But what shall we say of Mr. Coleridge, who is the author not only of a successful but a meritorious tragedy? We may say of him what he has said of Mr. Maturin, that he is of the transcendental German school. He is a florid poet, and an ingenious metaphysician, who mistakes scholastic speculations for the intricate windings of the passions, and assigns possible reasons instead of actual motives for the excesses of his characters. He gives us studied special-pleadings for involuntary bursts of feeling, and the needless strain of tinkling sentiments for the point-blank language of nature. His Remorse is a spurious tragedy. Take the following passage, and then ask, whether the charge of sophistry and paradox, and dangerous morality, to startle the audience, in lieu of more legitimate methods of exciting their sympathy, which he brings against the author of Bertram, may not be retorted on his own head. Ordonio is made to defend the project of murdering his brother by such arguments as the following:—
‘What? if one reptile sting another reptile,
Where is the crime? The goodly face of nature
Hath one disfeaturing stain the less upon it.
Are we not all predestined Transiency,
And cold Dishonour? Grant it, that this hand
Had given a morsel to the hungry worms
Somewhat too early—where’s the crime of this?
That this must needs bring on the idiotcy
Of moist-eyed Penitence—’tis like a dream!