Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/170

COLEBIDGE. 138 COLERIDGE. nearly a year. This was a period of vast im- portance in his development, and he said himself that there was no time of his life to which he looked back with smli immingled satisfaction. He came under the inlUienee of what Shairp calls "an impulse, the most orif,'fiial, the most far-reaching, and the most profovmd which Europe has seen since the Keformation." The first result of his new knowledge of (German thought was not in philosophy, but in poetry: on his return to Eng- land he jmhlished his noble translation of Schil- ler's W'ullnistcin. He also contributed fitfully to the Moriting Post, to the end of 1802. Before that time, however, he had settled at C4reta Hall, Keswick, in the Lake district, attracted by the proximity of Wordsworth and Southey, who were to share with him the designation of Lake Poets, given in derision by the Edinhurgli Ji'ecieio. Here, in ISOO, he wrote the second part of "Christabel." Driven from the north by rheuma- tism in 1804, he went to the ilediterranean, act- ing for some months as secretary to the Governor of Malta, and spending several more at Rome. On his return to England, he delivered some lectures on poetry and the fine arts at the Royal Institution, London, and began the publication of Tlte Friend, a periodical which contained too much abstruse philosophy to be popular, and lived less than a year. During part of 1811 he -was connected with the Coiii-ic>; contributing articles of a general political nature. In 1813 his play Kemorse was successfully produced at the Drury Lane Theatre and helped to relieve his distressed financial condition. His enslavement to opium, which he had begun to take as a relief from his rheumatic pains, was now increasing, and in De Quincey's opinion "killed him as a poet." His constitutional indolence and dislike for steady application completed his unfitness for meeting the demands of life. Roving between London and the Lakes, where his family was gen- erally under Southey's care, he spent a number of baffled and disappointed vears. From 1816 until his death, July 25, 1834, he lived in the house of Mr. Gilhnan, at Highgate in London, where he received the kindest and most judicious care, and at least to some extent mastered his craving for opium. Though he pro- jected far more than his habits ever allowed him to accomplish, he left as the result of those years no inconsiderable bulk of critical and philosophic writing; the Biographia Literaria (1817) is especially noteworthy. It was, however, as a talker, discoursing with an inexhaustible flow of ideas to a<lniiring visitors, that he shone most brilliantly in his latter years. Talk was his best medium for showing himself to others. His style in prose writing vv'as cumbrous and his matter involved. In reading his written work of this class, we feel instinctivel.y that the critic W'as greater than the criticism. No man had ever appeared in England who united in so eminent a degree the three func- tions of critic, philosopher, and poet. AVith all his defects, Coleridge must be recognized as being, in Mill's phrase, the greatest "seminal mind" of his time. The present generation does not real- ize how much it owes to him in many fields of thought — how many impulses, still powerful, he set in motion. In criticism, he was the father of modern Shakespearean study, laying, in a few pregnant sentences, a broad basis for criticism, in contrast to the narrow canons of .Johnson and the eighteenth-century school. His Aids to Re- flection and some of his other theological writ- ing inspired Maurice and Stanley' and the 'Broad- Church Movement' as a whole. His aphorisms are often decisive — it is to him we owe what are now commonplaces, the distinction between genius and talent, fancy and imagination, wit and humor. Detached phrases of his are still upon the lips of many who do not rememl)er their source — like "Every man is born either an Aristotelian or a Platonist," or "Prose is words in their best order; poetry is the best words in the best order." In philosophy, originally a fervent disciple of Hartley (q.v.), who had been a member of his own college, he passed on through the theories of Berkeley and Leibnitz ; and, after falling under the influence of the Ger- nuvn and other mystics, came to a point where, he says, the works of Kant took hold of him as with a giant's hand. He adopted and based all his teachings on Kant's distinction between the Understanding and the Reason; and while he has not as a philosopher left any complete sys- tem, yet he rendered excellent service by his in- sistence, in such a period as his. on the reality and preeminence of the spiritual verities. His introduction into England of German literature and philosophy, so powerfully seconded by Car- lyle, is alone enough to give him a high place among the forces that determined the course of nineteenth-century thought among English-speak- ing people. But it is as a poet that he must hold the highest rank, though no other poet luis ever attained such a place on so snuill a volume of first-class work. "Christabel," "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and "Kubla Khan" (which so good a judge as Swinburne has called "for absolute melody and splendor the first poem in the language") cannot be put in any but the highest class. jMoreover, his influence on his successors must be taken into account. The Pre-Raphaelite Movement, which Theodore Watts-Dunton defines as "the Renaissance of the Spirit of Wonder in poetry and art," owes more to him than to any other English poet. One can only regret that so much was wasted of the greatest powers which for generations had been granted to any Englishman. Consult: the Complete Works, ed. bv Shedd (7 vols.. New York, 1884) ; his Poeticul ^Yorks, ed. by Campbell (London. 1893) ; Poems, a fac- simile reproduction of the proof and MSS. of some of the poems, ed. Campbell (London, lSO!t) : Lyrieal Ballods, centenary edition by Hutcliinsou (London, 1808) ; Anima Poeiw. from his un]nil)- lished note-books by his grand.son (Lcindnn. 1895) ; lives by Gillman (London. 18.38), Traill ("English Men of Letters" series, London. 1884), Dykes (London, 1894). and Hall Caine (London. 1887); Cottle, Early Recollections (London, 1837) ; Brandl. Samuel Taylor Coleridge und die englisclie Roma n1 ill (Berlin. 1886; English trans- lation by Lady Eastlake. London. 1887 ) ; and a thorough and luminous discussion in Shairp. Studies in. Poctni and Philosopht/ (Edinburgh. 1808). Consult also: E. H. Coleridge, Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (London, 1895) ; and Beers, English Romanticism in the Xincfeenth Centum (XewYork, 1900). COLERIDGE, Sar. (1802-52). An English author, born at Greta Hall, near Keswick. She was the only daughter of Samuel Taylor Cole- ridge, and married her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge (1829). The early part of her life was spent with her uncle, Robert Southev. After