April 21. 1832. INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTIONS.-MODERN STYLE. THERE have been three silent revolutions in England: first, when the professions fell off from the church; secondly, when literature fell off from the professions; and, thirdly, when the press fell off from liter ature. Common phrases are, as it were, so stereotyped now by conventional use, that it is really much easier to write on the ordinary politics of the day in the common newspaper style, than it is to make a good pair of shoes. An apprentice has as much to learn now to be a shoemaker as ever he had; but an ignorant coxcomb, with a competent want of honesty, may very effectively wield a pen in a newspaper office, with infinitely less pains and preparation than were necessary formerly. April 23. 1832. GENIUS OF THE SPANISH AND ITALIANS. VICO. SPINOSA. THE genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtle, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humour and so little wit in their literature. The genius of the Italians, on the contrary, is acute, profound, and sensual, but not subtle; hence, what they think to be humorous is merely witty. To estimate a man like Vico, or any great man who has made discoveries and committed errors, you ought to say to yourself:- "He did so and so in the year 1690, a Papist, at Naples. Now, what would he not have done if he had lived now, and could have availed himself of all our vast acquisitions in physical science ?" After the Scienza Nuova, read Spinosa, De Monarchia ex rationis præscripto.* They differed Vico in thinking that society tended to monarchy; Spinosa in thinking it tended to democracy. Now, Spinosa's ideal democracy was realized by a contemporary— not in a nation, for that is impossible, but in a sect I mean by George Fox and his Quakers.+ April 24. 1832. COLOURS. COLOURS may best be expressed by a heptad, the largest possible formula for things finite, as the pentad is the smallest possible form. Indeed, the heptad of things finite is in all cases reducible to the pentad. The adorable tetractys, or tetrad, is the formula of God; * Tractatus Politici, c. vi. + Spinosa died in 1677; Fox in 1681.-ED. which, again, is reducible into, and is, in * I trust this touch of the polar logic will not frighten the general reader. The students of Mr. Coleridge's later works are familiar enough with it; and the scheme is as simple as it is beautiful and comprehensive.ED. April 28. 1832. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. - EPIC POEM. THE destruction of Jerusalem is the only subject now remaining for an epic poem; a subject which, like Milton's Fall of Man, should interest all Christendom, as the Homeric War of Troy interested all Greece. There would be difficulties, as there are in all subjects; and they must be mitigated and thrown into the shade, as Milton has done with the numerous difficulties in the Paradise Lost. But there would be a greater assemblage of grandeur and splendour than can now be found in any other theme. As for the old mythology, incredulus odi; and yet there must be a mythology, or a quasi-mythology, for an epic poem. Here there would be the completion of the prophecies — the termination of the first revealed national religion |