Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The conduct of the Mohammedan and Western nations on the subject of contagious plague illustrates the two extremes of error on the nature of God's moral government of the world. The Turk changes Providence into fatalism; the Christian relies upon it—when he has nothing else to rely on. He does not practically rely upon it at all.

* * * * *

For compassion a human heart suffices; but for full and adequate sympathy with joy an angel's only. And ever remember, that the more exquisite and delicate a flower of joy, the tenderer must be the hand that plucks it.

September 2. 1833

CHARACTERISTIC TEMPERAMENT OF NATIONS.—GREEK PARTICLES.—LATIN COMPOUNDS.– -PROPERTIUS.—TIBULLUS.—LUCAN.—STATIUS.—VALERIUS FLACCUS.—CLAUDIAN.– PERSIUS.–PRUDENTIUS.—HERMESIANAX

The English affect stimulant nourishment—beef and beer. The French, excitants, irritants—nitrous oxide, alcohol, champagne. The Austrians, sedatives—hyoscyamus. The Russians, narcotics—opium, tobacco, and beng.

* * * * *

It is worth particular notice how the style of Greek oratory, so full, in the times of political independence, of connective particles, some of passion, some of sensation only, and escaping the classification of mere grammatical logic, became, in the hands of the declaimers and philosophers of the Alexandrian era, and still later, entirely deprived of this peculiarity. So it was with Homer as compared with Nonnus, Tryphiodorus, and the like. In the latter there are in the same number of lines fewer words by one half than in the Iliad. All the appoggiaturas of time are lost.

All the Greek writers after Demosthenes and his contemporaries, what are they but the leavings of tyranny, in which a few precious things seem sheltered by the mass of rubbish! Yet, whenever liberty began but to hope and strive, a Polybius appeared. Theocritus is almost the only instance I know of a man of true poetic genius nourishing under a tyranny.

The old Latin poets attempted to compound as largely as the Greek; hence in Ennius such words as belligerentes, &c. In nothing did Virgil show his judgment more than in rejecting these, except just where common usage had sanctioned them, as omnipotens and a few more. He saw that the Latin was too far advanced in its formation, and of too rigid a character, to admit such composition or agglutination. In this particular respect Virgil's Latin is very admirable and deserving preference. Compare it with the language of Lucan or Statius, and count the number of words used in an equal number of lines, and observe how many more short words Virgil has.

* * * * *

I cannot quite understand the grounds of the high admiration which the ancients expressed for Propertius, and I own that Tibullus is rather insipid to me. Lucan was a man of great powers; but what was to be made of such a shapeless fragment of party warfare, and so recent too! He had fancy rather than imagination, and passion rather than fancy. His taste was wretched, to be sure; still the Pharsalia is in my judgment a very wonderful work for such a youth as Lucan[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.] was.

I think Statius a truer poet than Lucan, though he is very extravagant sometimes. Valerius Flaccus is very pretty in particular passages. I am ashamed to say, I have never read Silius Italicus. Claudian I recommend to your careful perusal, in respect of his being properly the first of the moderns, or at least the transitional link between the Classic and the Gothic mode of thought.

I call Persius hard—not obscure. He had a bad style; but I dare say, if he had lived[178 - Aulus Persius Flaccus died in the 30th year of his age, A.D. 62.—ED.], he would have learned to express himself in easier language. There are many passages in him of exquisite felicity, and his vein of thought is manly and pathetic.

Prudentius[179 - Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was born A.D. 348, in Spain.—ED.] is curious for this,—that you see how Christianity forced allegory into the place of mythology. Mr. Frere [Greek: ho philokalos, ho kalokagathos] used to esteem the Latin Christian poets of Italy very highly, and no man in our times was a more competent judge than he.

* * * * *

How very pretty are those lines of Hermesianax in Athenaeus about the poets and poetesses of Greece![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.]

September 4. 1833

DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.—EPIC POEM.—GERMAN AND ENGLISH.—MODERN TRAVELS.—PARADISE LOST

I have already told you that in my opinion the destruction of Jerusalem is the only subject now left for an epic poem of the highest kind. Yet, with all its great capabilities, it has this one grand defect—that, whereas a poem, to be epic, must have a personal interest,—in the destruction of Jerusalem no genius or skill could possibly preserve the interest for the hero from being merged in the interest for the event. The fact is, the event itself is too sublime and overwhelming.

