A LETTER OF COLERIDGE'S.

DE

[HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.]

E QUINCEY judges Samuel Taylor Coleridge's to have been "the largest and most spacious intellect, the subtilest and most comprehensive, that has yet existed among men;" and Lowell says that he had "the finest metrical sense since Milton." Others describe his conversation-dreamy, wandering, ethereal, exalted-as having a wondrous charm, unheard from any other lips. He held his listeners often in a kind of rapture, so magically fascinating were his words.

All that such a man wrote has a peculiar interest; and the interest is all the greater when that which he wrote touches upon subjects near to his heart, is illustrative of his traits, and reflects his mental life. The hitherto unpublished letter given below is full of his poetic sensibility and sensitiveness, and abounds with the evidences of his literary genius. Better than all, it shows the greatness and tenderness of his heart, which was full of the charity about which he talks, and which was easily wounded by the misconception of it by men.

your house. But one of the sine qua nons of this
is that all should be even and clear betwixt you
and me; and therefore I entreat, not merely
your attention to this letter-that I am sure you
will give-but your perusal of it under the influ-
ence of a previous self-determination to a gentle
and friendly state of mind. Wherein I deemed
myself to have erred in former years I told you
shortly after the renewal of our acquaintance,
and in a very different tone, I am conscious, from
that in which I should have related the same
things of a friend, or even of an indifferent per-
son; for it was not my object to palliate, and it
is most painful to me at all times to be talking
of myself. This has been repeatedly my answer
to Mr. and to Mrs. G, when facts have arisen
and come to their knowledge which were confu-
tations of calumnies, and presented my conduct
in a new and favorable light. It is too hateful
to my nature, I have said. I am conscious that
I have injured no man; been kind (alas! improv-
idently so) to all within my sphere of power;
that I have never practically resented or retorted
the most grievous wrongs; and, finally, that with
the exception of the having been unwittingly se-
duced into the dread necessity of taking narcot-
ic and antispasmodic drugs, and of their conse-
quences, namely, the occasional prostration of
strength, and the uniform exacerbation of a sensi-
bility and a cowardice in inflicting pain which were
too strong before. And, permit me to add, the an-
guish of my mind concerning which, my anxiety
to warn others against the like error in the very
commencement, and the total absence of all con-
cealment, have been, far more than the thing it-
self, the causes of its being so much and so ma-
lignantly talked about. (For instance, who has
dared blacken Mr. Wilberforce's good name on
this account? Yet he has been for a long series
of years under the same necessity. Talk with
any eminent druggist or medical practitioner,
especially at the West End of the town, concern-
ing the frequency of this calamity among men
and women of eminence.)

Except this only, and after humbling myself in sackcloth and ashes before my Redeemer, I could rise up and to my fellow-men declare aloud, I have been an innocent man!

Coleridge began the unhappy habit of taking opium, according to De Quincey, at Malta, in 1804; but others who have written of him say that it was earlier in his history. De Quincey says that he first used this drug, not as a relief from pain or irritation, but as a source of luxurious sensations. Coleridge himself often denied this, and impliedly denies it in the letter below given. This letter was drawn out by the scandals which reached Coleridge's ears as having been circulated by his enemies on account of his use of opium. It is addressed to a near friend, whom these scandals had apparently influenced to treat Coleridge with coldness, to say the least. It is a most eloquent and tearful appeal to his friend to exercise charity toward him. Incidentally the letter refutes-if we may give credit to Coleridge's testimony in behalf of himself-De Quincey's charge that he was a plagiaBut I ask no palliation, no interference of rist. Indeed, De Quincey seems to have labor-friendliness or of allowance, for all that period ed to cast, in many things, reflections upon his friend, and thus to have misled the world with reference to Coleridge's true character. It is to aid in rehabilitating that character, to give an insight into the real heart of a poet whose verses must be read still for many generations, and who will long be loved for his verses, that I have thought it best to publish this beautiful essay, which, written in 1817, has lain neglected and silent for over half a century among other letters of his, to re-appear now as a witness in his favor. BOSTON, 1871.

G. M. T.

LETTER FROM S. T. COLERIDGE TO R-F

DEAR SIR,-This creeping along the coast, and passing for three or four hours every day through a current of changed air, has already evinced its healing powers, and I believe that tranquillity alone is wanting to bring me back at least to the state of health which I enjoyed when I dined at

which has passed since the day I made the arMessrs. G and F. Would that I could rangement with you as the representative of as thoroughly defend my cause on the side of duty owing by me to myself; or acquit myself of exceeding my strength, both of body and mind, from the anxious desire to give you satisfaction, and the terror of even appearing to break a promise, conditional only, as I understood it to be, and as, in the very nature of my powers, it must have been, viz., that I would use my utmost exertions, and that, judging from what I had been able to do on former occasions, I believed that I should be able to finish the tract within the time specified.

