Part 40 (2/2)

_Giotto_ (d. 1337), _Ghirlandaio_, whose real name was Domenico Bigardi (1449-1494), and _Ma.s.saccio_ (1402-1429) were early Florentine painters.

_wandered into Germany_. Coleridge's visit to Germany and his introduction to the leading German philosophers dates back to 1798-99.

_Kantean philosophy_. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was the leader of modern philosophy. ”The writings of the ill.u.s.trious sage of Konigsberg, the founder of the Critical Philosophy, more than any other work, at once invigorated and disciplined my understanding. The originality, the depth, and the compression of the thoughts; the novelty and subtlety, yet solidity and importance of the distinctions; the adamantine chain of the logic; and I will venture to add--(paradox as it will appear to those who have taken their notion of Immanuel Kant from Reviewers and Frenchmen)--the clearness and evidence, of the Critique of Pure Reason; and Critique of the Judgment; of the Metaphysical Elements of Natural Philosophy; and of his Religion within the bounds of Pure Reason, took possession of me as with a giant's hand. After fifteen years' familiarity with them, I still read these and all his other productions with undiminished delight and increasing admiration.” ”Biographia Literaria,”

chap. IX.

_Fichte_, J. Gottlieb (1762-1814). ”Fichte's _Wissenschaftslehre_, or Lore of Ultimate Science, was to add the key-stone of the arch” of Kant's system. Ibid.

_Sch.e.l.ling_, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph (1775-1829). ”In Sch.e.l.ling's _Natur-Philosophie_, and the _System des Transcendentalen Idealismus_, I first found a genial coincidence with much that I had toiled out for myself, and a powerful a.s.sistance in what I had yet to do.... Many of the most striking resemblances, indeed all the main and fundamental ideas, were born and matured in my mind before I had ever seen a single page of the German Philosopher; and I might indeed affirm with truth, before the most important works of Sch.e.l.ling had been written, or at least made public. Nor is this coincidence at all to be wondered at. We had studied in the same school; been disciplined by the same preparatory philosophy, namely, the writings of Kant; we had both equal obligations to the polar logic and dynamic philosophy of Giordano Bruno; and Sch.e.l.ling has lately, and, as of recent acquisition, avowed that same affectionate reverence for the labors of Behmen, and other mystics, which I had formed at a much earlier period.” Ibid.

_Lessing_, Gotthold Ephraim (1729-1781), German dramatist and critic.

_sang for joy_. Coleridge had in 1789 composed some stanzas ”On the Destruction of the Bastille,” but these were not published till 1834.

_would have floated his bark_. Coleridge and Southey with some other friends had in 1794 formed a plan for an ideal colony, the Pantisocracy, on the banks of the Susquehanna.

_In Philharmonia's_. Cf. Coleridge's ”Monody on the Death of Chatterton,”

140: ”O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale.”

P. 213. _Frailty_. Cf. ”Hamlet,” i, 2, 146: ”thy name is woman.”

_writing paragraphs_. Coleridge was connected with the staff of the Courier as a sort of a.s.sistant-editor for five months in 1811. His contributions during this period appeared as the ”Essays on His Own Times”

in 1850.

_poet-laureate_ and _stamp-distributor_ are references respectively to Southey and Wordsworth.

_bourne from whence_. ”Hamlet,” iii, 1, 79.

_tantalized by useless resources_. Compare this with Coleridge's own lines of bitter self-reproach addressed ”To a Gentleman”:

”Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, And genius given, and knowledge won in vain.”

P. 214. _one splendid pa.s.sage_. The lines beginning ”Alas! they had been friends in youth” (408-426). The same pa.s.sage had been singled out for praise by Hazlitt in his lecture ”On the Living Poets” and in the review of ”Christabel” which had appeared in the Examiner of June 2, 1816. The authors.h.i.+p of this review has been disputed but should on internal evidence, despite its failure in appreciation, be ascribed to Hazlitt. See Works, XI, 580-582.

_Translation of Schiller's Wallenstein_, made by Coleridge in 1799-1800.

_Remorse_. This tragedy was played at the Drury Lane Theatre with considerable popular success in 1813. It was a recast of an early play ent.i.tled ”Osorio,” composed in 1797.

P. 215. _The Friend_; a literary, moral, and political weekly paper, excluding personal and party politics and the events of the day (1809-1810), was reissued in one volume in 1812, and with additions and alterations (rather a rifacimento than a new edition) in 1818.

The sketch in the Spirit of the Age concludes with a contrast between Coleridge and William G.o.dwin.

MR. SOUTHEY

This selection forms the conclusion of a sketch of Southey in the ”Spirit of the Age.” It ill.u.s.trates, even more strikingly than the ”Character of Burke,” Hazlitt's power of dissociating his judgments from his prejudices, inasmuch as there had been exchanges of rancorous personalities between the two men.

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