* * * * *

In my judgment, an epic poem must either be national or mundane. As to Arthur, you could not by any means make a poem on him national to Englishmen. What have we to do with him? Milton saw this, and with a judgment at least equal to his genius, took a mundane theme—one common to all mankind. His Adam and Eve are all men and women inclusively. Pope satirizes Milton for making God the Father talk like a school divine.[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.] Pope was hardly the man to criticize Milton. The truth is, the judgment of Milton in the conduct of the celestial part of his story is very exquisite. Wherever God is represented as directly acting as Creator, without any exhibition of his own essence, Milton adopts the simplest and sternest language of the Scriptures. He ventures upon no poetic diction, no amplification, no pathos, no affection. It is truly the Voice or the Word of the Lord coming to, and acting on, the subject Chaos. But, as some personal interest was demanded for the purposes of poetry, Milton takes advantage of the dramatic representation of God's address to the Son, the Filial Alterity, and in those addresses slips in, as it were by stealth, language of affection, or thought, or sentiment. Indeed, although Milton was undoubtedly a high Arian in his mature life, he does in the necessity of poetry give a greater objectivity to the Father and the Son, than he would have justified in argument. He was very wise in adopting the strong anthropomorphism of the Hebrew Scriptures at once. Compare the Paradise Lost with Klopstock's Messiah, and you will learn to appreciate Milton's judgment and skill quite as much as his genius.

* * * * *

The conquest of India by Bacchus might afford scope for a very brilliant poem of the fancy and the understanding.

* * * * *

It is not that the German can express external imagery more fully than English; but that it can flash more images at once on the mind than the English can. As to mere power of expression, I doubt whether even the Greek surpasses the English. Pray, read a very pleasant and acute dialogue in Schlegel's Athenaeum between a German, a Greek, a Roman, Italian, and a Frenchman, on the merits of their respective languages.

* * * * *

I wish the naval and military officers who write accounts of their travels would just spare us their sentiment. The Magazines introduced this cant. Let these gentlemen read and imitate the old captains and admirals, as Dampier, &c.

October 15. 1833

THE TRINITY.—INCARNATION.—REDEMPTION.—EDUCATION

The Trinity is the idea: the Incarnation, which implies the Fall, is the fact: the Redemption is the mesothesis of the two—that is—the religion.

* * * * *

If you bring up your children in a way which puts them out of sympathy with the religious feelings of the nation in which they live, the chances are, that they will ultimately turn out ruffians or fanatics—and one as likely as the other.

October 23. 1833

ELEGY.—LAVACRUM PALLADOS.—GREEK AND LATIN PENTAMETER.—MILTON'S LATIN POEMS.—POETICAL FILTER.—GRAY AND COTTON

Elegy is the form of poetry natural to the reflective mind. It may treat of any subject, but it must treat of no subject for itself; but always and exclusively with reference to the poet himself. As he will feel regret for the past or desire for the future, so sorrow and love become the principal themes of elegy. Elegy presents every thing as lost and gone, or absent and future. The elegy is the exact opposite of the Homeric epic, in which all is purely external and objective, and the poet is a mere voice.

The true lyric ode is subjective too; but then it delights to present things as actually existing and visible, although associated with the past, or coloured highly by the subject of the ode itself.

* * * * *

I think the Lavacrum Pallados of Callimachus very beautiful indeed, especially that part about the mother of Tiresias and Minerva.[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.] I have a mind to try how it would bear translation; but what metre have we to answer in feeling to the elegiac couplet of the Greeks?

I greatly prefer the Greek rhythm of the short verse to Ovid's, though, observe, I don't dispute his taste with reference to the genius of his own language. Augustus Schlegel gave me a copy of Latin elegiacs on the King of Prussia's going down the Rhine, in which he had almost exclusively adopted the manner of Propertius. I thought them very elegant.

* * * * *

You may find a few minute faults in Milton's Latin verses; but you will not persuade me that, if these poems had come down to us as written in the age of Tiberius, we should not have considered them to be very beautiful.

* * * * *

I once thought of making a collection,—to be called "The Poetical Filter,"—upon the principle of simply omitting from the old pieces of lyrical poetry which we have, those parts in which the whim or the bad taste of the author or the fashion of his age prevailed over his genius. You would be surprised at the number of exquisite wholes which might be made by this simple operation, and, perhaps, by the insertion of a single line or half a line, out of poems which are now utterly disregarded on account of some odd or incongruous passages in them;—just as whole volumes of Wordsworth's poems were formerly neglected or laughed at, solely because of some few wilfulnesses, if I may so call them, of that great man—whilst at the same time five sixths of his poems would have been admired, and indeed popular, if they had appeared without those drawbacks, under the name of Byron or Moore or Campbell, or any other of the fashionable favourites of the day. But he has won the battle now, ay! and will wear the crown, whilst English is English.

* * * * *

I think there is something very majestic in Gray's Installation Ode; but as to the Bard and the rest of his lyrics, I must say I think them frigid and artificial. There is more real lyric feeling in Cotton's Ode on Winter.[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.]]

November 1. 1833

HOMERIC HEROES IN SHAKSPEARE.—DRYDEN.—DR. JOHNSON.—SCOTT'S NOVELS.– SCOPE OF CHRISTIANITY

Compare Nestor, Ajax, Achilles, &c. in the Troilus and Cressida of Shakspeare with their namesakes in the Iliad. The old heroes seem all to have been at school ever since. I scarcely know a more striking instance of the strength and pregnancy of the Gothic mind.

Dryden's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion; his chariot wheels get hot by driving fast.