FOOTNOTES:

In vain I supplicate the Powers above;There is no Resurrection for the LoveThat, nursed with tenderest care, yet fades awayIn the chilled heart by inward self-decay.[1088]Like a lorn Arab old and blind5Some caravan had left behindThat sits beside a ruined Well,And hangs his wistful head aslant,Some sound he fain would catch—Suspended there, as it befell,10O'er my own vacancy,And while I seemed to watchThe sickly calm, as were of heartA place where Hope lay dead,The spirit of departed Love15Stood close beside my bed.She bent methought to kiss my lipsAs she was wont to do.Alas! 'twas with a chilling breathThat awoke just enough of life in death20To make it die anew.

[1087:1]Now first published from an MS.

Inscribed in a copy of Grew'sCosmologia Sacra(1701)

[Videante, p. 491.]

Epitaphin Hornsey Church yardHic Jacet S. T. C.

Stop, Christian Passer-by! Stop, Child of God!And read with gentle heart. Beneath this sodThere lies a Poet: or what once was He.[Up] O lift thy soul in prayer for S. T. C.That He who many a year with toil of breath5Found death in life, may here find life in death.Mercy for praise, to be forgiven for fameHe ask'd, and hoped thro' Christ. Do thou the same.

Etesi's[for Estesi's] Epitaph.

Stop, Christian Visitor! Stop, Child of God,Here lies a Poet: or what once was He![O] Pause, Traveller, pause and pray for S. T. C.[1089]That He who many a year with toil of BreathFound Death in Life, may here find Life in Death.5And read with gentle heart! Beneath this sodThere lies a Poet, etc.

And read with gentle heart! Beneath this sodThere lies a Poet, etc.

'Inscription on the Tomb-stone of one not unknown; yet more commonly known by the Initials of his Name than by the Name itself.'

ESTEESE'Sαυτοεπιταφιον[1089:1]

(From a copy of theTodten-Tanzwhich belonged to Thomas Poole.)

Here lies a Poet; or what once was he:Pray, gentle Reader, pray for S. T. C.That he who threescore years, with toilsome breath,Found Death in Life, may now find Life in Death.

[1088:1]First published inThe Athenaeum, April 7, 1888: included in theNotesto 1893 (p. 645).

[1089:1]First published in theNotesto 1893 (p. 646).

The Fox, and Statesman subtile wiles ensure,The Cit, and Polecat stink and are secure;Toads with their venom, doctors with their drug,The Priest, and Hedgehog, in their robes are snug!Oh, Nature! cruel step-mother, and hard,5To thy poor, naked, fenceless child the Bard!No Horns but those by luckless Hymen worn,And those (alas! alas!) not Plenty's Horn!With naked feelings, and with aching pride,He hears th' unbroken blast on every side!10Vampire Booksellers drain him to the heart,And Scorpion Critics cureless venom dart!

[1089:2]First published in Cottle'sEarly Recollections, 1839, i. 172. Now collected for the first time. These lines, according to Cottle, were included in a letter written from Lichfield in January, 1796. They illustrate the following sentence: 'The present hour I seem in a quickset hedge of embarrassments! For shame! I ought not to mistrust God! but, indeed, to hope is far more difficult than to fear. Bulls have horns, Lions have talons.'—They are signed 'S. T. C.' and are presumably his composition.

Some, Thelwall! to the Patriot's meed aspire,Who, in safe rage, without or rent or scar,Bound pictur'd strongholds sketching mimic warCloset their valour—Thou mid thickest fireLeapst on the wall: therefore shall Freedom choose5Ungaudy flowers that chastest odours breathe,And weave for thy young locks a Mural wreath;Nor there my song of grateful praise refuse.My ill-adventur'd youth by Cam's slow streamPin'd for a woman's love in slothful ease:10First by thy fair example [taught] to glowWith patriot zeal; from Passion's feverish dreamStarting I tore disdainful from my browA Myrtle Crown inwove with Cyprian bough—Blest if to me in manhood's years belong15Thy stern simplicity and vigorous Song.

[1090:1]Now first published from Cottle's MSS. in the Library of Rugby School.

