and when they are detected, (if that ever happens,) it will give him the benefit of his protestation as a defence: in other words, if the plagiarisms are not detected, Schelling's passages remain Coleridge's, and if they are detected, the latter calculates upon getting out of the scrape by pleading that he had, in a manner, admitted them. Ay! ay! the manner of the admission is precisely the question; how does he admit them? We think we have already made clear what we now repeat, that the manner of his admission of them is such as naturally to lead every reader who trusts to his work, and looks no farther, to believe that nothing can be further from his practice and from his intention than plagiarism, in the way and to the extent which we are now about to point out.
Let us here make a passing remark upon what Coleridge says in reference to his "coincidences" with Schlegel. He tells us (see quotation) that, as in reference to Schlegel, his views upon dramatic art, so in reference to Schelling, his views on transcendental metaphysics, were matured before he knew any thing about either author. On the subject of his resemblances to Schlegel, we are not prepared to speak on our own authority. But as he himself here perils the fact of his priority to and independence of Schlegel upon the truth of what he says respecting his priority to and independence of Schelling, placing both instances upon exactly the same footing, we are entitled to say, that as in the case of Schelling we know him to be a consummate plagiarist, and original in nothing; so in the case of Schlegel, we think it more than probable that he has borrowed ready made from that author every thing in which he "genially coincides" with him.
We now proceed to particularize Coleridge's plagiarisms, in the order in which they occur in the first volume of the Biog. Lit., for to it our accusation is confined. Of course, our limits will not permit us to make almost any extracts illustrative of our charge; they will permit us to offer little or no criticism on the merits either of the borrowed or the original passages; and still less will they allow us to, enter into any explanation touching the transcendental philosophy in general; but we can at least state the exact pages of Coleridge in which the plagiarisms occur, and the corresponding pages of Schelling from which they are taken. And we pledge ourselves to do this with the most scrupulous accuracy; for not our own credit merely, but the general character of this Magazine, will be, to a certain extent, perilled upon our faithfulness.
The first instance in which we detect Coleridge translating closely from Schelling occurs in p. 130, beginning at the words " how being"—the last clause is interpolated, we think not very wisely and the next sentence are to be found in Schelling's Transcendental Idealism,[1] p. 113. The next two sentences (Biog. Lit. p. 131) are to be found (slightly altered from the original in Transc. Id. p. 112. Than Coleridge inter-poses a short sentence of his own; after which we come to the words, "Matter has no inward. We remove one surface but to meet with another." This occurs in two places in Schelling's works; vide Phil. Schrift.[2] p. 240, and Ideen,[3] introduction, p. 22. On turning over to p. 133, Biog. Lit., we find that nearly the whole of the first paragraph is taken from the Transc. Id. p. 113. though here the translation is not so close as usual. But the passage is remarkable, as containing a stroke which we daresay many admirers have considered peculiarly Coleridgian. Taking out of Schelling's mouth the words in which he is describing the futility of materialism, as an explanation of the phenomena of thought, Coleridge says," When we expected to find a body, behold, we had nothing but its ghost!—the apparition of a defunct substance!" Now this illustration, and every thing connected with it, belongs exclusively to Schelling. "To explain thinking," says he, "as a material phenomenon, is only possible by making a ghost of matter." Transc. Id. p. 113.
After turning over a few leaves, we come to the only passage in the
