induced and enabled us to form of him in our fancy, we are bound-unless all belief be baseless-in spite of much that may trouble us in what we cannot understand or reconcile-to hold fast our faith in the virtue of the superior powers of his being-nor fear that the glory is but "false glitter," because, like everything beneath the sun, it may for a while be clouded or eclipsed.

The personal character of our most illustrious poets has, with very few exceptions—and in those cases there are mournful mysteries never perhaps to be understood in this 66 unintelligible world"-been all that we who owe them an unappreciable debt of gratitude-best paid in brotherly love and Christian charity-could desire; and if some flaws and frailties have been shown by the light of genius, that would have been invisible or unnoticed in ordinary men, it is worse than weak, it is wicked, to point with pleasure to stains on the splendour. "Blessings be with them and eternal praise," is the high sentiment of enlightened humanity towards the memory of all such benefactors. There is no wisdom in weighing in scales misnamed of justice, and neither of gold nor diamond, the virtues against the vices of any one of our fellow-creatures. The religion of nature prompts no such balancing of praise and blame, even with the living-therefore surely not with the dead; nor does the religion of the New Testament. Yet unholy inquisition is too often made even into the secrets hidden in the heart of genius-and from wan cheek, or troubled eye, or distracted demeanour, or conduct outwardly "wanting grace," have unjust inferences been cruelly drawn, calculated to lower what was in truth highest, and to cloud what was in truth brightest in the nature of some glorious creature, who, if clearly known to the whole world, would have been held worthy of the whole world's love.

"Call it not vain! they do not err,
Who say that when a poet dies,

Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,

And celebrates his obsequies!"

Mute nature mourns not; but with the tears in our eyes for some great loss-she seems to weep with us-with sobs in our heart, every whisper in the woods sounds like a sigh. The day our Minstrel was buried, there was no melancholy

upon Dryburgh tower or woods. Yet thinking on his death, to us Scotland even now seems sad. Another great poet-and another have since disappeared. Yet a little while, and

lights no less resplendent will go out in dust. Scott, Crabbe, Coleridge-names for so many years pronounced with a proud, kind emphasis, as if it raised us in our own estimation to love and honour such compatriots-now but names, and with almost a mournful sound!

"Nor draw their frailties from their dread abode." That line has lost not a breath of its holy power by perpetual repetition from millions of lips. Frailties, no doubt, had those Sons of the Morning, though framed in "all the pomp and prodigality of heaven" even like the humblest of their brethren, whose lot it was in life to live like paupers in mind on the alms of niggard nature. The frailties of the low obscure are safe in the grave. Some love-planted flowers flourish awhile over their dust, and then fade away for ever, like their memories, that live but in a few simple and unrepining hearts. But the famous tombs of the Genii are sometimes visited by pilgrims that are not worshippers-and who come not there in entire reverence. All eyes are not devoutly dim that read the letters on such monuments-all hearts are not holily inspired when dreaming on such dust-and Envy, that knows not itself to be Envy, sometimes seeks in vain to believe that the genius, now sanctified by death, was not in life but another name for transcendent virtue.

No man was ever more beloved by his friends-and among them were many of the great as well as the good-than the poet Coleridge. We so call him; for he alone perhaps of all men that ever lived was always a poet-in all his moods-and they were many-inspired. His genius never seemed to burn low-to need fuel or fanning; but gently stirred, uprose the magic flame—and the flame was fire. His waking thoughts had all the vividness of visions, all the variousness of dreams -but the Will, whose wand in sleep is powerless, reigned over all those beautiful reveries, which were often like revelations; while Fancy and Imagination, still obedient to Reason, the lawgiver, arrayed earth and life in such many-coloured radiance that they grew all divine.

