150 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE 



Milton, whose humble house stood about a quarter of a mile from the city gale. 

 He was much disappointed, however, in the countenance of Klopstock, which was 

 inexpressive, and without peculiarity in any of the features : — he was lively and 

 courteous, talked of Milton and Glover, and preferred the verse of the latter to thw 

 former — a very curious mistake, but natural enough in a foreigner ; spoke with 

 indignation of the English translations of his great work ; said his first ode was 

 fifty years older than his last, and hoped Coleridge would revenge him on English- 

 men by translating the Messiah. 



Keswick, in Cumberland, on his return from Germany, now became his resi- 

 dence. He had made a great addition to his stock of knowledge, and he seems to 

 have spared no pains to store up what was either useful or speculative. With the 

 state of early German literature he had become well acquainted, and had dived 

 deeply into the mystical stream of Teutonic philosophy. 



No man was less fitted for a popular writer than Coleridge ; yet the next step in 

 a life which seems to have had no settled object, but to have been steered compass- 

 less along, was an exceedingly strange one, that of undertaking the political and 

 literary departments of the " Morning Post" newspaper, in the duties of which 

 situation he was engaged in the Spring of 1802. In common with his early con- 

 nections, he seems to have had no fixed political principles that the public could un- 

 derstand, though he was perhaps able to reconcile in himself all that others might 

 • imagine contradictory, and no doubt he did so conscientiously. His style and 

 manner of writing, and the learning and depth of his disquisitions, for ever brought 

 into play, often rendered him unintelligible to the general reader. It was singular 

 too, that he disclosed in his biography so strongly his unsettled political principles, 

 which showed that he had not studied politics as he had studied poetry, Kant, and 

 theology. The public of each party looks upon a political writer as a sort of cham- 

 pion, around whom it rallies, and feels it impossible to trust the changeable leader, 

 or applaud the addresses of him who is inconsistent or wavering in principles : it 

 will not back out any but the firm unflinching partisan. The members of what is 

 called the " Lake School" have been more or less strongly marked with this repre- 

 hensible change of political creed, but Coleridge the least of them. In truth, he 

 got nothing by any change he ventured upon, and, what is more, he expected 

 nothing ; the world is, therefore, bound to say of him, what cannot be said of his 

 friends, if it be true, that it believes most cordially in his sincerity — and that his 

 obliquity in politics was caused by his superficial knowledge of them, and his 

 devotion of his high mental powers to different questions. Coleridge himself con- 

 fessed that his "Morning Post" essays, though written in defence or furtherance of 

 the measures of the Government, added nothing to his fortune or reputation, and 

 lamented the waste of his manhood and intellect in this way. What might he not 

 have given to the world that is enduring and admirable, in the room of these 

 political lucubrations ! 



The translation of Schiller's Wallenstein may be denominated a free one, and 

 is finely executed. It is impossible to give in the English language a more impres- 

 sive idea of the work of the great German dramatist. The version was made from 

 a copy which the author himself afterwards revised and altered, and the translator 

 subsequently re-published his version in a more correct form, with the additional 

 passages and alterations of Schiller. This translation will long remain as the 

 most effective which has been achieved of the works of the German dramatists in 

 the British tongue. 



Something like censure has been cast upon Coleridge for not having written more 

 which is worthy of his reputation ; but the fact is, he has written a vast deal which 

 has passed unnoticed, upon fleeting politics, and in newspaper columns, literary as 

 well as political. To the world these last go for nothing, though the author calcu- 

 lates the thought and labour they cost him at full value. A sense of what he might 

 have done for fame, and the little he has actually done, has been often acknowledged 

 in his works ; and yet, the little he has produced, has among it gems of the purest 

 lustre, the brilliancy of which time will not deaden until the universal voice of 

 nature be heard no longer, and poetry perish beneath the dull load of life's hacknied 

 realities. 



It is not generally known, but such is the fact, that the poem of " Christabel" 

 was composed in consequence of an agreement with Mr. Wordsworth, that they 

 should mutually produce specimens of poetry which should contain " the power of 



