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tion that he was irresistibly attracted. The immediate contemplation of truth enjoyed by the reason was the sum and substance of his speculations in this province. This doctrine constituted in Coleridge s mind the bridge of passage from metaphysics to theology. " There," to use the words of Mr Hort, in an able essay on Coleridge, " he found an assurance that man s reasoning powers are not man himself, and that he may rise above their impotence, and have direct faith in unseen realities." At a time when low and grovelling ideas had obtained great predominance, Coleridge recalled men s thoughts to the reality of spiritual truth, and attempted again to enlist interest for a recon ciliation between metaphysics and ordinary modes of thought. The, Friend contains an interesting application of the Platonic idea to induction. . Coleridge declares that there is no real opposition between the method of Plato and that pursued by Bacon. It must, Itowever, be acknow ledged that the ground of his defence of Bacon hardly satisfies; and the observation of DrWhewell, "that Bacon does not give due weight to the ideal element of our knowledge " will occur to the reader cf the Essays on Method, however lie may admire the skill and finish of Coleridge s treatment. Scattered throughout the frag mentary writings of Coleridge may be found remarkable protests against the school of moral philosophy of which Paley was the chief. The governing nature of the moral principle with him determined the quality of moral action. Morality and religion are in his system twin stars, never to be divided. The real code, imperatively demanding the subjugation of man, issues from the divine will, resident, in a measure, in each man. He eagerly disclaims, how ever, all theories which would claim an inherent power in reason to determine questions of civil government His contention against Rousseau is most effective, and even at the present time must possess an interest for all engaged in political deliberation. Since the able defence of Sara Coleridge, contained in her edition of her father s Biographia Literaria, discussions regarding the plagiarisms of Coleridge may be said to have been forgotten. The infirmity of his character, and the mental confusion caused by the unhappy habit which so long had dominion over him, indisposed him for the exactitude rightly demanded from all who under take philosophical discussion. An interesting communica tion from Soliciting to Dean Stanley declares that that great thinker vindicated Coleridge from the charge of plagiarism. In the latter part of his life, more than one of those admitted to his confidence have given curious instances of his confusion between the words of an author and the marginalia which he had written in that author s pages. A letter to Mr Cottle, written in the year 1807, describes in an interesting way Coleridge s abandonment of Unitari- anism and his final acquiescence in tbe creed of the church. As a theologian he contended earnestly for the self- evidencing nature of revealed religion. To historical and miraculous proof he may be said to have assigned a secondary place. Grasping the idea of the Incarnation, he held that miracles were the needful outcome of the great fact, and he taught that the adaptation of truth to the moral nature constituted its strongest evidence. For the teaching of Luther he had a profound admiration, and with the works of the great English divines he was thoroughly familiar In the Aids to Reflection a work which has been the especial favourite of some of the most remarkable of recent divines after discussing the diffi culties of thought and speculation, he grapples with the moral impediments which surround the doctrines of original sin and atonement. His earnest, passionate yearning after truth is manifested in every page of this remarkable" book. Whatever may be thought of the conclusions at which he arrives, the convictions of the writer, and his intense sympathy with all inquiring spirits, lift the book into a place in the affections of its readers. It is impossible almost to convey any adequate idea of the richness and variety of Coleridge s speculations on theology and religion, scattered throughout his too fragmentary works. The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, published since his death, intended not to lessen but to increase the reverence with which Christians regard the Bible, has been more misunderstood than any portion of his writings. That the real object of Coleridge was to conserve and not to destroy, now that the mists of controversy are dispelled, must be apparent to every one who peruses this little volume. Much, indeed, that seemed startling in it on its first appearance has now

been accepted as matter of familiar truth.

The fame of Coleridge as a philosophic thinker is undoubtedly, at present, not so great as it was during the twenty years immediately after his death. The generation of those who " owed " to his teaching " even their own selves " has nearly passed away. But the influence which he exerted as a stimulating force, and the intellectual activity of many of his disciples, remain to testify to the greatness of the services which he rendered to philosophy and religion. He was a true lover of light, and desired that all philosophical investigation should be conducted in the independent spirit which is reflected in the noble aphorism of his Aids to .Reflection "he who begins by loving Christianity better than truth will proceed by loving his own sect and church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all."

After Coleridge s death several of his works were edited by las nephew, Henry Nelson Coleridge, the husband of Sara, the poet s only daughter. In 1847 Sara Coleridge published the Biographia Literaria, enriched with annotations and biographical supplement from her own pen. Three volumes of political writings, entitled Essays on Ms own Times, were also published by Sara Coleridge in 1850. Besides the essay on Coleridge contained in the first volume- of J. S. Mill s Dissertations, there is a very complete study of Coleridgo in Principal Shairp s Studies in Poetry and Philosophy. Mr Hort s Essay, in the Cambridge Essays of 1856, is full of interest. In Archdeacon Hare s Mission of the Comforter will be found -valuable reflections on the theological position of Coleridge.

(g. d. b.)

COLERIDGE, Sara (1802-1852), was the fourth child and only daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his wifo Sarah Flicker of Bristol. She was born December 22, 1802, at Greta Hall, Keswick, the residence of her parents, where they were shortly afterwards joined by Southey and his wife, who was Mrs Coleridge s sister, and by Mrs Lovell, a third sister, and widow of the young quakcr poet, Robert LovelJ. Here, after 1803, they all lived together ; but Coleridge was often away from home ; ani " Uncle Southey " was a pater familias. The Wordsworths at Grasmere were their neighbours ; and the children of the three families grew up together. "Wordsworth, in his poem, the Triad, has left us a description, or "poetical glorifica tion," as Sara Coleridge calls it, of the three girls his own daughter Dora, Edith Southey, and Sara Coleridge, the " last of the three, though eldest born. " Greta Hall was Sara Coleridge s home until her marriage ; and the little Lake colony of poetical and speculative genius seems to have been her only school. Guided by Southey, and with his ample library at her command, she read by herself the chief Greek and Latin classics, and before she was five-and- twenty had learnt French, German, Italian, and Spanish. In 1822 Sara Coleridge published a translation in three large volumes of Dobrizhofi er s Account of the Abipones, undertaken in connection with Southey s Tale of Paraguay, which had been suggested to him by Dobrizhofi er s volumes ; and Southey alludes to his niece, the translator (canto iii. stanza 1C), where he speaks of the pleasure the old mis sionary would have felt if

" . . . .lie could in Merlin s glass have seen 13y whom his tomes to speak our tongue were taught."