acknowledged that he might have said | sense enough to discourage WordsColeridge's habits were a nuisance to worth from translating Virgil into the family. No doubt they were, and, verse. "To read page after page withof all people, Coleridge must choose out a single brilliant note depresses poor Mary Lamb for his confidences; me." and then indulge "in long weeping." Finally, in 1816, Coleridge really did Poets, as Mr. Arthur Pendennis achieve self-conquest in a manner, for truly remarks, do feel more acutely he put himself into the charge of Mr. than other people, and when they feel Gillman. This indicates unusual resothey do not groan soft, they groan lution for such unhappy tendencies are loud; like another hero of fiction. generally accompanied by an angry And then Mr. Sharon Turner, dining pride (as in Prince Charlie's case), and at Mr. Longman's, " trumpets abroad " a conviction that the patient is in the the story of the dispute. Finally to- right, and every one else in the wrong. day the wretched story is published His passions of repentance, though tryafresh, and we are to moralize the tale. ing, were not wholly false, his religious Wordsworth made a mistake. Mon-emotions were genuine, and with the tagu was an ass. Coleridge, really Gillmans he found a welcome which wronged, was too free in his lamentations. But the general result was to keep him at a distance from the salubrious influence of Wordsworth, as he was already remote from his wife, and from the charming children to whom he was warmly attached. A genius unexampled, both in volume, diversity, and distinction, a fond heart, a fascinating manner, all were given to Coleridge, and all actually, by some malignant spell, wrought against his happiness. He had more genius than half-a-dozen men could have used, and with it a mysterious martyrdom of pain. His first true love was thwarted, and his ardent friendship made him feel a breach as a less affectionate man could not have felt it. There came a new rupture with Wordsworth, or the old was revived. The success of his play, "Remorse," was a transitory gleam on a dark chaos of lectures, brilliant but unpunctual. Even Poole was unkind," and the Wedgwood annuity was diminished by one-half. We see Coleridge, as he says in a letter long since published, "beating pain by a constant recurrence to the vice that reproduces it." His self-accusations (p. 624) become maudlin and incredible. He had Tantalus dreams of books to be written which were never written. Nay, as Scott, in his last days, had fancies that his debts were already paid, Coleridge believed (or said) that these books were written. He retained lasted to the day of his death." As Mr. Ernest Coleridge finely says, "their patience must have been inexhaustible, their loyalty unimpeachable, their love indestructible." A note to p. 658 shows in the editor an honorable candor. As to Coleridge's later oracular days, his metaphysics, his "abysmal A-seity," it would ill become one to speak who is invincibly ignorant of the subject. Probably he was a great philosopher, as he was a great poet, a great if discursive critic, and (so Mr. Traill bears witness) almost a heaven-born political journalist. Only those who saw and heard him can have any conception of his "involuntary speech from involuntary brain action," as Miss Martineau calls his talk. Of that talk we have Carlyle's famous description. It began anywhere and ended nowhere, Carlyle thought. Keats has left a brief synopsis of two miles of monologue on dreams, with a ghost story. Carlyle's verdict is, of course, narquois, but it is certain that Southey, too, was disgusted by Coleridge's "loquacity." Southey had seen too much and heard too much of his brother-in-law. the living incarnate Coleridge seems to have been a phenomenon as extraordinary as the best of his actual works. Like Burns's, Byron's, and Poe's, his life is a lesson in the pains and sorrows of genius, but, lest we should think these essentially and inevitably allied But like a serrated spear-head, and is continued many miles farther west by a broken line of low rocks or reefs, of which not a few are quite under water. Lying near the edge of a cliff above the beautiful but terrible little Dead Men's Bay (Baie des Trépassés) I listen to with the highest powers, we have the examples of Shakespeare, Molière, Wordsworth, and Scott. Thus the interconnection of dread dreams with poetic vision, of absent self-control with poetic inspiration, remains as it was and will be - a riddle. The genius can exist without the aberra- the waves chanting the De profundis in tious, and the aberrations, unluckily, without the genius. sweeping breeze vainly tries to tear and scatter, and the melancholy samphire that clings in the crevices of the granite, seem to grow and bloom for the friendless dead. those caverns below where so many corpses have been left by the tide. The letters and notes