The brilliant Coleridge of Nether Stowey, the buoyant young poet-philosopher who had not been to Germany, was still a curious compound of imperfectly fused elements. His Liberalism had led him to the Unitarianism of Priestley and the associative philosophy of Hartley. But he had also dipped into Plotinus and into some of the mystical writers who represent the very opposite pole of speculation. The first doctrine was imposed upon him from without, the other was that which was really congenial to his temperament. For Coleridge was, above all, essentially and intrinsically a poet. The first genuine manifestations of his genius are the poems which he wrote before he was twenty-six. The germ of all Coleridge's utterances may be found—by a little ingenuity—in the 'Ancient Mariner.' For what is the secret of the strange charm of that unique achievement? I do not speak of what may be called its purely literary merits—the melody of versification, the command of language, the vividness of the descriptive passages, and so forth—I leave such points to critics of finer perception and a greater command of superlatives. But part, at least, of the secret is the ease with which Coleridge moves in a world of which the machinery (as the old critics called it) is supplied by the mystic philosopher. Milton, as Penseroso, implores The spirit of Plato to unfold, What worlds or what vast systems hold The spirit of man that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshy nook, And of those demons that are found In fire, air, flood, and underground, Whose powers have a true consent With planet and with element.