ing, are, we fear, never appealed to as precedents. Now we can almost as soon think of a popular philosopher, as of a popular judge the very words imply a contradiction; not perhaps necessarily, for we can imagine both; but not in any state of society in which man has yet existed: the conception becomes possible only from our blending into one the relations of a corrupt society, and the purity of heart, the clearness of view, the feeling of God's presence which alone belongs to the ideal or prophetic-to man as he is pictured to us in Eden and in the new Jerusalem.—Is it not written that "the saints shall judge the earth?" Is there not a period spoken of when the whole family of man shall become a chosen generation, a royal priesthood;" but when that time arrives, the offices of the judge and priest will have already ceased-courts and temples will be no more-all that is accidental and arbitrary—all that is preparatory and symbolical will have passed away-Justice will be present, but known by the dearer name of Love: "I will," saith the Lord, "put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people, and they shall not teach every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest.' But the prophetic picture can only be understood by a previous contemplation of the ideal, of which it is in truth, but an evolution; in other and better words, a state of society so favorably regulated, that each of its members shall attain the perfect growth and stature of a man, can only be conceived by one who knows what man is, or may become; without such knowledge, the science of political economy, is impossible, and its very terms become cypher-sounds-representatives of unknown quantities, which lose their value the moment you attempt to affix any distinct meaning to them, and deceptive, only because they express in other words mathematical truths of relation and distance. A philosopher writing on subjects which require from his readers the exercise of thought, must know that such works will be unintelligible to those who seldom or never think, and will address himself exclusively "ad clerum, i. e. in the old and wide sense of the word, to men of clerkly acquirement of whatever profession." But even in works intended for more general circulation, though "many things are hard to be uttered," and the teacher must remember his pupils' "dullness of hearing," yet even then is he compelled to think with conscious reference to that other and better state of society, to the hopes of mankind rather than to the circumstances of men-and while he looks forward in the light of the same inspiring promises which made. the Hebrew prophets poets, and with a single eye," the organ of a pure heart, is it strange that the heart should overflow?-that the mind should kindle into thoughts which it strives vainly to communicate?—that language necessarily metaphorical, should, though brightening into unusual splendour, but dimly reveal the ideas, "Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Is it an unpardonable offence in Mr. Coleridge to have occasionally over-rated the capacities and acquirements of his audience?-to have supposed them capable of being for a few hours interested in the investigation of truths which relate to their " permanent being ?" We might suppose that they would have been soothed if not deluded by the harmless flattery; we might certainly have expected that these solemn addresses would have been received by the public with any other feelings than those of irritation or neglect, and that if they were noticed by the professional critics, that it would have been in a decorous tone, very different from the scornful levity and calumnious ridicule with which unfortunately they have been greeted, and which, of all works that we know, they are least calculated to provoke. But Mr. Coleridge has himself explained in part, the cause of this hostility;" in all ages of the Christian Church there have existed individuals (Laodiceans in spirit, minims in faith, and nominalists in philosophy,) who mistake outlines for substance, and distinct images for clear conceptions, with whom, therefore, not to be a thing is the same as not to be at all. The contempt in which such persons hold the works and doctrines of all theologians before Grotius, and of all philosophers before Locke and Hartley, (at least before Bacon and Hobbes,) is not accidental, nor yet altogether owing to that epidemic of a proud ignorance, occasioned by a diffused sciolism which gave a sickly and hectic shewiness to the latter half of the last century. It is a real instinct of self-defence acting offensively by anticipation." "* Vanity, that disease against which, more than all others, literary men should guard, was up in arms to oppose him; and the writer, whose whole heart was given to the cause "of faith and freedom, and the truth in Christ," was assailed in the reviews, by infidels who wore "a ragged mask of scorn." Some there were, whose character, built up hastily and without cement, on insecure and sandy ground, was to be swept away, before space could be cleared for the foundations of a more true philosophy. It is now almost amusing to think of the trembling restlessness with which they began to prop up their temporary structuresto garrison all the