NOTE No. 1.—COLERIDGE AND THE CRITICS.

Coleridge was unfortunate in having lived in an age in which party spirit was bitter in the extreme, and literary criticism, either from this or other causes, was no less malignant and bitter. It seems that Coleridge claimed that the “Edinburgh Review” employed the venomous Hazlitt to “run him down,” in a criticism on the Lay Sermon—that Hazlitt had been employed by reason of his genius for satire, being a splenetic misanthropist, and for his known hostility to Coleridge. The “Edinburgh Review” denied that he was employed for this purpose. Whether he did the job of his own volition and spontaneous motion or not, he did it, and did it well; he noted him closely to “abuse him scientifically.” All this after Coleridge had received him at his house, and given him advice that proved greatly to his advantage. Hazlitt, in an essay on the poets, acknowledges and explicitly states that Coleridge roused him into a consciousness of his own powers—gave his mind its first impetus to unfolding. It is said that Coleridge encouraged him when every one did not perceive so much in the “rough diamond.”

Jeffrey, editor of the “Edinburgh Review,” in a critique on the Christabel, took occasion to thoroughly personally abuse and villify Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge. He accorded no merit whatever to the Christabel. This after he had been the recipient of Coleridge’s hospitality, and had acted in a friendly manner.

I copy the following from the memoir of Keats, introductory to a volume of his poetical works, edited by William B. Scott:

“It is not worth while now to analyze the papers that first attracted notice to ‘Blackwood’s Magazine,’ by calling Coleridge’s ‘Biographia Literaria’ a most execrable performance, and the amiable, passive, lotus-eating author, a compound of egotism and malignity....”

I think “respectable gentlemen” did “do things thirty years ago (now, say fifty), which they could not do now without dishonor.” Thank Providence for the march of civilization, genius has now a better recognition, and knowledge and taste being more generally disseminated and cultivated, the masses of the reading people, who are now the true judges and regulators of these matters, would not brook it for a moment. In vulgar phrase, it is “played out.” The genius is valued higher than the malignant hack critic.

From what I read, Hazlitt died miserably as he had lived. “Sacked” by a woman beneath him in station, “and to recline upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor to those of his;”—now one of oblivion’s ghosts.

NOTE No. 2.—COLERIDGE AND PLAGIARISM.

That Coleridge did borrow the language of Shelling is of course indisputable. See that part of the “Biographia Literaria” which treats of the Transcendental Philosophy. But Coleridge plainly, and in a manner that cannot be mistaken, makes over to Shelling anything found in his works that resembles that author. He “regarded truth as a divine ventriloquist. He cared not from whose mouth the sounds proceeded, so that the words were audible and intelligible.” He sought not to take anything from Shelling; on the contrary, he pays him a high tribute, and calls him his “predecessor though contemporary.” He said he did not wish to enter into a rivalry with Shelling for what was so unequivocally his right. ’Twould be honor enough for him (Coleridge) to make the system intelligible to his countrymen. But Coleridge made over everything that resembled, or coincided with Shelling, to the latter, on condition that he should not be charged with intentional plagiarism or ungenerous concealment; this because he could not always with accuracy cite passages, or thoughts, actually derived from Shelling. He was not in a situation to do so, hence he makes this general acknowledgment and proclamation beforehand.

He says, indeed, that he never was able to procure but two of Shelling’s books, besides a small pamphlet against Fichte. But the reason why he could not designate citations and thoughts, is, that he and Shelling had studied in the same schools of philosophy, and had taken about the same path in their course of philosophical reading; they were both aiming at the same thing, and although Shelling has seemingly gotten ahead of Coleridge, they would most likely have arrived at about the same conclusions, had the works of each never been known to the other. In short, the ideas of the two men were so similar, that it must have been perplexingly difficult, if not impossible, for Coleridge to tell whether he derived a particular thought from Shelling, or from his own mind.

NOTE No. 3.—A MARE’S NEST.

