Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1853-04-16
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS
The COMPLETE WORKS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR CoIERrpoE
WuA introductory Essay upon his Philosophical and
Theological, Opinions. Edited by Professor SHEDD In
seven volumes New York. Harper Bros. 1863,
IN a PRECEDING Dotiss Of tAesc volumes We took
occasion To offer our readers very cursory and
necessarily imperfect sketch Of the most striking
passages in the life Of this brilliant thinker and
writer. We adverted to his precocious youth, his
moody and ftful temper in early life, his weak and
fragile Frame his fokeness of purpose his habit of
mulhfarious reading, his laxity OF mental discp-
line, and that deporable weakness of will which
long rendered him powerless to resist the drift Of
sens llal Indulgence. 1t would seem that Coleridge
tou ehed all the depths of frailty and sorrow that
pei tain to common humanity, and his name will
eV remain among the fttest to be quoted by all
ho seek to points moral for the comfort of the
t sss highly endowed mass Of the race. Uneasy
les the head that crown" whetherit it be the
ron one of Cbarlemagne or the laurel wreath of
Petrarch. Eminence in staSesmanship and eleva-
tion Of genius have generally proved alike fatal to
rthe repose of their possessors for 1t seems lmpos
sibie to worship at the shrine of ambition of the
MUSES., and yet preserve the simple tastes and plea
sures which compose the greatest happiness of the
greatest number fact, by the way, which may
help US to explain why the "pure democracy, Z
having this ltimatum ever In view, should seek to
put an extirguisher on all abnormal and presuInp-
tuous greatness, by keeping America ''young" and
makingeven her giants little y for, if the great
of the earth have generally been unhappy, it clearly
becomes the duty of our Benthamite Locofoeoism
ito reduce the number of great men to the lowest
possible cypher.
In turning our attention from the life of Cole
ridge to his works, the first thing that strikes our
regard is the cumulative reputation he has won in
the threefold characters of the poet the metaphy-
sician, and the theologian. Critics have been en-
barrassed, as Prof Shedd very Justly observes, by
the remarkable universally of his genius and the
wonderful variety of his productions and have gene
rally confined themselves to one side of his mind.
Those, and they are the great majority, who have
been impressed by the rich and exhaustless imagina-
ton Of Coleridgs and by his contradictions to the
lighter and more beautiful forms of literature, have
lamented that so much of the power and vigor of
his intellect should have been enlisted philosophy
while the lesser number who have been stimulated
and strengthened by his profound speculations, as
they have been by contemporaneous English
writer, have regretted that the poetic nature pre-
vented that singeness of aim and unity of pursuit
which might have left as the record of his life a
philosophic system, to be placed beside those of
Plato and Kant. There have been greater poets
than Coleridge, greater theologians, and greater
metaphysicans, but no other man, in all the history
of literature has SO successfully combined the three
we do not except Goethe himself the many-sided" !"
genius of Germany, for if he was superior to Cole
ridge in poetry he greatly his inferior in philo
sophical speculation and theological lore.
Metaphysical acumen is rarely united to the
",vison and the faculty divine" at least such is the
inference we are permitted to draw from the history
of literature. The Aristotles and the Leibnitzes,
the Lockes and the Hegels, who have scared
ag HIGH
As metaphysic wit can fly,
have never culled flowers on Parnassus dabbed in
the waters of Helicon neither was Homer Virgil,
SO far as we informed very astute in psycholo-
gy. In spite of all this however, it was one of the
,dogmas of Coleridge that no was ever yet a
great poet without being at the same time pro
found philosopher" and we think that little re-
fection will make it appear that the remark, how
ever exaggerated has yet at its basis partial truth
Who, for instance can read Plato and yet ignore
the poetic element which, as it were embathes all
his IDEAS philosophy; or on the other hand, who
will not confess that Milton, he reasons on fix
cd fate, free will, fore-knowledge absolute" does
sometimes merge the poet into the The
philosophical and the poetca temperament not il
would seem, wholly Incompatible however rarely they
have been united in single individual But their joint
tendency when thus combined is render the individual
and poetry metaphysical and his metaphysics poecal
The subjective character Of Millions poetry for instance
has doubtless its origin the metaphysical studies Of that
deep thinker as well as sublime poet In proportion as
poetry to be objective, it tends to assume phio-
sophie of thought which results rather from the
poets inner life than from his observation Of the outer
world it becomes the poetry Of IDEAS as that of Homer is
the poetry Of things Now, think 1t quite possible that
agreat poet Of the subjective order must be, as Cole
ridge asserts, profound philosopher while It is to
us equally apparent that the great objective poet is rem
dered simply impossible by the prevalence Of philoso-
phcal spirit We have therefore only restrict the ap-
pcaton Of Coerdges remark to subjective poetry and
may then be conceded that man was yet great
poet being at the time profound philosopher
Did our limits admit such discussion we would next pro-
ceed to show in the oetry Of Coerdge that
ncure which he has contrived to infuse into the war;
and woof Of his imaginative productions after which w
might offset his metaphysical verse by tracing in his NH
osopbica specuaons the many threads Of poetry which
run through their entire fabric like golden tissue Bu
as such investigation might prove curious thar
instructive pass Mt TO contemplated review
of Coleridges philosophical teachings and opinions.
As philosopher man perhaps has ever had warme,
admirers jealous opponents than Samuel Taylor
Coerdge There is class who have their lance ever il
rest ready to do battle in behalf Of his peerless excel
lence and faultless perspcacity these profess to b
the esoerc disciples his school, and at discard al
recusancy as to his infaiby by mpung it to the crit
cal ncapacity of the proesans themselves We are to
not to measure the finest Of his wheat by shaov
bushe nor must We seek to pick the notes that OBJ