Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

165

"The thing attempted in Christabel is the most difficult of execution in the whole field of romance—witchery by daylight—and the success is complete."—Quarterly Review, No. CIII. p. 29.

166

"One constant blunder"—I find it so pencilled by Mr. C. on a margin—"of these New-Broomers—these Penny Magazine sages and philanthropists, in reference to our public schools, is to confine their view to what schoolmasters teach the boys, with entire oversight of all that the boys are excited to learn from each other and of themselves—with more geniality even because it is not a part of their compelled school knowledge. An Eton boy's knowledge of the St. Lawrence, Mississippi, Missouri, Orellana, &c. will be, generally, found in exact proportion to his knowledge of the Ilissus, Hebrus, Orontes, &c.; inasmuch as modern travels and voyages are more entertaining and fascinating than Cellarius; or Robinson Crusoe, Dampier, and Captain Cook, than the Periegesis. Compare the lads themselves from Eton and Harrow, &c. with the alumni of the New-Broom Institution, and not the lists of school-lessons; and be that comparison the criterion.—ED.

167

I know not when or where; but are not all the writings of this exquisite genius the effusions of one whose spirit lived in past time? The place which Lamb holds, and will continue to hold, in English literature, seems less liable to interruption than that of any other writer of our day.—ED.

168

I remember Mr. Coleridge used to call Isaiah his ideal of the Hebrew prophet. He studied that part of the Scripture with unremitting attention and most reverential admiration. Although Mr. C. was remarkably deficient in the technical memory of words, he could say a great deal of Isaiah by heart, and he delighted in pointing out the hexametrical rhythm of numerous passages in the English version:—

"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, | O earth: for the Lord hath spoken.
I have nourished and brought up children, | and they have rebelled against me.
The ox knoweth his owner, | and the ass his master's crib:
But Israel doth not know, | my people doth not consider."—ED.

169

I find the same remark in the late most excellent Bishop Sandford's diary, under date 17th December, 1827:—"[Greek: CHairhete en t_o Kurhi_o Kurhios] idem significat quod [Hebrew: —] apud Hebraeos. Hebraei enim nomine [Hebrew: —] sanctissimo nempe Dei nomine, nunquam in colloquio utebantur, sed vice ejus [Hebrew: —] pronuntiabant, quod LXX per [Greek: Kurhios] exprimebant."—Remains of Bishop Sandford, vol. i. p. 207.

Mr. Coleridge saw this work for the first time many months after making the observation in the text. Indeed it was the very last book he ever read. He was deeply interested in the picture drawn of the Bishop, and said that the mental struggles and bodily sufferings indicated in the Diary had been his own for years past. He conjured me to peruse the Memoir and the Diary with great care:—"I have received," said he, "much spiritual comfort and strength from the latter. O! were my faith and devotion, like my sufferings, equal to that good man's! He felt, as I do, how deep a depth is prayer in faith."

In connection with the text, I may add here, that Mr. C. said, that long before he knew that the late Bishop Middleton was of the same opinion, he had deplored the misleading inadequacy of our authorized version of the expression, [Greek: pr_ototokos pas_es ktise_os] in the Epistle to the Colossians, i. 15.: [Greek: hos estin eik_on tou THeou tou aoratou, pr_ototokos pas_es ktise_os.] He rendered the verse in these words:—"Who is the manifestation of God the invisible, the begotten antecedently to all creation;" observing, that in [Greek: pr_ototokos] there was a double superlative of priority, and that the natural meaning of "first-born of every creature,"—the language of our version,—afforded no premiss for the causal [Greek: hoti] in the next verse. The same criticism may be found in the Stateman's Manual, p. 56. n.; and see Bishop Sandford's judgment to the same effect, vol. i. p. 165.—ED.

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 creante
Emeritos artus foecunda morte reformat,
Et petit alternam totidem per funera vitam.
…
Et cumulum texens pretiosa fronde Sabaeum
Componit bustumque sibi partumque futurum.
…
O senium positure rogo, falsisque sepulcris
Natales habiture vices, qui saepe renasci
Exitio, 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 origo
Per 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.