I have in my possession a curious little volume of notes, &c. in Mr. Coleridge's handwriting, of course very highly prized, from which extracts were made in vol. i. pp. 274-5., &c. of Coleridge's Literary Remains, collected and edited by his nephew, H. N. Coleridge, Esq., 4 vols., 1836: Pickering.
But, in addition to this volume, I have a few with S. T. Coleridge's pencillings in the margins. The following is selected from Dr. Parr's celebrated Spital Sermon, and is appended to one of his (Dr. Parr's) notes, wherein he says:
"Upon the various effects of superstition, where it has spread widely and thriven long, we can reason from facts. But in the original frame of the human mind, and in the operation of all those usual causes which regulate our conduct or affect our happiness, there seems to be a most active, constant, and invincible principle of resistance to the approachments of atheism. 'All nature cries aloud' against them, 'through all her works,' not in speculation only, but in practice."
Mr. Coleridge's annotation upon the foregoing opinion of the learned Doctor is as follows; and I select it as a specimen of Coleridge's astonishing recollection of any opinions he had formerly promulgated, which might have called any laxity of principle, religious, moral, or political, into doubt, and of his extreme anxiety to refute or explain them:
"I never had even a doubt in my being concerning the supreme Mind; but understand too sufficiently the difficulty of any intellectual demonstrations of his existence, and see too plainly how inevitably the principles of many pious men (Locke, Priestley, Hartley, even Archbishop King) would lead to atheism by fair production of consequences, not to feel in perfect charity with all good men, atheist or theist; and, let me add, though I now seem to feel firm ground of reason under my belief in God, not gratefully to attribute my uniform past theism more to general feeling than to depth of understanding. Within this purpose I hope that, without offence, I may declare my conviction, that in the French Revolution atheism was an effect, not a cause; that the same wicked men, under other circumstances and fashions, would have done the same things as Anabaptists within Munster, or as Inquisitors among the South American Indians; and that atheism from conviction, and as a ruling motive and impulse (in which case only can it be fairly compared with superstition), is a quiescent state and per se harmless to all but the atheist himself. Rather is it that overwhelming preference of experimental philosophy, which, by smothering over more delicate perceptions, and debilitating often to impotence the faculty of going into ourselves, leads to atheism as a conscious creed, and in its extreme is atheism in its essence. This rather is, I should deem, the more perilous, and a plainer and better object for philosophical attack. O! bring back Jack the Giant Killer and the Arabian Nights to our children, and Plato and his followers to new men, and let us have chemistry as we have watchmakers or surgeons (I select purposely honourable and useful callings), as a division of human labour, as worthy profession for a few, not as a glittering master-feature of the education of men, women, and children.—S. T. C."
J. M. G.
Worcester.
FOLK LORE.
The ancient Custom of Well-flowering.—At Tissington, near Ashbourne, Derbyshire, annually, on Ascension Day, a beautiful ceremony called the "well-flowering" takes place; and in it Psalms used by the Church of England are partially employed. It is a popular recognition of the value of those "perpetual fountains which gush out from below the dry wolds and limestone hills, bearing life and beauty on their course,—objects," remarks Professor Phillips in his admirable work on The Rivers, Mountains, and Sea Coasts of Yorkshire (recently published), "on which rustic love and admiration may tastefully bestow the emblematic flowers and grateful songs, which constituted a pleasing form of popular worship in the earlier ages of the world." Perhaps some correspondents of "N. & Q." may be enabled to mention other