The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Part 8

"To those," says he, "who design to acquire the language of a country in the country itself, it may be useful, if I mention the incalculable advantages which I derived from learning all the words that could possibly be so learnt, with the objects before me, and without the intermediation of the English terms. It was a regular part of my morning studies for the first six weeks of my residence at Ratzeburg, to accompany the good and kind old pastor, with whom I lived, from the cellar to the roof, through gardens, farm-yards, &c., and to call every the minutest thing by its German name. Advertis.e.m.e.nts, farces, jest-books, and conversation of children while I was at play with them, contributed their share to a more homelike acquaintance with the language, than I could have procured from books of polite literature alone, or even from polite society."

In support of this plan, he makes a quotation from the ma.s.sive folios of Luther--a pa.s.sage as he calls it of "_hearty_ sound sense," and gives the simple, sinewy, idiomatic words of the "original," with a translation of his own:

"For one must not ask the letters in the Latin tongue, how one ought to speak German; but one must ask the mother in the house, the children in the lanes and alleys, the common man in the market, concerning this; yea, and look at the _moves_ of their mouths while they are talking, and thereafter interpret. They understand then, and mark that one talks German with them."

Whether he owed his successful acquirement of the language to these plans adopted by him, or whether to his extraordinary powers of mind, it must be left to others to judge. To form any thing like an accurate opinion, it may be necessary to re-state, that during this fourteen months' residence, he acquired such a knowledge of the German, as enabled him to make that extraordinary translation of the Wallenstein, (which will be presently noticed), reading at the same time several German authors, and storing up for himself the means of becoming familiar with others, on subjects in which the English language was deficient. In addition to what in this short period he effected, I may say that some part of this time was employed in receiving many lessons from professor Tychsen, in the Gothic of Ulphilas, which, says he,

"sufficed to make me acquainted with its grammar, and the radical words of most frequent occurrence; and with the occasional a.s.sistance of the same philosophical linguist, I read through Ottfried's Metrical Paraphrase of the Gospel, and the most important remains of the Theotiscan."

Coleridge's Biographia contains the history and developement of his mind till 1816, when it was published; he called it his Literary Life, but of necessity it is intermixed with his biography, as he must have found it impossible to separate them. He had even half promised himself to write his own biography, but the want of success in his literary labours, and the state of his health, caused him to think seriously that his life was diminis.h.i.+ng too fast, to permit him to finish those great works, of which he had long planned the execution. The conception of these works was on such a scale, that even his giant intellect, with his great and continuous powers of application, could not have executed them. But to continue.--On his return to London, his first literary occupation was the translation of the Wallenstein, which he effected in six weeks, in a lodging in Buckingham-street, in the Strand; it was printed and published in 1800.

The MS. was purchased by Longman's house under the condition that the English Version and Schiller's Play in German were to be published at the same time. The play, as is well known to all German readers, is in three parts; the first part, the Camp, being considered by Coleridge as not sufficiently interesting to the British public to translate, it was not attempted; the second part, the Piccolomini, was translated with the occasional addition of some lines, in order to make out the thought when it appeared to require it, particularly in the Horological scene of the Watch Tower. In the last part the Death of Wallenstein is equally free, but the liberties taken with this play are those of omission.

German was not at that time cultivated in England, and the few plays which were translated, were but bad specimens of German Literature. The Wallenstein is an historical play, without any of those violent tragic events which the public expect to find in German plays, and this was one cause perhaps of disappointment.--It is a play of high thoughts-- enn.o.bling sentiments, and for the reflecting individual with good feelings, one of those plays, by which, even without reference to the story, the head and the heart are both benefited. There is no violent excitement produced, and in quiet thought one can dwell on it with pleasure. Coleridge truly prophesied its fate, for when translating it, he said it would fall dead from the press, and indeed but few of the copies were sold;--his advice to the publishers, whom he had forewarned of this failure, was to reserve the unsold copies, and wait till it might become fas.h.i.+onable. They however parted with it as waste paper, though sixteen years afterwards it was eagerly sought for, and the few remaining copies doubled their price; but now that the German language has become more general, and the merit of this translation been appreciated, it has been reprinted with success.

Since the visit of these remarkable men to Germany, the taste for German literature has each year slowly increased, so as to make it almost appear that they have given the direction to this taste, which in England has caused a free inquiry into the writings of German authors, particularly of their poets and philosophers for the one cla.s.s; and also into the interesting tales and stories to be found for the many who require such amus.e.m.e.nt.

