History of France. By E. E. Crowe. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia Insect Miscellanies-Library of Entertaining Knowledge Jenour's Translation of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, with Notes Lives of Eminent British Statesmen-Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia Mackintosh's, Sir J., Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy Reed's Discourse on Eminent Piety essential to Eminent Usefulness Robertson's Works, with an Account of his Life and Writings by Dugald Stewart Seaward's, Sir E., Narrative of his Shipwreck. Edited by Miss Jane Porter. Smith's, Dr. J. P., Discourse on the Personality and Divinity of the Holy Spirit Southey's Select Works of the British Poets, from Chaucer to Jonson THE ECLECTIC REVIEW, FOR JULY, 1831. Art. I. 1. On the Constitution of the Church and State, according to the Idea of Each; with Aids toward a right Judgement of the late Catholic Bill. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq., R.A., R.S.L. Small 8vo. pp. 227. Price 10s. 6d. London, 1830. 2. A Letter to his Grace the Archbishop of York, on the present Corrupt State of the Church of England. By R. M. Beverley, Esq. 8vo. Fifth Edition. pp. 42. Beverley, 1831. 3. Church Reform. By a Churchman. Second Edition, small 8vo. pp. 226. London, Murray, 1830. FEW W writers of the present day are so capable of furnishing aids to reflection' as Mr. Coleridge; but, aids toward a 'right judgement' of any question, his mode of treating things is not the best adapted to supply. What the late Mr. Hall once remarked of Dr. Owen, may with still greater propriety be applied to the Author of "The Friend,"-that he 'dives deep and comes up muddy.'* He is, perhaps, the most comprehensive thinker of the age, but it is a comprehensiveness fatal to distinctness; and the vague, generalized survey of a subject, which he loves to take, reminds us of a bird's eye view of a tract of country, or of the appearance of the earth from a balloon. And, if we may pursue the simile, from the elevation to Dr. Mason, of New zealously expatiating You must at least allow,' 'Yes, sir,' was the re Mr. Hall was peculiarly happy in repartee. York, (from whom we heard the anecdote,) was on the merits of Dr. Owen as a writer: he said to Mr. Hall, that Owen dives deep.' ply, dives deep,' &c. as given above. Mr. Hall was ever ready, however, to do justice to Owen as a divine: it was to his prolix and perplexed style only that he referred. VOL. VI.-N.S. B which he transports us, the misty exhalations of thought which come rolling one over another, apparently the sport of accident or impulse, but governed by unknown laws of association,-often assume forms of grandeur and beauty which delight the fancy, although they obscure or conceal the field of intellectual vision. Mr. Coleridge's habits of thought are strikingly desultory, and yet, they must be characterized as truly philosophical; and from the combination of these almost incompatible qualities results the peculiar character of his writings. He proceeds in a way the very opposite to that of some eloquent writers, who, having selected a proposition for illustration, concentrate their whole attention upon that point, lavish on it all the strength of argument, and never leave it till the theme is fairly exhausted. Mr. Coleridge, on the contrary, never closes with a subject, never comes to close quarters, but brings the artillery of his learning and eloquence to bear upon large masses. We can hardly conceive of a more striking contrast than that which his writings present, in this respect, to those of Dr. Chalmers. The one is fond of exhibiting a simple idea in every variety of aspect, and of decorating it with multiplied illustrations, making it the central point of the shifting figures, in a manner that has been aptly compared to the effect of the objects in a kaleidoscope. The other surrounds us with a gallery of abstractions, theories, axioms, unfinished sketches, and antique fragments, in which his own conceptions are indiscriminately blended with those of other men; where nothing is well arranged, and scarcely any thing is finished, but here, ideas present themselves roughly blocked out, and waiting for the chisel,-there, a rude sketch suggests hints for a study,-here is seen a foot of Hercules, there, a head of Juno,-here, the torso of a Church, and there, the fragments of a Constitution. Now all this is very pleasant as an exhibition, but extremely difficult to deal with. The disorderly opulence of the Author's stores of thought, by which he is himself bewildered, baffles all analysis. We are charmed with the grouping and succession of objects, but they will not fall into perspective; and when we arrive at the end, we seem as far as ever from any definite conclusion. In vain would any but the most attentive reader attempt to disentangle the complex knot of ideas laid before him in the present volume. The style of the composition itself answers to the involution of the thoughts. Digression upon digression, parenthesis within parenthesis, distinctions the most refined, transitions the most abrupt, positions the most paradoxical, keep continually the mind of the reader upon the stretch, wondering whither the erudite and accomplished Writer intends to lead him. A single sentence, taken from the volume before us, will serve to illustrate this peculiarity of the Author's mode of developing his ideas. The principle itself, which as not contained within the rule and compass of law, its practical manifestations being indeterminable and inappreciable à priori, and then only to be recorded as having manifested itself, when the predisposing causes and the enduring effects prove the unific mind and energy of the nation to have been in travail; when they have made audible to the historian that Voice of the People which is the Voice of God;-this Principle, I say, (or the Power, that is the subject of it,) which by its very essence existing and working as an Idea only, except in the rare and predestined epochs of Growth and Reparation, might seem to many fitter matter for verse than for sober argument, I will, by way of compromise, and for the amusement of the reader, sum up in the rhyming prose of an old Puritan poet, consigned to contempt by Mr. Pope, but whose writings, with all their barren flats and dribbling common-place, contain nobler principles, profounder truths, and more that is properly and peculiarly poetic than are to be found in his own works.' pp. 113, 14. It would be a somewhat puzzling exercise to a tyro in grammar, to parse this leviathan sentence. The ground-work of the lofty pile of words, is the simple and intelligible announcement: The Principle itself. . . . I will.... sum up in the rhyming 'prose of an old Puritan poet.' This is all that Mr. Coleridge meant originally to say. But, upon this primary thought he has grafted, first, the parenthesis beginning with the word which,' then suddenly dropped for a series of annotations upon the word principle,' and not taken up again till the words might seem to many fitter matter for verse than for sober argument;' a hundred and six words being interposed between the verb 'might seem' and its nominative which.' The intermediate clauses consist of two distinct sub-parentheses, each requiring to be made a separate sentence. Lastly, we have appended to the whole a criticism upon the poetry of Wither, and to this is subjoined a distinct note. This mode of packing words reminds us of the ingenious toy composed of a series of wooden apples one within another, which a child continues to open with increased admiration till he gets to the minute kernel. Disentangled from each other, the several sentences comprised in the above extract, would read as follows. The principle itself' (that is, a due proportion of the potential to the actual power' in the body politic) is not contained within the rule and compass of law, its practical manifestations being indeterminable and inappreciable à priori, and then only to be recorded as having manifested itself, when the predisposing causes and the enduring effects prove the unific mind and energy of the nation to have been in travail,-when they have made audible to the historian that voice of the people which is the voice of God. This principle, or the power that is the subject of it, by its very essence, exists and works as an idea only, except in the rare and predestined epochs of Growth and Reparation. |