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against a foreign enemy. A magistrate who degenerates into a systematic oppressor shuts the gates of justice, and thereby restores them to their original right of defending themselves by force. As he withholds the protection of law from them, he forfeits his moral claim to enforce their obedience by the authority of law. Thus far civil and foreign war stand on the same moral foundation: the principles which determine the justice of both against the wrongdoer, are, indeed, throughout the same.

But there are certain peculiarities, of great importance in point of fact, which in other respects permanently distinguish them from each other. The evils of failure are greater in civil than in foreign war. A state generally incurs no inore than loss in war; a body of insurgents is exposed to ruin. The probabilities of success are more difficult to calculate in cases of internal contest than in a war between states, where it is easy to compare those merely material means of attack and defence which may be measured or numbered. An unsuccessful revolt strengthens the power and sharpens the cruelty of the tyrannical ruler; while an unfortunate war may produce little of the former evil and of the latter nothing. It is almost peculiar to intestine war, that success may be as mischievous as defeat. The victorious leaders may be borne along by the current of events far beyond their destination; a government may be overthrown which ought to have been only repaired; and a new, perhaps a more formidable, tyranny may spring out of victory. A regular government may stop before its fall becomes precipitate, or check a career of conquest when it threatens destruction to itself: but the feeble authority of the chiefs of insurgents is rarely able, in the one case, to maintain the courage, in the other to repress the impetuosity, of their voluntary adherents. Finally, the cruelty and misery incident to all warfare are greater in domestic dissension than in contests with foreign enemies. Foreign wars have little effect on the feelings, habits, or condition of the majority of a great nation, to most of whom the worst particulars of them may be unknown. But civil war brings the same or worse evils into the heart of a country, and into the bosom of many families: it eradicates all habits of recourse to justice and reverence for law; its hostilities are not mitigated by the usages which soften wars between nations; it is carried on with the ferocity of parties who apprehend destruction from each other; and it may leave behind it feuds still more deadly, which may render a country depraved and wretched through a long succession of ages. As it involves a wider waste of virtue and happiness than any other species of war, it can only be warranted by the sternest and most dire necessity. The chiefs of a justly disaffected party are unjust to their fellows and their followers, as well as to all the rest of their countrymen, if they take up arms in a case where the evils of submission are not more intolerable, the impossibility of reparation by pacific means more apparent, and the chance of obtaining it by arms greater than are necessary to justify the rulers of a nation in undertaking a foreign

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

447

war. A wanton rebellion, when considered with the aggravation of its ordinary consequences, is one of the greatest of crimes. The chiefs of an inconsiderable and ill-concerted revolt, however provoked, incur the most formidable responsibility to their followers and their country. An insurrection rendered necessary by oppression, and warranted by a reasonable probability of a happy termination, is an act of public virtue, always environed with so much peril as to merit admiration.

VIII. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE was born in Devonshire, in 1772, at Ottery St Mary. His father, who was vicar of the parish, superintended his early education, and he was afterwards placed in Christ's Hospital, where his superiority as a Greek scholar led to his obtaining a presentation to Cambridge. Debt, and peculiar opinions, led him to leave the University and repair to London, where in a fit of despondency he enlisted in a horse regiment. His friends soon procured his release from a position for which he was so ill qualified; and after various unsuccessful schemes, he married and settled at Stowey, where he wrote some of his early poetry, and also officiated as a Unitarian preacher. Through the kindness of the Messrs Wedgewood, the famous Staffordshire-ware manufacturers, he was furnished with funds to defray his education in Germany, and on his return from the Continent he abandoned his republican and Unitarian principles, and defended the government measures in the "Morning Post." He also published his "Friend," a periodical paper, which his irregularity prevented from becoming popular. At subsequent periods he published his two "Lay Sermons," "Biographia Literaria," and "Aids to Reflection." For the last nineteen years of his life he resided with Dr Gillman, at Highgate, where his great conversational powers attracted around him most of the literary men of the day. He died in 1834. Coleridge's fame is likely to suffer materially from his constitutional indolence, which has prevented him finishing any one work according to his original plan. In poetry, in philosophy, and in criticism, he has left fragments which show how admirably qualified he was to reach the highest excellence in these departments; while they continually tantalize us by abruptly terminating just as the writer seems to be rousing himself to exert all his powers. His poetry is distinguished by its richness of fancy and extraordinary sweetness of versification, but, as might be anticipated from his character, is deficient in energy and action. Of his prose works the most valuable are his critical essays; his philosophical disquisitions are too often obscure.

