THIS is one of those books which it is wholly impossible for any work professing to give an account of our passing literature to omit noticing. It is, in every respect, one of the most interesting books which we have ever happened to read, and, from the variety of its contents, one of the most difficult to review. There has been about the announcement of it something which we do not perfectly understand. Several of the reviews have, before the publication of the book, given considerable extracts from it; and, with all our wishes to give the earliest accounts which we can of such books as we think sufficiently interesting to engage our own attention or that of our readers, here are two of the most amusing volumes in the language, of which, owing to the mode of publication, our readers will have already read in the newspapers and reviews such considerable portions, that we are led to give a much less detailed account of the work than we could at all wish, as we are already anticipated by notices of the book in the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and Westminster Reviews; all of which reviewed the book before its publication. We have heard that the delay in issuing the book after it had been not only printed but reviewed, has arisen from a wish to make arrangements that would secure the advantage of copyright in America. Of the injustice of the existing law of copyright in these countries, and the way in which it most affects works of the greatest merit, (while the right of the author, terminating at the end of twentyeight years after publication, necessarily tends to increase the price of the book during the interval,) no one who has given any consideration to the subject can, we should think, entertain a doubt. The fashionable novels of the season, which in a few weeks are not worth the price of the paper on which they are printed, are in no way affected by the law, nor would they, if the copyright was to terminate at the end of one year, instead of twenty-eight. That a state of the law which bears with exclusive hardship on the authors of books of permanent value should remain unremedied is certainly unjust : but, of anything so chimerical as the hope of securing a copyright through America or over the Continent, (though, of course, publishers in America or France may give something for copies of the sheets as they are printed, or such other assistance as may secure to the particular house priority of publication)-we think there never can be anything like a fair chance. Of our modern poets Coleridge is, in every respect, the most original. In his very earliest writings-in the lovepoems, &c. which are the first works of every poet, are the germs of the pecu Specimens of the Table-Talk of the late S. T. Coleridge, Esq. 2 vols. small 8vo. London, 1835. VOL. VI. B liar powers which bore such rich fruit in his after life. We transcribe in evidence of this from the Sibylline Leaves a school-boy poem, which was among the first verses he ever wrote. TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY. AN ALLEGORY. On the wide level of a mountain's head, This far outstripp'd the other; O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed, Of this poem Mr. Coleridge has said, "I scarcely know what title I should prefix to it. By Imaginary Time, I meant the state of a schoolboy's mind, when on his return to school, he projects his being in his day dreams, and lives in his holydays six months hence, and this I contrasted with real time." Think of a schoolboy already engaged in giving language such as this to such thoughts! Think of his embodying in such personification his own consciousnessalready finding in the notions of time, but forms and moods of his own mindalready making outward and visible pictures of the invisible workings of his inward nature-think then of the simplicity and power and perfect beauty of the language-less exquisite no doubt, but scarcely less true than that of his last verses, written after a life of study-not one word, which is not mother English-not one word of which is not such as Mr. Coleridge might have written in the last year of his life. The versification, though not complex, or of any varied power, is rich and musical, and wins the ear on through the whole stanza; but think of the picture itself, seen in the morning light of a young poet's imagination A sister and a brother! Had this been a picture from actual of promise such as the early verses of Pope and Cowley gave; but it is as the effort of the "marvellous boy" to image to himself the world within-to shape into phantoms-to wreathe with flowers and crown with haloes the floating and perishable dreams which with millions and millions pass away and are forgotten; which, while the very facts impersonated have past, and are for ever passing, more or less dimly before the mind of every one that lives, can with difficulty be brought into such distinct consciousness, as to be made intelligible to the understanding. It is this power of giving a poetical life-nay, permanence, and such immortality as man's language can remembrances of his youth are sure to reappear vividly, in which the mind seems to live again in the recollection of its earliest boyhood-and all that had intervened of bustle and anxiety, and the struggles, in which the good seed seems to be trodden down and destroyed, being almost forgotten, the old man thinks alone of his youth-of the friends of his youth;-and when that time comes, and those recollections return-with what effect,-it was urged with what effect will not the solemn and tender images of the dead come back upon the old man's hearthis father's voice in prayer-the voice that has been still for perhaps half a century-which could it be heard again on earth, no other heart or ear could recognize. As you love your children, such was the resistless language of the affectionate appeal, as you love your children, let them see that you love your God; if they fall, if they disappoint all your hopes and all your wishes-despair not; and the preacher again dwelt upon the existence of this second spring in man's life, and the irresistible effects which early recollections of good would then bring with them. We are reminded of this by the circumstance that the volumes before us show, how, in the very last years of Mr. Coleridge's life, the state of mind, O bliss of blissful hours! which is described in this his first poem, seems to have recurred, and to have re-awakened a poetry which is in some sort the echo of these earliest feelings. "I am dying, but without expectation of a speedy release. Is it not strange that very recently by-gone images, and scenes of early life, have stolen into my mind, like breezes blown from the spiceislands of Youth and Hope those two realities of this phantom world! I do not add Love, for what is Love but Youth and Hope embracing, and so seen as one? I say realities; for reality is a thing of degrees, from the Iliad to a dream; xai yág r' övag in Aíos Ti. Yet in a strict sense, reality is not predicable Es enim at all of aught below Heaven. in cœlis, Pater noster, qui tu vere es!" Hooker wished to live to finish his Ecclesiastical Polity ;-so I own I wish life and strength had been spared to me to comFor, as God plete my Philosophy. hears me, the originating, continuing, and sustaining wish and design in my heart was to exalt the glory of his name; and, which is the same thing in other words, to promote the improvement of mankind. But visum aliter Deo, and his will be done."-Table Talk, Vol. 2, page 341. Of that later poetry we transcribe some passages of great beauty-" The Garden of Boccaccio" has all the warmth of Dryden's happiest style :— The boon of Heaven's decreeing, Dwelt the first husband and his sinless mate! The one sweet plant, which, piteous Heaven agreeing, Of life's gay summer tide the sovran rose! Late autumn's amaranth, that more fragrant blows If this were ever his, in outward being, Or but his own true love's projected shade, Now that at length by certain proof he knows, Whate'er it was, it is no longer so; Though heart be lonesome, hope laid low, Yet, Lady! deem him not unblest : The certainty that struck hope dead, And that is next the best! Poetical Works, Aldine Edition, Vol. 2. THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO. Of late, in one of those most weary hours, And, from the numbing spell to win relief, I sate and cow'r'd o'er my own vacancy! Emerging from a mist; or like a stream But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream, Gazed by an idle eye with silent might The picture stole upon my inward sight. A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest, As though an infant's finger touch'd my breast. And one by one (I know not whence) were brought All spirits of power that most had stirr'd my thought In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost; Or charm'd my youth, that, kindled from above, Of manhood, musing what and whence is man! Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share. |