"The opposition mistook the moral character of the revolution; the ministers mistook its force: and both parties, from pique, resentment, pride, habit, and obstinacy, persisted in acting on these mistakes after they were disabused by experience. Mr. Burke alone avoided both these fatal mistakes. He saw both the malignity and the strength of the revolution. But where there was wisdom to discover the truth, there was not power, and perhaps there was not practical skill, to make that wisdom available for the salvation of Europe. — Diis aliter visum! My fortune has been in some respects very singular. [I] have lately read the lives and private correspondence of some of the most memorable men in different countries of Europe, who are lately dead.[4] Klopstock, Kant, Lavater, Alfieri, they were all filled with joy and hope by the French revolution — they clung to it for a longer or a shorter time — they were compelled to relinquish their illusions. The disappointment of all was bitter, but it showed itself in various modes, according to the variety of their characters. The series of passions growing out of that disappointment, was the not very remote cause of the death of Lavater. In the midst of society, Alfieri buried himself in misanthropic solitude; and the shock, which awakened him from the dreams of enthusiasm, darkened and shortened his days. In the mean time the multitude, comprehending not only those who have neither ardour of sensibility, nor compass of understanding to give weight to their suffrage, but those also whom accident had not brought into close and perpetual contact with the events, were insensibly detached from the revolution; and, before they were well aware that they had quitted their old position, they found themselves at the antipodes."
The excitement which this state of things produced might have been highly advantageous to some, and even quickened their intellectual powers, particularly those destined either for the bar or the senate, but certainly not those intended for the church.
revolution
and its consequences engrossed the thoughts of all men too much for the calmer pursuits of life; and the minds of the young especially were so absorbed by passing temporal events, as to leave but little time for the contemplation of the deeper and more serious affairs of futurity. However, Coleridge appears in his political opinions to have leaned too much to the side of democracy; but this was so prevalent and so much a fashion, particularly in those filled with enthusiasm, that it seemed a natural consequence in any young man possessing even ordinary intellect. Middleton, his friend, passed on without attaching himself to either party. His manners (as I have before noticed) were austere and sedate. He steadily persevered, without deviation, in his studies, though chance did not always favour him, nor crown him with the success he merited. He was a good and amiable man, and an affectionate friend; but early want of success in his academical exertions rendering him melancholy, this by sympathy was soon imparted to his friend. After Middleton's departure, the keen desire which Coleridge previously felt for the possession of honours abated, and he became indifferent to them — he might at this time have been idle, but never vicious. The men who often appear to be the gayest and lightest of heart, are too frequently melancholic; and it is a well-known fact, that the best comic actors are the greatest sufferers from this malady, as if it seemed an essential qualification for that department of histrionic excellence, in which the greatest animal spirits are personated and successfully imitated. Coleridge, at this period, delighted in boyish tricks, which others were to execute. I remember a fellow-collegiate recalling to his memory an exploit of which he was the planner, and a late Lord Chancellor the executor. It was this: a train of gunpowder was to be laid on two of the neatly shaven lawns of St. John's and Trinity Colleges, in such a manner, that, when set on fire, the singed grass would exhibit the ominous words, Liberty and Equality, which, with able ladlike dexterity, was duly performed.
The writer of the
College Reminiscences
in the
Gentleman's Magazine,