I have, therefore, but one request to make of you-that you would review the whole with your own eyes, and through an air cleared of all the mists of prejudice which have steamed up from the swamps of slander. "Lie boldly," says Lord Bacon in his aphorisms; "something will be sure to stick." "Lie boldly," said an Italian; "if

If the circumstance were such as required it -above all, if it were a third person of whom I was speaking to you-I would go farther, and assume the privilege of a Christian friend in pointing out to you the many ill consequences which I have observed from the harshness and hastiness of censure too often exercised by men who, having been themselves bred up in an outward strictness (such, I mean, as distinguishes the stricter Dissenters from the members of the Established Church, in the rejection of theatres, cards, balls, etc.), and have afterward betaken themselves, of their own impulse, to a religious life-the sharpness, I say, exercised by such men toward minds struggling toward the light with sincere aspirations, but whose habit from infancy had been so different.

it be only believed for a single day, it will not be | therefore, take a part for the whole, appearances without effect." The most ample confutation for truths, and neither make allowance for the can only heal the wound, but not prevent a scar; far greater part that they can not see, nor for and a calumny of a man talked of by thousands, the prejudices of false perspective with which and, from his habits of retirement, known to few, they see what little they do see. The Christian is a sort of mule breed, with malignity for its likewise interprets the whole by a part, but he male parent, and the credulous lust of gossiping does it in love and hope and humility; he for its dam-the cockatrice, or flying serpent of takes in (in his scheme of probability) his neighthe prophet, which owes its venomed sting and bor's aspirations for good, his principles; and piebald color (the black uppermost, and the lu- in his judgment of his neighbor he still tries to rid white below and almost out of sight) to the counterbalance the sum or rule of temptations scorpion, its father, but its wings to the foolish yielded to by the unknown weight of those which bird, its mother. I blame you not. Spite of have been resisted! I have had proof, he says ourselves, let any occasion or misunderstanding to himself, that my neighbor loves the lighthave disturbed the temper or heated us, and that as often as he has been called upon to deformer influences rush in upon the mind; yea, liberate, and then to decide, he has given proofs even those to which we had given no voluntary that neither money nor the world's praise can conscious assent. bribe him. St. Augustine had been a sensualist in his youth and early manhood. What! Shall we call his deeds of this kind actions, and yet deny that name to all his painful hours of study and composition, and to the works which resulted from them-to works which benefited myriads, while his worst actions (alone so called) had injured himself chiefly? Will a Christian forget what such a man might have made himself in the world, if he had devoted such learning, talents, and genius to the world? Will he forget, or set down as nothing, that, knowing all this, and with very brilliant preferment and other lure held out to him industriously, he preferred obscurity and the necessity of laboring for the bread of the day? No! The Christian will endeavor to take in all that the man has earnestly wished and attempted to do; and as long as his neighbor can not err with impunity to his own mind, as long as he sees in him no vices of impurity or hatred (vices that are certain symptoms of what a man is, and not mere instances of what he has done), as long as he finds his neighbor kind and gentle, and eager to serve and benefit his fellow-creatures, and without selfishness-at least without any conscious selfishness, with no other selfishness than what is perhaps involved in every act of weakness, as, for instance, the weakness of sacrificing his own interests (therein failing in some duty to his friends and family) to the present distress of some one present connection or acquaintanceso long will the Christian hope and believe well of his neighbor, and act accordingly. The needle trembles, indeed, and has its dips and declinations, but it is pointing to the right pole, or struggling to do so; and as long as God does not withdraw his polar influence, nor the soul its polar susceptibility, I must not dare withdraw my love-no, "not for seventy times seven."

Oh, what anxiety of loving-kindness and forbearance does not Christ command, and St. Paul recommend and exemplify! It is this reflection which makes me wish that all the more severe professors would impose it on themselves as a duty first to study the history of the Donatists, and, indeed, of all those parts of ecclesiastical history which record the sad exchange of minor immoralities-faults of carelessness and weakness - for spiritual vices, for impatience, haste in exclusion or abandonment of a weaker brother-in short, want of love, and hollowness of heart in the habitual phrases of self-crimination and self-debasement, the fiftieth part of which, if truly, deeply, and practically felt, would be more incompatible with anger and harsh judgment toward others than water with fire.

Secondly, to study more deeply and meditatively our Saviour's doctrine concerning the heart, and what is meant thereby. "Ye shall be judged by your actions." Who said this? He who, as God, knew the heart in the right of his Father's omniscience, and of his own, and to whom, therefore, the whole visible and invisible being of the agent is contained in what that Judge will deem to be his actions. "Ye shall be saved by faith," said the mere, the inspired, mortal, the Apostle of the Gentiles; for man, as concerning others, must construe actions by outward deeds-which latter are indispensable parts; but woe for those who take them as the whole, or who overrate them!