In De Quincey’s article entitled “Coleridge and Opium Eating,” in the concluding part, after making some very just observations in relation to the peculiar temperament most liable to the seductive influences, and “the spells lying couchant in opium,” he proceeds to make a very strange assertion concerning the properties of opium being known in Paradise, and—mark the bull—refers to Milton’s Paradise Lost in proof! We quote as follows: “You know the Paradise Lost? And you remember from the eleventh book, in its earlier part, that laudanum already existed in Eden,—nay, that it was used medicinally by an archangel; for, after Michael had purged with ‘euphrasy and rue’ the eyes of Adam, lest he should be unequal to the mere sight of the great visions about to unfold their draperies before him, next he fortifies his fleshly spirits against the affliction of these visions, of which visions the first was death. And how?

‘He from the well of life three drops instilled.’

“What was their operation?

‘So deep the power of these ingredients pierced,
Even to the inmost seat of mental sight,
That Adam, now enforced to close his eyes,
Sank down, and all his spirits became entranced.
But him the gentle angel by the hand
Soon raised.’

“The second of these lines it is which betrays the presence of laudanum.”

The fundamental error here, and that which vitiates and renders ridiculous all that follows, is the purblind assumption that Milton’s Paradise Lost is a true account of the transactions of our first parents in the garden of Eden. But it is not, and Adam had no vision of the future or of death. Even if Milton’s were the true account, I would not be inclined to believe that he meant laudanum. If the archangel had power to show visions of the future he would have had power to prepare Adam for the spectacle by far other than earthly means. There was a tree of life in the garden of Eden, but no well of life is recorded in sacred history. But Milton says of the archangel (as De Quincey quotes): “He from the well of life three drops instilled.” A rather small dose to see visions upon; I believe the ordinary dose for an adult is from fifteen to twenty drops. However, a well of life would hardly be the designation for a well of laudanum. Milton undoubtedly derived his idea of a well of life from the tree of life spoken of in holy writ, whose fruit had the power of conferring immortality. “And the Lord God said, behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” Gen. iii. 22-24. Milton is indebted to this hint, and his own imagination, for his well of life, and the powers he ascribes to its waters; and De Quincey is indebted to his imagination solely for his idea that it was laudanum which constituted the potent waters of this imaginary well. The whole thing is simply ridiculous. Still, it has an object, which object is, taken in connection with what remains of his essay on Coleridge and opium eating, to give some excuse, or palliation, as he puts it, for writing his (De Quincey’s) opium confessions. We give his own words: “It is in the faculty of mental vision, it is in the increased powers of dealing with the shadowy and the dark, that the characteristic virtue of opium lies. Now, in the original higher sensibility is found some palliation for the practice of opium eating; in the greater temptation is a greater excuse. And in this faculty of self-revelation is found some palliation for reporting the case to the world, which both Coleridge and his biographer have overlooked.”

The idea that laudanum was known and used in Paradise, on the authority of the Paradise Lost of Milton, is as bad as the foolish opinions of some over-wise persons that Shakespeare’s Hamlet was really insane.

NOTE No. 4.—SECOND NOTE ON COLERIDGE AND PLAGIARISM.

De Quincey, in his essay on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, while treating of the subject of Plagiarism, several minor charges of which he had just been firing off in his blind endeavor to do Coleridge good by destroying his good name forever, admits that said minor charges amount to nothing as plagiarism; but says, that “now we come to a case of real and palpable plagiarism.” The case arises in the “Biographia Literaria.” De Quincey says, regarding a certain essay on the esse and the cogitare, that Coleridge had borrowed it from beginning to end from Shelling. But that before doing so, being aware of the coincidence, he remarks that he would willingly give credit to so great a man when the truth would allow him to do so, but that in this instance he had thought out the whole matter himself, before reading the works of the German philosopher. Now the truth is, Coleridge said nothing of the kind. He first warned his readers that an identity of thought or expression, would not always be evidence that the ideas were borrowed from Shelling, or that the conceptions were originally learned from him. They (Coleridge and Shelling) had taken about the same course in their philosophical studies, etc.