The edition of Wallenstein, 1800, contains the following preface, which was afterwards abridged, but is here given as it was originally written; the first criticism on it was wholly made out of this preface, and these lines were quoted by the reviewer, in condemnation of the play and the translation, though it is well known that the critic was ignorant of German. The date of the MS. by Schiller is September 30th, 1799, the English is 1800. Coleridge indeed calls it a translation, but had it been verbatim, it would have required much longer time; take it however as we will, it displays wonderful powers; and as he noticed in a letter to a friend, it was executed in the prime of his life and vigour of his mind. Of the metre of this drama he spoke slightingly, and said according to his taste,

"it dragged, like a fly through a glue-pot. It was my intention," he writes, "to have prefixed a life of Wallenstein to this translation; but I found that it must either have occupied a s.p.a.ce wholly disproportionate to the nature of the publication, or have been merely a meagre catalogue of events narrated, not more fully than they already are in the play itself. The recent translation, likewise, of Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War, diminished the motives thereto. In the translation, I have endeavoured to render my author literally, wherever I was not prevented by absolute differences of idiom; but I am conscious, that in two or three short pa.s.sages, I have been guilty of dilating the original; and, from anxiety to give the full meaning, have weakened the force. In the metre I have availed myself of no other liberties, than those which Schiller had permitted to himself, except the occasional breaking up of the line, by the subst.i.tution of a trochee for an iambus; of which liberty, so frequent in our tragedies, I find no instance in these dramas.

The two Dramas, Piccolomini, or the first part of Wallenstein, and Wallenstein, are introduced in the original ma.n.u.script by a prelude in one act, ent.i.tled Wallenstein's camp. This is written in rhyme, and in nine syllable verse, in the same lilting metre (if that expression may be permitted) with the second eclogue of Spencer's Shepherd's Calendar. This prelude possesses a sort of broad humour, and is not deficient in character, but to have translated it into prose, or into any other metre than that of the original, would have given a false idea, both of its style and purport; to have translated it into the same metre, would have been incompatible with a faithful adherence to the sense of the German, from the comparative poverty of our language in rhymes; and it would have been unadvisable, from the incongruity of those lax verses with the present state of the English public.

Schiller's intention seems to have been merely to have prepared his reader for the tragedies, by a lively picture of the laxity of discipline, and the mutinous disposition of Wallenstein's soldiery. It is not necessary as a preliminary explanation. For these reasons it has been thought expedient not to translate it.

The admirers of Schiller, who have abstracted their idea of that author from the Robbers, and the Cabal and Love plays, in which the main interest is produced by the excitement of curiosity, and in which the curiosity is excited by terrible and extraordinary incident, will not have perused, without some portion of disappointment, the dramas which it has been my employment to translate. They should, however, reflect, that these are historical dramas, taken from a popular German history; that we must therefore judge of them in some measure with the feelings of Germans, or by a.n.a.logy with the interest excited in us by similar dramas in our own language. Few, I trust, would be rash or ignorant enough, to compare Schiller with Shakspeare, yet, merely as ill.u.s.tration, I would say, that we should proceed to the perusal of Wallenstein, not from Lear or Oth.e.l.lo, but from Richard the Second, or the three parts of Henry the Sixth. We scarcely expect rapidity in an historical drama; and many prolix speeches are pardoned from characters, whose names and actions have formed the most amusing tales of our early life. On the other hand, there exist in these plays more individual beauties, more pa.s.sages the excellence of which will bear reflection than in the former productions of Schiller.

The description of the Astrological Tower, and the reflections of the young lover, which follow it, form in the original a fine poem, and my translation must have been wretched indeed, if it can have wholly overclouded the beauties of the scene in the first act of the first play, between Questenberg, Max. and Octavio Piccolomini.

If we except the scene of the setting sun in the Robbers, I know of no part in Schiller's plays, which equals the whole of the first scene of the fifth act of the concluding play. It would be unbecoming in me to be more diffuse on this subject. A translator stands connected with the original author by a certain law of subordination, which makes it more decorous to point out excellencies than defects; indeed, he is not likely to be a fair judge of either. The pleasure or disgust from his own labour, will mingle with the feelings that arise from an after view of the original poem; and in the first perusal of a work in any foreign language, which we understand, we are apt to attribute to it more excellence than it really possesses, from our own pleasurable sense of difficulty overcome without effort. Translation of poetry into poetry is difficult, because the translator must give a brilliancy to his language without that warmth of original conception, from which such brilliancy would follow of its own accord. But the translator of a living author is enc.u.mbered with additional inconveniences. If he render his original faithfully, as to the 'sense' of each pa.s.sage, he must necessarily destroy a considerable portion of the 'spirit'; if he endeavour to give a work executed according to laws of 'compensation', he subjects himself to imputations of vanity, or misrepresentation. I thought it my duty to remain by the sense of my original, with as few exceptions as the nature of the language rendered possible."

