Biographia Literaria
wretched, from the fact of being unintelligible to himself and others,
than from the pain or danger of the disease: nay, that the patient
has received the most solid comfort, and resumed a genial and enduring
cheerfulness, from some new symptom or product, that had at once
determined the name and nature of his complaint, and rendered it an
intelligible effect of an intelligible cause: even though the discovery
did at the same moment preclude all hope of restoration. Hence the
mystic theologians, whose delusions we may more confidently hope to
separate from their actual intuitions, when we condescend to read their
works without the presumption that whatever our fancy, (always the ape,
and too often the adulterator and counterfeit of our memory,) has not
made or cannot make a picture of, must be nonsense,--hence, I say, the
Mystics have joined in representing the state of the reprobate spirits
as a dreadful dream in which there is no sense of reality, not even of
the pangs they are enduring--an eternity without time, and as it were
below it--God present without manifestation of his presence. But these
are depths, which we dare not linger over. Let us turn to an instance
more on a level with the ordinary sympathies of mankind. Here then, and
in this same healing influence of Light and distinct Beholding, we may
detect the final cause of that instinct which, in the great majority of
instances, leads, and almost compels the Afflicted to communicate their
sorrows. Hence too flows the alleviation that results from “opening out
our griefs:” which are thus presented in distinguishable forms instead
of the mist, through which whatever is shapeless becomes magnified and
(literally) enormous. Casimir, in the fifth Ode of his third Book, has
happily [85] expressed this thought.
Me longus silendi
Edit amor, facilesque luctus
Hausit medullas. Fugerit ocyus,
Simul negantem visere jusseris
Aures amicorum, et loquacem
Questibus evacuaris iram.
Olim querendo desinimus queri,
Ipsoque fletu lacryma perditur
Nec fortis [86] aeque, si per omnes
Cura volat residetque ramos.
Vires amicis perdit in auribus,
Minorque semper dividitur dolor,
Per multa permissus vagari
Pectora.--
I shall not make this an excuse, however, for troubling my readers with
any complaints or explanations, with which, as readers, they have little
or no concern. It may suffice, (for the present at least,) to declare,
that the causes that have delayed the publication of these volumes for
so long a period after they had been printed off, were not connected
with any neglect of my own; and that they would form an instructive
comment on the chapter concerning authorship as a trade, addressed to
young men of genius in the first volume of this work. I remember
the ludicrous effect produced on my mind by the fast sentence of
an auto-biography, which, happily for the writer, was as meagre in
incidents as it is well possible for the life of an individual to
be--“The eventful life which I am about to record, from the hour
in which I rose into existence on this planet, etc.” Yet when,
notwithstanding this warning example of self-importance before me, I
review my own life, I cannot refrain from applying the same epithet to
it, and with more than ordinary emphasis--and no private feeling, that
affected myself only, should prevent me from publishing the same, (for
write it I assuredly shall, should life and leisure be granted me,)
if continued reflection should strengthen my present belief, that my
history would add its contingent to the enforcement of one important
truth, to wit, that we must not only love our neighbours as ourselves,
but ourselves likewise as our neighbours; and that we can do neither
unless we love God above both.
Who lives, that’s not
Depraved or depraves? Who dies, that bears
Not one spurn to the grave of their friends’ gift?
Strange as the delusion may appear, yet it is most true, that three
years ago I did not know or believe that I had an enemy in the world:
and now even my strongest sensations of gratitude are mingled with fear,
and I reproach myself for being too often disposed to ask,--Have I one
friend?--During the many years which intervened between the composition
and the publication of the CHRISTABEL, it became almost as well known
among literary men as if it had been on common sale; the same references
were made to it, and the same liberties taken with it, even to the very
names of the imaginary persons in the poem. From almost all of our
most celebrated poets, and from some with whom I had no personal
acquaintance, I either received or heard of expressions of admiration
that, (I can truly say,) appeared to myself utterly disproportionate
to a work, that pretended to be nothing more than a common Faery Tale.