Even in this life, observes an excellent writer, the Christian is distinguished from the man of the world, as well as from the Pharisees, in this that the latter judge their neighbor solely by what he does, the former by what he is. The latter,

I will conclude these general remarks with a few words respecting myself. I am not, I have it not in my power to be, an author of mechanism. My human will is confined exclusively to the one act of earnest commencement-of attempting, and of persevering in the attempt. Sheet afters heet do I often cancel or obliterate, which in the way of trade might have done as well or better; but I dare not send off what dissatisfies my own judgment, and this without the least thought of or reference to literary reputation. I can not write, no, not even for a newspaper, the commonplaces of the age, or what is supplied to me by memory, by passive recollection of other men's writings. It must be my own to

the best of my consciousness-the result of ear- | every emotion and experience that belong to nest meditation and an insight into the principles. These two points lie sadly in the way of profit, and even of my inward comforts and ease of mind; yet I dare not even wish them to be otherwise. I dare not even wish to compose with the facility of appropriation from the books and the conversation of others that Southey possesses. This does not lessen Southey's merits or my sense of his wider immediate utility; but I am not Southey-and according as it is given to each, each must act.

The third and last point is a grievous calamity, which I would fain have otherwise, but can as little effect the change as I can make myself taller, or give myself strong nerves. It is this: that in the thing itself I had the only aiding motive; and with regard to motives ab extra, what would be a stimulant to persons in general is to

me a narcotic.

S. T. C.

SPECIMENS OF BOYS ABROAD.

A

our human life. Why is it that we know so little about them? Is it because we neglect to observe or question them, or because there is very little to observe or question in them, and their minds have not come out enough to let us see what they are, or to judge what they are likely to become? They certainly are not philosophers or historians, and we can not expect to read their full characters and prospects now, when it is so difficult for those of us who are of very sober years to see ourselves truly, and know how much or little is in us, and how well or ill we are to do within the time that still remains to us. Yet boyhood is deserving of far more careful study than it usually wins; and instruct boys, it is a pity that so little is and while so many books are written to amuse written to show what boys actually are, and to make their own notions, tempers, and ways tell their story and intimate their career.

Most probably the priestly masters of the confessional have a good deal to say on this subject, and could tell us some facts that parents and teachers too often overlook; while the sagacious physician must have important data to communicate, alike from the nature of the

DISTINCTION is sometimes made by philosophical writers between the historical and the non-historical races; and while the Jews and Greeks head the historical races, and their ideas and annals run through the whole record of mankind, and unite in our new civil-boy's constitution, and observation of his counization, the Africans from the south of Egypt and Morocco take the lead among the non-historical races, who are not supposed to have added any thing to the intellectual capital of mankind, or made any mark upon its history. Yet these backward people are undoubtedly to have their day, which will bring their obscure pupilage into notice, and so make their whole career historical. May we not trace something of the same distinction in the periods of our personal life? and do not children belong to the unhistorical class until maturer years bring them into full human fellowship, and throw light and meaning upon their early days? Boys in themselves are not historical as such-for they do not write their own history-and little or nothing is known of them until they become men, and they and the world at large care to know, and, perhaps, record how the traits of the famous man can be seen in the promise of the boy.

What an immense power is in this way now entering the field in Europe and Americathese millions of boys who have not yet begun to speak and write for themselves, or have any part in the history of the age, but who in six or seven years will begin to act upon public opinion, and in ten or twelve years have the fortune of the world very much in their hands! Some half a dozen of them will be the great men of the twentieth century, and every incident and trait of their present character, circumstance, and conduct will become famous in history and poetry, painting and sculpture. | Our boys who are now fourteen years old will in seven years be voters, and in ten years will be entering that twenty-fifth year which is said to bring with it generally a full initiation into

tenance and habits. A very important book might be made upon the general subject from all the various sources, and it might be made interesting as well as instructive by giving full accounts and illustrations of the dress, manners, usages, plays, and education of boys in all ages and countries, with, perhaps, some eye to the unity of race and tendency that appears to run through the career of all the sons of Adam in that boyish period which their great progenitor never passed through. Perhaps because Father Adam never was a boy he sowed his wild oats later than most of his sons, and yielded to the cunning of the groveling serpent at a time of life when the best of them have learned something of the wisdom of the winged dove. He, poor man, never learned to play as we have done, and we ought to make large allowance for his short-comings from his want of the schooling that comes with a boy's sports, and fits him to take the ups and downs of life as they happen. This matter of boyish sports is of itself a great subject, and might be treated in a new way-by considering them in their bearing on the health and strength; the intellect and will, as well as in their relation to the seasons of the year. The boy's year is a great subject, surely, for poet and philosopher, moralist and historian, artist and naturalist, to illustrate.