About this time, or soon after his return from Germany, the proprietor of the Morning Post, who was also the editor, engaged Coleridge to undertake the literary department. In this he promised to a.s.sist, provided the paper was conducted on fixed and announced principles, and that he should neither be requested nor obliged to deviate from them in favour of any party or any event. In consequence, that journal became, and for many years continued, 'anti-ministerial, yet with a very qualified approbation of the opposition, and with far greater earnestness and zeal, both anti-jacobin and anti-gallican. As contributors to this paper, the editor had the a.s.sistance of Mr.

Wordsworth, Mr. Southey, and Mr. Lamb. Mr. Southey, from his extreme activity and industry, with powers best suited for such employment, with a rapidity and punctuality which made him invaluable to the proprietor, was the largest contributor. The others not possessing the same qualifications, although extremely powerful in their way, were not of the same value to the proprietor.

To Coleridge, he continued liberal and kind, and Coleridge appreciated his talents; often has he been heard to say, if Mr. Stuart "knew as much of man as he does of men, he would be one of the first characters in Europe." The world, and even that part of it, who either receive pleasure, or are benefited by the labours of literary men, often seem to forget how many there are who being compelled to work during the week for the provision of the week, are (if not possessed of much bodily strength) unfit to continue further mental exertions; nor can they find the leisure and repose necessary to produce any work of importance, though such efforts must always be found so much more congenial to the feelings of a man of genius. Whatever his enemies or his more envious friends may choose to have put forth, it was to him a most painful thought, particularly as he had made literature his profession, to have lived in vain. This feeling sometimes haunted him, and when the feelings are gloomily disposed, they often become in their turn depressing causes, which frequently ended in a deep and painful sigh, and a renewal of his laborious and inspiring thoughts as an antidote. The severest of his critics have not pretended to have found in his compositions triviality, or traces of a mind that shrank from the toil of thinking.

A respectable portion of literary talent will secure the success of a newspaper, provided that it impartially adheres "to a code of intelligible principles previously announced, and faithfully referred to in support of every judgment on men and events." Such were the opinions and feelings by which the contributors to this paper, as well as the proprietor was influenced during this period; and to these causes, as well as from the talents of the editor and of the writers, it mainly owed its success. Papers so conducted do not require the aid of party, nor of ministerial patronage. Yet a determination to make money by flattering the envy and cupidity, and the vindictive restlessness of unthinking men, seems frequently to have succeeded, not confining itself to the daily press, but diffusing itself into periodicals of a different stamp.

"I do derive," says Coleridge, "a gratification from the knowledge, that my essays have contributed to introduce the practice of placing the questions and events of the day in a moral point of view. In Burke's writings, indeed, the germs of all political truths may be found. But I dare a.s.sume to myself the merit of having first explicitly defined and a.n.a.lysed the nature of Jacobinism; and in distinguis.h.i.+ng the Jacobin from the Republican, the Democrat, and the mere Demagogue," ('vide Friend'.)

Whilst Coleridge retained the opinions of the Unitarians, or rather preached among them, they hailed him as the rising star of their society, but when he seceded from them on his change of opinions, many of them bruited his name in execration. Not so was it with Mr. Estlin and other amiable and intelligent men, they understood him, and felt he had acted on the full conviction of his mind, and that he was acting conscientiously when he declined the opportunity of possessing a fixed income, of which he stood so much in need. Those who knew him, knew how much he suffered, and how painful it was for him to have differed with such a friend as Mr. Estlin, one to whom he had been indebted for many kind offices: But Coleridge was too sincere a man to dissemble.--There were however others, who, from motives and feelings not honourable to them, dissemblers even in Unitarianism, who sought every opportunity of defaming him, and attempted to strip him of his virtues, and of his genius, by calumny and detraction. In this, however, they were foiled.

