into a perpetual sneer, and spreads such a chilling atmosphere around the heart in many a circle, that a party of so-called friends, brought together, it might be supposed, for interchange of thought and feeling, seem under a compact to conceal from each other every particle of their real mind under a glazed coverlet of comfortless politeness. It has been observed, that Englishmen, in their social character, seem vastly more anxious not to commit any awkwardness, especially in the betrayal of that dire offence, vanity, than to perform anything agreeable. Hence the languor of many an English assembly, where exists every element of highest interest and delight, the one quality of a self-forgetful and forth-springing frankness being wanted to set free the imprisoned powers, and cause them to combine and sparkle up in joyous harmony. The surface of social life should not be coldly bright and smooth, but display a gladsome brilliance, like the bosom of a clear lake beamed upon by the great source of heat as well as light. It has been maintained, and I hope truly, that in consequence of this happy want of ultra civilization and excessive refinement, moral qualities are more highly rated in America, and tell for more than in old countries, where Luxury will have her ministers at any cost, and will hire extravagantly those talents that furnish the exquisite accommodations and elaborate elegancies of outward life, with slight regard to aught else in the possessor's character. -Yes! America has doubtless grand and noble prospects before her, though her judges do sit wigless on the judgment seat, or even if it were true-(which I, for my part, believe to be one of the fibs of our naughty boys against brother Jonathan) - that some of her sons occasionally lounge with their heels raised to a level with their heads, type of plebeian ascendancy. Those who though not hers A Hero ever beneficent and godlike. lxxvii are jealous for her, have at times felt mortified, that she has shewn herself so keenly sensitive to satire, which, as far as it was mean and captious, she ought simply to have despised, as far as it was partially founded in truth, however exaggerated, she should have used as a magnifying mirror, that by presenting our defects enlarged excites us to strenuous efforts at amendment, or if they be irremoveable, to protect ourselves against their consequences with the armour of calmness and patience. Man is alive to ridicule by no exalted part of his nature: little children and brute animals are enraged when they are laughed at. To stand unmoved the assault of scornful raillery, which is so oft, like Samson, strong but blind, and the more resolute because it fights in the dark,-secure in the panoply of that reasonable self-esteem which is but the reverse or opposite side of habitual humility, is one of the last achievements of reflection. Perhaps we have expected from "England with elbow-room" more prowess on this head than old England has to boast. How often would we have a dear friend shew himself more sage and sensible and self-controlled than, mutatis mutandis, we should have the heart to be ourselves! SECTION XIII. Mr. Coleridge's eulogy on Washington, the Christian I Hero. CANNOT take leave of the Americans and my Father's opinion of their high advantages, without referring to Washington, to whom he has paid an overflowing tribute in one of his Letters to the Spaniards. "Heroism," said Sir J. Mackintosh, in the Vindicia Gallica, "has a splendour that almost atones for its excesses." lxxx Terms of Mr. C's. services to Journals. ing down, as if at his country's feet, the sheathed sword, and the other pointing to the sky. There was nothing between the finger of that uplifted arm and the highest heavens; and as the imagination of the spectator was thus carried upward, you could not but feel that no cloud of mortal passion had ever dimmed the glory of the character here idealized in marble, and that that soul had risen above the strife of self-will and the tumult of human frailties into the serene atmosphere of duty and of Christian heroism." SECTION XIV. Mr. Coleridge's terms of connection with public Journals. W HATEVER opinion may be formed in time to come of my Father's sagacity and ability as an essayist on the events of the day, all readers, I believe, will agree as to the elevated spirit in which his connection with public journals was maintained, and the high and firm moral tone which he carried into them. In the Biographia Literaria he mentions that, on being solicited, soon after his return from Germany, to undertake the literary and political department of the Morning Post, he "acceded to the proposal on condition that the paper should thenceforward be conducted on certain fixed and announced principles, and that he should neither be obliged nor requested to deviate from them in favour of any party or event; in consequence of which that paper became Anti-Ministerial indeed, yet with a very qualified approbation of the Opposition, and with far greater earnestness and zeal both Anti-Jacobin and Anti-Gallican." The terms on which he granted his services in 1799 he continued to insist upon, when he recommenced regular True and false views of the Divine inman. lxxxi newspaper writing in 1811. His proposals to write for the Courier, a copy of which, in his own hand-writing, has been kindly handed to me by Mr. H. C. Robinson, conclude thus: "The above, always supposing the Paper to be truly independent, 1st of the Administration, and 2nd of the Populace; and that the fundamental principle is the due proportion of political Power to Property, joined with the removal of all obstacles to the free circulation and transfer of Property, and all artificial facilitations of its natural tendency to accumulate in large and growing masses." This is one of numberless proofs how far removed he continued to be from the blind conservation denounced by Dr. Arnold, which, like the mole, keeps digging about its burrow in the earth, to throw up heaps of mould for its own security and fortification, working solely by feel of what touches its own poor paltry self, while it sees nothing either far or near in the true sense of seeing-a vulgar selfishness consolidated into principle, like marsh water that has become sordid ice, uniting the qualities of hardness and coldness with those of fragility and of impurity. Yet, as has been intimated before, he had a high disdain for the demagogue and his mob-artifices, the strongest sense of the fitness of resisting the spirit of Communisın and upholding the power and influence of that true aristocracy, without which a society of men is in worse plight than a community of intelligent though not rational insects, of ants or of bees. For such aristocratic government Milton and even Rousseau had a deeper respect than can be found associated with the doctrine of a divine right of Kings, contended for in a sense which, confounding things of the spirit with worldly politics, sets them above all obligation of duty toward the people governed, and inevitably tends to merge and overpower f claims to authority and ascendancy not founded on an immediate unction from on high. A king accountable to God alone for his rule and governance is divided by an infinite chasm from every other order in the state; and with respect to such a potentate, Lords, however humanly wise and good, however richly endowed with houses and lands, can be little more than Commons, personal and political, - all alike must be mere puppets and creatures of a direct delegate of heaven. Such views are interesting now only as matter of history, and on account of the influence they have exercised on the minds and actions of men. The doctrine of divine right is radically connected with that of submission to the Church as maintained by Romanists:-passive obedience to the Monarch as God's representative, and prostration of intellect before a Majority or dominant party of churchmen, self invested with all the authority and attributes of the Church, -are cognate notions. Hence the former could not die absolutely and for ever when, as far as its individual self was concerned, its end was come: but has been recalled to a sort of ghastly " after life," that jerks rather than moves and lives, by theologians of the school which Milton called Antiquitarian. Though in its own character slavish and once fostered by court-minions, fit only to be such " creatures" as their theory makes mankind in general, it has been often preached by men who were slaves to nothing but their own disinterested fanaticism, fools only where supposed allegiance was concerned. To the eyes of such "gentle lunatics," for whom the purple light of Royalty transfigures frailty into angelic innocence, nay even the features of Vice into those of Virtue,-for whom, in the last stage of delusion, the Moral is swallowed up and lost in the Mystic or imaginary Spiritual, a mirage of celestial glory pales into " ineffectual |