193 



these quotations, Coleridge was, however, a great man. He has left his 

 mark upon much of the thought of our times ; the years that have followed 

 upon his death have been the most remarkable and pregnant years of 

 English History ; and in much of what is characteristic of them, there is 

 a touch of the influence of Coleridge. He was a many-sided man ; 

 desultory enough, but anxious to give to his time what he felt was best 

 in all branches of thought. He had but litde activity, and no energy ; 

 and yet he ventured to be at once poet, philosopher, politician, and 

 theologian. And his broken utterances on all these subjects have 

 coloured much of what we accept about them. 



Subject to all kinds of obloquy and abuse during his life-time, since 

 his death England has perceived that she had a great man as her son, 

 and did not value him. The "teachers of men" listened to him, and 

 spoke out, and all were then aware that a prophet had appeared and had 

 passed away : not thought much of at the time, as is the case with most 

 other prophets. Except perhaps his critical writings, none of his prose 

 works obtained general acceptance during his life -time. Coleridge spoke 

 only to the faithful few ; only to his disciples ; and his disciples have 



i influenced their generation. The little leaven has gone far to leaven the 



' whole lump. 



To give any adequate notion of the life-work of this man, within the 



I limits of a lecture, is no easy task. Almost all that Coleridge said requires 



' "filtering" through the minds of plainer-speaking men, and "coming 

 out" from their tongues or their pens, to be intelligible to the great mass 



\ of English people. This particular point is alluded to in the second 

 stanza of the dedication to " Don Juan," where Lord Byron says : — 



k 



" Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, 



But like a hawk encumbered with his hood, — 

 Explaining metaphysics to the nation, 

 I wish he would explain his 'Explanation.' " 



Fide ( Biographia Lit. ) 



He was one who had great thoughts: but the thoughts were "veiled." 

 There was a haze surrounding them, a haze of words borrowed from 

 German and other philosophies, which English people have never much 



