British Biography. Two paragraphs of the Statesman's Manual are devoted by my Father to Bell and Lancaster:* in one of them he says: "But take even Dr. Bell's original and unsophisticated plan, which I myself regard as an especial gift of Providence to the human race; and suppose this incomparable machine, this vast moral steam-engine, to have been adopted and in free motion throughout the Empire; it would yet appear to me a most dangerous delusion to rely on it as if this of itself formed an efficient national education."

C

NOTES TO LECTURE XIII.

ON POESY OR ART.

(1) p. 328. It has been stated elsewhere (Biographia Literaria Introd. p. 33), that for many positions of this Lecture the author was indebted to Schelling's admirable Oration-Ueber das Verhältniss der Bildenden Künste zu der Natur: Philosophische Schriften, pp. 341–96. Here, as well as in his Lecture on the Greek Drama, Mr. Coleridge seems to have borrowed from memory. A few short sentences are taken almost verbatim; but for the most part the thoughts of Schelling are mixed up with those of the borrower, and I think that, on a careful comparison of the Lecture with the oration, any fair reader will admit that, if it be Schelling's—and that the leading thought of the whole is his, I freely own,-it is Coleridge's also. But this question every student will be able to decide for himself even without going beyond the present volume.

N.B. The title of Schelling's Discourse has been commonly translated, On the Relation between the Plastic Arts and Nature; yet the term Plastic refers to Sculpture exclusively, and is never applied either by Schelling or Schlegel to Painting: and Schelling's discourse treats der Bildenden Künste, of the figuring or imaging Arts, in their relationship to Nature.† Bild is a picture, a print, as well as a graven image. The verb πλáσow is "strictly used of the artist who works in soft substances, such as earth, clay, wax." Liddell and Scott. Still die Plastik is generally applied to carving or sculpture; but never, I believe, to the mere expression of shape and visual appearance by painting, drawing, or printing.

* Works. I. p. 460.

† He says of Raphael, p. 379. "The bloom of the most cultivated life, the perfume of fancy, together with the aroma of the spirit breathe forth unitedly from his works ;" and bis criticism on Correggio, pp. 378-9, is remarkably genial and beautiful.

(mm) p. 328. See the next note.

(nn) p. 330. Phil. Schrift. pp. 344-5. "For the imaging art (die bildenden Künst), in the oldest form of expression, is styled a dumb poetry. The author of this definition doubtless meant to intimate thereby that, like Poetry, it is intended to express intellectual thoughts, conceptions, which the soul originates, not, however, by means of speech, but as silent Nature does, through form, through sensuous works independent of herself. Thus the imaging or figuring art stands evidently as an active bond betwixt the Soul and Nature, and can be conceived only in the vital mean-in der lebendigen Mitte,between both. Yea, since its relationship with the Soul it has in common with every other art, and with Poetry in particular, that (relation) whereby it is connected with Nature, and becomes, like Nature, a productive power, remains as the only one that is peculiar to it: and to this alone can we refer a theory which shall be satisfactory to the understanding, as well as furthering and beneficial to art." Transl. Compare also with a passage, which will be presently quoted, in p. 352.

(00) p. 230. See the last note.

(pp) p. 230. Ib. pp. 345–6. "But has not Science, then, always recognized this relationship? Has not every theory of later times even set out from the fixed principle, that Art should be the imitatress of Nature? It has so: but what did this broad general principle avail the artist, amid the various significations (Vieldeutigheit) of the conception of Nature, and when there were almost as many representations of this Nature as different modes of existence ?"

(99) p. 331. Compare with the following passage, Phil. Schrift. p. 356. "How comes it that, to every cultivated sense, imitations of the so named real, carried even to illusion, appear in the highest degree untruthful,- -even convey the impression of spectres; whereas a work, in which the idea is dominant, seizes us with the full force of truth,-nay, transports us for the first time into the genuine world of reality? Whence does this arise, save from the more or less obscure perception, which proclaims, that the idea is that alone which lives (das allein Lebendige) in Things:-that all else is beingless and empty shadow?"-Tr.

(rr) p. 331. Ib. p. 347. "Should then the disciple of Nature imitate every thing in her without distinction, and in every thing all that belongs to it, und von jedem jedes? Only beautiful objects, and even of these only the beautiful and perfect should he repeat."—Tr.

(88) p. 331. Compare with the following. Ib. p. 351. "We must depart from the form in order to win it back again, to win back itself, perceived as true, livingly and in the light of understanding. Consider the most beautiful forms, what remains, when in thought you have abstracted from them the operative principle? Nothing but bare unessential properties, such as extension and space-relationship. ***** Nicht das Nebeneinanderseyn macht die Form,—it is not the contiguity or mutual nearness of parts that constitutes form, but the manner thereof (the mode in which it takes place). But this can only be determined through a positive power, dem Aussereinander vielmehr entgegenwirkende —opposed even to that condition of space whereby things are perceived as without one another, which subjects the variety (or manifoldness) of parts to the unity of an idea (Begriff): from the power which works in the crystal even to that which, like a soft magnetic stream, gives to the parts of matter in human frames a disposition and situation relative to one another, whereby the conception, the essential unity and beauty-can become visible."-Tr. Compare with this passage the last sentence of the first paragraph of Mr. C.'s Lecture.

(tt) p. 332. Ib. p. 353. "This effective science is the bond in Nature and Art between the conception and form; between body and soul."-Tr.

(uu) p. 332. Ib. p. 352. "The science, through which Nature works, is indeed like to no human science, which is united with self-reflection: mit der Reflexion ihrer selbst. In it conception is not distinct from art, nor design separate from execution."-Tr.

