Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

CHAPTER XIV
THE PHILOSOPHER AND DIVINE
1822-1832

CCXXX. TO JOHN MURRAY.

Highgate, January 18, 1822.

Dear Sir,—If not with the works, you are doubtless familiar with the name of that “wonderful man” (for such, says Doddridge, I must deliberately call him), Archbishop Leighton. It would not be easy to point out another name, which the eminent of all parties, Catholic and Protestant, Episcopal and Presbyterian, Whigs and Tories, have been so unanimous in extolling. “There is a spirit in Archbishop Leighton I never met with in any human writings; nor can I read many lines in them without impressions which I could wish always to retain,” observes a dignitary of our Establishment and F. R. S. eminent in his day both as a philosopher and a divine. In fact, it would make no small addition to the size of the volume, if, as was the fashion in editing the classics, we should collect the eulogies on his writings passed by bishops only and church divines, from Burnet to Porteus. That this confluence of favourable opinions is not without good cause, my own experience convinces me. For at a time when I had read but a small portion of the Archbishop’s principal work, when I was altogether ignorant of its celebrity, much more of the peculiar character attributed to his writings (that of making and leaving a deep impression on readers of all classes), I remember saying to Mr. Southey[186] “that in the Apostolic Epistles I heard the last hour of Inspiration striking, and in Arch. Leighton’s commentary the lingering vibration of the sound.” Perspicuous, I had almost said transparent, his style is elegant by the mere compulsion of the thoughts and feelings, and in despite, as it were, of the writer’s wish to the contrary. Profound as his conceptions often are, and numerous as the passages are, where the most athletic thinker will find himself tracing a rich vein from the surface downward, and leave off with an unknown depth for to-morrow’s delving—yet there is this quality peculiar to Leighton, unless we add Shakespeare—that there is always a scum on the very surface which the simplest may understand, if they have head and heart to understand anything. The same or nearly the same excellence characterizes his eloquence. Leighton had by nature a quick and pregnant fancy, and the august objects of his habitual contemplation, and their remoteness from the outward senses, his constant endeavour to see or to bring all things under some point of unity, but, above all, the rare and vital union of head and heart, of light and love, in his own character,—all these working conjointly could not fail to form and nourish in him the higher power, and more akin to reason, the power, I mean, of imagination. And yet in his freest and most figurative passages there is a subduedness, a self-checking timidity in his colouring, a sobering silver-grey tone over all; and an experienced eye may easily see where and in how many instances Leighton has substituted neutral tints for a strong light or a bold relief—by this sacrifice, however, of particular effects, giving an increased permanence to the impression of the whole, and wonderfully facilitating its soft and quiet illapse into the very recesses of our convictions. Leighton’s happiest ornaments of style are made to appear as efforts on the part of the author to express himself less ornamentally, more plainly.

Since the late alarm respecting Church Calvinism and Calvinistic Methodism (a cry of Fire! Fire! in consequence of a red glare on one or two of the windows, from a bonfire of straw and stubble in the church-yard, while the dry rot of virtual Socinianism is snugly at work in the beams and joists of the venerable edifice) I have heard of certain gentle doubts and questions as to the Archbishop’s perfect orthodoxy—some small speck in the diamond which had escaped the quick eye of all former theological jewellers from Bishop Burnet to the outrageously anti-Methodistic Warburton. But on what grounds I cannot even conjecture, unless it be, that the Christianity which Leighton teaches contains the doctrines peculiar to the Gospel as well as the truths common to it with the (so-called) light of nature or natural religion, that he dissuades students and the generality of Christians from all attempts at explaining the mysteries of faith by notional and metaphysical speculations, and rather by a heavenly life and temper to obtain a closer view of these truths, the full light and knowledge of which it is in Heaven only that we shall possess. He further advises them in speaking of these truths to proper scripture language; but since something more than this had been made necessary by the restless spirit of dispute, to take this “something more” in the sound precise terms of the Liturgy and Articles of the Established Church. Enthusiasm? Fanaticism? Had I to recommend an antidote, I declare on my conscience that above all others it should be Leighton. And as to Calvinism, L.’s exposition of the scriptural sense of election ought to have prevented the very [suspicion of its presence]. You will long ago, I fear, have [been asking yourself], To what does all this tend? Briefly then, I feel strongly persuaded, perhaps because I strongly wish it, that the Beauties of Archbishop Leighton, selected and methodized, with a (better) Life of the Author, that is, a biographical and critical introduction as Preface, and Notes, would make not only a useful but an interesting Pocket Volume. “Beauties” in general are objectionable works—injurious to the original author, as disorganizing his productions, pulling to pieces the well-wrought crown of his glory to pick out the shining stones, and injurious to the reader, by indulging the taste for unconnected, and for that reason unretained single thoughts, till it fares with him as with the old gentleman at Edinburgh, who eat six kittywakes by way of whetting his appetite—“whereas” (said he) “it proved quite the contrary: I never sat down to a dinner with so little.” But Leighton’s principal work, that which fills two volumes and a half of the four, being a commentary on St. Peter’s Epistles, verse by verse, and varying, of course, in subject, etc., with almost every paragraph, the volume, I propose, would not only bring together his finest passages, but these being afterwards arranged on a principle wholly independent of the accidental place of each in the original volumes, and guided by their relative bearings, it would give a connection or at least a propriety of sequency, that was before of necessity wanting. It may be worth noticing, that the editions, both the one in three, and the other in four volumes, are most grievously misprinted and otherwise disfigured. Should you be disposed to think this worthy your attention, I would even send you the proof transcribed, sheet by sheet, as it should be printed, though doubtless by sacrificing one copy of Leighton’s works, it might be effected by references to volume, page, and line, I having first carefully corrected the copy. Or, should you think another more likely to execute the plan better, or that another name would better promote its sale, I should by no means resent the preference, nor feel any mortification for which, the having occasioned the existence of such a work, tastefully selected and judiciously arranged, would not be sufficient compensation for,

Dear sir, your obliged
S. T. Coleridge.

CCXXXI. TO JAMES GILLMAN.

October 28, 1822.