June 24. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



591 



COLERIDGE 8 UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS. 



(Vol. ix., pp. 496. 543.) 



Every admirer of Coleridge's writings must feel, 

 as I do, grateful to Mr. Green for the detailed 

 account he has rendered of the manuscripts com- 

 mitted to his care. A few points, however, in his 

 reply call for a rejoinder on my part. I will be as 

 brief as possible. 



I never doubted for an instant that, had I 

 "sought a private explanation of the matters" 

 comprised in my Note, Mr. Green would have 

 courteously responded to the application. This 

 is just what I did not want: a public explanation 

 was what I desired. " N. & Q." (Vol. iv., p. 41 1 . ; 

 Vol. vi., p. 533. ; Vol. viii., p. 43.) will bear wit- 

 ness to the fact that the public required to know 

 the reason why works of Coleridge, presumed to 

 exist in manuscript, were still withheld from pub- 

 lication : and I utterly deny the justice of Mr. 

 Green's allegation, that because I have explicitly 

 stated the charge implied by Mr. Alsop (the editor 

 of Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of Cole- 

 ridge) in his strictures, I have made an incon- 

 siderate, not to say a coarse, attack upon him 

 (Mr. Green). When a long series of appeals to 

 the fortunate possessor of the Coleridge manu- 

 scripts (whoever he might turn out to be) had 

 been met with silent indifference, I felt that the 

 time was come to address an appeal personally 

 to Mr. Green himself. That he has acted with 

 the approbation of Coleridge's family, nobody can 

 doubt ; for the public (thanks to Mr. Alsop) know 

 too well how little the greatest of modern philo- 

 sophers was indebted to that family in his lifetime, 

 to attach much importance to their approbation or 

 disapprobation. 



No believer in the philosophy of Coleridge can 

 look with greater anxiety than I do for the forth- 

 coming work of Mr. Green. That the pupH of 

 Coleridge, and the author of Vital Dynamics, will 

 worthily acquit himself in this great field, who can 

 question ? But I, for one, must enter my protest 

 against the publication of Mr. Green's book being 

 made the pretext of depriving the public of their 

 right (may I say ?) to the perusal of such works 

 as do exist in manuscript, finished or unfinished. 

 Again I beg most respectfully to urge on Mr. 

 Green the expediency, not to say paramount 

 duty, of his 'giving to the world intact the Logic 

 (consisting of the Canon and other parts), the 

 Cosmogony, and, as far as possible, the History of 

 Philosophy. If his plea, that these works are not 

 in a finished state, had been heretofore held good 

 in bar of publication, we should probably have 

 lost the inestimable privilege of reading and pos- 

 sessing those fragmentary works of the great phi- 

 losopher which have already been made public. 



C. Mansfield Ingleby. 



Birmingham. 



(Vol.vii., pp. 429. 560. 608.; Vol. viii., pp. 43.550.) 



Your correspondent H. C. K. (Vol. vii., p. 560.) 

 quotes a passage from Sir Thomas Browne's Reli- 

 gio Medici, sect. xlii. The following passage from 

 the same writer's Christian Morals is much more 

 to the point : 



■ When the Stoic said (' Vitam nemo acciperet, si dare- 

 tur scientibus' — Seneca) that life would not be accepted 

 if it were offered unto such as knew it, he spoke too 

 meanly of that state of being which placeth us in the 

 form of men. It more depreciates the value of this 

 life, that men would not live it over again ; for although 

 they would still live on, yet few or none can endure to 

 think of being twice the same men upon earth, and some 

 had rather never have lived than to tread over their days 

 once more. Cicero, in a prosperous state, had not the 

 patience to think of beginning in a cradle again. (' Si 

 quis Deus mihi largiatur, ut repuerascam et in cunis 

 vagiam, valde recusem. 1 — JDe Senectute.) Job would 

 not only curse the day of his nativity, but also of his 

 renascency, if he were to act over his disasters and the 

 miseries of the dunghill. But the greatest under- 

 weening of this life is to undervalue that unto which 

 this is but exordial, or a passage leading unto it. The 

 great advantage of this mean life is thereby to stand in 

 a capacity of a better ; for the colonies of heaven must 

 be drawn from earth, and the sons of the first Adam 

 are only heirs unto the second. Thus Adam came into 

 this world with the power also of another ; not only to 

 replenish the earth, but the everlasting mansions of 

 heaven." — Part in. sect. xxv. 



" Looking back we see the dreadful train 

 Of woes anew, which, were we to sustain, 

 We should refuse to tread the path again." 



Prior's Solomon, b. iii. 



The crown is won by the cross, the victor's 

 wreath in the battle of life : 



" This is the condition of the battle* which man that 

 is born upon the earth shall fight. That if he be over- 

 come he shall suffer as thou hast said, but if he get 

 the victory, he shall receive the thing that I say." — 

 2 Esdr. vii. 57. 



Our grade in the other world is determined by 

 our probation here. To use a simile of Asgill's, 

 this life of time is a university in which we take 

 our degree for eternity. Heaven is a pyramid, or 

 ever-ascending scale ; the world of evil is an in- 

 verted pyramid, or ever-descending scale. Life is 

 motion. There is no such thing as stagnation : 

 everything is either advancing or retrograding. 

 Corruption itself is an activity, and evil is ever 

 growing. According to the habits formed within 

 us, we are ascending or descending ; we cannot 

 stand still. 



A man, then, in whom the higher life predo- 

 minates, were he to live life over again, would 



A field of battle is this mortal life !" 



Young, N. viii. 



