L., p. 279. the greater part of which page is to be found in the Phil. Schrift., pp 203, 204.
On looking back over the result of our researches, we perceive that we have traced the palpable presence of Schelling in thirty-three of Coleridge's pages. From these we will deduct two—rather more than the quantity he admits to have been translated in part from a "contemporary writer of the Continent;"—thus leaving thirty-one pages faithfully transcribed, either wholly or partially, from Schelling. We perceive that the continuous whole pages so transcribed, amount to thirteen; that the continuous half-pages so transcribed amount to six; and that the smaller passages under half a page interspersed throughout the work, amount to twelve. These latter may be calculated, on a very moderate computation, at three pages. So that we have the extraordinary number of nineteen full pages, copied almost verbatim from the works of the German philosopher, without one distinct word of acknowledgment on the part of the transcriber—an event in the history of literature altogether unprecedented, we believe; and in reference to the party chiefly concerned, we think we may add, quite unsuspected until now.
Are our readers aware how the first volume of the Biographia Literaria ends? They must understand that the whole of it is intended to stand merely as an introduction to some grand theory of the "Imagination,' discovered and to be propounded by Mr Coleridge. Near the end of the volume, however, when our curiosity is on the point, as we imagine, of being gratified, the work suddenly breaks down in the middle of a sentence, in consequence of Coleridge'. receipt of a letter from a friend—evidently written by himself—informing us that the world is not yet ripe for his discovery; that his "Treatise on Real-idealism," (the very name by which Schelling's system is known,) "holding the same relation in abstruseness to Plotinus, as Plotinus does to Plato," would be too much for ordinary readers; and accordingly, "in consequence of this very judicious letter," Coleridge allows his work to break down as we have said. Now, our view is, that it was not at-all in consequence of the consideration conveyed in this letter that he stopped short. The way in which we account for the stoppage is this. Interspersed throughout the works of Schelling, glimpses and indications are to be found of some stupendous theory on the subject of the imagination. These shadowy intimations, we think, Coleridge expected to be able to catch and unriddle; but after proceeding a certain length in his work, he found himself unable to do so. When he came to try, he found himself incompetent to think out the theory which the German philosopher had left enveloped in shadows, and yawning with many hiatuses; and not being able to swim in transcendental depths without Schelling's bladders, and Schelling's bladders not being sufficiently inflated to support him here, he had nothing else for it but to abandon his work altogether, and leave his readers in the lurch. That is our explanation of the matter. Had Schelling been more explicit and tangible on the subject of the imagination, Coleridge would have been so too. Had Schelling fully worked out his theory, Coleridge would have done the same; and we should have had the discovery of the German thinker paraded, for upwards of twenty years, as a specimen of the wonderful powers of the English philosopher.
Before taking leave of the Biographia, we must plead, in a very few words, the cause of another German philosopher, pointed out to us by a friend, as having been very scurvily treated by Coleridge. In Vol. I., p. 107, we find the name "Maasse" (Maasz, it should be) once mentioned by Coleridge, without however any commentary upon it, or any hint that he lay under the smallest obligation to the philosopher of that name. On looking. however, into this author's work,[1] we find that all the real information and learning put forth in Biog. Lit., Chap. V., is stolen bodily from him. In B. L., pp. 100, 101, et seq., a considerable show of learning is exhibited on the subject of the association of ideas; and of course, the reader's impression is, that Coleridge is indebted for the
- ↑ Versuch über die Einbildungskraft. Halle and Leipzig: 1797.
