—AUTUMN DAY

I am never very forward in offering spiritual consolation to any one in distress or disease. I believe that such resources, to be of any service, must be self-evolved in the first instance. I am something of the Quaker's mind in this, and am inclined to wait for the spirit.

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The most common effect of this mock evangelical spirit, especially with young women, is self-inflation and busy-bodyism.

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How strange and awful is the synthesis of life and death in the gusty winds and falling leaves of an autumnal day!

August 25. 1833

ROSETTI ON DANTE.—LAUGHTER: FARCE AND TRAGEDY

Rosetti's view of Dante's meaning is in great part just, but he has pushed it beyond all bounds of common sense. How could a poet—and such a poet as Dante—have written the details of the allegory as conjectured by Rosetti? The boundaries between his allegory and his pure picturesque are plain enough, I think, at first reading.

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To resolve laughter into an expression of contempt is contrary to fact, and laughable enough. Laughter is a convulsion of the nerves; and it seems as if nature cut short the rapid thrill of pleasure on the nerves by a sudden convulsion of them, to prevent the sensation becoming painful. Aristotle's definition is as good as can be:—surprise at perceiving any thing out of its usual place, when the unusualness is not accompanied by a sense of serious danger. Such surprise is always pleasurable; and it is observable that surprise accompanied with circumstances of danger becomes tragic. Hence farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is.

August 28. 1833

BARON VON HUMBOLDT.—MODERN DIPLOMATISTS

Baron von Humboldt, brother of the great traveller, paid me the following compliment at Rome:—"I confess, Mr. Coleridge, I had my suspicions that you were here in a political capacity of some sort or other; but upon reflection I acquit you. For in Germany and, I believe, elsewhere on the Continent, it is generally understood that the English government, in order to divert the envy and jealousy of the world at the power, wealth, and ingenuity of your nation, makes a point, as a ruse de guerre, of sending out none but fools of gentlemanly birth and connections as diplomatists to the courts abroad. An exception is, perhaps, sometimes made for a clever fellow, if sufficiently libertine and unprincipled." Is the case much altered now, do you know?

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What dull coxcombs your diplomatists at home generally are. I remember dining at Mr. Frere's once in company with Canning and a few other interesting men. Just before dinner Lord – called on Frere, and asked himself to dinner. From the moment of his entry he began to talk to the whole party, and in French—all of us being genuine English—and I was told his French was execrable. He had followed the Russian army into France, and seen a good deal of the great men concerned in the war: of none of those things did he say a word, but went on, sometimes in English and sometimes in French, gabbling about cookery and dress and the like. At last he paused for a little—and I said a few words remarking how a great image may be reduced to the ridiculous and contemptible by bringing the constituent parts into prominent detail, and mentioned the grandeur of the deluge and the preservation of life in Genesis and the Paradise Lost[175 - Genesis, c. vi. vii. Par. Lost, book xi. v. 728, &c.], and the ludicrous effect produced by Drayton's description in his Noah's Flood:—

"And now the beasts are walking from the wood,
As well of ravine, as that chew the cud.
The king of beasts his fury doth suppress,
And to the Ark leads down the lioness;
The bull for his beloved mate doth low,
And to the Ark brings on the fair-eyed cow," &c.

Hereupon Lord – resumed, and spoke in raptures of a picture which he had lately seen of Noah's Ark, and said the animals were all marching two and two, the little ones first, and that the elephants came last in great majesty and filled up the fore-ground. "Ah! no doubt, my Lord," said Canning; "your elephants, wise fellows! staid behind to pack up their trunks!" This floored the ambassador for half an hour.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries almost all our ambassadors were distinguished men.[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.] Read Lloyd's State Worthies. The third-rate men of those days possessed an infinity of knowledge, and were intimately versed not only in the history, but even in the heraldry, of the countries in which they were resident. Men were almost always, except for mere compliments, chosen for their dexterity and experience—not, as now, by parliamentary interest.

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The sure way to make a foolish ambassador is to bring him up to it. What can an English minister abroad really want but an honest and bold heart, a love for his country and the ten commandments? Your art diplomatic is stuff:—no truly greatly man now would negotiate upon any such shallow principles.

August 30. 1833

MAN CANNOT BE STATIONARY.—FATALISM AND PROVIDENCE.—SYMPATHY IN JOY

If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. The most savage of men are not beasts; they are worse, a great deal worse.

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