(vv) p. 332. Compare with this passage: Ph. Schrift. p. 353. "If that artist is to be accounted fortunate and praiseworthy beyond all others, on whom the Gods have bestowed this creative spirit, so will the work of art appear excellent in that proportion wherein it shows us, as in outline, this uncounterfeited power of creation and effectivity."-Tr.

(wow) p. 332. Ib. pp. 353-4. "It has long been perceived that, in Art, not every thing is performed with consciousness: that with the conscious activity an unconscious power must be united, and that the perfect union and interpenetration of these two accomplishes that which is highest in Art. Works that want this seal of conscious science are recognized through the sensible deficiency of a self-subsistent life independent of the life which produces them: while, on the other hand, where this operates, Art imparts to its work, together with the highest clearness of the understanding, that inscrutable reality, through which it appears like to a work of Nature."

"The attitude of the Artist toward Nature should frequently be explained by the maxim, that Art in order to be such, must, in the first instance, depart from Nature, and only return to her in the last fulfilment. The true sense of this appears to be no other than what follows. In all natural existences the living idea appears only as a blind agent; were this true of the Artist, he would not be distinguishable from Nature in general. Were he to subordinate himself consciously and altogether to the actual, and repeat that which exists with servile fidelity, he would bring forth masks (Larven), but no works of Art. For this cause he must remove himself from the product or creature, but only for the sake of raising himself up to the creative power, and seizing that intellectually or spiritually. Hereby he rises into the domain of pure ideas; he forsakes the creature in order to win it back again with a thousandfold profit, and in this way he will come back to Nature indeed."-Tr.

(xx) p. 333. Ib. p. 354. (Next Sentence.) "The Artist should by all means strive after that spirit of Nature which operates in the inner being of things through form and visual appearance no otherwise than as through speaking symbols,-(jenem im Innern der Dinge wirksamen durch Form und Gestalt nur wie durch Sinnbilder redenden Naturgeist soll der Künstler allerdings nacheifern): and only in so far as, in his imitation, he livingly seizes this, has he himself produced any thing of truth.”—Tr.

Compare also with this passage, Ib. p. 348. "The object of imitation was altered-imitation went on as before. In the place of Nature came the sublime works of Antiquity, from which the scholar was occupied in taking the outward form, but without the spirit that filled it."-Tr.

(yy) p. 333. Ib. p. 347. "When we view things not in respect to their essence, but to the empty abstract form, then they speak not at all to the inward being in ourselves—(so sagen sie auch unserm Innern nichts): we must put into them our own mind (Gemüth), our own spirit, if they are to respond to us."-Tr.

(22) p. 333. Ib. p. 355. "For works which should be the result of a combination of forms in themselves even beautiful, einer Zusammensetzung auch übrigens schöner Formen, would yet be devoid of beauty, inasmuch as that whereby peculiarly the work or the whole is beautiful can not be mere form,―nicht mehr Form seyn kann. It is above Form,-is Being-the Universal-the look and expression of the indwelling Spirit of Nature.-Es ist über die Form, ist Wesen, Allgemeines, ist Blick und Ausdruck des inwohnenden Naturgeistes.”

(aaa) p. 334. Ib. pp. 356–7. “By the same principle (that the con

ception (Begriff) is the sole life of things-das allein Lebendige in den Dingen), we may explain all the opposed cases which are adduced as examples of the surpassing of Nature by Art. When it arrests the swift course of human years, when it unites the vigor of full-blown manhood with the soft charm of early youth, or presents a mother of grown-up sons and daughters in the perfect condition of powerful beauty, what does it but remove that which is non-essential—Time. If according to the remark of the distinguished critic (Kenner), each growth of Nature has but a single moment of true perfect beauty, we may also say that it has but one moment of full existence. In this moment it is what it is in all eternity: beside this there pertains to it only a becoming and a ceasing to be. Art, in representing that moment, lifts it out of time; makes it appear in its true essence, in the eternity of its life."-Tr.

(bbb) p. 334. Ib. "But the case appears to be 375-6. pp. very different with Painting and with Sculpture. For the former represents, not like the latter, through corporeal things, but through light and color, thus even through an incorporeal and in some measure spiritual medium."-Tr.

(ccc) p. 335. Ib. p. 348. "But they (the lofty works of antiquity) are just as unapproachable; nay, they are more unapproachable than the works of Nature; they leave us colder even than those do; unless we bring with us the spiritual eye to pierce through the husk or veil, and perceive the operative energy within them."-Tr.

(ddd) p. 336. Ib. p. 357. "When once we have abstracted from form all the Positive and Essential, it can not but appear restrictive, and, as it were, hostile in respect of the Essence; and the same theory, which called forth the false ineffective Idealistic, must, at the same time, tend to the formless in Art. Form would indeed circumscribe the Essence, if it were independent of it. But, if it exists with and through the Essence, how should it feel itself restricted through that which itself creates? Violence might be done it by a form forced on it from without, but never by that which flows from itself. On the contrary it will rest satisfied in this, and find therein its existence as self-subsistent and self-included."-Tr.

(eee) p. 336. Ib. pp. 361-2. "Winkelmann compares Beauty to water, which, drawn from the bosom of the spring, is held the purer the less taste it has. It is true that the highest Beauty is characterless; just as we say also that the Universe has no determinate dimension, neither length, nor breadth, nor depth, because it contains them all in a like infinitude; or that the Art of creative Nature is formless, because itself is subjected to no form."-Tr.