58 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 247. 



servation solely to the durable material upon 

 •which they were painted. There they were, the 

 permanent monuments (permanent as long as 

 walls and plaster last) of genius and skill, while 

 many others of their mighty works had become 

 the spoils of insatiate avarice, or the victims of 

 wanton barbarism. How grateful ought mankind 

 to be that, in spite of all disasters, so many of the 

 great literary productions of antiquity have come 

 down to us ! That the words of Euclid and Plato 

 have been preserved, — that we possess those of 

 Newton, Milton, Shakspeare, and of so many other 

 living-dead men of our island, — is not so surprising. 

 All fhese may now be considered indestructible : 

 they shall remain to us till the end of time itself— 

 till Time, in the words of a great poet of the age 

 of Shakspeare, has thrown his last dart at Death, 

 and shall himself submit to the final and inevit- 

 able destruction of all created matter. A second 

 eruption of the Goths and Vandals could not en- 

 danger their existence, secured as they are by the 

 •wonders of modern invention, and by the affec- 

 tionate admiration of myriads of human beings. 

 It is as nearly as possible two centuries since 

 Shakspeare ceased to write, but when shall he 

 cease to be read ? When shall he cease to give 

 light and delight ? Yet, at this moment, he_ is 

 only receiving the first fruits of that glory, which 

 must continue to augment as long as our language 

 is spoken. English has given immortality to him, 

 and he immortality to English. Shakspeare can 

 never die, and the language in which he wrote 

 must with him live for ever." 



Having sketched the origin and history of the 

 En<»lish stage in a summary but masterly manner, 

 he was led to show how the fool of the time of 

 Shakspeare grew directly out of the Vice of the 

 old miracle-plays. 



"While Shakspeare (he observed) accommo- 

 dated himself to the taste and spirit of the times 

 in which he lived, his genius and his judgment 

 taught him to use the characters of the fool and 

 clown with terrible effect in aggravating the 

 misery and agony of some of his most distressing 

 scenes. This result is especially obvious in King 

 Lear; the contrast of the fool wonderfully 

 heightens the colouring of some of the most 

 painful situations, where the old monarch, in the 

 depth of his fury and despair, complains to the 

 •warring elements of the ingratitude of his daugh- 

 ters. In other dramas, though perhaps in a less 

 degree, our great Poet has evinced the same skill 

 and felicity of treatment; and in no instance can 

 it be justly alleged of him, as it may be of some of 

 the ablest of his contemporaries, that he intro- 

 duced his fool or his clown merely for the sake of 

 exciting the laughter of his audiences. Shaks- 

 peare had a loftier and a better purpose, and in 

 this respect availed himself of resources which, it 

 should almost seem, he alone possessed." 



These were the concluding words of Coleridge's 

 second lecture. In his third he thus alluded to 

 the course he had recently given at the Royal 

 Institution, mentioning the fact which he had 

 previously stated in conversation, and which I 

 introduced into my last paper in " N. & Q." He 

 brought it forward as a reason why he had not 

 chosen to prepare more than a bare outline of 

 each lecture before he was called upon to give 

 utterance to it. 



" Not long since, when I lectured at the Royal 

 Institution, I had the honour of sitting at the 

 desk so ably occupied by Sir Humphrey Davy, 

 who may be said to have elevated the art of che- 

 mistry to the dignity of a science, who has dis- 

 covered that one common law is applicable to the 

 mind and to the body, and who has enabled us to 

 give a full and perfect Amen to the great axiom of 

 Bacon, that ' Knowledge is power.' In the delivery 

 of that course I carefully prepared my first essay, 

 and received for it a cold suffrage of approbation. 

 From accidental causes I was unable to study the 

 exact form and language of my second lecture, 

 and when it was at an end, I obtained universal 

 and heartfelt applause. What a lesson to me 

 was this, not to elaborate my materials, not to 

 study too nicely the expressions I should employ, 

 but to trust mainly to the extemporaneous ebulli- 

 tion of my thoughts ! In this conviction I have 

 ventured to come before you here, and I may add 

 a hope, that what I offer will be received in the 

 same spirit. It is true that my matter may not 

 be so accurately arranged, it may not at all times 

 fit and dovetail as nicely as could be wished, but 

 you will have my thoughts warm from my heart, 

 and fresh from my understanding ; you shall have 

 the whole skeleton, although the bones may not 

 be put together with the utmost anatomical skill." 



This image is not very agreeable In Itself, and 

 does not well express the fulness, grace, and 

 beauty of Coleridge's usual style in the illustra- 

 tion of a subject, especially of a poetical kind. 

 I am anxious to supply a few of his peculiar 

 opinions upon those three great dramas, Romeo 

 and Juliet, The Tempest, and Hamlet, but I have 

 already occupied so much space in " N. & Q." that 

 I must postpone farther extracts from his Lectures 

 to a future opportunity. J. Patne Collier. 



Riverside, Maidenhead. 



NICHOLAS FERRAB AND GEORGE HERBERT. 



In " N. & Q.," Vol. ii., p. 445., several works 

 relating to the Ferrars were noticed. To these 

 others might be added ; but my present business is 

 to stimulate inquiry after the only biography of 

 Nicholas Ferrar which is of mu ch value *, that by 



• That by Bishop Turner, as Dr. Peckard has remarked 

 (p. xii.), and as we may judge from the Gent. Mag., 



