22 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 245. 



sinning) I have been burthened and embrangled, 

 you would rather wonder that I retained any 

 presence of mind at all, than that I should 

 have blundered in sending you an unsigned and 

 unsealed ticket. Precious fellows those gentry, 



the Reverend • and his comrades, are ! 



Contrary to the most solemn promise, made in 



the presence of Mr. and Dr. , they have 



sent into the world an essay, which cost me four 

 months' incessant labour, and which I valued more 

 than all my other prose writings taken collectively, 

 so bedeviled, so interpolated and topsy-turvied, 

 so utterly unlike my principles, and from endless 

 contradictions so unlike any principles at all, that 

 it would be hard to decide whether it is, in its 

 present state, more disreputable to me as a man 

 of letters, or dishonourable to me as an honest 



man : and on my demanding my MSS. ( 



knowing that after his engagement I had de- 

 stroyed my fragmentary first copies), I received 

 the modest reply, that they had pufchased the 

 goods, and should do what they liked with them ! 

 I shudder, in my present state of health and 

 spirits, at any controversy with men like them, 

 and yet shall, I fear, be compelled by common 

 honesty to dissolve all connexion with the Ency- 

 clopcBdia, which is throughout a breach of promise 

 compared with my prospectus, even as they them- 

 selves published it. Yours, S. T. Coleridge. 

 " J. Payne Collier, Esq." 



As I cannot find that the prospectus of Cole- 

 ridge's lectures in 1818 (they began on 27th 

 January, and finished on 13th March) was ever 

 reprinted, and as I happen to know that it cost 

 him no little trouble and reflection, I venture, 

 though it is somewhat long, to subjoin the intro- 

 duction to what is called the " Syllabus of the 

 Course," disclosing the particular contents of the 

 fourteen separate lectures. 



" There are few families, at present, in the higher 

 and middle classes of English society, in which 

 literary topics, and the productions of the Fine Arts, 

 in some one or other of their various forms, do not 

 occasionally take their turn in contributing to the en- 

 tertainment of the social board, and the amusement of 

 the circle at the fireside. The acquisitions and at- 

 tainments of the intellect ought, indeed, to hold a very 

 inferior rank in our estimation, opposed to moral 

 worth, or even to professional and scientific skill, 

 prudence and industry. But why should they be op- 

 posed, when they may be made subservient merely by 

 being subordinated 9 It can rarely happen that a man 

 of social disposition, altogether a stranger to subjects of 

 taste (almost the only ones on which persons of both 

 sexes can converse with a common interest), should 

 pass through the world without at times feeling dis- 

 satisfied with himself. The best proof of tliis is to be 

 found in the marked anxiety which men, who have 

 succeeded in life without the aid of these accomplish- 

 ments, show in securing them to their children. A 



young man of ingenuous mind will not wilfully de- 

 prive himself of any species of respect. He will wish 

 to feel himself on a level with the average of the so- 

 ciety in which he lives, though he may be ambitious 

 o^ distinguishing himself only in his own immediate pur- 

 suit and occupation. 



" Under this conviction the following Course of 

 Lectures was planned. The several titles will best 

 explain the particular subjects and purposes of each ; 

 but the main objects proposed, as the result of all, are 

 the two following : 



" I. To convey, in a form best fitted to render them 

 impressive at the time, and remembered afterwards, 

 rules and principles of sound judgment, with a kind and 

 degree of connected information, such as the hearers, 

 generally speaking, cannot be supposed likely to form, 

 collect, and arrange for themselves by their own unas- 

 sisted studies. It might be presumption to say that 

 any important part of these lectures could not be de- 

 rived from books ; but none, I trust, in supposing that 

 the same information could not be so surely or conve- 

 niently acquired from such books as are of commonest 

 occurrence, or with that quantity of time and attention 

 which can reasonably be expected, or even wisely de- 

 sired, of men engaged in business and the active duties 

 of the world. 



" II. Under a strong persuasion that little of real 

 value is derived by persons in general from a wide and 

 various reading ; but still more deeply convinced as 

 to the actual mzsc^/ey of unconnected and promiscuous 

 reading, and that it is sure, in a greater or less degree, 

 to enervate even where it does not likewise inflate ; 

 I hope to satisfy many an ingenuous mind, seriously 

 interested In its own development and cultivation, how 

 moderate a number of volumes, if only they be judi- 

 ciously chosen, will suffice for the attainment of every 

 wise and desirable purpose ; that is, tw addition to 

 those which he studies for specific and professional 

 purposes. It is saying less than the truth to affirm 

 that an excellent book (and the remark holds almost 

 equally good of a Raphael as of a Milton) is like a 

 well-chosen and well-tended fruit-tree. Its fruits are 

 not of one season only. With the due and natural 

 intervals we may recur to it year after year, and it 

 will supply the same nourishment, and the same gra- 

 tification, if only we ourselves return with the same 

 healthful appetite. 



" The subjects of the lectures are, indeed, very 

 different, but not (in the strict sense of the term) di- 

 verse; they are various, rather than miscellaneous. 

 There is this bond of connexion common to them all 

 — that the mental pleasure which they are calculated 

 to excite is not dependent on accidents of fashion, place 

 or age, or the events or the customs of the day ; but 

 commensurate with the good sense, taste, and feeling, 

 to the cultivation of which they themselves so largely 

 contribute, as being all in kind, though not all in the 

 same degree, productions of Genius. 



" What it would be arrogant to promise, I may yet 

 -be permitted to hope — that the execution wifl prove 

 correspondent and adequate to the plan- Assuredly 

 my best efforts have not been wanting so to select and 

 prepare the materials, that, at the conclusion of the 

 lectures, an attentive auditor, who should consent to 