On the other hand, the party more inclined to favour fanaticism, were so indiscreet in their praise as to become in their turn equally injurious to his character, and verified the old adage, that indiscreet friends are too often the worst of enemies; for this party considered his conversion as nothing less than a special miracle. It was impossible for a mind so philosophical and so const.i.tuted, to remain long in the trammels of a philosophy like Hartley's, or to continue to adhere to such a subst.i.tute for Christianity as Unitarianism; like the incarcerated chicken, he would on increase of growth and power, liberate himself from his imprisonment and breathe unenc.u.mbered the vital air, the pabulum of animal life, which by parallel reasoning, Coleridge was aiming at in a spiritual life. From such a subst.i.tute for Christianity, that imitation so unvitalizing in its effects, the studiously industrious and sincere man will recoil; but the vain and superficial man will find much in it for the display of his egotism, and superficial knowledge. Often did he remark when conversing on these subjects, there was a time, when

"I disbelieved down to Unitarianism, it would have been _more honest_ to have gone farther, to have denied the existence of a G.o.d! but that my heart would not allow me to do."

But to this subject we shall have occasion to return. The mind which grows with its culture, seeks deeper research, and so was it with his.

Certainly, one of the effects of his visits to Germany, was to root up whatever remained of the Mechanical Philosophy of Hartley, after whom he had named his eldest son, and to open to his mind in philosophy new and higher views, and in religion more established views. But change with the many, though the result of conviction and the growth of truth, is still a change; and with the unthinking, it deteriorates from the character of a man, rather than as it should do elevate him,

... unless _above_ himself he can Erect himself, how mean a thing is man!

DANIEL.

In the years 1783, 1784, and 1786, Bishop Horsley wrote some of the tracts in controversy with Priestley, upon the historical question of the belief of the first ages in OUR LORD'S Divinity, which are collected in one volume, with large additional notes, dated 1789.

In a memorandum 'book', made by Coleridge, it appears that he never saw nor read this volume, till some time in 1805; therefore his views were not altered by the bishop's reasoning, but had undergone a great change previously.

Horsley's writings carry with them a conviction of their truth. His clear though concentrated style rivets the attention, and forcibly impresses the mind, with his depth of learning, and at the same time inspires the feeling of its practical utility. He was an opponent most aptly suited to Priestley. The times however greatly favoured the latter; the discoveries of Lavoisier, led the way to the study of chemistry, which became fas.h.i.+onable and generally cultivated, and with its brilliancy dazzled the mult.i.tude. Priestley displayed considerable expertness and fitness for the practical application of the discoveries of others; and he added also to the new ma.s.s of facts, which were daily presenting themselves, and thus science became enriched, enriching at the same time the pockets of the manufacturers, exciting national industry, and adding considerably to the national property. Priestley's researches and discoveries gave an irresistible weight to his name, and had an undue influence, as we shall presently see, in the arguments or opinions he advanced. This, Horsley foresaw, and felt, and therefore built his arguments on the permanent, in order to subdue the creatures founded on the impermanent and other worthless idols of the mind's forming.

How the world were delighted and wonder-struck by the supposed discovery, that it was the province of vegetable life to supply the vital air, which animal life destroyed! Priestley was hailed as the wonder of his age, and for a while its oracle. He was however no ordinary being, and even his enemies admitted him to be a kind and moral man. His intellectual powers will speak for themselves. We have now had sufficient experience to see how s.h.i.+fting all kind of theory must be when left to the will and ingenuity of man only--and how unsafe a guide in questions of importance as the one now referred to. Horsley saw the weak points of Priestley's argument, and was not to be dazzled and put aside by Priestley's philosophical display. Horsley fearlessly entered into this controversy, like a man who felt his own strength, and particularly the strength of his cause; though he needed not the courage of a Luther, he was apparently a man who possessed it, if called on. He used the best means to silence his adversary [27], with the Bible before him as his s.h.i.+eld, (but at the same time his support as well as defence,) from behind which he a.s.sailed his opponent with his Biblical learning so powerfully, that his first attack made Priestley feel the strength of his adversary. In vaunting language, Priestley made the best defence which he thought he could, but not the most prudent, by promising to answer his opponent so efficiently, as to make him a convert to his doctrines. But in this vaunting prediction, that he would not only answer his opponent satisfactorily, to all who were interested in the controversy, but convert him to his opinions, it need not be added he failed, so completely, and at the same time displayed such a "ridiculous vanity," as to deprive him of that influence which he had so overrated in himself. Horsley's letters seem particularly to have attracted Coleridge's attention, and to have caused him to make one of his concise, pithy and powerful notes as a comment on this letter of Horsley's, ent.i.tled, "The Unitarian Doctrine not well calculated for the conversion of Jews, Mahometans, or Infidels, of any description." [28]

The following is Coleridge's Comment on the Letter, to which allusion has been made, and from the date seems to have been written during his residence at Malta:

"February 12, 1805.--Thinking during my perusal of Horsley's letters in reply to Dr. Priestley's objections to the Trinity on the part of Jews, Mahometans, and Infidels, it burst upon me at once as an awful truth, what seven or eight years ago I thought of proving with a 'hollow faith', and for an 'ambiguous purpose', [29] my mind then wavering in its necessary pa.s.sage from Unitarianism (which, as I have often said, is the religion of a man, whose reason would make him an atheist, but whose heart and common sense will not permit him to be so) through Spinosism into Plato and St. John. No Christ, no G.o.d! This I now feel with all its needful evidence of the understanding: would to G.o.d my spirit were made conform thereto--that no Trinity, no G.o.d!

