De Quincey says Shelling was "worthy in some respects to be Coleridge's assessor." He accounts for Coleridge's borrowing on the principle of kleptomania.... "In fact reproduced in a new form, applying itself to intellectual wealth, that maniacal propensity which is sometimes well known to attack enormous proprietors and _millionnaires_ for acts of petty larceny." And cites a case of a Duke having a mania for silver spoons. This is "all bosh," and the wrong theory of Coleridge's borrowing from Shelling; and as to his loans from any one else, they were as few as those of any writer. The true theory is, that he was after truth, and had thought out as well as Shelling the doctrines promulgated by the latter. He could claim as much originality as Shelling in a system, "introduced by Bruno," and advocated by Kant, and of which he (Shelling) was only "the most successful improver." And also, that "he" (Coleridge) "regarded truth as a divine ventriloquist, he cared not from whose mouth the sounds were supposed to proceed if only the words were audible and intelligible." He borrowed the _language_ of Shelling, but that is all. But De Quincey, after all his flourish of trumpets and initiatory war-whoop, volunteers to say that "Coleridge, he most heartily believes, to have been as entirely original in all his capital pretensions, as any one man that ever has existed as--Archimedes, in ancient days, or as Shakespeare, in modern." In estimating the value of Coleridge's "robberies," their usefulness to himself, etc., De Quincey draws a parallel between them and the contents of a child's pocket.