The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 1838Gillman, James
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The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 1838
Gillman, James
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Critics -- Great Britain -- Biography; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
The honourable gentleman has discovered, that the danger of French
power and French principles is at an end, because they are concentred,
and because to uniformity of design is added an unity of direction; he
has discovered that all the objects of French ambition are
relinquished, because France has sacrificed even the 'appearances' of
freedom to the best means of realising them; in short that now, for
the first time, Jacobinism is not to be dreaded, because now, for the
first time, it has superadded to itself the compactness of despotism.
But the honourable gentleman presses hard, and requires me to be
definite and explicit. What, says he, do you mean by destroying the
power of Jacobinism? Will, you persevere in the war, until you have
received evidence that it is extinct in this country, extinct in
France, extinct in the mind of every man? No! I am not so shamefully
ignorant of the laws that regulate the soul of man. The mind once
tainted with Jacobinism can never be wholly free from the taint; I
know no means of purification; when it does not break out on the
surface, it still lurks in the vitals; no antidote can approach the
subtlety of the venom, no length of quarantine secure us against the
obstinacy of the pestilence.
Those who are now telling us, that all danger from revolutionary
principles is now passed by, are yet endeavouring to call up again the
very arguments which they used at the commencement of the war, in the
youth and rampancy of Jacobinism; and repeat the same language, with
which they then attempted to lull the nation into security, combined
with the same acts of popular irritation. They are telling us, that
ministers disregard peace; that they are prodigal of blood; insensible
to the miseries, and enemies to the liberties of mankind; that the
extinction of Jacobinism is their pretext, but that personal ambition
is their motive; and that we have squandered two hundred millions on
an object, unattainable were it desirable, and were it not
unattainable, yet still to be deprecated. Sir, will men be governed by
mere words without application? This country, Sir, will not. It knows
that to this war it owes its prosperity, its constitution, whatever is
fair or useful in public or domestic life, the majesty of her laws,
the freedom of her worship, and the sacredness of our firesides. For
these it has spent two hundred millions, for these it would spend two
hundred millions more; and, should it be necessary, Sir, I doubt not
that I could find those two hundred millions, and still preserve her
resources unimpaired. The only way to make it not necessary is to
avail ourselves of the hearty co-operation of our allies, and to
secure and invigorate that co-operation by the firmness and vigour of
our own conduct. The honourable gentleman then comes back upon me, and
presses me upon the supposed dissonance between our views and those of
our allies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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