Of his general claims to our regard, whether from exalted personal and moral worth, or from the magnificence of his intellectual powers, and the vast extent and variety of his accumulated stores of knowledge, I shall not venture to speak. If it be true indeed that a really great mind can be worthily commended only by those who adequately both appreciate and _comprehend_ its greatness, there are few who should undertake to estimate, and set forth in appropriate terms, the intellectual power and moral worth of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Neither he, nor the public, would be benefited by such commendations as I could bestow. The few among us who have read his works with the attention which they deserve, are at no loss what rank to assign him among the writers of the present age; to those who have not, any language which I might use would appear hyperbolical and extravagant. The character and influence of his principles as a philosopher, a moralist, and a Christian, and of the writings by which he is enforcing them, do not ultimately depend upon the estimation in which they may now be held; and to posterity he may safely entrust those "productive ideas" and "living words"--those ---- truths that wake, To perish never, the possession of which will be for their benefit, and connected with which, in the language of the Son of Sirach,--_His own memorial shall not depart away, and his name shall live from generation to generation_. J. M.[13] [7] President of the University of Vermont, United States, where his Essay was first published with Dr. Marsh's edition of the 'Aids,' 1829. See Mr. H. N. Coleridge's Advertisement to the Fourth Edition, _ante_, p. xii.--ED. [8] See pp. 172, 208, 223, &c.--ED. [9] Coleridge's 'Biographia Literaria,' p. 301, Bohn's edition.--ED. [10] Introductory Aphorisms, XVI., p. 8.--ED. [11] Also in Appendix B of the 'Statesman's Manual, Bohn's edition p, 337.--ED. [12] The 'Quarterly Christian Spectator,' of New Haven, U.S. The letter referred to is signed "Pacificus," and appeared in answer to a review of "Taylor and Harvey" (American divines), "On Human Depravity," which had appeared in the previous number of the Q.C.S.--ED. [13] Dr. Marsh's signature to the "Advertisement" published with the above essay in its revised American edition was dated "Burlington, Dec. 26, 1839."--ED. AIDS TO REFLECTION. INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS. APHORISM I. In philosophy equally as in poetry, it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission. Extremes meet. Truths, of all others the most awful and interesting, are too often considered as so true, that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors. APHORISM II.