contain a good Half converted by the influence of the deal of information about Coleridge's spot to the superstition of the Breton pecuniary affairs. These could not be fisherman, I fancy that I too can hear prosperous. Had he steadily lectured, the words "Domine, Domine," in the steadily contributed to the press, thunder of the waves as they roll into steadily finished his poems, and sent the darkness of the rock where the them direct to the printers, had he human waifs find rest until the next fulfilled any almost of his literary tide tosses and bruises them again. schemes, he might have supported Everything is sad or ghostly here. himself and his family in comfort. The pale pink flowers of thrift that the None of these things he did; he never took example by Southey, and he was aided again and again by friends or kinsmen. If he accepted money, at least he did not despise or detest the donors. He certainly had the contempt of wealth, which could give him nothing. For him life and the Muse were sufficient. I have not thought it necessary to go into these financial de-youder towards the west from the black tails minutely. But Mr. Ernest Coleridge displays an acquaintance with his ancestor's life so complete and accurate, that one can only end by adjuring him to write a full and authoritative biography, full, but not too long! His freedom from undue partiality, his candor, and family affection, fit him for the task, in which probably his philosophic studies enable him to dispense with the aid of a specialist in metaphysics.1 From Temple Bar. THE GRAVE OF THE DRUIDS. A WILD sea driven by a keen northwest wind is beating against the granite rocks at the Pointe du Raz in Finistère, which stretches out into the Atlantic 1 Readers interested in Miss Mary Evans will find, in the Athenæum of May 18, an interesting letter from Coleridge to that lady. They first met, after their parting, about 1808. "Truly happy From this bay, according to Celtic tradition, the dead Druids were embarked for burial in the Ile de Sein the largest of the reefs stretching away headland bristling with granitic spines. Here too, according to a tradition that may be Druidic or Christian, the ghosts of the drowned of all nations wander and weep until they are at rest. When the fisherman or peasant whose cottage is on this desolate coast hears through the shrieking and howling of the wind a knocking at his door in the night, he does not open it, but holds his breath and prays for the dead, because he fears that his visitor has left his body in the sea, and is now knocking with his unburied bones to obtain the dole of a prayer. From the Baie des Trépassés my thoughts wander on the track of the dead Druids, and I have a strong wish to cross the Raz to their grave, the Rock of Mystery, where the nine virgins interpreted the oracle, and where does it make me to have seen you once more, and seen you well, prosperous, and cheerful, all that your goodness give you a title to." Miss Evans was now Mrs. Todd. Doue va sicourit evit tremen ar Raz Ar vag a zo bihan, hag ar mor a zo braz. Here I may say that I met an elderly mariner on the Ile de Sein (where the purest Breton is supposed to be spoken) who told me that in the course of his voyaging he had met Welshmen and Scotchmen whom he could understand in their own language and who could understand him. His first experience of the kind was at some port in Wales, where to his great surprise he heard people speaking what he took to be Breton. "We were all English once," is a frequent saying of these Armoricans. sublime desolation inspired Chateaubriand to write one of his most vigorous pages of imaginative prose - the episode of Velléda in "Les Martyrs." The opportunity soon came. The inhabitants of the Ile de Sein (Enès Sûn, in Breton) have their annual Pardou early in May, and the priest who was to figure most prominently in the blessing of the sea and other ceremonies being an old friend whom I had met several years before in Brittany, I was offered a place in the boat that came over from the island to fetch him. Although the passage from the Pointe du Raz to the Ile de Sein may, under favorable circumstances, be made with- Our crossing the Raz was quite free out any risk, the islanders themselves, from peril, for there was scarcely wind however familiar they may become enough to fill the sails of the well-built with the currents and reefs, never lose fishing-boat which took us on board their respect for the Raz - as the rock-at Dead Men's Bay. As we passed strewn strait is named. How could a bevy of dark and sinister-looking corthey, when there is scarcely one of them who cannot speak of a father, a brother, or a cousin who was lost in it? Moreover, all of them know that there is a very strong probability that they will meet their own death in these by saying that this bird is peculiarly waters. Consequently the old Breton favored by