Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 002.djvu/16

8 will be to love, to admire, and to imitate; and that never, at any point of time, past, present, or to come, can a true Poet be defrauded of his just fame.

But we need not speak of Poets alone (though we have done so at present to expose the miserable pretensions of Mr Coleridge), but look through all the bright ranks of men distinguished by mental power, in whatever department of human science. It is our faith, that without moral there can be no intellectual grandeur; and surely the self-conceit and arrogance which we have been exposing, are altogether incompatible with lofty feelings and majestic principles. It is the Dwarf alone who endeavours to strut himself into the height of the surrounding company; but the man of princely stature seems unconscious of the strength in which nevertheless he rejoices, and only sees his superiority in the gaze of admiration which he commands. Look at the most inventive spirits of this country,&mdash;those whose intellects have achieved the most memorable triumphs. Take, for example, Leslie in physical science, and what airs of majesty does he ever assume? What is Samuel Coleridge compared to such a man? What is an ingenious and fanciful versifier to him who has, like a magician, gained command over the very elements of nature,&mdash;who has realized the fictions of Poetry,&mdash;and to whom Frost and Fire are ministering and obedient spirits? But of this enough.&mdash;It is a position that doubtless might require some modification, but in the main, it is and must be true, that real Greatness, whether in Intellect, Genius, or Virtue, is dignified and unostentatious; and that no potent spirit ever whimpered over the blindness of the age to his merits, and, like Mr Coleridge, or a child blubbering for the moon, with clamorous outcries implored and imprecated reputation.

The very first sentence of this Literary Biography shews how incompetent Mr Coleridge is for the task he has undertaken.

"It has been my lot to have had my name introduced both in conversation and in print, more frequently than I find it easy to explain; whether I consider the fewness, unimportance, and limited circulation of my writings, or the retirement and distance in which I have lived, both from the literary and political world."

Now, it is obvious, that if his writings be few, and unimportant, and unknown, Mr Coleridge can have no reason for composing his Literary Biography. Yet in singular contradiction to himself&mdash;

"If," says he, at page 217, vol. i. "the compositions which I have made public, and that too in a form the most certain of an extensive circulation, though the least flattering to an author's self-love, had been published in books, they would have filled a respectable number of volumes."

He then adds,

"Seldom have I written that in a day, the acquisition or investigation of which had not cost me the precious labour of a month!"

He then bursts out into this magnificent exclamation,

"Would that the criterion of a scholar's ability were the number and moral value of the truths which he has been the means of throwing into general circulation!"

And he sums up all by declaring,

"By what I have effected am I to be judged by my fellow men."

The truth is, that Mr Coleridge has lived, as much as any man of his time, in literary and political society, and that he has sought every opportunity of keeping himself in the eye of the public, as restlessly as any charlatan who ever exhibited on the stage. To use his own words, "In 1794, when I had barely passed the verge of manhood, I published a small volume of juvenile poems." These poems, by dint of puffing, reached a third edition; and though Mr Coleridge pretends now to think but little of them, it is amusing to see how vehemently he defends them against criticism, and how pompously he speaks of such paltry trifles. "They were marked by an ease and simplicity which I have studied, perhaps with inferior success, to bestow on my later compositions." But he afterwards repents of this sneer at his later compositions, and tells us, that they have nearly reached his standard of perfection! Indeed, his vanity extends farther back than his juvenile poems; and he says, "For a school boy, I was above par in English versification, and had already produced two or three compositions, which I may venture to say, without reference to my age, were somewhat above mediocrity. Happily he has preserved one of those wonderful productions of his precocious boyhood, and our readers will judge for themselves what a clever child it was.