work which Coleridge distinctly admits to be translated, not however from Schelling, but from a "contemporary writer on the Continent." See Biog. Lit, pp. 140, 141, where upwards of a page and a half are copied (omitting one insignificant interpolation) from Schelling's Darlegung,[1] pp. 154, 155. But even here he cannot admit his obligation plainly and directly; the terms in which he introduces the extract are exceedingly curious, and very much in his usual vein. See Biog. Lit, p. 139, where he thus-writes, in reference to p. 140, 141:—"While I, in part, translate the following observations from a contemporary writer of the Continent, let me be permitted to premise, that I might have transcribed the substance from memoranda of my own, which were written many years before his pamphlet was given to the world; and that I prefer another's words to my own, partly as a tribute due to priority of publication, but still more from the pleasure of sympathy in a case where coincidence (Ital. in orig.) only was possible." Now, how Coleridge could reconcile with ordinary faith his statement, that a paragraph, consisting of forty-nine lines, to which his own contribution was six, was only in part translated from a foreign work—how he could outrage common sense, and the capacities of human belief, by saying that he might have transcribed" the substance of it from memoranda of his own, written many years before Schelling's pamphlet was given to the world "—how he could have the cool assurance to tell us that he "prefers another's words to his own"—not, mark you, because these words belong to that other man, and not to him—but as a tribute due to priority of publication—and how he could take it upon him to say that in this case nothing more than coincidence was possible, (except on the ground that it was impossible for any human being to write any thing but what he had written before !)—how he could do all these things, entirely baffles our comprehension.
In B. L., pp. 141-143, are to be found two other long sentences, curiously transmogrified from the Darlegung, p. 156.
In B. L., p. 146, Coleridge's observation about the Noumenon of Kant, is taken from Schelling's Phil. Schrift. pp. 275, 276. His words here are certainly not exactly Schelling's; but he adds nothing to the original remarks from which his observation is borrowed. For the latter part of his sentence, see also Transc. Id. p. 114.
In B. L., p. 147, we next read—"All symbols, of necessity, involve an apparent contradiction." This is translated from the Phil. Schrift. p. 276.
We now pass on to the opening of Chap. X. B. L., p. 157. It commences in italics thus—the introductory words being put into the mouth of an imaginary reader: "Esemplastic!—the word is not in Johnson, nor have I met with it elsewhere!" "Neither have I," rejoins the author, Coleridge; "I constructed it myself from the Greek words," εις ἑν πλαττειν, i.e. to shape into one." To this we, taking up the cause and character of the imaginary reader, reply—" We beg your pardon, sir; but you did nothing of the sort—you met with it in Schelling's Darlegung, p. 61. You there found the word In-eins-bildung—"a shaping into one"—which Schelling or some other German had literally formed from the Greek, εις ἑν πλαττειν, and you merely translated this word back into Greek, (a very easy and obvious thing to do,) and then you coined the Greek words into English, merely altering them from a noun into an adjective." The word is likewise to be met with in Schelling's Vorlesungen,[2] p. 313. Such, we will lay our life upon it, is the history of Coleridge's neology in the instance of the word "esemplastic." Readers are generally passive enough mortals in the hands of writers; but an author who ventures upon questionable freaks like this, must lay his account with sometimes catching a Tartar among them.
We now pass on to what is perhaps the most singular case of plagiarism in the whole book. We find that the whole of p. 246, and the greater part of p. 247, B. L., are translated from the Phil. Schrift. pp. 327, 328, omit-