dangerous out-posts-and bring hastily together their unprincipled and mercenary forces, in the hope of retarding for a while the ruin which they felt to be inevitable; they had closed their eyes and would not see―a depraved heart cannot receive the light-but however such defect may originate, whether from original formation, by external injury, or inward disease, there are never absent from the blinded heart uneasy sensations, arising from an obscure consciousness of the existence of that light, which it will not and cannot enjoy; fearful instincts, that but remind it of that deficient or diseased organ, the place of which they vainly attempt to supply; suspicious doubts, for ever intimating the unworthiness of the soul, which they haunt and disquiet,-for, after all, the moral being, though * Statesman's Manual. it may be stupified into insensibility, is never wholly dead it may, in its half-waking hours, nay, it certainly will frame idols for itself, or, having committed sacrilege, will apply to unholy uses the ornaments of the temple which it has purloined—as libations to Baal and Ashtaroth were rendered doubly impious when offered from the vessels of God's sanctuary. Thus traditions of the religion of their fathers of early and holy times, 'forgotten or misunderstood, are converted by uncivilized tribes into sanguinary and loathsome superstitions; the more loathsome (at least to the beholder's imagination,) in proportion to the purity of that faith from which they have been derived, and of which they continue to testify with evidence increased in strength, because given unwillingly by hostile witnesses; and thus has it been with Mr. Coleridge's reputation-those who plundered have, as was natural, maligned him, and endeavoured, as far as their petty malice could effect it, to lessen his fame and injure his literary character. How often is murder committed in the hope of concealing robbery ! Had personal distinction been the object of this true philosopher had he a heart and soul of such an order as to be impelled by the ordinary motives of fortune or fame, how cheaply might be have won them; we will not say that the merits of his prose writings were neglected or undervalued in consequence of his acknowledged rank as a poet, (though we fear this, too, has had its effect;) because after all the " reading public" (will Mr. Coleridge forgive the use of the phrase ?) judges as fairly as it can of works fairly brought before it; and because, in strict truth, the better portion of the public were, and continue to be, greatly influenced by his writings. We will only mention in proof of this, the acknowledged obligations of Mr. Wordsworth,* of Lord Byron, of Mr. Southey, and of other contemporary writers-we will appeal to the increased circulation of the Morning Post and Courier, when under his direction,† to the essays written in the commencement of the late war, in the true spirit of freedom, with a fervor of popular eloquence, unheard perhaps, certainly unrecorded, since the days of our last great poet-unequalled John Milton. At some future time we shall give extracts, (so far as it may be consistent with the exclusive nature of our publication) from those noble and animated harangues which contributed in no small degree to break the chains of Europe. At present we will only call the reader's attention to one obvious remark yet well worthy of notice: only separate Mr. Coleridge's opinion of men and books recorded in his published writings from the principles from which he educes them, and which he always endeavours to implant in the reader's mind, there, according to the soil and climate, to germinate and blossom, and ripen into seed-bearing fruit-only separate the opinions from the parent principles, and then think of their originality, their splendour, the instant * See Preface to the Excursion. + See Biographia Literaria. Read "Areopagita, a speech in favour of unlicensed printing." force with which they strike the mind as something congenial with its own happiest and most heavenly thoughts; remember how often, and in what different moods some one truth first gested by one passage or other in his works has returned to direct sugand illuminate, and cheer us in sadness and solitude, wishing the weary pilgrimage at an end; how often and how vividly has it re-appeared to restore the sick heart to health and peace, to recal the falling sinner to a sense of the Godlike within him, to change the sigh of hopeless despondence into quiet tears of silent penitence-into murmured prayers of confiding resignation, and faith and love. On looking over the preceding sentences, we begin to fear that our readers will complain of our assuming too lofty a tone for the occasion, but we will not alter a word; for though we feel our pitch of thought, however ill-sustained, is somewhat raised, and that our language is perhaps coloured in some degree by the eloquent work we have been studying, yet this will be the best proof not only of the sincerity of our admiration; but that we are influenced in our remarks on Coleridge's foolish and hard-hearted slanderers by more than personal feelings that no thought connected with the authors of these sarcasms affects our reasonings, and that even Mr. Coleridge's reputation is, in our view, an object comparatively unimportant and uninteresting. We hasten, therefore, from topics of complaint to which we have unwillingly alluded, and which we regret have been dwelt upon at some length by Mr. Coleridge, in his account of his life and opinions. Nothing could be more natural than that he should have then expressed in strong and pointed language, the feelings provoked by attacks which had all the appearance of being dictated by personal dislike; but that he or his friends should now continue to entertain such feelings is impossible; and we confess we feel too little anxiety about his fame, to dwell longer on the subject; for, verse and prose, his are works that the world will not willingly let die. And from their nature and character, we may be sure that his own feelings are in sympathy with those expressed in the following sentence from Boyle: "Yet I, that would bring myself to prefer to a whole wood of bayes the least sprigge of the tree of life, am inclined to think that a Christian may possibly find a higher satisfaction in persuading men to pay praises to the Scripture, than in receiving them from all the world besides; and would think it more desirable (were the choice his) to discountenance profane wit than live unrivalled in the glory of it; and though for my own particular, such a temper be, I fear, more my aim than my attainment, yet when I write of sacred subjects, 1 had rather a book of mine should resemble the moon, which, though she be but small, less elevated, and full of imperfections, lends yet an useful light to man, and produces here and there an heavenly influence, than a star of the first magnitude which, though more high, more vast, and more flawlesse, shines only bright enough to make itself conspicuous." In a short advertisement Mr. Coleridge tells us that the work before us 66 was proposed and begun as a mere selection from the writings of Archbishop Leighton. The various reflections, how ever," he adds, "that pressed on me while I was considering the motives for selecting this or that passage—the desire of enforcing, and as it were integrating, the truths contained in the original author, by adding those which the words suggested or recalled to my own mind; the conversation with men of eminence in the literary and religious circles, occasioned by the objects which I had in view; and lastly, the increasing disproportion of the commentary to the text, and the too marked difference in the frame, character, and colour of the two styles soon induced me to recognize and adopt a revolution in my plan and object, which had in fact actually taken place without my intention, and almost unawares. It would indeed be more correct to say that the present volume owed its accidental origin to the intention of compiling one of a different description, than to speak of it as the same work. It is not a change in the child, but a changeling." The objects of the work are, as explained by the writer, First, "To direct the reader's attention to the value of the science of words, their use and abuse, and the incalculable advantages attached to the habit of using them appropriately, and with a distinct knowledge of their primary, derivative, and metaphorical senses." Secondly, "To establish the distinct character of prudence, morality, and religion; and to impress the conviction that moral goodness is other and more than prudence on the principle of expediency, and religion more and higher than morality." Thirdly, "To establish and set forth at large the momentous distinction between REASON and UNDERSTANDING." And fourthly, "To exhibit a full and consistent scheme of the Christian dispensation, and more largely of all the peculiar doctrines of the Christian faith, and to answer all the objections to the same, that do not originate in a corrupt will rather than an erring judgment; and to do this in a manner intelligible for all, who, possessing the ordinary advantages of education, do, in good earnest desire to form their religious creed in the light of their own convictions, and to have a reason for the faith which they profess." "If I am," he adds, "to mention any particular class or description of readers, that were prominent in my thoughts during the composition of the volume, my reply must be, that it was especially designed for the studious young, at the close of their education, or on their first entrance into the duties of manhood, and the rights of self-government. And of these again, in thought and wish, I destined the work, (the latter and larger portion at least,) yet more particularly to students intended for the ministry: first, as in duty bound, to the members of our Universities : secondly, (but only in respect of this mental precedency, second,) to all alike of whatever name who have dedicated their future lives to the cultivation of their race, as pastors, preachers, missionaries, or instructors of youth.” Of the work, far the most interesting part is that which embraces the fourth of these objects. A clear and beautiful statement is given of the leading doctrines of the Christian faith in a few sentences, which we shall transcribe: "The Being and Providence of One Living God, Holy, Gracious, Merciful, the Creator and Preserver of all things, and a Father of the Righteous; the Moral |