made there in his own favourite studies; what place he occupied, or supposed he occupied, among his numerous contemporaries of talent; how much he was inspired by the genius of the place; how far he "pierced the caves of old Philosophy," or sounded the depths of the Physical Sciences.[1] All this unfortunately is omitted, and he hurries on to details often trifling and uninfluential, sometimes low, vile, and vulgar, and, what is worse, occasionally inconsistent with any feeling of personal dignity and self-respect.
After leaving College, instead of betaking himself to some respectable calling, Mr Coleridge, with his characteristic modesty, determined to set on foot a periodical work called "The Watchman," that through it "all might know the truth." The price of this very useful article was "fourpence." Off he set on a tour to the north to procure subscribers, "preaching in most of the great towns as a hireless Volunteer, in a blue coat and white waistcoat, that not a rag of the Woman of Babylon might be seen on me." In preaching, his object was to shew that our Saviour was the real son of Joseph, and that the Crucifixion was a matter of small importance. Mr Coleridge is now a most zealous member of the Church of England devoutly believes every iota in the thirty-nine articles, and that the Christian Religion is only to be found in its purity in the homilies and liturgy of that Church. Yet, on looking back to his Unitarian zeal, he exclaims,
"O, never can I remember those days with either shame or regret! For I was most sincere, most disinterested! Wealth, rank, life itself, then seem'd cheap to me, compared with the interests of truth, and the will of my Maker. I cannot even accuse myself of having been actuated by vanity! for in the expansion of my enthusiasm I did not think of myself at all!"
This is delectable. What does he mean by saying that life seemed cheap? What danger could there be in the performance of his exploits, except that of being committed as a Vagrant? What indeed could rank appear to a person thus voluntarily degraded? Or who would expect vanity to be conscious of its own loathsomeness? During this tour he seems to have been constantly exposed to the insults of the vile and the vulgar, and to have associated with persons whose company must have been most odious to a Gentleman. Greasy Tallow-chandlers, and pursey Woollen-drapers, and grim-featured dealers in Hard-ware, were his associates at Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, and Sheffield; and among them the light of truth was to be shed from its cloudy tabernacle in Mr Coleridge's Pericranium. At the house of a "Brummagem Patriot" he appears to have got dead drunk with strong ale and tobacco, and in that pitiable condition he was exposed to his disciples, lying upon a sofa, "with my
face like a wall that is white-washing, deathy pale, and with the cold drops of perspiration running down it from my forehead." Some one having said, lamentable condition, "Sir! I am far from convinced that a Christian is permitted to read either newspapers, or any other works of merely political and temporary interest." This witticism quite enchanted his enlightened auditors, and they prolonged their festivities to an "early hour next morning." Having returned to London with a thousand subscribers on his list, the "Watchman" appeared in all his glory; but, alas! not on the day fixed for the first burst of his effulgence; which foolish delay incensed many of his subscribers. The Watchman, on his second appearance, spoke blasphemously, and made indecent applications of Scriptural language; then, instead of abusing Government and Aristocrats, as Mr Coleridge had pledged himself to his constituents to
- ↑ The fact is, that Mr Coleridge made no figure at the University. He never could master the simplest elements of the mathematics. Yet in all his metaphysical, and indeed many of his critical writings, there is an ostentatious display of a familiar and profound knowledge of the principles of that science. This is dishonest quackery; for Mr Coleridge knows that he could not, if taken by surprise, demonstrate any one proposition in the first book of Euclid. His classical knowledge was found at the University to be equally superficial. He gained a prize there for a Greek Ode, which for ever blasted his character as a scholar; all the rules of that language being therein perpetually violated. We were once present in a literary company, where Person offered to shew in it, to a gentleman who was praising this Ode, 134 examples of bad Greek.
