learning here displayed to nothing but his own researches. But no such thing—he is indebted for it entirely to Maasz. He found all the quotations, and nearly all the observations connected with them, ready-made to his hand in the pages of that philosopher. "Long before, says Coleridge, p. 100, "either Hobbes or Des Cartes, the law of association had been defined, and its important functions set forth by Melanchthon, Amerbach, and Ludovicus Vives, more especially the last." Maasz says precisely the same thing, p. 343. Then follows (p. 101) Coleridge's account of the distinction which Vives makes between Imaginatio and Phantasia. This distinction is distinctly pointed out by Maasz, p. 344. Then follow four quotations from Vives—all of which are to be found in Maasz, Pp. 344, 345. In a word, all Coleridge's learning bearing upon Melanchthon, Amerbach, and Vives, is to be found in Maasz. Passing on to Coleridge's remarks on what Aristotle says on the subject of association, we find that here, too, his coincidences with Maasz are a good deal more than coincidences. In B. L., p. 102, we read that "Aristotle's positions on this subject (the association of ideas) are unmixed with fiction." Maasz, p. 345, tells us that Aristotle is (ganz aufs reine gekommen) "as pure as possible" in his doctrines upon this point. Then Coleridge's observation (p. 108) respecting Aristotle's use of the word κίνησις, as which he informs us that Aristotle uses this word "to express what we call ideas or representations;" and that when he uses it to denote material motion, he invariably annexes to it "the words ἐν τόπῳ or κατά τόπον"—all this is to be found distinctly brought forward by Maasz, pp. 321, 324; and finally, a good deal of what follows in B. L., pp. 103, 104, maybe traced to Maasz, p. 325, et seq.
To return for one moment to Schelling. On looking through Coleridge's Literary Remains, we find that he is not contented with purloining Schelling's philosophy, but he must also plunder him of his Aesthetics. Lecture XIII., "On Poesy or Art," (vide L. R., vol. i. p. 216, et seq.,) is closely copied, and many parts of it are translated from Schelling's very eloquent" Discourse upon the Relation in which the Plastic Arts stand to Nature," (vide Phil. Schrift., 343, et seq.) What will Coleridge's admirers say, upon finding it thus proved that even his notions upon poetry and the fine arts in general are mainly drawn from the profound wells of the German philosopher—that his diamonds, no less than his fuel, are dug up from Schelling's inexhaustible mines!
We have seen, then, that Coleridge is indebted to Schelling for most of his philosophy, and for some of his profoundest views on the subject of the great art in which he most excelled—the art of poetry; but to whom is he indebted for some of the brightest gems in his poetic wreath itself? We answer, that among other sources he is indebted in particular to Schiller and to Christian Count Stolberg, some of whose most exquisite productions he has appropriated without one word of acknowledgement. His obligations to Frederica Brun for many of the leading ideas of his " Hymn before Sunrise in the vale of Chamouni" have been already pointed out elsewhere, and are admitted, (see Preface to his Table Talk, p. L.) and therefore we need say no more on that subject. We proceed to particularize three other instances of the grossest plagiarism committed upon the works of the two authors just mentioned; which cases have never, we believe, been exposed till now—a very extraordinary circumstance, in so far, at least, as Schiller is concerned.
When we first read, a good many years ago, (we think in an annual,) these verses of Coleridge's in which he at one describes and exemplifies the Homeric hexameter and the Ovidian elegiac metre, we remember being quite petrified with astonishment and delight. It appeared to us that words—particularly in the instance of the hexameter and pentameter distich—had never before been made to perform so exquisite and miraculous a feat. This, thought we, is certainly absolute perfection in the kind of thing which is attempted. The lines are these
"the homeric hexameter described and exemplified.
"Strongly it bears us along,
in swelling and limitless billows:
Nothing before, and nothing behind
but the sky and the ocean.
