here was, to examine more at leisure the unfinished Mausoleum of Don Emanuel, of which we know nothing but from Murphy's draughts; and judging only from them, we quite agree with Mr. Beckford, that it is an ugly affair, and promising in its completion to be uglier still. Up to this point, every thing is intelligible enough; the censure applies to particulars only; but, in the subjoined criticism, it seems to take a wider range.

Saxon crinklings and cranklings are bad enough; the preposterous long and lanky marrow-spoon-shaped arches of the early Norman, still worse; and the Moorish horse-shoe-like deviations from beautiful curves, little better. I have often wondered how persons of correct taste could ever have tolerated them, and batten on garbage, when they might enjoy the lovely Ionic, so prevalent in Greece, the Doric grandeur of the Parthenon, and the Corinthian magnificence of Balbec and Palmyra. If, however, you wish to lead a quiet life, beware how you thwart established prejudices.'

Our readers will be amused with another view of this subject, taken by a man less versed, probably, in the details of architecture than Mr. Beckford, but with an eye as keen and quick for its character and effect.

The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable. It is, no doubt, a sublimer effort of genius than the Greek style; but then it depends much more on execution for its effect. I was more than ever impressed with the marvellous sublimity and transcendent beauty of King's College Chapel. It is quite unparalleled.'-Coleridge's Table Talk.

We differ from both these gentlemen, but are not 'i' th' mood', just now, to discuss the matter. We have reached our limits; and though we are only at the eighth day, we must cut short all intermission' between us and the conclusion. The season of departure from the hospitable Alcobaça was rendered additionally gloomy by certain sharp censures which it behoved the visitant priors to pronounce on some darkly-hinted proceedings of the monks. Then came a visit to a bird-fancying old lady, and a night spent at the Caldas, or hot-baths. These rapidly shifting scenes close at the palace of Queluz, where Mr. Beckford ran races for the amusement of the Infanta Donna Carlotta, and had the honour of an interview with the Prince Regent.

Art. III. Specimens of the Table Talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In two Volumes 12mo., pp. lxxi. 631. London, 1835.

THE Editor of this strange medley has done his best to damage the memory of his principal. Saturated, himself, with the meanest prejudices, both political and ecclesiastical, he has

exhibited his dear uncle and father-in-law' as a fiery, coarse, and one-sided' declaimer against Whigs and Dissenters-men guilty of no other crime than that of having presumed to adopt and avow opinions at variance with the creed patronized by this patient Tibbald' of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The individual who takes upon himself, without authority express and direct, to record for public use the confidential household-talk of another, who is no longer living to contradict or correct, acts under a résponsibility which cannot, in the present instance, have been rightly estimated. In the excitement and unpremeditating freedom of intimate intercourse, many, very many, thoughts and expressions are thrown out, which the speaker might not choose deliberately to justify; or which he would, at least, think it right to moderate, either in phrase or in feeling, before he gave them dispassionately to the world. Now we can readily allow, and without any excessive mortification, that Coleridge did not like Whigs and Dissenters, inasmuch as they see no sufficient reason for adopting his dogmas in matters either of doctrine or policy; but we refuse to believe in the 'rabid insolence' with which he is here represented as expressing himself in reference to men as pure in motive as he could claim to be, as clear in intellect, and far superior in knowledge of men and things. We are well aware, (for we have stumbled on other instances of the same sort,) how easy it is, by selection and juxta-position, to give an offensive colouring to that which might have been either quite innocent in itself, or deprived of much apparent coarseness by the circumstances under which it was said, the mode in which it might be explained, or the special facts to which it was applied. At all events, when we are called upon to view in an unfavourable light, a character we have been accustomed to regard with other feelings, we may be allowed to sift the authority, and, when we find it questionable, to reject or qualify it as we may think fit. Having then been accustomed to cherish a high and sincere admiration of Coleridge, with all his faults, (and they were many,) we will not suffer the miserable perversities of an avowed partizan to change our sentiments. We reject his authority as suspicious. We prefer no charge of direct falsification, but we believe, and on no slight grounds, that the general effect of his representations is partial and erroneous.

The 'Preface' is a long-by comparison at least—and rather wordy affair, betraying much irritability and vindictive feelingfortunately, however, in a matter with which we are not called upon to meddle any further than to say, that the charges of plagiarism, whether important or not, have received no satisfactory reply. Some attempt is made to explain and illustrate Coleridge's modes of thinking and expression, but it does not seem to have been un

dertaken in a right spirit, nor is it conveyed in very intelligible language.

Throughout a long-drawn summer's day,' we are told, ‘would this man talk to you in low, equable, but clear and musical tones, concerning things human and divine; marshalling all history, harmonizing all experiment, probing the depths of your consciousness, and revealing visions of glory and of terror to the imagination; but pouring withal such floods of light upon the mind, that you might, for a season, like Paul, become blind in the very act of conversion. And this he would do, without so much as one allusion to himself, without a word of reflection on others, save when any given act fell naturally in the way of his discourse; without one anecdote that was not proof and illustration of a precious position ;-gratifying no passion, indulging no caprice, but with a calm mastery over your soul, leading you onward and onward for ever through a thousand windings, yet with no pause, to some magnificent point in which, as in a focus, all the partycoloured rays of his discourse should converge in light.'

If our readers, like ourselves, should happen to think these fine phrases not quite so clear and definitive as the occasion might seem to demand, they may try another specimen.

