The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 34

"Frogs," interposed Musaello, "must have been experimental philosophers, and experimental philosophers must all transmigrate into frogs."

"The scheme will not be yet perfect," added Gelon, "unless our friend Empeiristes, is specially privileged to become an elect frog twenty times successively, before he reascends into a galvanic philosopher."

"Well, well," replied Empeiristes, with a benignant smile, "I give my consent, if only our little Mary's fits do not recur."

Little Mary was Gelon's only child, and the darling and G.o.d-daughter of Empeiristes. By the application of galvanic influence Empeiristes had removed a nervous affection of her right leg, accompanied with symptomatic epilepsy. The tear started in Gelon's eye, and he pressed the hand of his friend, while Musaello, half suppressing, half indulging, a similar sense of shame, sportively exclaimed, "Hang it, Gelon! somehow or other these philosopher fellows always have the better of us wits, in the long run!"

JEREMY TAYLOR.

The writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor are a perpetual feast to me. His hospitable board groans under the weight and mult.i.tude of viands. Yet I seldom rise from the perusal of his works without repeating or recollecting the excellent observation of Minucius Felix. 'Fabulas et errores ab imperitis parentibus discimus; et quod est gravius, ipsis studiis et disciplinis elaboramus'.

CRITICISM.

Many of our modern criticisms on the works of our elder writers remind me of the connoisseur, who, taking up a small cabinet picture, railed most eloquently at the absurd caprice of the artist in painting a horse sprawling. "Excuse me, Sir," replied the owner of the piece, "you hold it the wrong way: it is a horse galloping."

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

Our statesmen, who survey with jealous dread all plans for the education of the lower orders, may be thought to proceed on the system of antagonist muscles; and in the belief, that the closer a nation shuts its eyes, the wider it will open its hands. Or do they act on the principle, that the 'status belli' is the natural relation between the people and the government, and that it is prudent to secure the result of the contest by gouging the adversary in the first instance?

Alas! the policy of the maxim is on a level with its honesty. The Philistines had put out the eyes of Samson, and thus, as they thought, fitted him to drudge and grind

Among the slaves and a.s.ses, his comrades, As good for nothing else, no better service:--

But his darkness added to his fury without diminishing his strength, and the very pillars of the temple of oppression--

With horrible convulsion, to and fro, He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew The whole roof after them with burst of thunder, Upon the heads of all who sat beneath; Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, and priests, Their choice n.o.bility.

The error might be less unpardonable with a statesman of the continent;--but with Englishmen, who have Ireland in one direction, and Scotland in another; the one in ignorance, sloth, and rebellion,--in the other general information, industry, and loyalty, verily it is not error merely, but infatuation.

PICTURESQUE WORDS.

Who is ignorant of Homer's [Greek (transliterated): Paelion einosiphullon] Yet in some Greek ma.n.u.script hexameters I have met with a compound epithet, which may compare with it for the prize of excellence in flashing on the mental eye a complete image. It is an epithet of the brutified archangel, and forms the latter half of the verse,--

[Greek: Kerkokeronucha Satan]

Ye youthful bards! compare this word with its literal translation, "tail-horn-hoofed Satan," and be shy of compound epithets, the components of which are indebted for their union exclusively to the printer's hyphen. Henry More, indeed, would have naturalized the word without hesitation, and 'cercoceronychous' would have shared the astonishment of the English reader in the glossary to his 'Song of the Soul' with Achronycul, Anaisthaesie, &c. &c.

TOLERATION.

The state, with respect to the different sects of religion under its protection, should resemble a well drawn portrait. Let there be half a score individuals looking at it, every one sees its eyes and its benignant smile directed towards himself.

The framer of preventive laws, no less than private tutors and school-masters, should remember, that the readiest way to make either mind or body grow awry, is by lacing it too tight.

WAR.

It would have proved a striking part of a vision presented to Adam the day after the death of Abel, to have brought before his eyes half a million of men crowded together in the s.p.a.ce of a square mile. When the first father had exhausted his wonder on the mult.i.tude of his offspring, he would then naturally inquire of his angelic instructor, for what purposes so vast a mult.i.tude had a.s.sembled? what is the common end?

Alas! to murder each other,--all Cains, and yet no Abels!

PARODIES.

Parodies on new poems are read as satires; on old ones,--the soliloquy of Hamlet for instance--as compliments. A man of genius may securely laugh at a mode of attack by which his reviler, in half a century or less, becomes his encomiast.