But others are better privileged than we are to speak of those wonderful displays, spontaneous as breathing, of those

wonderful endowments; and therefore we now refrain from giving further utterance to our admiration of the only eloquence we ever heard that deserved the name-and assuredly from no lack of love. A holier duty is incumbent on them who were nearest and dearest to him; ere long we know it will be worthily done; and then it will be confessed by all who have an ear to hear and a heart to feel

"The still sad music of humanity,"

that he who was so admirable a poet, was one of the most
amiable of men. Who, now, can read unmoved, "his own
humble and affectionate epitaph?"-well so called by one who
was to him even as one of his own sons-written with calm
heart but trembling hand-a month or two before his death!
Stop, Christian passer-by! Stop, child of God,
And read with gentle heart. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he ;—
O lift in thought a prayer for S. T. C.

That he, who many a year, with toil of breath,
Found death in life, may here find life in death!

Mercy for praise—to be forgiven for fame,

He asked, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same.”

Nor are we going now to compose a critical essay on the genius of Coleridge. For many years it has been understood by all who know what poetry is; and all that future ages can do for his fame, will be to extend it. His exquisite sensibilities of human affection will continue to charm, as they have charmed, all kindred spirits-who feel that the common chords of the heart, touched by a fine finger, can discourse most excellent music; but in coarser natures, though kind—" and peace be to them, for there are many such "some even of his loveliest lays will awaken no answering emotion of delight -though

"Like unto an angel's song

That bids the heavens be mute!"

The imagery he raises before their eyes will be admired-for almost all eyes communicate with some inner sense of beauty; but the balmy breath in which it is enveloped, adding sweetness to the Spring, will escape unfelt-and so will the ethereal colouring that belongs not to the common day; for to be aware of the presence of that air and that light-so spiritual

-you must, "in a wise passiveness," be yourself a poet. Thus

66 Oft, with patient ear,

Long listening to the viewless skylark's note,
(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen,
Gleaming on sunny wings), in whisper'd tones,
I've said to my beloved-'Such, sweet girl!
The unobtrusive song of happiness,

Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard,

When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd,
And the heart listens.""

Even his Love Poems, though full of fondness and tenderness, to overflowing, nor yet unimpassioned, are not for the multitude; they are either so spiritualised as to be above their sympathies, or so purified as not to meet them; but to all those who are imaginative in all their happiness-to whom delight cannot be delusion-where in Poetry is there another such Lay of Love as Genevieve?

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame!"

All Poets who have held close communion with what is called inanimate nature, have given her, not only life, but a mind, a heart, and a soul; and though Philosophers, for doing so, have been very generally called Atheists, few have accused of irreligion the mere poetical creed. Only think of calling Wordsworth an Atheist! He, far beyond one and all of all other men, has illustrated the Faith of Universal Feeling. In Coleridge there are many fine touches of the same attributive Fancy; but his conceptive power, though strong and bright, was not equal to that of his Master-" that mighty Orb of Song." It is a strange assertion to make at this time of day, "that no writer has ever expressed the great truth, that man makes his world, or that it is the imagination which shapes. and colours all things, more vividly than Coleridge. Indeed, he is the poet who, in the age in which we live, brought forward that position into light and action." The writer had surely forgot Shakespeare; nor, had he remembered him, could he well have said this in the glorious face of Wordsworth. That Imagination

"bodies forth

The form of things unknown, turns them to shapes." "and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name,” is the finest of all possible expressions of the oldest of all possible truths—and no Poet ever sang who did not exemplify it. But we agree with the enlightened and amiable critic, that Coleridge has, throughout all his Poetry, delightfully exhibited such creative process of the Imaginative Faculty, and, in one rich and rare passage, expounded most philosophically, and illustrated most poetically, a great and universally-acknowledged Truth. Here it is :

"A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,

In word, or sigh, or tear—

O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,

And its peculiar tint of yellow green :
And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That gave away their motion to the stars;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:

Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew

In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;

I see them all so excellently fair,

I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

My genial spirits fail;

And what can these avail

To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavour,

Though I should gaze for ever

On that green light that lingers in the west :
I may not hope from outward forms to win

The passion and the life, whose fountains are within,

O Lady! we receive but what we give,

And in our life alone does nature live:

Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold, of higher worth