'Relative to a Friend remarkable for Georgoepiscopal Meanderings, and the combination of theutile dulciduring his walks to and from any given place, composed, together with a book and a half of an Epic Poem, during one of theHalts:—

'Lest after this life it should prove my sad storyThat my soul must needs go to the Pope's Purgatory,Many prayers have I sighed, May T. P. * * * * be my guide,For so often he'll halt, and so lead me about,That e'er we get there, thro' earth, sea, or air,The last Day will have come, and the Fires have burnt out.'Job Junior.'circumbendiborum patientissimus.'

'Job Junior.'circumbendiborum patientissimus.'

[1090:2]Endorsed by T. P.: 'On my Walks. Written by Coleridge, September, 1807.' First publishedThomas Poole and His Friends, by Mrs. Henry Sandford, 1888, ii. 196.

A feeling of sadness, a peculiar melancholy, is wont to takepossession of me alike in Spring and in Autumn. But in Springit is the melancholy of Hope: in Autumn it is the melancholyof Resignation. As I was journeying on foot through theAppennine, I fell in with a pilgrim in whom the Spring and5the Autumn and the Melancholy of both seemed to havecombined. In his discourse there were the freshness and thecolours of April:

Qual ramicel a ramo,Tal da pensier pensiero10In lui germogliava.

But as I gazed on his whole form and figure, I bethought meof the not unlovely decays, both of age and of the late season,in the stately elm, after the clusters have been plucked fromits entwining vines, and the vines are as bands of dried withies15around its trunk and branches. Even so there was a memoryon his smooth and ample forehead, which blended with thededication of his steady eyes, that still looked—I know not,whether upward, or far onward, or rather to the line of meetingwhere the sky rests upon the distance. But how may I express20that dimness of abstraction which lay on the lustre of thepilgrim's eyes like the flitting tarnish from the breath of a sighon a silver mirror! and which accorded with their slow andreluctant movement, whenever he turned them to any objecton the right hand or on the left? It seemed, methought, as25if there lay upon the brightness a shadowy presence ofdisappointments now unfelt, but never forgotten. It was at oncethe melancholy of hope and of resignation.

We had not long been fellow-travellers, ere a sudden tempestof wind and rain forced us to seek protection in the vaulted30door-way of a lone chapelry; and we sate face to face each onthe stone bench alongside the low, weather-stained wall, andas close as possible to the massy door.

After a pause of silence: even thus, said he, like two strangersthat have fled to the same shelter from the same storm, not35seldom do Despair and Hope meet for the first time in theporch of Death! All extremes meet, I answered; but yourswas a strange and visionary thought. The better then doth itbeseem both the place and me, he replied. From a Visionarywilt thou hear a Vision? Mark that vivid flash through this40torrent of rain! Fire and water. Even here thy adage holdstrue, and its truth is the moral of my Vision. I entreated himto proceed. Sloping his face toward the arch and yet avertinghis eye from it, he seemed to seek and prepare his words: tilllistening to the wind that echoed within the hollow edifice,45and to the rain without,

Which stole on his thoughts with its two-fold sound,The clash hard by and the murmur all round,[1092:1]

he gradually sank away, alike from me and from his own purpose,and amid the gloom of the storm and in the duskiness of that50place, he sate like an emblem on a rich man's sepulchre, or like amourner on the sodded grave of an only one—an aged mourner,who is watching the waned moon and sorroweth not. Startingat length from his brief trance of abstraction, with courtesy andan atoning smile he renewed his discourse, and commenced his55parable.

During one of those short furloughs from the service of thebody, which the soul may sometimes obtain even in this itsmilitant state, I found myself in a vast plain, which Iimmediately knew to be the Valley of Life. It possessed an60astonishing diversity of soils: here was a sunny spot, andthere a dark one, forming just such a mixture of sunshine andshade, as we may have observed on the mountains' side in anApril day, when the thin broken clouds are scattered overheaven. Almost in the very entrance of the valley stood65a large and gloomy pile, into which I seemed constrained toenter. Every part of the building was crowded with tawdryornaments and fantastic deformity. On every window wasportrayed, in glaring and inelegant colours, some horrible tale,or preternatural incident, so that not a ray of light could enter,70untinged by the medium through which it passed. The bodyof the building was full of people, some of them dancing, in and out,in unintelligible figures, with strange ceremonies and anticmerriment, while others seemed convulsed with horror, orpining in mad melancholy. Intermingled with these, I observed75a number of men, clothed in ceremonial robes, who appearednow to marshal the various groups, and to direct theirmovements; and now with menacing countenances, to drag somereluctant victim to a vast idol, framed of iron bars intercrossed,which formed at the same time an immense cage, and the shape80of a human Colossus.