He says: “God forbid that I should be suspected of a wish to enter into a rivalry with Shelling for honors so unequivocally his right, not only as a great and original genius, but as the founder of the philosophy of nature, and the most successful improver of the dynamic system,” etc. He then says: “For readers in general, let whatever coincides with or resembles the doctrines of my German predecessor, though contemporary, be wholly attributed to him, provided that the absence of direct references to his works, which I could not always make with truth, as designating thoughts or citations actually derived from him, and which, with this general acknowledgment, I trust would be unnecessary, be not charged on me as intentional plagiarism or ungenerous concealment.” This is what he did say, and a sufficient acknowledgment for anything borrowed from Shelling. He then says that he had been able to procure but two of Shelling’s books, in addition to a small pamphlet against Fichte. The above is from the prefatory remarks to which De Quincey alludes, but his memory must have been gone on a “wool-gathering” at the time.

Instead of gaining, Coleridge is the loser by adopting the language of Shelling in his treatise on the transcendental philosophy in the “Biographia Literaria.”

Having made over to Shelling everything that resembled or coincided with the doctrines of the latter, he lost much of the most important labors of his life.

He had studied metaphysics and philosophy for years, and not having “shrank from the toil of thinking,” he must have evolved much original matter; being a man, as De Quincey says, of “most original genius.” Shelling no doubt had gotten ahead of him in publication, but Coleridge had nevertheless undoubtedly thought out the transcendental system before meeting with the works of Shelling. He says himself emphatically, that “all the fundamental ideas were born and matured in my own mind before I ever saw a page of the German philosopher.” However, Coleridge says of the whole system of philosophy—the Dynamic System, as I understand the matter—“that it is his conviction that it is no other than the system of Pythagoras and Plato revived and purified from impure mixtures.”

[The quotations in the above note are from memory, and though not given as exact, they carry the idea intended.]

NOTE No. 5.—ON DE QUINCEY’S STYLE OF WRITING.

As to De Quincey’s style, I think it may be summarized about thus:

Fine writing. Afflicted with ridiculous hyperbole. Too discursive. In his narrative pieces he is too rambling and digressive. I have read but one article of those classed under the title of Literary Reminiscences, namely, the one on Coleridge; it does well enough, but I have read other narrative pieces having the faults mentioned. But then his writings are nearly all of a narrative nature. However, the faults above named are not special to his narrative pieces only—they are general defects in his style. In his shorter pieces, such as his article on Wordsworth’s poetry, on Shelley, and on Hazlitt, and likely some others of the same series which I have not yet read, he is interesting and sufficiently to the point. But in his essay on the works of Walter Savage Landor, is he not a little too inflated, and does he not run his ironical style into the ground? His “Confessions” I have come to regard more as a literary performance than for any benefit to mankind on the subject of opium there is in them, and as a literary performance the work was undoubtedly intended. There is more uniformity of style in it than in any of his other works of that length that I have read. He is more equable, though smooth and fluent. Still there is a break or two of humor in it that may sound harsh, though not the horrible, grisly, blood-curdling humor that he has in some of his pieces in the shape of irony. He oversteps the modesty of nature in his use of the satirical, I think. He seems hard and cruel sometimes, especially in “Coleridge and Opium Eating,” when speaking of Coleridge enticing Gillman into the habit of eating opium, and other places in the same paper. In many instances I think he loses his dignity altogether and becomes very coarse; that is, slangy and common. He ever seems to think that to be smart, to be a success, to be formidable, is to be humorous. He has many brilliant flashes of intellectual humor, but it is all from the brain, and lacks the true ring that comes from the healthy overflowing of nature. He has cold, steel-like wit, that comes from the head.

My recollection of his “Antigone of Sophocles,” is as of a man jumping upon horseback and riding the animal to death, unless the journey’s end be reached previously. There is no resting-place—on the reader goes after the idea till the end, and it is a long and barren road to travel. He (De Quincey) seems nervous—highly so; too much so to allow his reader peace and ease in reading this paper and others, and parts of other long ones, I judge. I fear the reader would fain cry out, “What, in the name of Judas Iscariot, is the man after, and when is he going to catch up to it? I am out of breath.” This “Greek Tragedy” paper, as it is called elsewhere,[6] seemed lean and very wordy to me. Still, with all his faults, De Quincey was a brilliant writer, and generally on the right side of questions—humane, and upholding the down-trodden whenever opportunity offered.