I have seen him at times when you could not incarnate him,-when he shook aside your petty questions or doubts, and burst with some impatience through the obstacles of common conversation. Then, escaped from the flesh, he would soar upwards into an atmosphere almost too rare to breathe, but which seemed proper to him, and there he would float at ease. Like enough, what Coleridge then said, his subtlest listener would not understand as a man understands a newspaper; but upon such a listener there would steal an influence, and an impression, and a sympathy; there would be a gradual attempering of his body and spirit, till his total being vibrated with one pulse alone, and thought became merged in contemplation ;

And so, his senses gradually wrapt

In a half sleep, he'd dream of better worlds,
And dreaming hear thee still, O singing lark,
That sangest like an angel in the clouds.'

6

Our readers will be by this time prepared to hear, that there were some whom Coleridge tired, and some whom he sent asleep. These, it is true, were narrow and ungenial' spirits:-still they may be forgiven, since the number of those affectionate disciples', to whom he was as an 'old master of the Academy, or Lyceum,' seems to have been exceedingly small. Few, we are told, knew much of the constitution of his mind' in anything be'low the surface; scarcely three or four ever got to understand it in all its marvellous completeness.' And we take it, that even this three or four' might have employed their superhuman powers of attention better than in listening, throughout a longdrawn summer's day,' to language beautiful, no doubt, but in

VOL. XIV.-N.Ş.

volving processes of reasoning confessedly protracted and obscure. We acknowledge ourselves to have but little faith in propositions that will not admit of simple and succinct statement. Thought, like a watch-spring, is most powerful when most compressed.

We have felt an inclination to connect with these volumes a regular review of Coleridge's works, of which the series, complete or nearly so, lies before us. Such an investigation might be so conducted, as to throw much light on the history of his mind, and to explain not a few things that are now somewhat mysterious. For the present, however, we abstain: circumstances may occur to render such an exposition more advisable than at present, and we may then resume the design. In the mean time, we shall restrict this article within brief limits. There would be no difficulty in lengthening it indefinitely, for these volumes, though small in bulk, are well charged with the materials of controversy; but the assault, so far as we are involved in the hostilities, is too feeble to provoke an energetic effort in the way of retaliation. Neither shall we trespass largely on the work for extracts, since it has already suffered so much, in other quarters, from that branch of conveyancing, that we may well leave it without further depredation. Concerning the general value of these adversaria, without rating them at the extravagant worth claimed for them by the Editor, and most assuredly without giving him credit for sound judgement in his selection, we may characterize them as containing much interesting matter, with a very considerable alloy of baser metal. Coleridge had read both deeply and excursively, and his studies had made him conversant with curious and unusual learning: he was at home among the Fathers, the Schoolmen were his familiars, and the antique philosophy his daily bread. Hence, his critical discussions are of the highest value, and at the furthest possible remove from that common currency which has been passed from hand to hand, till all character and expression are effaced; or from those vague and conventional phrases which, in these days of high, but hollow pretension, are become the average substitutes for genuine information. The portions of these volumes which refer to these subjects and their accessories, are of great interest, and we could wish that the paragraphs devoted to bad politics and worse economics, had been filled with comments on Chrysostom, or illustrations of Plato. An admirable example of that sound and searching criticism which is so rarely met with now-a-days, and which, when we are fortunate enough to encounter it, we treasure up among our materials for thinking,' is given in the following observations on Jeremy Taylor.

Jeremy Taylor is an excellent author for a young man to study, for the purpose of imbibing noble principles, and at the same time of learning to exercise caution and thought in detecting his numerous

errors.

Taylor's was a great and lovely mind; yet how much and injuriously was it perverted by his being a favourite and follower of Laud, and by his intensely popish feelings of church authority. His "Liberty of Prophesying" is a work of wonderful eloquence and skill; but if we believe the argument, what do we come to? Why, to nothing more or less than this, that so much can be said for every opinion and sect, so impossible is it to settle any thing by reasoning or authority of Scripture, we must appeal to some positive jurisdiction on earth, ut sit finis controversarium. In fact, the whole book is the precise argument used by the Papists to induce men to admit the necessity of a supreme and infallible head of the Church on earth. It is one of the works which pre-eminently give countenance to the saying of Charles or James II., I forget which :- "When you of the Church of England contend with the Catholics, you use the arguments of the Puritans; when you contend with the Puritans, you immediately adopt all the weapons of the Catholics." Taylor never speaks with the slightest symptom of affection or respect of Luther, Calvin, or any other of the great reformers,-at least, not in any of his learned works; but he saints every trumpery monk or friar, down to the very latest canonizations by the modern popes. I fear you will think me harsh, when I say that I believe Taylor was, perhaps unconsciously, half a Socinian in heart. Such a strange inconsistency would not be impossible. The Romish Church has produced many such devout Socinians. The cross of Christ is dimly seen in Taylor's works. Compare him in this particular with Donne, and you will feel the difference in a moment. Why is not Donne's volume of sermons reprinted at Oxford? '

The following observations on two of Coleridge's most eminent contemporaries, are good specimens of that conversational criticism which often conveys more in few and cursory expressions, than more elaborate efforts at the delineation of character.

'Sir James Mackintosh is the king of the men of talent. He is a most eloquent converser: How well I remember his giving breakfast to me and Sir Humphry Davy, at that time an unknown young man, and our having a very spirited talk about Locke and Newton, and so forth! When Davy was gone, Mackintosh said to me, "That's a very extraordinary young man; but he is gone wrong on some points." But Davy was, at that time at least, a man of genius; and I doubt if Mackintosh ever heartily appreciated an eminently original man. He is uncommonly powerful in his own line; but it is not the line of a first-rate man. After all his fluency and brilliant erudition, you can rarely carry off any thing worth preserving. You might, not improperly, write on his forehead, "Warehouse to let!" He always dealt too much in generalities for a lawyer. He is deficient in power in applying his principles to the points in debate. I remember Robert Smith had much more logical ability; but Smith aimed at conquest by any gladiatorial shift; whereas Mackintosh was uniformly candid in argument. I am speaking now from old recollections.