as “bombast and tautology,” as equivalent to “let observation with extensive observation survey mankind extensively,” is not only unjust but actually unintelligent,[[378]] and probably due only to the horror of eighteenth-century personification, intensified in Coleridge by the fact that in his own early poems he had freely indulged therein.
Some noteworthy things in them: general,
But on the very opposite page[[379]]—in the very corresponding lines which shut up on this carping when the book is closed—we read, “To the young I would remark that it is always unwise to judge of anything by its defects: the first attempt ought to be to discover its excellences.” I have found nothing better for the motto of this Book; I cannot imagine anything better as a corrective of the faults of Neo-classic critics—as a “Take away that bauble!” the stop-watch. Again, observe the admirable separation of poet and dramatist in Lecture vii. of the 1811 course;[[380]] the remarks (suggested perhaps by Lessing, but in no respect an echo of him) on poetry and painting in the Ninth;[[381]] and the altogether miraculous “character” of Ariel which follows.[[382]] The defences of Shakespeare’s puns are always consummate[[383]]—in fact, “Love me, love my pun,” should be one of the chief articles of a Shakespearian Proverb-book. In the notes referring (or supposed to refer) to the course of 1818, variations of the Biographia (published the year before) were sure to occur and do; one of the most noteworthy being the expansion and application of the idea of “suspension of disbelief.”[[384]] Note, too, the acuteness in the censure[[385]] (with half-apologies) of the absurd stage-directions which characterised German, and characterise Scandinavian, drama.
and particular.
Of the separate notes on Shakespeare’s Plays it is impossible to say much here: and indeed it is not necessary. They are to be read—if possible in conjunction with the plays themselves—by everybody: to digest them into a formal treatise would be perhaps impossible, and, as hinted above, would not be a testimonial to their value if it were possible. But their great merit, next to their individual felicity, is the constant cropping up of those aperçus of a more general, though not too general, cast which have been noticed.
Coleridge on other dramatists.
Coleridge never admires Shakespeare too much; but the Devil’s Advocate may perhaps make something of a count against him that he is often apt to depress others by a comparison, which is not in the least necessary. On Ben Jonson he is rather inadequate than unjust; but he is certainly unjust to Beaumont and Fletcher, and I almost fear that his injustice, like his more than justice to Massinger, may be set down to extra-literary causes. It is extraordinary that such a critic should have used the language that he uses of Florimel in The Maid of the Mill.[[386]] Her devices to preserve her honour are extravagant: this extravagance, as compared with the perfect naturalness of Shakespeare, is the constant note of “the twins”; and if Coleridge had confined himself to bringing it out, there would have been no more to be said. But his remarks are here not merely unjust, they are silly. And yet here, too, we could find the priceless obiter dicta, that on words that have made their way despite precisian objection,[[387]] those on metre[[388]] almost always, and others.