NOTE No. 6.—THIRD NOTE ON COLERIDGE AND PLAGIARISM.

De Quincey, in his article entitled “Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” descants as follows: “Coleridge’s essay in particular is prefaced by a few words, in which, aware of his coincidence with Shelling, he declares his willingness to acknowledge himself indebted to so great a man, in any case where the truth would allow him to do so; but, in this particular case, insisting on the impossibility that he could have borrowed arguments which he had first seen some years after he had thought out the whole hypothesis pro pria marte. After this, what was my astonishment, to find that the entire essay, from the first word to the last, is a verbatim translation from Shelling, with no attempt in a single instance to appropriate the paper, by developing the arguments, or by diversifying the illustrations. Some other obligations to Shelling, of a slighter kind, I have met with in the ‘Biographia Literaria:’ but this was a barefaced plagiarism, which could in prudence have been risked only by relying too much upon the slight knowledge of German literature in this country, and especially of that section of the German literature.” De Quincey goes on to say, in the way of extenuation of his charge of plagiarism against Coleridge, that Coleridge did not do this from poverty of intellect. “Not at all.” He denies that flat. “There lay the wonder,” he says. “He spun daily and at all hours,” proceeds De Quincey, “for mere amusement of his own activities, and from the loom of his own magical brain, theories more gorgeous by far, and supported by a pomp and luxury of images such as Shelling—no, nor any German that ever breathed, not John Paul—could have emulated in his dreams.” There you go again De Quincey—the demon of hyperbole again driving you to extremes; forever denouncing beyond reason or praising beyond desert. No one else ever claimed so much for Coleridge. De Quincey says Shelling was “worthy in some respects to be Coleridge’s assessor.” He accounts for Coleridge’s borrowing on the principle of kleptomania.... “In fact reproduced in a new form, applying itself to intellectual wealth, that maniacal propensity which is sometimes well known to attack enormous proprietors and millionnaires for acts of petty larceny.” And cites a case of a Duke having a mania for silver spoons. This is “all bosh,” and the wrong theory of Coleridge’s borrowing from Shelling; and as to his loans from any one else, they were as few as those of any writer. The true theory is, that he was after truth, and had thought out as well as Shelling the doctrines promulgated by the latter. He could claim as much originality as Shelling in a system, “introduced by Bruno,” and advocated by Kant, and of which he (Shelling) was only “the most successful improver.”

And also, that “he” (Coleridge) “regarded truth as a divine ventriloquist, he cared not from whose mouth the sounds were supposed to proceed if only the words were audible and intelligible.” He borrowed the language of Shelling, but that is all. But De Quincey, after all his flourish of trumpets and initiatory war-whoop, volunteers to say that “Coleridge, he most heartily believes, to have been as entirely original in all his capital pretensions, as any one man that ever has existed as—Archimedes, in ancient days, or as Shakespeare, in modern.”

In estimating the value of Coleridge’s “robberies,” their usefulness to himself, etc., De Quincey draws a parallel between them and the contents of a child’s pocket.

