And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.”
‘With this one exception, there is literally not one couplet in the publication before us which would be reckoned poetry, or even sense, were it found in the corner of a newspaper or upon the window of an inn. Must we then be doomed to hear such a mixture of raving and driv’ling, extolled as the work of a “wild and original” genius, simply because Mr. Coleridge has now and then written fine verses, and a brother poet chooses, in his milder mood, to laud him from courtesy or from interest? And are such panegyrics to be echoed by the mean tools of a political faction, because they relate to one whose daily prose is understood to be dedicated to the support of all that courtiers think should be supported? If it be true that the author has thus earned the patronage of those liberal dispensers of bounty, we can have no objection that they should give him proper proofs of their gratitude; but we cannot help wishing, for his sake, as well as our own, that they would pay in solid pudding instead of empty praise; and adhere, at least in this instance, to the good old system of rewarding their champions with places and pensions, instead of puffing their bad poetry, and endeavouring to cram their nonsense down the throats of all the loyal and well affected.’
COLERIDGE’S LAY SERMON
The authorship of this review has also been the subject of controversy. See the authorities cited on p. 411. Mr. Dykes Campbell, in the note there quoted, says that, as in the case of Christabel, the ascription of the review to Hazlitt is ‘probably, though not certainly correct.’ The editors regarded the internal evidence of Hazlitt’s authorship as so overwhelmingly strong, especially after a comparison of the article with Hazlitt’s review of the same work in The Examiner (see Political Essays, III. 143–152), that they decided to include it in the text. It has not been thought necessary to give references to all Hazlitt’s quotations from the Lay Sermon. References, when they are given, are to the edition in Bohn’s Standard Library.
PAGE [120]. ‘Fancies and Good-nights.’ Henry IV., Part II., Act III. Sc. 2. Odd ends of verse, etc. Hudibras, I. iii. 1011–2. ‘Chase his fancy’s rolling speed.’ Cf. On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, 29. [121]. ‘Babbles of green fields.’ Henry V., Act II. Sc. 3. ‘Alarmists by trade.’ A Lay Sermon, p. 309. ‘A gentle Husher,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, Book I. Canto IV. Stanza 13. Joanna Southcote. Joanna Southcott (1750–1814), the fanatic and impostor, whose prophesies had recently caused a good deal of excitement. [122]. ‘Thick-coming fancies.’ Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 3. [123]. The ‘Friend.’ Published in numbers at irregular intervals between June 1809 and March 1810. Coleridge published a recast—‘a complete Rifacimento’—of The Friend in 1818. ‘Like the swan’s down feather,’ etc. Antony and Cleopatra, Act III. Sc. 2.
COLERIDGE’S LITERARY LIFE
This review, though claimed for Jeffrey by Lord Cockburn, and marked doubtful by Mr. Ireland, is certainly Hazlitt’s. Nearly the whole of the long passage on Burke (pp. 150–154 of the present volume), after doing duty in The Champion (Oct. 5, 1817), was published by Hazlitt in Political Essays as the first of two ‘Characters of Mr. Burke’ which appeared in that volume. See vol. III. pp. 250–253.