fectionate and kind-hearted friend, whose genius is rarely equalled," to see well intentioned men please themselves with the feeling that they are not as others; that they are the favorites of Heaven, and washed clean by special dispensation from the spots of frail mortality; who moreover assume that they possess the most delicate feelings; but then those feelings are under such admirable discipline, that they can, with the most exquisite suffering, cry over their own sentences, shed tears of pity and blood for their duty, make a merit of the hardness which is contrary to their nature, and live in perpetual apprehension of being too tender-hearted. It is wonderful with what ingenuity these people can reconcile their flexible consciences to acts at which their inferiors might blush or shudder, and no less fearful to reflect how many poor wretches, not wholly past hope or reformation, may have been sent to their last account, with all their imperfections on their heads, to satisfy the religious or political fears of these pharisees. The patrons and employers of spies, we may expect to make the greatest sacrifice to expediency, --a word which every man will explain after his own way. To have written during his life any thing like an eulogy on Coleridge would have been most painful to him, yet he must have felt, that he deserved well of his fellow beings; for fame, and fame only, he observes, is the aim and object of every good and great man, though it is too often confounded with mere reputation. When a youth, he had learnt how to value that bubble reputation, its fleeting character, but the love of which, in some men, is so injurious both to head and heart. Reputation, "the morrow's meal," the "breakfast only," the furnisher of the tinsel ornaments, or at most of some of the worldly agreeables, sown perhaps for future worldly enjoyment. He laboured for riches of another kind, and stored them, in the hope of receiving a more permanent reward: 66 "By fame of course," says Coleridge, "I mean any thing rather than reputation,* the "desire of working in the good and great per 66 manently, through indefinite ages, the struggle "to be promoted into the rank of God's fellow"labourers. For bold as this expression is, it is * Coleridge when asked what was the difference between fame and reputation, would familiarly reply, "Fame is the fiat of the 'good and wise," and then with energy would quote the following beautiful lines from Milton : 66 'Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies: Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.' Lycidas. "a quotation from Scripture, and therefore jus"tified by God himself, for which we ought to "be grateful, that he has deigned to hold out "such a glory to us! This is however only one "consistent part of the incomprehensible goodness of Deity in taking upon himself man." 66 66 His note-books abound with "his hints and "first thoughts;" as he says, his “ Cogitabilia rather than actual cogitata à me,”—not always to be understood as his fixed opinions, but often merely suggestions of the disquisition, and acts of obedience to the apostolic command of "Try all things, hold fast that which is good." Among them is the following characteristic of the man and his feelings, noted down for some future disquisition. 66 66 "Würde, Worthiness, VIRTUE, consist in the mastery over the sensuous and sensual impulses; but Love requires INNOCENCE. Let "the lover ask his heart whether he could en“dure that his mistress should have struggled “with a sensual impulse for another, though she "overcame it from a sense of duty to him? "Women are LESS offended with men, from the " vicious habits of men in part, and in part from "the difference of bodily constitution; yet still "to a pure and truly loving woman it must be a "painful thought. That he should struggle with "and overcome ambition, desire of fortune, su 66 perior beauty, &c. or with desire objectless, is 66 66 "pleasing; but not that he has struggled with positive appropriated desire, i. e. desire with "an object. Love in short requires an absolute peace and harmony between all parts of human "nature, such as it is, and it is offended by any war, though the battle should be decided in "favour of the worthier. 66 66 "This is perhaps the final cause of the rarity "of true love, and the efficient and immediate cause of its difficulty. Ours is a life of probation, we are to contemplate and obey duty "for its own sake, and in order to this we, in our present imperfect state of being, must see "it not merely abstracted from, but in direct opposition to the wish, the inclination. Having perfected this, the highest possibility of human "nature, he may then with safety harmonize all 66 66 66 his being with it; he may LOVE!-To perform "duties absolutely from the sense of duty, is the ideal, which perhaps no human being ever can "arrive at, but which every human being ought "to try to draw near unto. This is in the only wise, and verily, in a most sublime sense to 66 66 see God face to face; which, alas! it seems too "true, that no man can do and live, i. e. a human "life. It would become incompatible with his 66 organization, or rather it would transmute it, "and the process of that transmutation to the senses of other men would be called death. "Even as to caterpillars; in all probability the 66 66 caterpillar dies, and he either does not see, "which is most probable, or at all events he "does not see the connection between the caterpillar and the butterfly, the beautiful Psyche "of the Greeks. 66 "Those who in this life love in perfection-if "such there be-in proportion as their love "has no struggles, see God darkly and through " a veil :-for when duty and pleasure are absolutely coincident, the very nature of our orga"nization necessitates that duty, will be contem 66 66 66 plated as the symbol of pleasure, instead of "pleasure being (as in a future life we have "faith it will be) the symbol of duty. This "then is the distinction between human and angelic happiness. Human happiness--humanly happy I call him, who in enjoyment finds "his duty; angelically happy he, who seeks “and finds his duty in enjoyment. Happiness "in general may be defined—not the aggregate "of pleasurable sensations, for this is either a "dangerous error and the creed of sensualists, or else a mere translation or wordy paraphrase 66 66 66 -but the state of that person who, in order to enjoy his nature in its highest manifestations "of conscious feeling, has no need of doing wrong, and who in order to do right is under "no necessity of abstaining from enjoyment." 66 On the arrival of the new secretary at Malta, Mr. Coleridge left it, September 27, 1805, and |