44 SOME REMARKS ON THE PHILOSOPHY AND 



Gon. — And were the king of it, what would I do ? 



Seb. — 'Scape being drunk, for want of wine. 



Gon — I* the commonwealth, I would by contraries 

 Execute all things : for no kind of traffic 

 Would I admit ; no name of magistrate ; 

 Letters should not be known ; riches, poverty, 

 And use of service, none ; contract, succession, 

 Bourn,* bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none ; 

 No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; 

 No occupation ; all men idle, all; 

 And women too, but innocent and pure ; 

 No sovereignty." 



Seb. — And yet he would be king on't. 



Ant. — The latter end of his commonwealth 

 Forgets the beginning." 



Gon All things in common nature should produce 



Without sweat or endeavour : treason, felony, 

 Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine 

 Would I not have ; but nature should bring forth, 

 Of its own kind, all foizon, all abundance, 

 To feed my innocent people." 



The " wilderness of sweets" with which Milton has sated the 

 fancy in his M Eden" is not more comprehensive than this fine pas- 

 sage. The best comment which modern writers offer on the golden 

 age is that of Coleridge, in his Friend yt a work, with all its ex- 

 cellence, so little known that a quotation will be sure of novelty ; I 

 hope the reader's attention may be directed to the work itself. Of 

 the very few friends whose " adoption I have tried*' Coleridge is 

 the most constant, the wisest, the best. " Antecedent to all his- 

 tory, and long glimmering through it as a holy tradition, there pre- 

 sents itself to our imagination an indefinite period, dateless as eter- 

 nity ; a state rather than a time. For even the sense of succession 

 is lost in the uniformity of the stream." 



It was towards the close of this "golden age" when conscience 

 acted in man with the ease and uniformity of instinct — when la- 

 bour was a sweet name for the activity of sane minds in healthful 

 bodies, and all enjoyed in common the bounteous harvest, produced 

 and gathered in by common effort — when there existed in the sexes, 

 and in the individuals of each sex, just variety enough to permit 

 and call forth the gentle restlessness and final union of chaste love 

 and individual attachment, each seeking and finding the beloved 

 one by the natural affinity of their beings — when the dread Sove- 



• Landmark. 



f The Friend; a series of essays, in three volumes, to aid in the formation 

 of fixed principles in politics, morals, and religion, &c, by S. T. Coleridge. 



