This is the plan which all crafty plagiarists adopt; this is the way in which numberless writers have dealt with my Father himself, the major part of them, however, not craftily or selfishly, but doubtless unawares to themselves; there being far less of conscious, far more of unconscious, plagiarism among authors than the world is apt to suppose. But Coleridge repeated the very words of Schelling, and in so doing made it an easy task for the German to reclaim his own, or for the dullest wight that could read his books to give it him back again. Must he not have been careless of the meum at least as much as of the tuum, when he took whole pages and paragraphs, unaltered in form, from a noted author-whose writings, though unknown in this country, when he first brought them forward, were too considerable in his own to be finally merged in those of any other man, at the same time that he was doing all that in him lay to lead Englishmen to the study of that author, and was referring readers to his works both generally, and in some instances, and those the most important, particularly? From his accuser's blustering conclusion, "Plagiarism, like murder, will out!" it might be supposed that Mr. Coleridge had taken pains to prevent his "plagiarisms "from coming out,-that with the "stealthy pace" of the murderer he had "moved towards his design like a ghost." Verily, if no man ever tried to murder an author's good name with more of malice prepense than he to steal one, the literary world would be freer from felonious practices than it is at present.4

4 "Of a truth," says Mr. Hare, "if he had been disposed to purloin, he never would have stolen half a dozen pages from the head and front of that very work of Schelling's which was

One of the largest extracts my Father accomp with these words in a parenthesis (See Schel handl. zur Erlaüter, des Id. der Wissenschaftslehre. "But from this reference," asks the censor, "would not a reader naturally deduce the inference that C. was here referring to Schelling in support of his own views, and not literally translating and appropriating the German's?"

There are some who have eyes to see and microscopically too, but only in certain directions. To those whose vision is more catholic I address the plain question, Did not my Father say fully enough to put every reader of a studious turn, every reader able to take up his philosophical views in earnest,-(and to whom else were these borrowed passages more than strange words, or Schelling's claims of the slightest consequence ?)into the way of consulting their original source? The longer extracts are all either expressly acknowledged, as that from the Darlegung in chap. ix. and that beginning at p. 255; or taken from the Transcendental Idealism, which he speaks of more than once, or from the above-mentioned treatise, of which he gives the long title.

the likeliest to fall into his reader's hands; and the first sentence of which one could not read without detecting the pla giarism. Would any man think of pilfering a column from the porch of St. Paul's? The high praise which Coleridge bestows on Schelling would naturally excite a wish in such of his readers as felt an interest in his philosophy, to know more of the great German. The first books of his they would take up would be his Natur-Philosophie and his Transcendental Idealism; these are the works which Coleridge himself mentions; and the latter, from its subject, would attract them the most."-Brit. Mag. of 1835, p. 20.

CHAP. IX. Is Philosophy possible as a science, and what are its conditions?-Giordano Bruno-Literary Aristocracy, or the existence of a tacit compact among the learned as a privileged order-The Author's obligations to the Mystics-to Immanuel Kant-The difference between the letter and the spirit of Kant's writings, and a vindication of prudence in the teaching of Philosophy-Fichte's attempt to complete the Critical system-Its partial success and ultimate failure-Obligations to Schelling; and among English writers to Saumarez

CHAP. X. A Chapter of digression and anecdotes, as an interlude preceding that on the nature and genesis of the Imagination or Plastic Power-On Pedantry and pedantic expressions-Advice to young authors respecting publication-Various anecdotes of the Author's literary life, and the progress of his opinions in Religion and Politics

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141

173

CHAP. XI. An affectionate exhortation to those who in early life feel themselves disposed to become authors 230 CHAP. XII. A Chapter of requests and premonitions concerning the perusal or omission of the chapter that follows

241

CHAP. XIII. On the Imagination, or Esemplastic power 287 APPENDIX

299

INTRODUCTION.

Mr. Coleridge's obligations to Schelling, and the unfair view of the subject presented in Blackwood's Magazine.

OME years ago, when the late Editor of my Father's works was distantly contemplating a new edition of the Biographia Literaria, but had not yet begun to exa

mine the text carefully with a view to this object, his attention was drawn to an article in Blackwood's Magazine of March 1840, in which "the very large and unacknowledged appropriations it contains from the great German Philosopher Schelling " are pointed out; and by this paper I have been directed to those passages in the works of Schelling and of Maasz, to which references are given in the following pages, to most of them immediately, and to a few more . through the strict investigation which it occasioned. Whether or no my Father's obligations to the great German Philosopher are virtually unacknowledged to the extent and with the unfairness which the writer of that article labours to prove, the reader of the present edition will be able to judge for himself; the facts of the case will be all before him, and from these, when the whole of them are fully and fairly considered, I feel

assured that by readers in general,-and I have had some experience on this point already,-no such injurious inferences as are contained in that paper will ever be drawn. The author, it must be observed, before commencing his argument, thinks fit to disclaim the belief, that conscious intentional plagiarism is imputable to the object of his censure; nevertheless, throughout great part of it, Mr. Coleridge is treated. as an artful purloiner and selfish plunderer, who knowingly robs others to enrich himself, both the tone and the language of the article expressing this and no other meaning. Such aspersions will not rest, I think they never have rested, upon Coleridge's name; the protest here entered is a duty to his memory from myself rather than a work necessary to his vindication, and the remarks that follow are made less with a view to influence the opinions of others than to record my

own.

The charge brought against my Father by the author of the article appears to be this, that, having borrowed largely from Schelling,' he has made no adequate acknowledgments of obligation to that philosopher, only such general admissions as are quite insufficient to cover the extent of his debt; that his anticipatory defence against a charge of "ungenerous concealment or intentional plagiarism" is no defence at all; and that his particular references are too few and inaccurate to vindicate him from having dealt

The passages borrowed by my Father from Schelling and Maasz are pointed out in this edition in notes at the foot of the pages where they occur. For the particulars and amount of the debt, therefore, readers are referred to the body of the work, chapters v. vii. viii. ix. xii. in the first volume.