represent the text, "He that spareth the rod spoileth the child," as a source of much evil. He feelingly urged the repugnance of infancy to quiet and gloom, and the duty of attending to such indications, observing that the severe notions entertained of Religion were more pernicious than all that had been written by Voltaire and such " paltry scribblers." Considering this phrase as the gilding of the pill I let it pass. Coleridge is right in the main, but Voltaire is no paltry scribbler. Apropos, I was every twenty minutes provoked with the lecturer for little unworthy compliances-for occasional conformity. But n'importe. He says such a number of things, both good and useful at the same time, that I can tolerate these drawbacks or rather make-weights. 3. In speaking of education as a mean of strengthening the character, he opposed our system of "cramming" children, and especially satirized the moral rules for juvenile readers lately introduced. "I infinitely prefer The Seven Champions of Christendom, Jack the Giantkiller, and such like for at least they make the child forget himself: but when in your good-child stories, a little boy comes in and says, "Mamma, I met a poor beggar-man and gave him the sixpence you gave me yesterday. Did I do right? "O yes, my dear, to be sure you did:" This is not virtue but vanity : Such lessons do not teach goodness, but, if I might hazard such a word, goodiness. What Goody he referred to, I know

not, for he praised Mrs. Trimmer afterwards. He added, "The lesson to be inculcated should be, let the child be good and know it not." "Instructors should be careful not to let the intellect die of plethora."

The latter part of the lecture was taken up with a defence of education for the Poor, &c. &c. He lugged in most unnecessarily an attack upon Malthus, and was as unfair in his representation as Hazlitt in his answer. He also noticed Cobbett, &c. In the end he eulogized Dr. Bell's plan of education, and concluded by a severe attack upon Lancaster for having stolen from Dr. Bell all that is good in his plans ;-expatiated with warmth on the barbarous, ignominious punishments introduced by Lancaster, &c. &c. He concluded by gratulating himself on living in this age. "For I have seen what infinite good one man can do by persevering in his efforts to resist evil and spread good over human life and if I were : two men, in my own time, had

called

upon to say, which been most exten

sively useful, and who had done most for humanity, I should say Mr. Clarkson and Dr. Bell. (kk) I cannot answer for the terms of this sentence: the surprise I felt at the sudden introduction of the name of Clarkson perhaps made me lose the immediately preceding words.

My dear Friend,

May 15th, 1808.

BE assured you have imposed upon me no burthensome task. To write to you is as much a relief from my ordinary employment as it would be for a man to write with his right hand who should have been condemned as a penance to write with his left. Yet what we might do against our will, becomes our will at last, and perhaps I feel some awkwardness when I leave the dry uninteresting and mechanical works of the office to discourse with you on Coleridge's lectures; I find I am a bad reporter, and that I have not the art of condensing the spirit of an hour's declamation into a page of post paper. However, you will kindly accept all I can give you.

I have only two lectures to speak about, and shall not pretend to speak of them in the order in which Coleridge spoke, since there was no order in his speaking. I came in late one day and found him in the midst of a deduction of the origin of the fine arts from the necessities of our being, which a friend who accompanied me could make neither head nor tail of, because he had not studied German metaphysics.

The first "free art" of man (Architecture) arose from the impulse to make his habitation beautiful. The second arose from the instinct to provide himself food. The third was the love of dress.

Here C. atoned for his metaphysics by his gallantry; he declared that the passion for dress in females has been the great cause of the civilization of mankind. "When I behold the ornaments which adorn a beautiful woman, I see the mirror of that instinct which leads man not to be content with what is necessary or useful, but impels him to the beautiful." 4. From the necessity of self defence springs the military art, and this has produced the keenest sense of honour, the finest sensibility, the character of a gentleman. 5. The ornaments of speech are eloquence and poetry. Here C. distinguished these arts by the characteristic, that poetry is a general impulse:-he might have said, it gives

the character of what is universal to what still remains particular. Eloquence impels to particular acts. "Let us rise against Philip," said the Athenians when Demosthenes sat down, for Demosthenes had been eloquent. Apropos, Kant observes that the oration treats an affair of business, as if it were a thing of imagination, while the poet handles a work of fancy, as if it were a matter of business. Kant speaks (and Schiller expatiates on this) of the method of the two artists. C. refers to the principle of the arts, but both assertions amount to the same thing. In this same lecture Coleridge contrived to work into his speech Kant's admirably profound definition of the naïf, that it is nature putting art to shame; and he also digressed into a vehement but well merited declamation against

those soi disant philosophers, who deny the nobler powers of man, his idealizing poetic faculty, and degrade him to the beast: and declared he could not think of Buffon without horror;-an assertion with which I sympathise, and which is far less exceptionable than his abuse of Voltaire.

Here are metaphysics enough for the present. Now for a critical remark or two.-Of Shakspeare C. observed, that he alone preserved the individuality of his characters without losing his own. High moral feeling is to be deduced from, though it is not in, Shakspeare, for the sentiment of his age was less pure than that of the preceding. Not a vicious passage in all Shakspeare, though there are many which are gross (for grossness depends on the age.) Shakspeare surpasses all poets, 1st in the purity of his female characters. (N. B. He declared his conviction that no part of Richard III. except the character of Richard, was written by Shakspeare, doubtless with a silent reference to the disgusting character of Lady Anne.) They have no Platonic refinement, but are perfect wives, mothers, &c. Secondly, he is admirable for the close union of morality and passion. Shakspeare conceived that these should never be separated; in this differing from the Greek who reserved the chorus for the morality. The truths he teaches he told in character and with passion. They are the "sparks from heated iron." They have all a higher worth than their insulated sententious im