I stood for a while lost in wonder what these things mightmean; when lo! one of the directors came up to me, and witha stern and reproachful look bade me uncover my head, forthat the place into which I had entered was the temple of85the only true Religion, in the holier recesses of which thegreat Goddess personally resided. Himself too he bade mereverence, as the consecrated minister of her rites. Awestruckby the name of Religion, I bowed before the priest, and humblyand earnestly intreated him to conduct me into her presence.90He assented. Offerings he took from me, with mysticsprinklings of water and with salt he purified, and with strangesufflations he exorcised me; and then led me through manya dark and winding alley, the dew-damps of which chilled myflesh, and the hollow echoes under my feet, mingled, methought,95with moanings, affrighted me. At length we entered a largehall, without window, or spiracle, or lamp. The asylum anddormitory it seemed of perennial night—only that the walls werebrought to the eye by a number of self-luminous inscriptions inletters of a pale sepulchral light, which held strange neutrality100with the darkness, on the verge of which it kept its rayless vigil.I could read them, methought; but though each of the wordstaken separately I seemed to understand, yet when I took themin sentences, they were riddles and incomprehensible. As Istood meditating on these hard sayings, my guide thus addressed105me—'Read and believe: these are mysteries!'—At theextremity of the vast hall the Goddess was placed. Her features,blended with darkness, rose out to my view, terrible, yet vacant.I prostrated myself before her, and then retired with my guide,soul-withered, and wondering, and dissatisfied.110

As I re-entered the body of the temple I heard a deep buzzas of discontent. A few whose eyes were bright, and eitherpiercing or steady, and whose ample foreheads, with the weightybar, ridge-like, above the eyebrows, bespoke observation followedby meditative thought; and a much larger number, who were115enraged by the severity and insolence of the priests in exactingtheir offerings, had collected in one tumultuous group, and witha confused outcry of 'This is the Temple of Superstition!' aftermuch contumely, and turmoil, and cruel maltreatment on allsides, rushed out of the pile: and I, methought, joined them.120

We speeded from the Temple with hasty steps, and had nownearly gone round half the valley, when we were addressed bya woman, tall beyond the stature of mortals, and with asomething more than human in her countenance and mien, whichyet could by mortals be only felt, not conveyed by words or125intelligibly distinguished. Deep reflection, animated by ardentfeelings, was displayed in them: and hope, without itsuncertainty, and a something more than all these, which I understoodnot, but which yet seemed to blend all these into a divine unityof expression. Her garments were white and matronly, and of130the simplest texture. We inquired her name. 'My name,' shereplied, 'is Religion.'

The more numerous part of our company, affrighted by thevery sound, and sore from recent impostures or sorceries,hurried onwards and examined no farther. A few of us, struck135by the manifest opposition of her form and manners to thoseof the living Idol, whom we had so recently abjured, agreed tofollow her, though with cautious circumspection. She led us toan eminence in the midst of the valley, from the top of whichwe could command the whole plain, and observe the relation of140the different parts to each other, and of each to the whole, andof all to each. She then gave us an optic glass which assistedwithout contradicting our natural vision, and enabled us to seefar beyond the limits of the Valley of Life; though our eyeeven thus assisted permitted us only to behold a light and145a glory, but what we could not descry, save only that it was,and that it was most glorious.

And now with the rapid transition of a dream, I had overtakenand rejoined the more numerous party, who had abruptlyleft us, indignant at the very name of religion. They journied150on, goading each other with remembrances of past oppressions,and never looking back, till in the eagerness to recede from theTemple of Superstition they had rounded the whole circle of thevalley. And lo! there faced us the mouth of a vast cavern, atthe base of a lofty and almost perpendicular rock, the interior155side of which, unknown to them and unsuspected, formed theextreme and backward wall of the Temple. An impatientcrowd, we entered the vast and dusky cave, which was the onlyperforation of the precipice. At the mouth of the cave satetwo figures; the first, by her dress and gestures, I knew to be160Sensuality; the second form, from the fierceness of his demeanour,and the brutal scornfulness of his looks, declared himselfto be the monster Blasphemy. He uttered big words, and yetever and anon I observed that he turned pale at his owncourage. We entered. Some remained in the opening of the165cave, with the one or the other of its guardians. The rest, andI among them, pressed on, till we reached an ample chamber,that seemed the centre of the rock. The climate of the placewas unnaturally cold.