God, inasmuch as it can fly, couplet which is on their lips from swim, dive, and walk. It really seems childhood expresses very nearly the to possess more faculties than it detruth: serves; but we know that the wicked have prospered from very ancient times, and the curé may have reasoned too hastily from appearances. Biscoas den me tremenes ar raz The literal translation is: morants perched upon a low rock, the curé disturbed my ideas- I was thinking that Milton was right in using the cormorant as an image of Satan, although sitting on trees is not its habit - We are now in the current. There No one ever crossed the Raz without fear are great waves here, although there is or hurt. In another and a better known couplet, likewise inspired by the dangers of the Raz, is to be found the religious feeling which is so strong in all the fishing population of Brittany, and is especially so in these islanders, who, being even now in no small measure under the influence of hereditary Druidism, have the liveliest faith in the supernatural. The words have all the beauty of simplicity : no more wind than there was before. When the boat drops down in the trough of the sea the land is lost. The current is rushing towards the north. The breeze is against it, and I am told that if it were as strong again the waves would be twice as high. We pass the spot where one of the islanders who are with us saw his father go down and another his brother. Can I wonder that their rough faces are solemn although there is no danger now? There is the great current God help me in crossing the Raz. The which flows to the north-west and to boat is little, and the sea is great. the south-east according to the tide, and there are lesser currents which flow back and form whirlpools round the rocks. Woe to the mariners who are driven by stress of weather into was at anchor in the harbor. The these waters! whole population of the island had mustered on the quay. Could these people, now so mild mannered, so hospitable, be the descendants of those terrible islanders who in the old wrecking days were said to be the worst wolves of the sea along the treacherous Breton coast ? On the highest point of the cliffs that we are leaving is one of those little chapels of which so many have been raised on the stern coast of Finistère. Dedicated to Notre Dame de Bon Voyage, it is held in great veneration by the fishermen of Auiernd and Douarnenez who pass the Raz in search of One of the first impressions of the sardines. When they come within visitor on reaching the Ile de Sein is sight of it, they will often chant the the apparent insecurity of the inhabDe profundis for their dead relatives itants. It seems as if one great wave and companions, or sing the Ave maris in no very extraordinary weather might stella for themselves. Although when sweep over the low rock and drown on land they are rarely quite sober, everybody. The people have been unless their pockets have been some badly frightened at different times time empty, they are always religiously when great storms have coincided with disposed when at sea. The immensity high tides. In 1865 they all gathered of the sky above and the depth of the sea below inspire reverence. The Breton fishermen are not then troubled by the desire to drink anything stronger than water. It is only when they set foot on laud that the weakness which is common to all of them returns. Rows of white-faced houses show above the water to the west. round the church in the belief that their last hour had come, for the sea was breaking over a considerable part of the island, and most of the houses being flooded, there was a dire panic. When the critical time was passed not an islander was tempted to emigrate to the mainland. All were resolved to They abide, whatever might befall them, on seem to rise from the waves. As a their wave-girt strip of land, where matter of fact, the land on which they their fathers and mothers had lived are built is only a few feet above the and died. Since then the quays built sea. Not a tree stands against the by the government have greatly rehorizon; not even a bush of tamarisk duced the risk of an inundation, and fringes the shore. On the northern have arrested the erosion of the everside, however, of the low strip of land wearing water. are some dark granite rocks worn by the beating waves into fantastic shapes. That was the sacred part of the island. It was there where the inspired virgins had their temple. Although the island is little more than a mile long and scarcely a quarter of a mile broad in its widest part, it supports a fixed population of about eight hundred. Strictly speaking it is the sea that supports them, for if they depended upon the resources of their rock they would very soon starve. The men catch various fish for their own use, but for the purchase of bread, clothes, and other necessaries they de Long before our boat could