That Unitarianism in all its forms is idolatry, and that the remark of Horsley is most accurate; that Dr. Priestley's mode of converting the Jews and Turks is, in the great essential of religious faith, to give the name of Christianity to their present idolatry--truly the trick of Mahomet, who, finding that the mountain would not come to him, went to the mountain. O! that this conviction may work upon me and in me, and that my mind may be made up as to the character of Jesus, and of historical Christianity, as clearly as it is of the logos, and intellectual or spiritual Christianity--that I may be made to know either their especial and peculiar union, or their absolute disunion in any peculiar sense. [30]

With regard to the Unitarians, it has been shamelessly a.s.serted, that I have denied them to be Christians. G.o.d forbid! For how should I know what the piety of the heart may be, or what quantum of error in the understanding may consist, with a saving faith in the intentions and actual dispositions of the whole moral being, in any one individual?

Never will G.o.d reject a soul that sincerely loves him, be his speculative opinions what they may: and whether in any given instance certain opinions, be they unbelief, or misbelief, are compatible with a sincere love of G.o.d, G.o.d only can know. But this I have said, and shall continue to say, that if the doctrines, the sum of which I 'believe' to const.i.tute the truth in Christ, 'be' Christianity, then Unitarianism' is not, and vice versa: and that in speaking theologically and 'impersonally', i.e. of Psilanthropism and Theanthropism, as schemes of belief--and without reference to individuals who profess either the one or the other--it will be absurd to use a different language, as long as it is the dictate of common sense, that two opposites cannot properly be called by the same name.

I should feel no offence if a Unitarian applied the same to me, any more than if he were to say, that 2 and 2 being 4, 4 and 4 must be 8."

Biog. Lit. vol. ii. p. 307.

[Footnote 1: In his 'Literary Life,' Mr. Coleridge has made the following observation regarding talent and genius:

"For the conceptions of the mind may be so vivid and adequate, as to preclude that impulse to the realising of them, which is strongest and most restless in those who possess more than mere 'talent' (or the faculty of appropriating and applying the knowledge of others,) yet still want something of the creative and self-sufficing power of absolute 'Genius'. For this reason, therefore, they are men of 'commanding' genius. While the former rest content between thought and reality, as it were in an intermundium of which their own living spirit supplies the 'substance', and their imagination the ever-varying 'form'; the latter must impress their preconceptions on the world without, in order to present them back to their own view with the satisfying degree of clearness, distinctness, and individuality."

Vol. i. p. 31.]

[Footnote 2: In consequence of various reports traducing Coleridge's good name, I have thought it an act of justice due to his character, to notice several mistatements here and elsewhere, which I should otherwise have gladly pa.s.sed over.]

[Footnote 3: Coleridge was always most ready to pa.s.s a censure on what appeared to him a defect in his own composition, of which the following is a proof:--In his introductory remarks to this Greek Ode, printed in the Sibylline Leaves, he observes:

"The Slaves in the West Indies consider Death as a pa.s.sport to their native country. This sentiment is expressed in the introduction to the 'Greek Ode on the Slave Trade,' of which the Ideas are better than the language in which they are conveyed."

Certainly this is taking no merit to himself, although the Ode obtained the Prize.]

[Footnote 4:

"At the beginning of the French Revolution, Klopstock wrote odes of congratulation. He received some honorary presents from the French Republic (a golden crown, I believe), and, like our Priestley, was invited to a seat in the legislature, which he declined: but, when French liberty metamorphosed herself into a fury, he sent back these presents with a palinodia, declaring his abhorrence of their proceedings; and since then be has been more perhaps than enough an Anti-Gallican. I mean, that in his just contempt and detestation of the crimes and follies of the revolutionists, he suffers himself to forget that the revolution itself is a process of the Divine Providence; and that as the folly of men is the wisdom of G.o.d, so are their iniquities instruments of his goodness."

'Biographia Literaria,' vol. ii. p. 243.]

[Footnote 5: Coleridge in the 'Friend,' says: