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quality, it is a propensity to nourish such suspicions. The condition of despairing anguish and wrath, in which feelings, high wrought by previous affection, are placed, when the unworthiness of the beloved object is, or appears to be demonstrated, is another state of the soul, deserving of a different name. The author proceeds.

I have often told you that I do not think there is any jealousy, properly so called, in the character of Othello. There is no predisposition to suspicion, which I take to be an essential term in the definition of the word. Desdemona very truly told Emilia that he was not jealous,—that is, of a jealous habit; and he says so as truly of himself. Iago's suggestions, you see, are quite new to him. They do not correspond with any thing of a like nature previously in his mind. If Desdemona had in fact been guilty, no one would have thought of calling Othello's conduct that of a jealous man. He could not act otherwise than he did with the lights he had; whereas, jealousy can never be strictly right. See how utterly unlike Othello is to Leontes, in the Winter's Tale, or even to Leonatus, in Cymbeline. The jealousy of the first proceeds from an evident trifle, and something like hatred is mingled with it; and the conduct of Leonatus in accepting the wager, and exposing his wife to the trial, denotes a jealous temper already formed.' (Vol. I. 67, 68).

Yet with so exquisite a tact for the perception of literary beauties, and for explaining and developing the thoughts of others, Coleridge had very little acuteness in verbal criticism, or accurate taste in style: so at least we should be inclined to conclude from the attempts in this line which are scattered here and there through these volumes. Nor is this deficiency inconsistent with what we know of the prevailing characteristics of his mind. He had little power of noticing and grasping individual objects. His imagination always wandered from details to general principles. The same want of observation which made him, as he says of himself, have a dim perception of the relation of place-so that, in remembering a man or a tree, he could not recollect where he had seen them--rendered him, in literary criticism, little apt to fix the precise sense or collocation of individual words and passages in his memory; and hence, probably, arose a want of fine perception in dealing with those words and passages, and remarking small peculiarities of style and sense. We do not cite this as a defect of importance. Few men of genius have been good verbal critics; and those who have been so (Porson for example), have but misplaced and wasted their genius on very trifling subjects. Nor should we mention it at all, were it not that the emendations suggested by Coleridge, in conversation, on the received text of authors, appear to us singularly unhappy. The following two are from Shakspeare :

I have no doubt that, instead of "the twinn'd stones upon the number'd beach" in Cymbeline, it ought to be read thus, "the grimed stones upon the umber'd beach."

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Grimed stones suggests an idea neither agreeable nor true. The first impression made on the eye by the appearance of the rolled pebbles on the sea-shore is that of cleanliness and polish. Twinn'd stones signifies, we apprehend, only similar as twins to each ' other.' Umber'd does not bear, in Shakspeare, the meaning brown, which is evidently here intended. It only occurs in one passage:

Each battle views the others' umber'd face ;'

that is, its face seen in shadow, or rather in chiaroscuro, by the doubtful light of the nightly illumination.

So, in Henry V., instead of

His mountain (or mounting) sire on mountains standing, it ought to be read "his monarch sire"-that is "Edward the Third.” '

We leave it to any reader of Shakspeare and his contemporaries, whether monarch-sire' be not a phrase entirely of the most approved modern art.

I confess I doubt the Homeric genuineness of daxgvóer yeλácaca. It sounds to me much more like a prettiness of Bion and Moschus."

Any antithesis merely metaphysical, which sets in opposition, not visible effects or qualities, but visible with purely imaginary, or imaginary with each other, we should consider un-Homeric. Such a figure, which the Greeks would have termed an Oxymoron, and the Italians a Concetto, is clearly inconsistent with the objective character of early poetry. But the phrase smiling in tears,' only represents a natural appearance, which may be observed on the face of any woman or any child: no fanciful antithesis, but a real picture. We see no reason why Homer, or any one of the Homeridæ, may not have remarked and portrayed it, long before more artificial poets tortured it into point and epigram. We must observe, en passant, that Coleridge was a firm believer in the Wolfian theory; and contended that there was no more reason for ascribing the Hiad to a single composer, than the Scottish ballads, or romances of the Cid.

I certainly understand the Tuoi xai soi yuvai, in the second chapter of St John's Gospel, as having aliquid increpationis in it-a mild reproof from Jesus to Mary for interfering in his ministerial acts, by requests on her own account. I do not think that you was ever used by child to parent as a common mode of address; between husband and wife it was; but I cannot think that μre and yuva were equivalent terms in the mouth of a son, speaking to his mother.'

We are not aware either of any passage in which yura is so used. But it is, nevertheless, employed by inferiors to superiors; -by the chorus of Phrygian women, both in the Hecuba and Andromache of Euripides, in addressing their captive princesses. It seems occasionally to imply somewhat not of courtesy only, but even of reverence. A Roman Catholic, therefore, might easily meet on critical grounds this objection to the sacred character of the Virgin.

There are some other marks of carelessness, or more probably of inconsistency and loosely expressed sentiments, in the remarks on classical subjects contained in these volumes. How, for example, are we to reconcile the following dicta on a question which has given much occasion of dispute to Platonists and Anti-Platonists?

Negatively, there may be more of the philosophy of Socrates in the Memorabilia of Xenophon than in Plato; that is, there is less of what does not belong to Socrates; but the general spirit of, and impression left by Plato, are more Socratic.'

