MEMORIALS OF COLERIDGE.

NEITHER titlepage nor preface has thrown any light upon the character and position of the editor of these remains ; but a perusal of the volumes has pretty well satisfied us that he is not the editor of the Table-Talk. A similar undistinguishing reve

rence, irtdeed, is paid to the Mighty of Ancient Days, as the present reminiscent delights to call "the master ;" there is

something of a kindred spirit in the unscrupulous manner in which each editor speaks of or reports upon third persons ; each, too, is rabid on political economy ; and both are bitter foes ti the resent Ministry. But this is only the meeting of extremes. Mr. H. N. COLERIDGE, the reporter of Table-Talk, seemed a zealous Tory. The editor of the volumes before us is an Ultra-Radical,

with a touch of that ardent enthusiasm which in early youth had

almost driven the Apostle himself and his friend Dr. SOUTHEY to the banks of the Susquehannah, in order to found a republic one

mid indivisible, and with pure equality of conditions for its basis. He also indicates some instances of great and selfish neglect, if not of ingratitude, against the family of the deceased ; and makes sonic positive charges about " a Judge and a Bishop,"

which were not likely to have emanated from Mr. COLERIDGE 'S nephew. Moreover, the present eliter has more stuff in hint. Of the volumes themselves, the greater part consists of Letters, written to the editor by COLERIDGE on an endless variety of oc-

casions, chiefly from 1818 to 1825. To these epistles the recipient has added tail-pieces, sometimes commenting upon the literary or philosophical spirit or the individual nature they display, some- times explaining the circumstances under which they were writ- ten ; but, as some of them relate to seemingly delicate private affairs, and to third parties, the commentary is not always suffi-

ciently clear to put the reader in full possession of the ease, though it is yet distinct enough unpleasantly to affect the parties impli- cated. With these remarks on the Letters are mingled many recollections of COLERIDGE ; and interspersed amongst them are a good many specimens of his conversation, some capital anecdotes of CHARLES LAMB, awl a few reminiscences of " three delightful days" spent in Hampshire with the "fine and sturdy yeoman —the country gentleman ! " as the editor calls CORBETT. A few extracts from some of the writings of the Master, alluded to in the epistles, and several letters from POPE'S and BOLINGBROKE'S Correspondence, which had been honoured with his viva voce ap- proval, that always "gave value to every thing he read," complete the table of matters.

As regards their value, the Recollections are occasionally curious; but the reminiscent is too wrapped up in his friend, and too prejudiced, or at all events too extreme in his notions, to be able to display much discrimination,—although his very peculiari- ties give a character to his remarks. The Conversations convey a much higher idea of COLERIDGE'S colloquial powers than those published by his nephew, not only being less trivial in matter, but possessing more point, pith, and terseness, in form. The Letters, however, if less amusing than the Conversations, are far more valuable, from the light they throw upon the thoughts, feelings, and character of the writer. Some of the more abstruse expositions of his philosophy or his lectures may be passed by the uninitiated, but the remainder are completely autobiographical. We see a mind of wonderful acquisitions and great powers con- demned, by adverse pecuniary circumstances, and perhaps (yet it is hard to estimate correctly the depressing influences of ill- fortune, advancing age, and mental toil for daily bread) by a genius too discursive and speculative for long-sustained active exertion, to lament over lost opportunities, and to indulge in wishes rather than hopes that it may be able to achieve some- thing by which its possessor may be known to future ages. We find him once proposing—and the plan must have been wormwood to a mind like COLERIDGE'S—t0 raise by subscription for three or four years an annuity, to be repaid from the sale of the works, " adtquate to his actual support, with such comforts and decencies of appearance as his health and habits had made necessaries :" yet although Mr. GREEN* and two others offered to make up half the amount required, the scheme fell to the ground. Turning from these melancholy passages, we trace him in others as the sensible adviser, the ardently affectionate friend, and a man of the most playful, simple, and sensitive nature; restrained by no false deli- cacy in probing (yet how tenderly I) the anxieties of his corre- spondent; sympathizing with pecuniary embarrassments he cannot relieve ; tremulously fearful of really or conventionally hurting the feelings of others; and embracing in his wide range of affection, not only childhood, but the most helpless infancy. The letter which he writes to his editor on the symptoms displayed by his baby son, who had been sent to Highgate for change of air, is a very singular one, not merely for its display of provident considera- tion and the qualities already alluded to, but for the habits of minute attention and the medical knowledge it exhibits. If COLERIDGE always appeared to his intimates as he shows himself in these volumes, we can readily account for their admiration of the man, and for their permitting his personal qualities to dazzle their judg- ment with regard to his intellectual. No one who has not read these Letters can have an idea of .COLERIDGE, either in his strength, his weakness, or his fortunes. They are an indispen- sable part of his Life. We should have been glad, bad space permitted, to have drawn very largely from this book, bringing out in a connected manner some of the biographical points whose character has been already indicated : but we must be content with some scraps of a miscel- laneous kind.

A HAPPY Slarrr.a.—To most men, experience is like the stern-lights of a ship, which illumine only the track it has passed.