Many, who had allowed no merit to my other poems, whether printed or
manuscript, and who have frankly told me as much, uniformly made an
exception in favour of the CHRISTABEL and the poem entitled LOVE. Year
after year, and in societies of the most different kinds, I had been
entreated to recite it and the result was still the same in all, and
altogether different in this respect from the effect produced by the
occasional recitation of any other poems I had composed.--This before
the publication. And since then, with very few exceptions, I have heard
nothing but abuse, and this too in a spirit of bitterness at least as
disproportionate to the pretensions of the poem, had it been the most
pitiably below mediocrity, as the previous eulogies, and far more
inexplicable.--This may serve as a warning to authors, that in their
calculations on the probable reception of a poem, they must subtract
to a large amount from the panegyric, which may have encouraged them to
publish it, however unsuspicious and however various the sources of this
panegyric may have been. And, first, allowances must be made for private
enmity, of the very existence of which they had perhaps entertained no
suspicion--for personal enmity behind the mask of anonymous criticism:
secondly for the necessity of a certain proportion of abuse and ridicule
in a Review, in order to make it saleable, in consequence of which, if
they have no friends behind the scenes, the chance must needs be against
them; but lastly and chiefly, for the excitement and temporary sympathy
of feeling, which the recitation of the poem by an admirer, especially
if he be at once a warm admirer and a man of acknowledged celebrity,
calls forth in the audience. For this is really a species of animal
magnetism, in which the enkindling reciter, by perpetual comment of
looks and tones, lends his own will and apprehensive faculty to his
auditors. They live for the time within the dilated sphere of his
intellectual being. It is equally possible, though not equally common,
that a reader left to himself should sink below the poem, as that
the poem left to itself should flag beneath the feelings of the
reader.--But, in my own instance, I had the additional misfortune of
having been gossiped about, as devoted to metaphysics, and worse than
all, to a system incomparably nearer to the visionary flights of Plato,
and even to the jargon of the Mystics, than to the established tenets
of Locke. Whatever therefore appeared with my name was condemned
beforehand, as predestined metaphysics. In a dramatic poem, which had
been submitted by me to a gentleman of great influence in the theatrical
world, occurred the following passage:--
“O we are querulous creatures! Little less
Than all things can suffice to make us happy:
And little more than nothing is enough
To make us wretched.”
Aye, here now! (exclaimed the critic) here come Coleridge’s metaphysics!
And the very same motive (that is, not that the lines were unfit for the
present state of our immense theatres; but that they were metaphysics
[87]) was assigned elsewhere for the rejection of the two following
passages. The first is spoken in answer to a usurper, who had rested his
plea on the circumstance, that he had been chosen by the acclamations of
the people.--
“What people? How convened? or, if convened,
Must not the magic power that charms together
Millions of men in council, needs have power
To win or wield them? Rather, O far rather
Shout forth thy titles to yon circling mountains,
And with a thousand-fold reverberation
Make the rocks flatter thee, and the volleying air,
Unbribed, shout back to thee, King Emerick!
By wholesome laws to embank the sovereign power,
To deepen by restraint, and by prevention
Of lawless will to amass and guide the flood
In its majestic channel, is man’s task
And the true patriot’s glory! In all else
Men safelier trust to Heaven, than to themselves
When least themselves: even in those whirling crowds
Where folly is contagious, and too oft
Even wise men leave their better sense at home,
To chide and wonder at them, when returned.”
The second passage is in the mouth of an old and experienced courtier,
betrayed by the man in whom he had most trusted.
“And yet Sarolta, simple, inexperienced,
Could see him as he was, and often warned me.
Whence learned she this?--O she was innocent!
And to be innocent is Nature’s wisdom!
The fledge-dove knows the prowlers of the air,
Feared soon as seen, and flutters back to shelter.
And the young steed recoils upon his haunches,
The never-yet-seen adder’s hiss first heard.
O surer than suspicion’s hundred eyes
Is that fine sense, which to the pure in heart,
By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness,
Reveals the approach of evil.”
As therefore my character as a writer could not easily be more injured
by an overt act than it was already in consequence of the report, I
published a work, a large portion of which was professedly metaphysical.
A long delay occurred between its first annunciation and its appearance;
it was reviewed therefore by anticipation with a malignity, so avowedly
and exclusively personal, as is, I believe, unprecedented even in the
present contempt of all common humanity that disgraces and endangers the
liberty of the press. After its appearance, the author of this lampoon
undertook to review it in the Edinburgh Review; and under the single
condition, that he should have written what he himself really thought,
and have criticised the work as he would have done had its author been
indifferent to him, I should have chosen that man myself, both from
the vigour and the originality of his mind, and from his particular
acuteness in speculative reasoning, before all others.--I remembered
Catullus’s lines.
Desine de quoquam quicquam bene velle mereri,
Aut aliquem fieri posse putare pium.
Omnia sunt ingrata: nihil fecisse benigne est:
Immo, etiam taedet, taedet obestque magis;
Ut mihi, quem nemo gravius nec acerbius urget,
Quam modo qui me unum atque unicum amicum habuit.
But I can truly say, that the grief with which I read this rhapsody of
predetermined insult, had the rhapsodist himself for its whole and sole
object.
* * * * * *
I refer to this review at present, in consequence of information having
been given me, that the inuendo of my “potential infidelity,” grounded
on one passage of my first Lay Sermon, has been received and propagated
with a degree of credence, of which I can safely acquit the originator
of the calumny. I give the sentences, as they stand in the sermon,
premising only that I was speaking exclusively of miracles worked for
the outward senses of men. “It was only to overthrow the usurpation