He says: “Did he” (the reader) “ever amuse himself by searching the pocket of a child—three years old, suppose—when buried in slumber, after a long summer’s day of out-a-doors intense activity? I have done this; and, for the amusement of the child’s mother, have analyzed the contents and drawn up a formal register of the whole. Philosophy is puzzled, conjecture and hypothesis are confounded, in the attempt to explain the law of selection which can have presided in the child’s labors: stones, remarkable only for weight, old rusty hinges, nails, crooked skewers stolen when the cook had turned her back, rags, broken glass, tea-cups having the bottom knocked out, and loads of similar jewels, were the prevailing articles in this proces verbal. Yet, doubtless, much labor had been incurred, some sense of danger, perhaps, had been faced, and the anxieties of a conscious robber endured, in order to amass this splendid treasure. Such, in value, were the robberies of Coleridge; such their usefulness to himself or anybody else; and such the circumstances of uneasiness under which he had committed them. I return to my narrative.” “So much for Buckingham.” Pity he wandered from his “narrative” at all. But he also says, and previous to the foregoing extract, in giving his reason for noticing the subject at all: “Dismissing, however, this subject, which I have at all noticed only that I might anticipate and (in old English) that I might prevent the uncandid interpreter of its meaning.”... Then it is that he goes on to state that he believes him to have been as original in his capital pretensions as any man that ever lived, as before noticed. Being such a small matter, it is “really too bad” that he should thus waste his labor of love. Had he read Coleridge more faithfully, he would have found that he had made over to Shelling everything which the reader might think resembled the doctrines of the latter. And this was, perhaps, the best, and about the only thing he could have done, for undoubtedly the ideas of the two men were so similar, having taken the same course in their philosophical studies, that it must have been perplexing, and may have been impossible, for Coleridge to tell “which was whose.”Coleridge claimed, indeed, that all the main and fundamental ideas were born and matured in his own mind before he ever saw a page of the German philosopher. If Coleridge was capable of spinning from “the loom of his own magical brain theories more gorgeous by far,” and “such as Shelling nor any German that ever breathed could have emulated in his dreams,” it is probable that he was able to think out this bit of philosophy for himself, especially also as we have his word for it besides (which I am rejoiced to say still passes current with some men), and it is most probable that he simply adopted the language of Shelling for convenience. He disputed no claim of Shelling’s, and although he had thought out the system with Shelling, what he claimed can be seen in the following: “With the exception of one or two fundamental ideas, which cannot be withheld from Fichte, to Shelling we owe the completion, and the most important victories of this revolution in philosophy. To me it will be happiness and honor enough should I succeed in rendering the system itself intelligible to my countrymen,” etc. Although he thought it out, he denies not that Shelling thought it out; he says in effect that Shelling, by publication, has accomplished the object sought by him (Coleridge), and all the honor and credit he will now claim will be in rendering the system intelligible to his countrymen. Although Coleridge had thought out this philosophy, now, however, it is total loss to him in the minds of those who know not what was the truthfulness and dignity of his nature, as they will attribute to Shelling (and give Coleridge no credit whatever, though he may have devoted years to their development) any ideas that are expressed in the language of the German. However, after subtracting all that is expressed in the language of Shelling, he has enough left to embalm his name for ages to come; and that of a kind so unique, characteristic, and eminently original, as to afford no scope for friendship and admiration so incomprehensible as that of De Quincey, or the open attacks of the most malignant of enemies.

This article of De Quincey’s was not approved by Coleridge’s friends and relations; on the contrary, it roused their indignation and incurred their just resentment. “Defective sensibility” is something De Quincey is forever referring to, often to “depraved sensibility.” What madman would not have known he was injuring his friend by hauling into notice and retailing such stuff as this? Aggravating and augmenting it by his terse and vigorous mode of expression! The following passage from De Quincey, is enough to have brought upon himself perpetual infamy as the most traitorous of friends, and sufficient to have caused the outraged feelings of Coleridge’s friends, expressed in indignation, to have persecuted him to the grave; yet it is expressed in such language as exhibits an utter unconsciousness of the injury done, of the poison administered. In fact, the assumed attitude of the writer is that of a panegyrist, while his real attitude would be more truthfully compared to that of a venomous reptile, which charms its prey with beautiful visions only that its final attack may be more fatal—it is the song of the siren alluring to deadly rocks.

“Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed.” “Listen to this: “... I will assert finally, that having read for thirty years in the same track as Coleridge—that track in which few in any age will ever follow us, such as German metaphysicians, Latin school men, thaumaturgic Platonists, religious mystics,—and having thus discovered a large variety of trivial thefts, I do nevertheless most heartily believe him to have been as entirely original in all his capital pretensions as Archimedes in ancient days, or as Shakespeare in modern.” Did any one ever before hear such an insane compound of contradictions? “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” ’Tis “the juice of the cursed hebenon,” set forth in a glass of highly colored wine.

“No man can ever be a great enemy but under the garb of a friend. If you are a cuckold, it is your friend that makes you so, for your enemy is not admitted to your house; if you are cheated in your fortune, ’tis your friend that does it, for your enemy is not made your trustee; if your honor or good name is injured, ’tis your friend that does it still, for your enemy is not believed against you.”—Wycherly.

That De Quincey did this maliciously, I do not pretend to state; what I know of its animus I gather from the paper itself. But I can truly say, in the language of Julius Hare, “God save all honest men from such foremost admirers.” Whether he wanted to injure Coleridge or not, the result is the same—he did injure him. I am inclined to believe, however, that De Quincey’s article was well intended by him, but from defective sensibility his judgment was corrupted; he thought the honey he would infuse into the gall would annihilate its bitterness and leave the decoction sweet. He was mistaken. After proving Coleridge to be guilty of robbery, he could not convince the ordinary mind that he was an honest man. After having declared him to be guilty of a “large variety of trivial thefts” in literature, he could not induce people generally to believe him to have been “entirely original.” On De Quincey’s hypothesis, Coleridge was a thief and an honest man, a plagiarist and entirely original, at one and the same instant. This, ordinary readers would naturally have some difficulty in swallowing. But De Quincey might have spared himself this undertaking, and himself and Coleridge its injurious results (as it proved to be a two-edged sword and cut both ways), by making his early reading in the “Biographia Literaria” a trifle more extensive. There he would have seen that the “real and palpable case of plagiarism” was fully met and anticipated—averted, confounded, and explained; having noticed this, he might have thought these “trivial thefts” unworthy of mention. However, as the result stands to-day, Coleridge is a classic, and those who have any interest whatever in his compositions, being persons generally of some literary acquirements and judgment, are capable of judging of the originality and genuineness of his works, as he himself pertinently remarks, “by better evidence than mere reference to dates.”

I subjoin a copy of the prefatory remarks to which De Quincey refers, in stating that Coleridge, “aware of his coincidence with Shelling, declares his willingness to acknowledge himself indebted to so great a man in any case where the truth would allow him to do so,” etc. The reader will perceive that there is no such language in them; but he will see in them a complete refutation of the charge of plagiarism from Shelling, and an honorable acknowledgment of his indebtedness to that author.

“In Shelling’s ‘Natur-Philosophie and System des transcendentalen Idealismus,’ I first found a genial coincidence with much that I had toiled out for myself, and a powerful assistance in what I had yet to do. I have introduced this statement as appropriate to the narrative nature of this sketch, yet rather in reference to the work which I have announced in a preceding page than to my present subject. It would be a mere act of justice to myself, were I to warn my future readers that an identity of thought, or even similarity of phrase, will not be at all times a certain proof that the passage has been borrowed from Shelling, or that the conceptions were originally learned from him. In this instance, as in the dramatic lectures of Schlegel, to which I have before alluded, from the same motive of self-defence against the charge of plagiarism, many of the most striking resemblances, indeed all the main and fundamental ideas, were born and matured in my own mind before I had ever seen a single page of the German philosopher; and I might indeed affirm, with truth, before the more important works of Shelling had been written, or at least made public. Nor is this coincidence at all to be wondered at. We had studied in the same school, been disciplined by the same preparatory philosophy, namely, the writings of Kant. We had both equal obligations to the polar logic and dynamic philosophy of Giordana Bruno; and Shelling has lately, and as of recent acquisition, avowed the same affectionate reverence for the labors of Behmen and other mystics, which I had formed at a much earlier period. The coincidence of Shelling’s system with certain general ideas of Behmen, he declares to have been mere coincidence, while my obligations have been more direct. He needs to give Behmen only feelings of sympathy, while I owe him a debt of gratitude. God forbid that I should be suspected of a wish to enter into a rivalry with Shelling for the honors so unequivocally his right, not only as a great and original genius, but as the founder of the philosophy of nature, and the most successful improver of the dynamic system, which, begun by Bruno, was re-introduced (in a more philosophical form, and freed from all its impurities and visionary accompaniments) by Kant; in whom it was the native and necessary growth of his own system.... With the exception of one or two fundamental ideas which cannot be withheld from Fichte, to Shelling we owe the completion and most important victories of this revolution in philosophy. To me it will be happiness and honor enough should I succeed in rendering the system itself intelligible to my countrymen, and in the application of it to the most awful of subjects for the most important of purposes.