• He offered to contribute 39!. .,r !Of. a year. At that period (Mt) he is called his young friend. He is a sargeca—ts presume the l'rofessor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy, to which a long list of etcseteras might be added. A FELICITOUS ILLUSTRATION.—II IS not enough that we have once swal- lowed truths ; we must feed on them, as insects on a leaf, till the whole heart be coloured by their qualities, and show its food in every the minutest fibre. AN ESTIMATE OF THE MANSFIELDS.—He used sportively to call the de- mesne. of Caen Wood his garden, and its honest, though unreasoning owner, his head-gardener.

Dome KNOWLEDGE OF Loan STANLEY. — When Lord Stanley was in America, it was necessary to speak of the General Post-office : be di I not know where it was; whilst a Judge who was at the table pointed out its exact situa- tion in Lombard Street, and evinced so much local knowledge, that Lord Stan- ley said, " You must have been a long time in London, — ?" " I was never there in my life," was the reply.

This reminds us of CROKER'S pretended ignorance of the site of Russell Square : the clever parvenu would seem to ,have been affecting aa aristocratical habit.

A STRANGE TRUTH.—It is very singular OW no true poet should have arisen from the lower classes, when it is considered that every peasant who can read knows more of books now than (lid /Eschylus, Sophocles, or Hamer; yet, if we except Burns, none* such have been SOURCES OF SYMPATHY.—I have often been pained by observing in others, and was fully conscious in myself, of,a sympathy with those of rank and condi- tion in preference to their inferiors ; and never discovered the source of this sympathy until one day at KeswiAr I heard a thatcher's wife crying her heart out for the death of her little child. It was given me all at once to feel that I sympathized equally with the poor and the rich in all that related to the best part of humanity—the affections ; but that, in what relates to fortune, to mental misery, struggles, and conflicts we reserve consolation and sympathy for those who can appreciate its force and value.

VALUE OF A TITLE.I was told by Longnians that the greater part of the Lyrical Ballads had been sold to seafaring men, who having heard of the " An- cient Alariner," concluded that it was a naval song-book, or at all events, that it had some relation to nautical matters.

A BIT OF PHILOSOPIIY.—Certainly the highest good is to live happily, and not through a life of mortification to expect a happy death. Should we attain felicity in life death will be easy, as it will be natural arid in due season. Whereas by the present system of religious teaching, men are enjoined to value chiefly happiness at the mid of life; which, if they were implicitly to follow, they would, by neglecting the first great duty, that of innocent enjoyment during existence, effectually preclude themselves from attaining.

THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES.— is one of those clergymen who find it more easy to hide their thoughts than to suppress thinking, and who treat the Thirty-nine Articles as the whale did Jonah, I. e. swallowed, but could not digest him.

CHARACTERISTICS OF TEACHERS.—TOLCIIPIS Of youth are, by a necessity

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of their present condition either unsound or uncongenial. If they possess that buoyancy of spirit which best fits then: for communicating to those under their charge the knowledge it is held useful for them to acquire, they are deemed un- sound. If they possess a subdued sobriety of disposition, the result of a process compared to which the course of a horse in a mill is positive enjoyment, they of necessity become ungenial. Is this a fitting condition, a meet and just return for the class Instructors? And yet have I not truly described them ? Has any one known a teacher of youth who having attained any repute as such, has also retained any place in society as an individual ? Are not all such men Dominie Sampson, io what relates to their duties, interests, and feelings as citizens ; and, with respect to females, do they not all possess a sort of mental odour? Are not all masters, all those who. are held in estimation, not scholars, but always masters, even in their sports ; and are not the female teachers always teaching and setting rip/it; whilst both not only lose the fiesliness of youth, both of mind and body, but seem as though they never had been young: They who have to teach, can never afford to learn ; hence their improgression.

COLERIDGE V. SOUTHEY.—Quoted the passage from Southey, in which he declares the Church to be in danger from the united attacks of Infidels, Papists, and Dissenters. Expressed his surprise at Southey's extreme want of judgment. "Any Establishment which could fuse into a common opposition, Into an opposition on common grounds, such heterogeneous and conflicting materials, would deserve—ought—to be destroyed."

CRITICISM.—Observe the fine humanity of Shakspeare in that his sneerers are all worthless villains. Too cunning to attach value to self-praise, and unable to obtain approval from those whom they are compelled to respect, they propitiate their own self-love by disparaging and lowering others.

PHILOSOPHICAL RELIGION, OR CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT THE ATONE- MENT. — So with the miracles. They are supererogatory. The law of God and the great principles of the Christian religion would have been the same had Christ never assumed humanity. It is for these things, and fur such as theae, for telling unwelcome truths, that I have been termed an Atheist. It is for these opinions that William Smith assured the Archbishop of Can- terbury that I was (what half the clergy are in their lives) an Atheist. Little do these men know what Atheism is. Not one man in a thousand has either strength of mind or goodness of heart to be an Atheist. I repeat it. Not one man in ten thousand has goodness of heart or strength of mind to be an Atheist. And, were I not a Christian, and that only in the sense in which I am a Christian, I should be an Atheist with Spinosa ; rejecting all in which I found insuperable difficulties, and resting my only Lope in the gradual and certain, because gradual, progression of the species. This, it is true, is nega- tive Atheism ; and this is, next to Christianity, the purest spirit of humanity.