tack into the little port the single bell in the low church tower saluted the curé's arrival with a rapid ding, ding, ding, which borne upon the wind from such a desert reef had an effect as charming as it was strange. The bell, as I after-pend entirely upon lobsters and craywards learnt, was not rung by means of a rope, but was struck on the outside with a hammer by a boy who had been sent up into the open belfry to do this work. It is thus that the tocsin is often "rung." The fishermen had all come in before their usual time, and the fleet of smacks with flags flying VOL. VII. 331 LIVING AGE. fish, which are sent in great quantities to the mainland. The Paris market is largely supplied from this source. The archipelago of rocks and reefs forming what is called the Chaussée de Sein would be the watery paradise of crustacea if man were not there with his insidious trap of wickerwork which he An Ilien must be in a position of very craftily baits and lowers to the rugged | been very much that of a small distinct floor of the sea. Yet although this tribe. The reason of this is not diffifishery is said to represent an annual cult to explain. To a woman of the value of at least £12,000, the lobsters mainland marriage with a man of the and their congeners appear to be suffi- Ile de Sein practically means imprisonciently prolific to resist the constant ment for life on one of the smallest and drain upon their population. The fish- dreariest of inhabited rocks. Great ery has brought such prosperity to the sacrifices, as we all know, have been islanders that there is now little or no made for love, but those who have had poverty among them. It is true that to work for their living from childhood beggars are sometimes to be seen even and have had the daily trials of matrihere as they are everywhere in mony sternly impressed upon them by Brittany; but these are enterprising the example of toiling and struggling mendicants who come over from the parents, do not easily lose their heads mainland in order to give the islanders through foolish listening to their an occasional opportunity of practising hearts. Christian charity. They always remain until they have quite outworn exceptional comfort and prosperity for their welcome, and if their visit has him to be able to induce a girl of the been well timed they carry away a mainland to share his lot, with the goodly bundle of sous tied up in a rag only too likely prospect of being left a or the toe-end of an old stocking. young widow with children to rear. On the other hand, the Iliennes are rarely moved by the desire to leave their rock. When they go to the mainland- which is very seldom they are more scared than charmed by all the strange things that they see there. They feel very timid and shy, and are glad to get back to their treeless home amidst the waves, where they know everybody. They therefore find their husbands among the youths with whom they played in childhood. The people having been thus in the habit of marrying almost exclusively among themselves for centuries, the natural consequence is that they are all more or less blood relations. They might be described quite accurately as a population of cousins. Scarcely a marriage takes place but a dispensation has to be obtained owing to an impediment of consanguinity. From the beginning of May until the end of autumn the population is nearly doubled by immigrants from Paimpol and Conquet, fisher-people who come in their own boats, often with their wives and children and much of their household furniture. The voyage in the case of the Paimpolais is a long one and is always attended with some risk. But what difficulties and dangers will people not brave in order to earn a sure living? These wanderers, like the natives, give all their attention to lobsters and crayfish. The islanders show no ill-feeling towards the strangers, but readily afford them facilities for establishing a temporary home upon the rock. The Iliens, as the natives of the Ile de Sein are frequently termed, are more interesting from the ethnographical point of view than most Bretons; and yet their existence has hitherto It might well be supposed that a been almost overlooked by those who marked physical and mental degenertravel. Whether they are descendants ation of the race would have resulted of the Armorican Celts, who never from this long continued habit of interemigrated after their arrival from the marriage; but such is by no means the east or south in this corner of Europe, case. The islanders are superior in or whether they come from the stock physique to the fishing population that of those Bretons who were driven back one sees in the neighboring ports, and from insular to continental Britain by appear to be quite free from the tenthe Angles and Saxons, it is certain dency to deformity and idiotcy which that their position for centuries has forces itself upon the observer with |