Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert SoutheyCottle, Joseph
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Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey
Cottle, Joseph
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Southey, Robert, 1774-1843
This fathering of Tractarianism, as it is termed, upon
Coleridge, well deserves to rank beside the folly which would father
Rationalism upon Luther. Coleridge's far-reaching vision did indeed
discern the best part of the speculative truths which our new school
has laid hold on, and exaggerated and perverted. But in Coleridge's
field of view they were comprised along with the complimental truths
which limit them, and in their conjunction and co-ordination with
which alone they retain the beneficent power of truth. He saw what
our modern theologians see, though it was latent from the vulgar eyes
in his days; but he also saw what they do not see, what they have
closed their eyes on; and he saw far beyond them, because he saw
things in their universal principles and laws."--_Rev. Archdeacon
Charles Hare's "Mission of the Comforter."--Preface, pp. 13, 15. Two
Vols. 8vo_.
These various testimonies to the conversational eminence of Mr.
Coleridge, and from men the best qualified to decide, must satisfy every
mind, that in this one quality he scarcely ever had a superior, or
perhaps an equal. In the 103rd No. of the "Quarterly Review," there is a
description of his conversation, evidently written by one competent to
judge, and who well knew the subject of his praise; but though the
writer's language is highly encomiastic, corresponding with his
eloquence, yet to all who knew Coleridge, it will not be considered as
exceeding the soberest truth. When and where are such descriptions as the
preceding and the following to be found?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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