COLERIDGE'S UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS.
(Vol. ix., pp. 496. 543.)
Every admirer of Coleridge's writings must feel, as I do, grateful to Mr. Green for the detailed account he has rendered of the manuscripts committed to his care. A few points, however, in his reply call for a rejoinder on my part. I will be as brief as possible.
I never doubted for an instant that, had I "sought a private explanation of the matters" comprised in my Note, Mr. Green would have courteously responded to the application. This is just what I did not want: a public explanation was what I desired. "N. & Q." (Vol. iv., p. 411.; Vol. vi., p. 533.; Vol. viii., p. 43.) will bear witness to the fact that the public required to know the reason why works of Coleridge, presumed to exist in manuscript, were still withheld from publication: and I utterly deny the justice of Mr. Green's allegation, that because I have explicitly stated the charge implied by Mr. Alsop (the editor of Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of Coleridge) in his strictures, I have made an inconsiderate, not to say a coarse, attack upon him (Mr. Green). When a long series of appeals to the fortunate possessor of the Coleridge manuscripts (whoever he might turn out to be) had been met with silent indifference, I felt that the time was come to address an appeal personally to Mr. Green himself. That he has acted with the approbation of Coleridge's family, nobody can doubt; for the public (thanks to Mr. Alsop) know too well how little the greatest of modern philosophers was indebted to that family in his lifetime, to attach much importance to their approbation or disapprobation.
No believer in the philosophy of Coleridge can look with greater anxiety than I do for the forthcoming work of Mr. Green. That the pupil of Coleridge, and the author of Vital Dynamics, will worthily acquit himself in this great field, who can question? But I, for one, must enter my protest against the publication of Mr. Green's book being made the pretext of depriving the public of their right (may I say?) to the perusal of such works as do exist in manuscript, finished or unfinished. Again I beg most respectfully to urge on Mr. Green the expediency, not to say paramount duty, of his giving to the world intact the Logic (consisting of the Canon and other parts), the Cosmogony, and, as far as possible, the History of Philosophy. If his plea, that these works are not in a finished state, had been heretofore held good in bar of publication, we should probably have lost the inestimable privilege of reading and possessing those fragmentary works of the great philosopher which have already been made public.
C. Mansfield Ingleby.
Birmingham.