'Plato's works are logical exercises for the mind. Little that is positive is advanced in them. Socrates may be fairly represented by Plato in the more moral parts; but in all the metaphysical disquisitions it is Pythagoras. Xenophon's representation of his master is quite different. Socrates, as such, was only a poetical character to Plato, who worked upon his own ground.'

Unquestionably there never were minds more distinct, in the whole tenor of their composition, and practical tendency of their ideas, than those of Plato and Socrates. The same accidental causes made Plato first a disciple of the moral philosopher, and then, in name, a commentator on his ethical precepts, which made converts to the religion of Jesus among the learned of Antioch and Alexandria, and raised the visionary edifice of Gnosticism on the real foundations laid by the divine author of Christianity. Even Coleridge, Platonist as he was, must have been well aware how widely different were the methods and objects of the two philosophers. We conclude, therefore, that the first of these oracles was delivered in a hasty moment of argument, as it is clearly inconsistent with those which follow.

In conclusion, we must find fault with the editor, while we acknowledge ourselves indebted to his care and judgment in many respects, for filling his pages too much with commonplace remarks, which are so very trivial that they cannot be said to derive any additional value even when stamped with the token of a man of genius. He should have been on his guard also against Coleridge's inveterate tendency to pillage from himself and from others. Even in these volumes the repetitions are numerous; and many of the most pointed sayings are taken, with little varia

tion, either from Coleridge's printed works, or from other books. He should not have relied, moreover, on the philosopher's storytelling powers; inasmuch as living in perfect seclusion, it was impossible for him to know whether the anecdotes which he was fond of recounting were or were not public property. The story of the King and John Kemble, for example (Vol. I. p. 4), which is introduced as a confidential communication to the narrator from his friend dear Charles Mathews,' is one, if we mistake not, which the latter has long been in the habit of imparting to large assemblies of friends at the Adelphi. These, and similar defects of execution, seem chiefly to arise out of a desire to make of the author of these conversations a sort of general oracle ;-a compound of every thing that he was, with much that it was impossible for him, consistently with his nature, to be. He was not a man of the world; he was not a popular writer, because he never could describe superficial things in an intelligible and attractive manner; he was not deeply or critically learned, although a scholar; he was not a clear, although a forcible, logician. But he was gifted with a deep insight into the connexion which subsists between the material and the spiritual world; he had sounded the depths of metaphysical enquiry with an original and daring vigour; and, perhaps, wanted only steadiness steadiness and industry to have founded in England a new school of psychological science. Above all, religion and morality ever found in him a firm and uncompromising supporter, and yet one who brought to discussion a spirit of courtesy and catholic charity at once amiable and dignified. Any remains of such a man can hardly be without their value. We do not know in what state of forwardness any of the multifarious works which he had projected have been left; and we are well aware how difficult it would be for any hand but his own to arrange and classify his strange assortment of materials; insomuch, that if ever the philosophy of Coleridge is published in a complete form, it will be indebted, we suspect, more to the editor than the author. Be we do not think that those who have the arrangement of his literary relics would be justified in withholding them on the score of imperfectness: no published work of Coleridge, during his lifetime, was any thing more than an incoherent collection of fragments; yet in all there is a vein of rich and genuine metal traversing the irregular matrix; and where that exists, the rudest mass will well repay the labour of its extraction from the mine.

ART. IX.-1. Historia Statisticæ Adumbrata. Scripsit F. J. MONE. 4to. Lovanii: 1828.

2. Reports and Minutes of Evidence of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Public Documents. 1833.

3. Abstract of Population Returns of Census of 1831. 3 vols. folio. London: 1833.

THERE are, perhaps, no sciences more generally interesting and instructive than Geography and Statistics. Few are so destitute of all liberal and rational curiosity as not to be anxious to be acquainted with the situation, soil, climate, and productions; the arts and industry; the political and religious institutions; and the state of society of the more celebrated countries; and the works that furnish such information, provided they be reasonably well executed, and communicate particulars not previously well known to the public, generally meet with a ready and extensive sale. Such being the case, it might be expected that this department of science would be diligently explored, and that little would now be left to its cultivators but to place facts already known in a novel light, and to deduce from them new inferences, or to mark and appreciate those that must always spring up in the ever-varying circumstances of society. This, however, is very far indeed from being a true representation of the actual state of things. In some countries, particularly Germany, almost all the existing information with respect either to itself, or foreign countries, has been embodied under its proper heads in geographical and statistical works; and some very learned and laborious individuals have usefully devoted their lives to the improvement and perfection of such compilations. But with us the case is widely different. Owing partly to the investigations made by Parliamentary Committees, and partly to the custom that has long obtained of printing all sorts of accounts respecting the institutions, trade, and finances of the country, and subjecting them to parliamentary discussion and public criticism, a vast mass of materials has been collected respecting many subjects belonging to the statistics of the empire and its colonies; while our extensive intercourse with foreign countries, and the number and attainments of our travellers, have supplied us with a great body of information relating to most parts of the world. And yet, notwithstanding all these means and materials, geographical science is at a very low ebb amongst us, whilst statistics can hardly be said to exist. No country in the world possesses so many bulky, ela

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