"Constitution of Church and State, according to the idea of each." We believe that a future age will reckon his theological labours considerably more valuable than the present has yet done. It will, perhaps, be then acknowledged that the "Aids to Reflection," was one of the most remarkable books of its time. Meanwhile this influence has been already very great both in England and America; we might say greater than that of any other single mind which has appeared in theology for many years. And whether for good or for evil, that influence is still steadily gathering force. Coleridge takes high rank also as a critic in poetry and the fine arts. It is very much to be regretted that traces of the irregularity of his efforts are painfully evident in this department of his intellectual activity: for his subtlety, his acumen, his intense literary and artistic instincts, but above all, his hearty sympathy with every kind of excellence, fitted him beyond any man of his time for the difficult office of critic. As it is, we have still but little criticism, worthy of the name, that has not come from his versatile pen. But we believe that the reputation of Coleridge the poet, will outlive that of Coleridge the philosopher and theologian; and this even though it should have to be granted that a considerable part of his poetical writings is of comparatively little value. For whatever of really excellent there is, will be found to be pre-eminently so, and excellent too in such an original sense, that its immortality is as certain as that of anything which has been produced in this age. His earliest poems, it is true, gave but slight indication of what was behind. Their juvenility is strongly marked upon them. They are in a considerable degree turgid and laboured, and betray greater evidences of imitation than originality. This fact has been objected against Coleridge by his detractors, as, though he wanted originality as a poet, because his first efforts are chiefly the result of excited poetic sensibility, acting in conjunction with reminiscence. But nothing, in truth, can be more purely original than the great bulk of his poetry—a fact which is evident enough from the peculiar influence it had on some of the greatest of his contemporaries; such, for instance, as Byron and Scott, and which it continues to exercise on the poetry of the present day. It cannot be denied, however, that in his poetical, as in his prose writings, there is more of promise than performance; that much is left incomplete—glorious fragments, it may be, but still fragments, and wanting that last perfection, which can only be attained when the powerful will acts sweetly under the burden of high imagination. We refer not now particularly to his unfinished pieces—such as "Christabel"—but rather to the fact that, instead of combining his conceptions in one great continuous effort, he has broken them up into small pictures, which, though each may be exquisitely beautiful in itself, give us the notion of imperfection, if not indeed of radical weakness itself: for the strength of the eagle, as has been said, is not measured by the height to which he can soar, but by the time that he continues on the wing. The most prominent characteristic of Coleridge's poetry is its "exquisite and original melody of versification, whose very sound chains the ear and soul!" In this respect he excels all poets. But his poetry cannot properly be called the poetry of high imagination. Its power lies rather in the region of the senses; but the senses breathed upon and spiritualized by imagination. Even the emotions which he describes, belong not to the strong direct passions of our common nature; his love is a kind of romantic and spiritual movement of wonder, blended with an ineffable suffusion of the powers of sense. There is more of aerial romance than of genuine tenderness even in the peerless love of his Genevieve; although, to be sure, the heart is sometimes startled with a tone of true passion, as in the "Keepsake," where he speaks of—
" Her voice, that even in her mirthful mood,
Has made me wish to steal away and weep."
But in the description of that preternatural fear, that ominous dread of some undefined evil, which properly belongs to superstition, Coleridge is unapproached and unapproachable. It is in the perfect mastery of these feelings—feelings which, in a certain measure, are common to the race—that the indescribable charm of his "Ancient Mariner," the most perfect of all his productions, consists. The loveliness and the terror glide before us in alternate vision, the mind being all the while entranced with the depth and wondrous fascination of its unequalled melody. "Christabel" belongs to the same class—poems to be felt rather than criticised. Coleridge has also produced several highly elaborate odes; but his want of lyric rapture and fervid human passion necessitated his failure in this most difficult species of poetic composition. But success in ode writing is one of the rarest things in literature. Even Wordsworth's famous Intimations of Immortality, notwithstanding its high reputation and undoubtedly fine poetry, shows but poorly in the light of artistic excellence. Except in a few passages, it is stiff and lumbering, and unworthy of comparison with the splendid productions of this kind which have come down to us from the ancient world. In his "Poems of Later Life," Coleridge touches a different chord from any which he had sounded in his previous poems. There is greater condensation and intensity both of thought and expression—more reflection and less imagination; while in all there is to be detected a certain indefinable pathos, that dimly shadows forth the ineffable sorrow of a mind that has proved untrue to its own surpassing powers. The little poem entitled "Youth and Age," is a thing by itself, and fittingly stands at the portal of that period of his life, during which a serene but genuine sadness carried him gently forward, till the final darkness covered him from our sight for evermore.—R. M., A.
COLERIDGE, Sara, the only daughter of Samuel T. Coleridge, was born at Keswick in 1803, and was brought up and educated by her uncle, Robert Southey, whose influence had a most powerful effect in the formation of her intellectual character. In 1822 she executed an excellent translation of an Account of the Cipones from the Latin of Martin Dobrizhoffer. She married her cousin Henry Nelson Coleridge in 1829; and with the exception of a Latin lesson-book for her children, entitled "Pretty Lessons for Good Children," she produced no literary work until after the death of her father in 1834, when she assiduously aided her husband in the pious duty of editing and annotating the poet's unpublished works. After the death of Henry Coleridge the whole of this arduous work devolved upon his widow; and the mode in which she has executed this labour of love, and especially the elaborate and closely-reasoned dissertations on some of the most important questions in theology, morals, and philosophy with which she has enriched several of the volumes, are fitted to give a very high idea both of her learning and her ability. She died on 3rd May, 1852.—J. T.
COLES, Elisha, an English lexicographer, of considerable fame in his own day, was born in Northamptonshire about 1640. He was educated at Oxford; taught for some time the Latin and English languages in London, and ultimately removed to Ireland, where he died about 1700.—J. T.
COLET, Dr. John, a learned English divine, and the founder of St. Paul's school, London, was the eldest son of Sir Henry Colet, twice lord-mayor, and was born in 1466. After completing his education at Magdalene college, Oxford, he travelled in France and Italy, and there became acquainted with Erasmus, Budæus, and other distinguished scholars, and acquired a knowledge of the Greek language, which was then little known in England. He returned home in 1497, and next year took up his residence in Oxford, where he read lectures on St. Paul's epistles. Colet was possessed of a large estate, without any near relations, and devoted his property to the establishment of St. Paul's school in London, of which he made the company of mercers trustees. He appointed the learned Mr. Lilly first master in 1512. Dr. Colet died in 1519, in his fifty-third year, and was buried in St. Paul's choir. Among other dignities, he enjoyed those of canon and dean of St. Paul's cathedral, and chaplain and preacher in ordinary to Henry VIII. He was the author of "Rudimenta Grammatices;" "Absolutissimus de octo orationis partium constructione libellus;" "Daily Devotions;" "Epistolæ ad Erasmum," &c.—J. T.
COLGAN or MACCOLGAN, John, born in the parish of Donagh, in the barony of Inishowen, Donegal, Ireland, in the end of the sixteenth century, was a Franciscan friar in the Irish convent of St. Anthony of Padua at Louvain, in which he was professor of divinity. After the death of Ward in 1635, Colgan was appointed to complete the lives of the Irish saints, which the latter had left unfinished. He executed this task in two large volumes, which are illustrated by useful and most elaborate notes, especially in what relates to the ancient topography of Ireland. The last of these volumes in order was the first printed, and is entitled "Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ," &c., Lovanii, 1645, folio. The other volume is entitled "Triadis Thaumaturgæ Acta," Lovanii, 1647, folio. Colgan died in Louvain in 1658.—J. O'D.