1. INFLUENCE OF PATRIOTISM ON NATIONAL PROGRESS.

("FRIEND," ESSAY IX.)

The objects of the patriot are, that his countrymen should, as far as circumstances permit, enjoy what the Creator designed for the enjoyment of animals endowed with reason, and of course develop those faculties which were given them to be developed. He would do his best that every one of his countrymen should possess whatever all men may and should possess, and that a sufficient number should be enabled and encouraged to acquire those excellences which, though not necessary or possible for all men, are yet to all men useful and honourable. He knows that patriotism itself is a necessary link in the golden chain of our affections and virtues, and turns away with indignant scorn from the false philosophy or mistaken religion which would persuade him that cosmopolitism is nobler than nationality, and the human race a sublimer object of love than a people; that Plato, Luther, Newton, and their equals, formed themselves neither in the market nor the senate, but in the world and for all men of all ages. True! but where, and among whom, are these giant exceptions produced? In the wide empires of Asia, where millions of human beings acknowledge no other bond but that of a common slavery, and are distinguished on the map but by a name which themselves perhaps never heard, or hearing abhor? No! In a circle defined by human affections, the first firm sod within which becomes sacred beneath the quickened step of the returning citizen-here, where the powers and interests of men spread without confusion through a common sphere, like the vibrations propagated in the air by a single voice, distinct yet coherent, and all uniting to express one thought and the same feeling! Here, where even the common soldier dares force a passage for his comrades by gathering up the bayonets of the enemy into his own breast; because his country "expected every man to do his duty!" and this not after he has been hardened by habit, but as probably in his first battle; not reckless or hopeless, but braving death from a keener sensibility to those blessings which make life dear, to those qualities which render himself worthy to enjoy them! Here, where the royal crown is loved and worshipped as a glory around the sainted head of FREEDOM! where the rustic at his plough whistles with equal enthusiasm, "God save the King," and "Britons never shall be slaves;" or, perhaps, leaves one thistle unweeded in his garden, because it is the symbol of his dear native land!' Here, from within this circle defined, as light by shade, or rather as light within light, by its intensity, here alone, and only within these magic circles, rise up the awful spirits whose words are oracles for

1 Alluding to the famous verse of Burns :

"The rough burr-thrissle spreading wide
Amang the bearded bere,

I turn'd the weeder-clips aside

And spared the symbol dear.”

INFLUENCE OF PATRIOTISM ON NATIONAL PROGRESS.

