SENECA AND ST. PAUL.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTAT011."3 Sin,—The profoundly interesting review of Dr. Gummere's recent work on Seneca, contained in your issue of September 23rd, suggests two quotations from Coleridge's "Table Talk." One is a tribute to the universality of Seneca as a religious teacher, while minimizing his reach. "You may get a motto for every sect in religion, or line of thought in morals or philosophy, from Seneca; but nothing is ever thought out by him." The other quotation (which I do not offer for its encomium on Luther) bears on your reviewer's imaginary appeal of Seneca to St. Paul "not to forget that he was gentleman." "The only fit commentator on Paul was Luther— not by any means so great a gentleman as the Apostle, but almost as great a genius." I have a strong conviction that Coleridge somewhere else says of St. Paul that "his manners were the finest on record," but I cannot find the reference.
For my own part, I should place St. Paul's "noble rage" for righteousness much above the somewhat frigid gentility of Seneca in any attempt to compare them as gentlemen.
—I am, Sir, &c., JOHN GARDNER-BROWN. / York House, Kensington, TV. 8.
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