COLERIDGE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 306, 19 September 1908, Page 12

COLERIDGE.

There aro two distinct standards by which the relative greatness of, authors may bo measured..- One of them is so simplo that it may be'eihployed by any amateur in criticism, the other so subtle that its results, oven when it is applied by a critic of almost superhuman sympathy and discernment, must always remain very largely a matter of sheer speculation. The former is tlm standard of actual achievement, tho latter the standnrd of intellectual potentiality. Judged by ' tho former standard, the greatest English writers of tho last century wero undoubtedly Scott, Wordsworth, Carlyle, Ruskin, Dickons, and Tennyson, in each of whom genius of an absolutely high order was exercised to its highest possible extent, and in a certain definito direction. Tho other standard may bo at onco frankly abandoned in. tho ease of thosa who wroto

1 little or nothing, and whoso reputation, rcst- ! ing solely upon hearsay or opinion, must ; soon become tho shadow of a shade. Even . speculation must havo material to go upon. 1 And the instances, not numerous but signi--1 ficant, of those whose imaginative powers s have dried up with the sap of youth, and • who at forty have already outlived their fame, ! practically forbid any, conjectures conccrn- , ing the potential achievements of poets cut ; off before their prime. Tho standard of - potentiality, then, is applicable only to an ; author who lias reached the grand climac- ; teric—who has produced a fairly large body i of work, somo of which at loast is repre- • sentative.of his powers—and who has been i prevented only by infirmity of body or of : purpose, or of both, from a full, final, and > unequivocal display of his genius. The only i European author to whom this description • answers in all its details is ho whoso sad ■ and, as it seemed to himself, painfully futile ! oxistence camo to an end seventy-four years i ago, and to whom his grandson, with exquisite appropriateness, has applied the epithet that he himself had applied to Shakespeare. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is without question " tho myriad-minded man " of the nineteenth century. Poo's contention that a Jong poem is no poem has puzzled not a few critics. What ' about Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton? The answer is that an epic or a poetical drama consists of a series of short and selfcomplete poems, strung together by an art which the dramatist or epic poet possesses, but in a degreo proportionate to his poetical powers, along with the historian or the novelist. ' This interpretation of Poo's dictum performs a double servicej it saves the faces of tho great constructive poets, a_ud at the same time secures Coleridge his rightful place immediately below tho highest seats of Parnassus. If sheer beauty of imagination and language wore the only test his place would be tho highest of all. But-in the estates of poetry tho representative house is tho upper one, and the smaller, arid it is doubtful if any member has been returned to it since Burns. Coleridge is, at any rate,"the premier peer in the lower house, among thoso who represent only themselves or their own intellectual class. His best poetry is the most poetical ever written; and even his worst, though painfully marred by tho intrusion of his moralising vein, is always beautiful. An impartial (providence has not denied to any nation tho right of representation in the upper house of poetry. But in tho lower house a special place is reserved for certain poets, like Vaughan, Coleridge, and, in certain of his moods, Wordsworth, tho understanding of whom demands a curious supernumerary sense of poetry which appears, so far as can be judged, to havo been granted only to those in whom Anglo-Saxon reverence is exquisitely refined and stirred by Celtic imagination. There are certain species of insects whoso stridulations are apparently above tho aural register of any other species; and, iu like manner, there are notes in English poetry that are totally inaudible to tho keenest foreign ear. Coleridge's- best poetry is almost entirely composed of these super-treble notes. M. Lcmaitro tolls us that Racine, again, sings upon a register out of- tho British compass. We accept without- question M. Lemaitre's explanation of our non-appreciation of R?.6ino, and would beg of our French friends to do us a liko courtesy as regards Coleridge. To us, at any rate, he remains the highest possible expression of pure, almost abstract poetry, ■' It would hardly be correct, and it would certainly be barely intelligible, to say that Coleridge was as great a critic as ho was a poet. But ho certainly covorcd a wider field as critic than he did as poet. Ho could not writo dramas, y'ot his dramatic criticism remains by far tho most profound in the English language. Ho was one of the first English writers to' abandon tho formal and conventional stylo, of criticism that characterised tho two groat British reviews, and to adopt the psychological and analytic method initiated long before in Germany by Lessing, Herder, Schiller, and Goetho. His essays on Shakespeare aro masterpieces of spiritual insight, and his appreciations of Wordsworth constitute an almost complete system of poetical aesthetics. He did far more than oriticise; ho practically retraced tho mental processes of poets and dramatists; and his demonstrations, ' or experiments, plainly' show that • had volition and tenacity —and perhaps passion—not been lacking, ho might himself have _ emulated tho worthiest objects of liis criticism. , His ono defect as a critic was his intolerance of . work that did not fit in with his own preconceived notions of pootry. A myriad-mind, ono would imagine, might havo opened at some point or another to tho long-resounding march of Dryden, and realised that in tho scale of reasoning life there must bo somowhero such a bard as Fopo. A great part of Coleridgo's philosophy is intricately involved in his aesthetic criticism. Unravelled from that, it is found to bo, almost inextricably wound up with Christian apologetics. Freed from that, again, it' is discovered to be composed mainly of artfully woven borrowings or suggestions from German philosophers. De Qnincey roundly charged Coleridge with plagiarism. The charge was unfair. But it is certain that Coleridge combined a very hazy vorbal me- 1 mory with an almost supernatural power of assimilating ideas. He was not, oven potentially, a great creative philosopher, but he 1 was . .potentially , a great re-creative philosopher. Tho dream of his. life was to harmonise with tho Christian beliofs which' the . imaginative appeal of Anglicanism, .had endeared to him, a coordination of the othical which tho Gerriian philosophers had evolved in sedulous detachment from a religion .that presented itself to them, in the cold and uninspiring guise of Luthoranism. Had Coleridge resolutely carried out the scheme to the inevitable point of demonstrated failure, ha would havo left a work that, in the modifying hands of a bolder and yet more cautious thinker might havo been moulded into a great system of Christian philosophy. But perseverance and moral courage were both lacking. Tho light that should havo been the dawn of English philosophy wasted itself in intermittent flashes, and went out behind a cloud of lethargic despondency. Tho philosophical life-work of Coleridge is still to do. It will bo dono only when heaven performs the miracle of endowing another hnman being with all Coleridge's qualities and none of his defects.— "Glasgow Herald." i , '• , . :