449 mankind, whose love embraces all countries, and whose voice sounds through all ages! Here, and here only, may we confidently expect those mighty minds to be reared and ripened, whose names are naturalized in foreign lands, the sure fellow-travellers of civilization! and yet render their own country dearer and more proudly dear to their own countrymen. This is indeed cosmopolitism, at once the nursling and the nurse of patriotic affection! This, and this alone, is genuine philanthrophy, which like the olive-tree, sacred to concord and to wisdom, fattens, not exhausts, the soil from which it sprang, and in which it remains rooted. It is feebleness only which cannot be generous without injustice, or just without ceasing to be generous. Is the morning star less brilliant, or does a ray less fall on the golden fruitage of the earth, because the moons of Saturn too feed their lamps from the same sun? Even Germany, though curst with a base and hateful brood of nobles and princelings, cowardly and ravenous jackals to the very flocks entrusted to them as shepherds, who hunt for the tiger, and whine and wag their tails for his bloody offal,-even Germany, whose ever-changing boundaries superannuate the last year's map, and are altered as easily as the hurdles of a temporary sheep-fold, is still remembered with filial love and a patriot's pride, when the thoughtful German hears the names of Luther and Leibnitz. "Ah! why," he sighs, "why for herself in vain should my country have produced such a host of immortal minds!" Yea, even the poor enslaved, degraded, and barbarized Greek, can still point to the harbour of Tenedos, and say, "There lay our fleet when we were besieging Troy." Reflect a moment on the past history of this wonderful people. What were they while they remained free and independent when Greece resembled a collection of mirrors set in a single frame, each having its own focus of patriotism, yet all capable, as at Marathon and Platea, of converging to one point and of consuming a common foe? What were they then? The fountains of light and of civilization, of truth, and of beauty, to all mankind! they were the thinking head, the beating heart of the whole world! They lost their independence, and with their independence their patriotism; and became the cosmopolites of antiquity. It has been truly observed, that, after the first acts of severity, the Romans treated the Greeks not only more mildly than their other slaves and dependents; they behaved to them even affectionately, and with munificence. The victor nation felt reverentially the presence of the visible and invisible deities that gave sanctity to every grove, every fountain, and every forum. "Think" (writes Pliny to one of his friends) "that you are sent into the province of Achaia, that true and genuine Greece, where civilization, letters, even corn, are believed to have been discovered; that you are sent to administer the affairs of free states, that is, to men eminently free, who have retained their natural right by valour, by services, by friendship; lastly, by treaty and by religion. Revere the gods, their founders; the sacred influences represented in these gods; revere their ancient glory and

their very old age, which in man is venerable, in cities sacred. Cherish in thyself a reverence of antiquity, a reverence for their great exploits, a reverence even for their fables. Detract nothing from the proud pretensions of any state; keep before thine eyes that this is the land which sent us our institutions, which gave us our laws, not after it was subjugated, but in compliance with our petition." And what came out of these men, who were eminently free without patriotism, because without national independence? While they were intense patriots, they were the benefactors of all mankind; legislators for the very nation that afterwards subdued and enslaved them. When, therefore, they became pure cosmopolites, and no partial affections interrupted their philanthropy, and when they yet retained their country, their language, and their arts, what noble works, what mighty discoveries, may we not expect from them? If the applause of a little city (a first-rate town of a country not much larger than Yorkshire), and the encouragement of a Pericles, produced a Phidias, a Sophocles, and a constellation of other stars scarcely inferior in glory, what will not the applause of the world effect, and the boundless munificence of the world's imperial masters? Alas! no Sophocles appeared, no Phidias was born!-individual genius fled with national independence, and the best products were cold and laborious copies of what their fathers had taught and invented in grandeur and majesty. At length nothing remained but dastardly and cunning slaves, who avenged their own ruin and degradation by assisting to degrade and ruin their conquerors; and the golden harp of their divine language remained only as the frame on which priests and monks spun their dirty cobwebs of sophistry and superstition!

2. THE LORD HELPETH MAN AND BEAST.-(" FRIEND.")

During his march to conquer the world, Alexander the Macedonian came to a people in Africa, who dwelt in a remote and secluded corner in peaceful huts, and knew neither war nor conqueror. They led him to the hut of their chief, who received him hospitably, and placed before him golden dates, golden figs, and bread of gold. Do you eat gold in this country? said Alexander. I take it for granted (replied the chief) that thou wert able to find eatable food in thine own country; for what reason then art thou come among us?-Your gold has not tempted me hither, said Alexander; but I would willingly become acquainted with your manners and customs. So be it, rejoined the other; sojourn among us as long as it pleaseth thee. At the close of this conversation two citizens entered as into their Court of Justice. The plaintiff said: I bought of this man a piece of land, and as I was making a deep drain through it, I found a treasure. This is not mine, for I only bargained for the land, and not for any treasure that might be concealed beneath it; and yet the former owner of the land will not receive it. The defendant answered: I hope I have a conscience as

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