M. DUPUIS.

Among the extravagancies of faith which have characterized many infidel writers, who would swallow a whale to avoid believing that a whale swallowed Jonas,--a high rank should be given to Dupuis, who, at the commencement of the French Revolution, published a work in twelve volumes, octavo, in order to prove that Jesus Christ was the sun, and all Christians, worshippers of Mithra. His arguments, if arguments they can be called, consist chiefly of metaphors quoted from the Fathers.

What irresistible conviction would not the following pa.s.sage from South's sermons (vol. v. p. 165.) have flashed on his fancy, had it occurred in the writings of Origen or Tertullian! and how complete a confutation of all his grounds does not the pa.s.sage afford to those humble souls, who, gifted with common sense alone, can boast of no additional light received through a crack in their upper apartments:--

Christ the great sun of righteousness and saviour of the world, having by a glorious rising, after a red and b.l.o.o.d.y setting, proclaimed his deity to men and angels; and by a complete triumph over the two grand enemies of mankind, sin and death, set up the everlasting gospel in the room of all false religions, has now changed the Persian superst.i.tion into the Christian doctrine, and without the least approach to the idolatry of the former, made it henceforward the duty of all nations, Jews and Gentiles, to worship the rising sun.

This one pa.s.sage outblazes the whole host of Dupuis' evidences and extracts. In the same sermon, the reader will meet with Hume's argument against miracles antic.i.p.ated, and put in Thomas's mouth.

ORIGIN OF THE WORSHIP OF HYMEN.

The origin of the worship of Hymen is thus related by Lactantius. The story would furnish matter for an excellent pantomime. Hymen was a beautiful youth of Athens, who for the love of a young virgin disguised himself, and a.s.sisted at the Eleusinian rites: and at this time he, together with his beloved, and divers other young ladies of that city, was surprized and carried off by pirates, who supposing him to be what he appeared, lodged him with his mistress. In the dead of the night when the robbers were all asleep, he arose and cut their throats. Thence making hasty way back to Athens, he bargained with the parents that he would restore to them their daughter and all her companions, if they would consent to her marriage with him. They did so, and this marriage proving remarkably happy, it became the custom to invoke the name of Hymen at all nuptials.

EGOTISM.

It is hard and uncandid to censure the great reformers in philosophy and religion for their egotism and boastfulness. It is scarcely possible for a man to meet with continued personal abuse, on account of his superior talents, without a.s.sociating more and more the sense of the value of his discoveries or detections with his own person. The necessity of repelling unjust contempt, forces the most modest man into a feeling of pride and self-consciousness. How can a tall man help thinking of his size, when dwarfs are constantly on tiptoe beside him?--Paracelsus was a braggart and a quack; so was Cardan; but it was their merits, and not their follies, which drew upon them that torrent of detraction and calumny, which compelled them so frequently to think and write concerning themselves, that at length it became a habit to do so. Wolff too, though not a boaster, was yet persecuted into a habit of egotism both in his prefaces and in his ordinary conversation, and the same holds good of the founder of the Brunonian system, and of his great namesake Giordano Bruno. The more decorous manners of the present age have attached a disproportionate opprobrium to this foible, and many therefore abstain with cautious prudence from all displays of what they feel. Nay, some do actually flatter themselves, that they abhor all egotism, and never betray it either in their writings or discourse. But watch these men narrowly; and in the greater number of cases you will find their thoughts, feelings, and mode of expression, saturated with the pa.s.sion of contempt, which is the concentrated vinegar of egotism.

Your very humble men in company, if they produce any thing, are in that thing of the most exquisite irritability and vanity.

When a man is attempting to describe another person's character, he may be right or he may be wrong; but in one thing he will always succeed, that is, in describing himself. If, for example, he expresses simple approbation, he praises from a consciousness of possessing similar qualities;--if he approves with admiration, it is from a consciousness of deficiency. A. "Ay! he is a sober man." B. "Ah! Sir, what a blessing is sobriety!" Here A. is a man conscious of sobriety, who egotizes in 'tuism';--B. is one who, feeling the ill effects of a contrary habit, contemplates sobriety with blameless envy. Again:--A. "Yes, he is a warm man, a moneyed fellow; you may rely upon him." B. "Yes, yes, Sir, no wonder! he has the blessing of being well in the world." This reflection might be introduced in defence of plaintive egotism, and by way of preface to an examination of all the charges against it, and from what feelings they proceed. 1800.[1]

Contempt is egotism in ill humour. Appet.i.te without moral affection, social sympathy, and even without pa.s.sion and imagination--(in plain English, mere l.u.s.t,)--is the basest form of egotism,--and being 'infra' human, or below humanity, should be p.r.o.nounced with the harsh breathing, as 'he-goat-ism'. 1820.

[Footnote 1: From Mr. Gulch's commonplace book. Ed]