“Whether a work is the offspring of a man’s own spirit, and the product of original thinking, will be discovered by those who are its sole legitimate judges, by better evidence than the mere reference to dates. For readers in general, let whatever in this or any future work of mine that resembles or coincides with the doctrines of my German predecessor, though contemporary, be wholly attributed to him, provided, that in the absence of direct references to his books, which I could not at all times make with truth, as designating citations or thoughts actually derived from him—and which, I trust, would, after this general acknowledgment, be superfluous—be not charged on me as an ungenerous concealment or intentional plagiarism.” (See “Biographia Literaria.”)

Either in forgetfulness or ignorance of this “general acknowledgment,” which goes so far as to make over to Shelling anything and everything that may be found to resemble the doctrines of that author, the identical charge which he so honorably provides for, anticipates, and defeats, is brought against him; and by one professing to be a friend, and one of Coleridge’s “foremost admirers.” “Oh, shame, where is thy blush?” Now for the conclusion of this note.

It is my conviction that Coleridge had worked out, just as stated by him, “all the main and fundamental ideas” embraced in that part of Shelling’s system which appears in the “Biographia Literaria.” I believe that he had thought it out, but that the incubus of opium weighing down and poisoning the very springs of his energies with “all blasting” power, “o’ercrowed” his spirit and prevented his realizing in a palpable form, by publication, the knowledge he had accumulated. Thus Shelling got ahead of him, and being ahead, Coleridge was forestalled and estopped from developing to the world his philosophical acquirements. ’Twas thus he came to recommend Shelling’s system, and when writing the fragment of transcendental philosophy that appears in the “Biographia Literaria,” his and Shelling’s opinions being about the same, he expressed himself in the language of the latter.

He considered the subject as one in which all were interested, and the thought of “rendering the system itself intelligible to his countrymen,” for their benefit, so engrossed his mind as to render him less regardful of other questions involved in the matter than he should have been. “Rest perturbed spirit.”

THE END.

Footnotes:

[1] At that time. For the cause of this depravity, see theory of the “Confessions,” chapter xv.

[2] This was by hypodermie, and in the first stages. Taking it by mouth, it is not so much disposed to run off in this way; the stimulation is less evanescent and more stationary; still, one is more or less extremely nervous in the first stages, when under the stimulation of opium, no matter how administered.

[3] That is, after my rupture with the doctor; but about all that I have stated in this chapter must be referred to that period,—(to wit, ensuing after my break with the physician;)—save the remark touching the hypodermic syringe, which was interpolated and stands somewhat out of place, though intended as cumulative as to general suffering.

[4] See note at end of chapter.

[5] A very important incident in the life of an opium eater has been omitted here in the text, namely: the occasional recurrence of an overdose. This event is more likely to arise when one has been drawing rather heavily, than otherwise, upon his supply of opium. He gets clogged up and miserable,—and from too much; but then is the very hardest time to reduce, and, instead of diminishing the quantity, he, blind in his anxious search of happiness, takes more. He apparently notices no material difference at first, and may add still to this. But the night cometh, and with the shades of night the heavy and increased volume of soporific influence descends upon his brain; frightening him into a sense of the present, at least, if ineffectual as to the past or future. He dare not surrender himself to the pressure of sleep, lest he yield to the embrace of death. And so, in this anomalous condition, he passes the hours that relieve him of his dangerous burden. Never was man so sleepy, yet never sleep so dangerous. Scarce able to resist the temptation, which his stupefaction renders more potent in disarming his faculties and vitiating his judgment to some degree, he sits upon the edge of eternity. Now giving way, now rousing up frantically, he passes a terrible night. When the benumbing effects so torpify the mind that a man no longer appreciates the danger of his situation, he tumbles off into the everlasting. No sounding drum, or “car rattling o’er the stony street,” can awaken him now. No opium can hurt him. He furnishes an item for the morning papers, and an inquest for the coroner, and his affairs earthly are wound up.

[6] This is a mistake; it is another paper that is entitled “Greek Tragedy.”