I have no idea of beginning any such undertaking, but only wish to give a few stray notes of observations of boys in Europe as far as my memory will serve me. I am sorry that I did not think more seriously of the subject at the time, and go more where boys most congregate for study or play, that I might mark more fully their ways and tempers. It is somewhat mem

of them is long enough in the arms to reach
the water, and his shorter-limbed companion
is content with touching the other's wet fin-
gers, then crossing himself, and so taking the
blessing by proxy. This looked to me like an
honest proceeding, and the dirt of these boys
did not blind me to their act of devotion, for
there is ample historical proof that devotees
may be very dirty, and that loss of cleanliness
is not loss of church caste.
But the pompous
beadle did not seem to take so mild a view of
their presence, and before his uplifted staff and
ominous frown the poor fellows took to their
heels. Who they were I could not tell; but
they evidently had their school-books with
them. Yet to an American it was wholly in-
comprehensible how such begrimed hands and
faces could have passed muster in any place
called a school. How they should seem so to
love the Church and yet be repelled by its offi-
cials, was also a puzzle to me. In fact, the
whole relation of the Romish Church to the
people of Paris is a riddle; for nowhere in Eu-
rope does the Church appear to be so beautiful,
and so fully and freely open to the people, and
nowhere does there appear to be less hearty
affection between the Church and the mass of
the people (especially the men) than there.
These beautiful edifices, whose doors are actu-
ally opened wide in summer a great part of the
day, so that you can see the altar from the
street, and you are thus called to read as you
run and worship as you work, have been again
and again assailed and pillaged by the populace,
and this, too, not merely in the old reign of
terror, but in these new days of liberality and
toleration. Whether these dirty boys would
have liked to crack the crown of that domineer-
ing beadle, or lift their hand against the priests
of St. Germain Church, from which they were
driven, I can not say, although no love went
with that rapid exodus, I am sure.

orable that you do not see so many boys about | iron railing, and by reaching forward toward the streets in England as here at home. They the consecrated element there; but only one seem to be kept out of the way, and a good deal under authority, instead of being left to themselves so much as with us. The guideboard that pointed the way to Rugby, and the view from Windsor Castle that brought the towers of Eton so fully into sight, suggested how much a visitor might learn of English ways and hopes by visiting those two great schools where so many of the men of England have been boys, and who have learned to use their fists and legs as well as their heads and tongues; but I did not venture within those classic precincts, and had to be content with what has been so often and so well said of their inmates, with the addition of a hint here and there that extremes meet in the characters of the urchins who bear up the hope of the future there, and that while many noble young fellows take a bold stand for religion, there are cases quite in the other direction, which show that school training and church worship do not wholly keep out the world, the flesh, and the devil from those privileged boys. Stranger traits to an American present themselves in quarters less auspicious, and it is startling to find in England bright and industrious boys quite willing to work, but yet wholly without education, and indebted to some chance charity even for their knowledge of reading and writing. In Germany education is more thorough and general, yet the English habit of keeping boys under the thumb seems to prevail, as, in fact, it prevails throughout Europe. In Southern Germany, where the Roman Catholic religion is so prominent, the Church seems to take direct control of the education of children and youth, and every morning you can see schools going through their drill before the altar, and saying the creed and catechism as our school-children say the spelling-book and go through their reading lessons. Among the rural villages of Germany you see more that looks like our American life; and in Saxon Switzerland, as it is called, the boy who asks you to hire his horse, and who undertakes to be your guide, is as quick and sharp as if he had been trained to turn a penny in Boston or New York.

In France you do not meet many of the better class of boys about the streets; nor are those scape-graces the gamins of Paris-as conspicuous in quiet times as the descriptions of some travelers would lead you to suppose. You find some specimens of the French boy so peculiar as to puzzle you to know where to place them. Look, for instance, at those two fellows that are coming into the famous church of St. Germain, and who are as dirty as chimney-sweeps, and with a sharpness of eye and quickness of motion that might mark them as adepts in thieving or any sort of mischief. What are they about there-to say their prayers or to pick pockets? They seem to settle the doubt and define their position by going to the great basin of holy water, which stands within an

In Switzerland an American feels more at home than any where else, so far as the mind and ways of the people are concerned. They are an independent, industrious, and go-ahead race in the main, and their boys have much of the American love for education and thrift. The whole of the rural population, men, women, and children, seem bent upon picking up the pennies in the traveling season; and the boys use their spare hours after school in carving wood toys, selling them, with fruits and milk and honey, to travelers, and doing what they can to help on the great business of guiding travelers on their way, and looking after them in general. I saw the Swiss school boys and girls in great force at the grand national jubilee at Geneva in September, 1869; and it was not difficult to imagine that the spectacle was a scene in New England or New York, so thoroughly was the idea of popular education taken for granted, and so heartily did every body seem to think that liberty meant treating every body