In the furthest distance of the chamber sate an old dim-eyed170man, poring with a microscope over the torso of a statuewhich had neither basis, nor feet, nor head; but on its breastwas carved Nature! To this he continually applied his glass,and seemed enraptured with the various inequalities which itrendered visible on the seemingly polished surface of the175marble.—Yet evermore was this delight and triumph followedby expressions of hatred, and vehement railing against a Being,who yet, he assured us, had no existence. This mysterysuddenly recalled to me what I had read in the holiest recessof the temple of Superstition. The old man spake in divers180tongues, and continued to utter other and most strangemysteries. Among the rest he talked much and vehementlyconcerning an infinite series of causes and effects, which heexplained to be a string of blind men, the last of whomcaught hold of the skirt of the one before him, he of the next,185and so on till they were all out of sight; and that they allwalked infallibly straight, without making one false stepthough all were alike blind. Methought I borrowed couragefrom surprise, and asked him—Who then is at the head toguide them? He looked at me with ineffable contempt, not190unmixed with an angry suspicion, and then replied, 'No one.'The string of blind men went on for ever without any beginning;for although one blind man could not move without stumbling,yet infinite blindness supplied the want of sight. I burst intolaughter, which instantly turned to terror—for as he started195forward in rage, I caught a glimpse of him from behind; andlo! I beheld a monster bi-form and Janus-headed, in the hinderface and shape of which I instantly recognised the dreadcountenance of Superstition—and in the terror I awoke.

[1091:1]First published inThe Courier, Saturday, August 31, 1811: included in 1829, 1834-5, &c. (3 vols.), and in 1844 (1 vol.). Lines 1-56 were first published as part of the 'Introduction' toA Lay Sermon, &c., 1817, pp. xix-xxxi.The 'Allegoric Vision' dates from August, 1795. It served as a kind of preface or prologue to Coleridge's first Theological Lecture on 'The Origin of Evil. The Necessity of Revelation deduced from the Nature of Man. An Examination and Defence of the Mosaic Dispensation' (see Cottle'sEarly Recollections, 1837, i. 27). The purport of these Lectures was to uphold the golden mean of Unitarian orthodoxy as opposed to the Church on the one hand, and infidelity or materialism on the other. 'Superstition' stood for and symbolized the Church of England. Sixteen years later this opening portion of an unpublished Lecture was rewritten and printed inThe Courier(Aug. 31, 1811), with the heading 'An Allegoric Vision: Superstition, Religion, Atheism'. The attack was now diverted from the Church of England to the Church of Rome. 'Men clad in black robes,' intent on gathering in their Tenths, become 'men clothed in ceremonial robes, who with menacing countenances drag some reluctant victim to a vast idol, framed of iron bars intercrossed which formed at the same time an immense cage, and yet represented the form of a human Colossus. At the base of the Statue I saw engraved the words "To Dominic holy and merciful, the preventer and avenger of soul-murder".' The vision was turned into a politicaljeu d'espritlevelled at the aiders and abettors of Catholic Emancipation, a measure to which Coleridge was more or less opposed as long as he lived. SeeConstitution of Church and State, 1830,passim. A third adaptation of the 'Allegorical Vision' was affixed to the Introduction toA Lay Sermon: Addressed to the Higher and Middle Classes, which was published in 1817. The first fifty-six lines, which contain a description of Italian mountain scenery, were entirely new, but the rest of the 'Vision' is an amended and softened reproduction of the preface to the Lecture of 1795. The moral he desires to point is the 'falsehood of extremes'. As Religion is the golden mean between Superstition and Atheism, so the righteous government of a righteous people is the mean between a selfish and oppressive aristocracy, and seditious and unbridled mob-rule. A probable 'Source' of the first draft of the 'Vision' is John Aikin'sHill of Science, A Vision, which was included inElegant Extracts, 1794, ii. 801. In the present issue the text of 1834 has been collated with that of 1817 and 1829, but not (exhaustively) with the MS. (1795), or at all with theCourierversion of 1811.

The 'Allegoric Vision' dates from August, 1795. It served as a kind of preface or prologue to Coleridge's first Theological Lecture on 'The Origin of Evil. The Necessity of Revelation deduced from the Nature of Man. An Examination and Defence of the Mosaic Dispensation' (see Cottle'sEarly Recollections, 1837, i. 27). The purport of these Lectures was to uphold the golden mean of Unitarian orthodoxy as opposed to the Church on the one hand, and infidelity or materialism on the other. 'Superstition' stood for and symbolized the Church of England. Sixteen years later this opening portion of an unpublished Lecture was rewritten and printed inThe Courier(Aug. 31, 1811), with the heading 'An Allegoric Vision: Superstition, Religion, Atheism'. The attack was now diverted from the Church of England to the Church of Rome. 'Men clad in black robes,' intent on gathering in their Tenths, become 'men clothed in ceremonial robes, who with menacing countenances drag some reluctant victim to a vast idol, framed of iron bars intercrossed which formed at the same time an immense cage, and yet represented the form of a human Colossus. At the base of the Statue I saw engraved the words "To Dominic holy and merciful, the preventer and avenger of soul-murder".' The vision was turned into a politicaljeu d'espritlevelled at the aiders and abettors of Catholic Emancipation, a measure to which Coleridge was more or less opposed as long as he lived. SeeConstitution of Church and State, 1830,passim. A third adaptation of the 'Allegorical Vision' was affixed to the Introduction toA Lay Sermon: Addressed to the Higher and Middle Classes, which was published in 1817. The first fifty-six lines, which contain a description of Italian mountain scenery, were entirely new, but the rest of the 'Vision' is an amended and softened reproduction of the preface to the Lecture of 1795. The moral he desires to point is the 'falsehood of extremes'. As Religion is the golden mean between Superstition and Atheism, so the righteous government of a righteous people is the mean between a selfish and oppressive aristocracy, and seditious and unbridled mob-rule. A probable 'Source' of the first draft of the 'Vision' is John Aikin'sHill of Science, A Vision, which was included inElegant Extracts, 1794, ii. 801. In the present issue the text of 1834 has been collated with that of 1817 and 1829, but not (exhaustively) with the MS. (1795), or at all with theCourierversion of 1811.

[1092:1]From theOde to the Rain, 1802, ll. 15-16:—O Rain! with your dull two-fold sound,The clash hard by, and the murmur all round!

[1092:1]From theOde to the Rain, 1802, ll. 15-16:—

O Rain! with your dull two-fold sound,The clash hard by, and the murmur all round!

[21-3]—the breathed tarnish, shall I name it?—on the lustre of the pilgrim's eyes? Yet had it not a sort of strange accordance with1817.

—the breathed tarnish, shall I name it?—on the lustre of the pilgrim's eyes? Yet had it not a sort of strange accordance with1817.

[37]Compare:like strangers shelt'ring from a storm,Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!Constancy to an Ideal Object, p. 456.

Compare:

like strangers shelt'ring from a storm,Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!

Constancy to an Ideal Object, p. 456.

[39]Visionary1817,1829.

Visionary1817,1829.

[40]Vision1817,1829.

Vision1817,1829.

[49]sank] sunk1817.

sank] sunk1817.

[51-2]or likean aged mourner on the sodden grave of an only one—a mourner,who1817.

or likean aged mourner on the sodden grave of an only one—a mourner,who1817.

[57-9]It was towards morning when the Brain begins to reassume its waking state, and our dreams approach to the regular trains of Reality, that I foundMS. 1795.

It was towards morning when the Brain begins to reassume its waking state, and our dreams approach to the regular trains of Reality, that I foundMS. 1795.

[60]Valley Of Life1817,1829.

Valley Of Life1817,1829.

[61]and here was1817,1829.

and here was1817,1829.

[63]mountains' side] HillsMS. 1795.

mountains' side] HillsMS. 1795.

[75-86]intermingled with all these I observed a great number of men in Black Robes who appeared now marshalling the various Groups and now collecting with scrupulous care the Tenths of everything that grew within their reach. I stood wondering a while what these Things might be when one of these men approached me and with a reproachful Look bade me uncover my Head for the Place into which I had entered was the Temple ofReligion.MS. 1795.

intermingled with all these I observed a great number of men in Black Robes who appeared now marshalling the various Groups and now collecting with scrupulous care the Tenths of everything that grew within their reach. I stood wondering a while what these Things might be when one of these men approached me and with a reproachful Look bade me uncover my Head for the Place into which I had entered was the Temple ofReligion.MS. 1795.

[80]shape] form1817.

shape] form1817.

[92-3]of water he purified me, and then ledMS. 1795.

of water he purified me, and then ledMS. 1795.

[94-9]chilled and its hollow echoes beneath my feet affrighted me, till at last we entered a large Hall where not even a Lamp glimmered. Around its walls I observed a number of phosphoric InscriptionsMS. 1795.

chilled and its hollow echoes beneath my feet affrighted me, till at last we entered a large Hall where not even a Lamp glimmered. Around its walls I observed a number of phosphoric InscriptionsMS. 1795.

[96-102]large hallwhere not even a single lamp glimmered. It was made half visible by the wan phosphoric rays which proceeded from inscriptions on the walls, in letters of the same pale and sepulchral light. I could read them, methought; but though each one of thewords1817.

large hallwhere not even a single lamp glimmered. It was made half visible by the wan phosphoric rays which proceeded from inscriptions on the walls, in letters of the same pale and sepulchral light. I could read them, methought; but though each one of thewords1817.

[106]me. The fallible becomes infallible, and the infallible remains fallible. Read and believe: these areMysteries! In the middle ofthe vast1817.

me. The fallible becomes infallible, and the infallible remains fallible. Read and believe: these areMysteries! In the middle ofthe vast1817.

[106]Mysteries1829.

Mysteries1829.

[108]vacant. No definite thought, no distinct image was afforded me: all was uneasy and obscure feeling. Iprostrated1817.

vacant. No definite thought, no distinct image was afforded me: all was uneasy and obscure feeling. Iprostrated1817.

[118]Superstition1817.

Superstition1817.

[132]Religion1817,1829.

Religion1817,1829.

[141]partsof each to the other,and of1817,1829.

partsof each to the other,and of1817,1829.

[146]was1817,1829.

was1817,1829.

[161]Sensuality1817,1829.

Sensuality1817,1829.

[163]Blasphemy1817,1829.

Blasphemy1817,1829.

[173]Nature1817,1829.

Nature1817,1829.

[180]Superstition1817,1829.spake] spoke1817,1829.

Superstition1817,1829.

spake] spoke1817,1829.

[196]glimpse] glance1817,1829.

glimpse] glance1817,1829.

[199]Superstition1817,1829.

Superstition1817,1829.

[Videantep. 237.]

At the house of a gentleman[1097:2]who by the principles andcorresponding virtues of a sincere Christian consecrates acultivated genius and the favourable accidents of birth, opulence,and splendid connexions, it was my good fortune to meet, ina dinner-party, with more men of celebrity in science or polite5literature than are commonly found collected round the sametable. In the course of conversation, one of the party remindedan illustrious poet [Scott], then present, of some verses whichhe had recited that morning, and which had appeared ina newspaper under the name of a War-Eclogue, in which Fire,10Famine, and Slaughter were introduced as the speakers. Thegentleman so addressed replied, that he was rather surprisedthat none of us should have noticed or heard of the poem, as ithad been, at the time, a good deal talked of in Scotland. Itmay be easily supposed that my feelings were at this moment15not of the most comfortable kind. Of all present, one only [SirH. Davy] knew, or suspected me to be the author; a man whowould have established himself in the first rank of England'sliving poets[1097:3], if the Genius of our country had not decreed thathe should rather be the first in the first rank of its philosophers20and scientific benefactors. It appeared the general wish tohear the lines. As my friend chose to remain silent, I choseto follow his example, and Mr. . . . . . [Scott] recited the poem.This he could do with the better grace, being known to haveever been not only a firm and active Anti-Jacobin and25Anti-Gallican, but likewise a zealous admirer of Mr. Pitt, both asa good man and a great statesman. As a poet exclusively, hehad been amused with the Eclogue; as a poet he recited it;and in a spirit which made it evident that he would have readand repeated it with the same pleasure had his own name been30attached to the imaginary object or agent.

