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exceptions, such as I have already named, it is not unjust 

 to declare that the tone of EngHsh commentary is still 

 depraved, depreciatory, and most inadequate to the 

 requirements and the dignity of the subject. That even 

 where most apprehensive and devoted in its admiration, 

 it neither attains the profundity, wisdom, nor devotion of 

 Teutonic commentary, and that it is frequently marked 

 by the utmost degradation of thought and feeling. 



To Coleridge belongs the honour of having first among 

 Englishmen assumed a proper attitude towards the poet. 

 He was the first to approach the subject boldly, in a 

 spirit of enthusiastic and unqualified admiration. His 

 love gave him an insight, denied to less fervid or im- 

 passioned minds. He passed the threshold of verbal 

 criticism, the courts of cavil and remonstrance ; saw and 

 understood the wondrous excellences before hidden. He 

 was able to explain the marvellous artistic and dramatic 

 propriety of the poet, no less in the delineation of the 

 most occult and mysterious workings of the human mind, 

 than in the exact relationship of circumstances to acts, 

 as in real life. He became the first high priest. Gifted 

 with a rare command of language, great enthusiasm, and 

 versatility of thought and expression, combined with a 

 subtle metaphysical acumen, and one of the noblest phases 

 of the poetic intellect manifested in any man, in any age; 

 he was peculiarly qualified, as inclined, to do service at 

 the honoured shrine of the great master mind, of all 

 literature. He tasked his resources for his ofiice. His 

 service was unconditional. His homage subject to no 

 doubt ; and in spirit as in wisdom, no successor, foreign 

 or English, has more feelingly interpreted, or more lovingly 

 appreciated, what the inconceivable wisdom of the wisest 

 head of all ages, the myriad-minded man, wrote. But 

 Coleridge did not assume to exhaust his theme, nor cir- 

 fumscribo the magic sphere of its great glory and pcrfec- 



