Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia LiterariaColeridge, Samuel Taylor
General
Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 -- Correspondence
Vol. IV contains Notes on Luther, St. Theresa, Bedell, Baxter, Leighton,
Sherlock, Waterland, Shelton, Andrew Fuller, Whitaker, Oxlee, A
Barrister's Hints, Davison, Irving, and Noble, and an Essay on Faith.
The present edition of the _Literary Remains_ is nearly exhausted. In a
fresh edition new matter will be added from marginal notes, probably in
a fifth volume. Archdeacon Hare speaks of _The Remains_ in the Preface
to his _Mission of the Comforter_ in a passage which may fitly be
produced here.
"Of recent English writers, the one with whose sanction I have chiefly
desired, whenever I could, to strengthen my opinions, is the great
religious philosopher to whom the mind of our generation in England owes
more than to any other man. My gratitude to him I have endeavoured to
express by dedicating the following Sermons to his memory; and the
offering is so far at least appropriate, in that the main work of his
life was to spiritualize, not only our philosophy, but our theology, to
raise them both above the empiricism into which they had long been
dwindling, and to set them free from the technical trammels of logical
systems. Whether he is as much studied by the genial young men of the
present day, as he was twenty or thirty years ago, I have no adequate
means of judging; but our theological literature teems with errors, such
as could hardly have been committed by persons whose minds had been
disciplined by his philosophical method, and had rightly appropriated
his principles. So far too as my observation has extended, the third and
fourth volumes of his _Remains_, though they were hailed with delight by
Arnold on their first appearance, have not yet produced their proper
effect on the intellect of the age. It may be that the rich store of
profound and beautiful thought contained in them, has been weighed down,
from being mixt with a few opinions on points of Biblical criticism,
likely to be very offensive to persons who know nothing about the
history of the Canon. Some of these opinions, to which Coleridge himself
ascribed a good deal of importance, seem to me of little worth; some, to
be decidedly erroneous. Philological criticism, indeed, all matters
requiring a laborious and accurate investigation of details, were alien
from the bent and habits of his mind; and his exegetical studies, such
as they were, took place at a period when he had little better than the
meagre Rationalism of Eickhorn and Bertholdt to help him. Of the
opinions which he imbibed from them, some abode with him through life.
These, however, along with everything else that can justly be objected
to in the _Remains_, do not form a twentieth part of the whole, and may
easily be separated from the remainder. Nor do they detract, in any way,
from the sterling sense, the clear and far-sighted discernment, the
power of tracing principles in their remotest operations, and of
referring all things to their first principles which are manifested in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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