PLEASURES OF CELEBRITY.—In less than a week I have not seldom re- ceived half-a-dozen packets or parcels of works, printed or manuscript, urgently requesting my candid judgment or my correcting hand. Add to these, letters from lords and ladies, urging me to write reviews or puffs of heaven-born ge- niuses whose whole merit- consists in being ploughmen or shoemakers. Ditto from actors ; entreaties for money, or recommendations to publishers from ushers out of place, &c. &c.

COLERIDGE ON ESTABLISHMENTS AND PRIESTS.—I deem that the teach- ing the Gospel for hire is wrong, because it gives the teacher an improper bias in favour of particular opinions, on a subject where it is of the last importance that the mind should be perfectly unbiassed. Such is my private opinion: but I mean not to censure all hired teachers, many among whom I know and venerate as the best and wisest of men. God forbid that I should think of these when I use the word PRIEST; a name after which any other term of ab- horrence would appear an anti-climax. By a PRIEST I mean a man who, hold- ing the scourge of power in his right hand and a Bible translated by authority in his left, tloth necessarily cause the Bible and the scourge to be associated ideas, and so produces that temper of mind that leads to Infidelity ; Infidelity which, judging of revelation by the doctrines and practices of Established Churches, honours God by rejecting Christ.

The following are from the Recollections of LAMB. The first is very characteristic of a player—the stateliness of tragedy de- graded to a strut.

• In after years he excepted Elliot, the smith; though he held his judgment in very slight estimation. DRUNKEN HEROICS. —George Frederick Cooke was once invited by a builder or architect of one of the theatres, Elmerton, as I think. Ile went ; and Elmerton being at a loss whom to invite, pitched upon Brandon, the box- beeper, to meet him. All went on pretty well until midnight ; when George Frederick getting very drunk, his host began to be tired of his company. George took the hint, and his host lighted him down stairs into the hall ; when Cooke, laying hold of both his ears, shouted " Have I, George Frederick Cooke, de• graded myself by dining with bricklayers to meet boxkeepers?" tripped up his heels, and left him sprawling in darkness.

ELOQUENCE OF WINE.—On another occasion, when Mathews was returning very late, or, by'r lady, it might be early in the moruing, to Edinburgh, his friend, who was somewhat fou, refused to pay the toll, stating that he hail paid it before that day. The little girl locked the toll ; and he loaded her with abuse, to which she made little reply. Mu r much altercation, her mother opened a casement above, and in a sleepy, feeble tone, inquired what the gentleman said. " Na, wither," said the child, "it's no the gentleman, it's the wine speaking."

MRS. SHELLEY.—Mrs. Shelley at first sight appeared deficient in feeling ; but this cannot be real. She spoke of Shelley without apparrint emotion, with- out regard or a feeling approaching to regret, wiihout pain as without interest, and seemed to contemplate him, as every thing else, through the same passion- less medium. Mrs. Shelley expressed much admiration of the personal manner and conver- sation of Lord Byron ; but at the same time admitted that the account in time London Magazine for September was faithful. She censured his conduct towards Leigh Hunt as paltry and unfeeling ; spoke very slightly of his studies or reading; thought him very superficial in his opinions ; owed every thing to his memory, which was almost preternatural. Said that he felt a supreme contempt for all his contemporaries, with the exception of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and he ridiculed and derided even them ; and was altogether proud, selfish, arid frequently puerile. It is singular how quickly almost every man of penetration who came in contact with BROUGHAM tleteeted and distrusted him. Some months ago we had the opinion of MACKINTOSH: here is that of COLERIDGE.

iioRNEit AND 13aoccitaar.—I recollect meeting Mr. Brougham, well. I met bin, at Mr. Sharp's with Mr. Horner. They were then aspirants for poli- tical adventures. Mr. Horner bore in his conversation and demeanour evidence of that straightfort;ard and generous frankness which characterized him through life. You saw, or rather you felt, that you could rely upon his integrity. His mind was better fitted to reconcile discrepancies than to discover analogies. Ile had fine, nay, even high talent, rather than genius. Mr. Brougham, on the contrary, had an apparent restlessness, a consciousness, not of superior powers, but of superior activity ; a man whose heart was placed in what should have been his head : you were never sure of him, you always doubted his sincerity. He was at that time a hanger-on upon Lord Holland, Mr. Homer being under the auspices of Lord Lansdowne. From that time I lost sight of Mr. Brougham for some time. When we next met, the subject of the Parliamentary debates was alluded to ; previously to which, Mr. Brougham had expressed opinions which were in unison with my own upon a matter at that time of great public interest. I said, " I could never rely upon what was given for the future in the newspa- pers, as they had made him say directly the contrary ; I was glad to be unde- ceived." " Oh," said Brougham, in a tone of voice half-confidential and half- jocular, "Oh, it was very true I said so in Parliament, where there is a party; but we know better." I said nothing; but I ditl not forget it.