After the recitation our amiable host observed that in hisopinion Mr. . . . . . had over-rated the merits of the poetry;but had they been tenfold greater, they could not havecompensated for that malignity of heart which could alone have35prompted sentiments so atrocious. I perceived that myillustrious friend became greatly distressed on my account; butfortunately I was able to preserve fortitude and presence ofmind enough to take up the subject without exciting evena suspicion how nearly and painfully it interested me.40

What follows is the substance of what I then replied, butdilated and in language less colloquial. It was not my intention,I said, to justify the publication, whatever its author's feelingsmight have been at the time of composing it. That they arecalculated to call forth so severe a reprobation from a good man,45is not the worst feature of such poems. Their moral deformityis aggravated in proportion to the pleasure which they arecapable of affording to vindictive, turbulent, and unprincipledreaders. Could it be supposed, though for a moment, that theauthor seriously wished what he had thus wildly imagined,50even the attempt to palliate an inhumanity so monstrous wouldbe an insult to the hearers. But it seemed to me worthy ofconsideration, whether the mood of mind and the general stateof sensations in which a poet produces such vivid and fantasticimages, is likely to co-exist, or is even compatible with, that55gloomy and deliberate ferocity which a serious wish to realizethem would pre-suppose. It had been often observed, and allmy experience tended to confirm the observation, that prospectsof pain and evil to others, and in general all deep feelings ofrevenge, are commonly expressed in a few words, ironically tame,60and mild. The mind under so direful and fiend-like an influenceseems to take a morbid pleasure in contrasting the intensity ofits wishes and feelings with the slightness or levity of theexpressions by which they are hinted; and indeed feelingsso intense and solitary, if they were not precluded (as in almost65all cases they would be) by a constitutional activity of fancyand association, and by the specific joyousness combined with it,would assuredly themselves preclude such activity. Passion, inits own quality, is the antagonist of action; though in anordinary and natural degree the former alternates with the latter,70and thereby revives and strengthens it. But the more intenseand insane the passion is, the fewer and the more fixed are thecorrespondent forms and notions. A rooted hatred, an inveteratethirst of revenge, is a sort of madness, and still eddies round itsfavourite object, and exercises as it were a perpetual tautology75of mind in thoughts and words which admit of no adequatesubstitutes. Like a fish in a globe of glass, it moves restlesslyround and round the scanty circumference, which it cannotleave without losing its vital element.

There is a second character of such imaginary representations80as spring from a real and earnest desire of evil to another,which we often see in real life, and might even anticipate fromthe nature of the mind. The images, I mean, that a vindictiveman places before his imagination, will most often be takenfrom the realities of life: they will be images of pain and85suffering which he has himself seen inflicted on other men, andwhich he can fancy himself as inflicting on the object of hishatred. I will suppose that we had heard at different timestwo common sailors, each speaking of some one who hadwronged or offended him: that the first with apparent violence90had devoted every part of his adversary's body and soul to allthe horrid phantoms and fantastic places that ever Quevedodreamt of, and this in a rapid flow of those outrageous and wildlycombined execrations, which too often with our lower classesserve for escape-valves to carry off the excess of their passions,95as so much superfluous steam that would endanger the vessel ifit were retained. The other, on the contrary, with that sort ofcalmness of tone which is to the ear what the paleness of angeris to the eye, shall simply say, 'If I chance to be madeboatswain, as I hope I soon shall, and can but once get that100fellow under my hand (and I shall be upon the watch for him),I'll tickle his pretty skin! I won't hurt him! oh no! I'll onlycut the — — to the liver!' I dare appeal to all present, whichof the two they would regard as the least deceptive symptomof deliberate malignity? nay, whether it would surprise them105to see the first fellow, an hour or two afterwards, cordiallyshaking hands with the very man the fractional parts of whosebody and soul he had been so charitably disposing of; or evenperhaps risking his life for him? What language Shakespeareconsidered characteristic of malignant disposition we see in the110speech of the good-natured Gratiano, who spoke 'an infinitedeal of nothing more than any man in all Venice';

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