denominations.” The knowledge, which it was their function to cultivate and diffuse, embraced not only theology, although this pre-eminently as the head of all other knowledge, but law, music, mathematics, the physical sciences, “all the so-called liberal arts and sciences, the possession and cultivation of which constitute the civilisation of a country.” This is at any rate a large conception of a national church. It is put forth by its author with all earnestness, although he admitted that it had never been anywhere realised. But it was his object “to present the _Idea_ of a national church as the only safe criterion by which we can judge of existing things.” It was only when “we are in full and clear possession of the ultimate aim of an institution” that we can ascertain how far “this aim has ever been attained in other ways.” These, very briefly explained, are the main lines along which Coleridge moved the national mind in the third decade of this century. They may seem to some rather impalpable lines, and hardly calculated to touch the general mind. But they were influential, as the course of Christian literature has since proved. Like his own genius, they were diffusive rather than concentrative. The Coleridgian ideas permeated the general intellectual atmosphere, modifying old conceptions in criticism as well as theology, deepening if not always clarifying the channels of thought in many directions, but especially in the direction of Christian philosophy. They acted in this way as a new circulation of spiritual air all around, rather than in conveying any new body of truth. The very ridicule of Carlyle testifies to the influence which they exercised over aspiring and younger minds. The very emphasis with which he repudiates the Coleridgian metaphysic probably indicates that he had felt some echo of it in his own heart.—_Fortnightly Review._ FOOTNOTES: [2] Admiration, Hope, and Love. _Excursion_, b. iv. [3] Admiration, Hope, and Love. _Excursion_, b. ix. [4] Not only the _Ancient Mariner_ and the first part of _Christabel_, but also _Kubla Khan_ were composed at Nether Stovey among the Quantock Hills in 1797. The second part of _Christabel_ belongs to the year 1800, and was written at Keswick, although not published till 1816. Nothing of the same quality was ever produced by Coleridge, although he continued to write verses. [5] It is strange, however, to find Mr. Traill commending Coleridge's very last volume (1830) _On the Constitution of Church and State_, as “yielding a more characteristic flavor of the author's style” than the _Aids to Reflection_. Characteristic, no doubt, this volume is of the author's mode of thought; but in point of style, it and his _Lay Sermon_ or _Statesman's Manual_ in 1816 appear to us the most desultory and imperfect of all his writings.