that facts gave birth to, and were the absolute ground of, principles; to which I said, that unless he had a principle of selection, he would not have taken notice of those facts upon which he grounded his principle. You must have a lantern in your hand to give light, otherwise all the materials in the world are useless, for you cannot find them ; and if you could, you could not "But then,' them. arrange said Mr. "that principle of selection came from facts!"—"To be sure!" I replied; "but there must have been again an antecedent light to see those antecedent facts. The relapse may be carried in imagination backwards for ever,—but go back as you may, you cannot come to a man without a previous aim or principle." He then asked me what I had to say to Bacon's induction: I told him I had a good deal to say, if need were; but that it was perhaps enough for the occasion to remark, that what he was evidently taking for the Baconian induction was mere deduction-a very different thing.1

SEPTEMBER 22, 1830.

Thucydides and Tacitus.—Poetry.—Modern Metre.-Lamb.*

THE

HE object of Thucydides was to show the ills resulting to Greece from the separation and conflict of the spirits or elements of democracy and oligarchy. The object of Tacitus was to demonstrate the desperate consequences of the loss of liberty on the minds and hearts of men.

A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket; let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection: and trust more to your imagination than to your memory.

Really the metre of some of the modern poems I have read, bears about the same relation to metre properly under

As far as I can judge, the most complete and masterly thing ever done by Mr. Coleridge in prose, is the analysis and reconcilement of the Platonic and Baconian methods of philosophy, contained in the third volume of the "Friend," from p. 176 to 216. No edition of the "Novum Organum" should ever be published without a transcript of it.-H. N. C.

stood, that dumb bells do to music; both are for exercise, and pretty severe too, I think.

Nothing ever left a stain on that gentle creature's mind, which looked upon the degraded men and things around him like moonshine on a dunghill, which shines and takes no pollution. All things are shadows to him, except those which move his affections.1

THERE

SEPTEMBER 23, 1830.

Logic.-Rhetoric.*— Grammar.*

HERE are two kinds of logic: 1. Syllogistic. 2. Criterional. How any one can by any spinning make out more than ten or a dozen pages about the first, is inconceivable to me; all those absurd forms of syllogisms are one half pure sophisms, and the other half mere forms of rhetoric.

All syllogistic logic is-1. Seclusion; 2. Inclusion; 3. Conclusion; which answer to the understanding, the experience, and the reason. The first says, this ought to be; the second adds, this is; and the last pronounces, this must be so. The criterional logic, or logic of premisses, is, of course, much the most important; and it has never yet been treated.

The object of rhetoric is persuasion,--of logic, conviction,-of grammar, significancy. A fourth term is wanting, the rhematic, or logic of sentences.

SEPTEMBER 24, 1830.

Varro.-Socrates.-Greek Philosophy.-Plotinus.-Tertullian.

WHAT

HAT a loss we have had in Varro's mythological and critical works! It is said that the works of Epicurus are probably amongst the Herculanean manuscripts. I do not feel much interest about them, because, by the consent

1 We have ventured to surmise that this paragraph refers to Charles Lamb," the gentle-hearted Charles," as Coleridge calls him in his poem, "This Lime-tree Bower my Prison."

of all antiquity, Lucretius has preserved a complete view of his system. But I regret the loss of the works of the old Stoics, Zeno and others, exceedingly.

Socrates, as such, was only a poetical character to Plato, who worked upon his own ground. The several disciples of Socrates caught some particular points from him, and made systems of philosophy upon them according to their own views. Socrates himself had no system.

I hold all claims set up for Egypt having given birth to the Greek philosophy, to be groundless. It sprang up in Greece itself, and began with physics only. Then it took in the idea of a living cause, and made pantheism out of the two. Socrates introduced ethics, and taught duties; and then, finally, Plato asserted or re-asserted the idea of a God the maker of the world. The measure of human philosophy was thus full, when Christianity came to add what before was wanting-assurance. After this again, the NeoPlatonists joined theurgy with philosophy, which ultimately degenerated into magic and mere mysticism.

Plotinus was a man of wonderful ability, and some of the sublimest passages I ever read are in his works.

I was amused the other day with reading in Tertullian, that spirits or demons dilate and contract themselves, and wriggle about like worms-lumbricis similes.

SEPTEMBER 26, 1830.

Scotch and English Lakes.-Devon.*

THE HE five finest things in Scotland are-1. Edinburgh; 2. The antechamber of the Fall of Foyers; 3. The view of Loch Lomond from Inch Tavannach, the highest of the islands; 4. The Trosachs; 5. The view of the Hebrides from a point, the name of which I forget. But the intervals between the fine things in Scotland are very dreary; whereas in Cumberland and Westmoreland there is a cabinet of beauties, each thing being beautiful in

1

itself, and the very passage from one lake, mountain, or valley, to another, is itself a beautiful thing again. The Scotch lakes are so like one another, from their great size, that in a picture you are obliged to read their names; but the English lakes, especially Derwent Water, or rather the whole vale of Keswick, is so rememberable, that, after having been once seen, no one ever requires to be told what it is when drawn. This vale is about as large a basin as Loch Lomond; the latter is covered with water; but in the former instance, we have two lakes, with a charming river to connect them, and lovely villages at the foot of the mountain, and other habitations, which give an air of life and cheerfulness to the whole place.

The land imagery of the north of Devon is most delightful.

SEPTEMBER 27, 1830.

Love and Friendship opposed.-Luther.*-Marriage.-Characterlessness

A

of Women.

PERSON once said to me, that he could make nothing of love, except that it was friendship accidentally combined with desire. Whence I concluded that he had never been in love. For what shall we say of the feeling2 which a man of sensibility has towards his wife with her baby at her breast! How pure from sensual desire! yet how different from friendship!

Sympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one whole.

"To a

1 The construction becomes slightly involved here. 2 Compare notes of June 24, 1827, and Coleridge's sonnet,Friend who asked how I felt when the nurse first presented my infant. to me:"

"When I saw it on its mother's arm,

And hanging at her bosom,

For the mother's sake the child was dear,
And dearer was the mother for the child."

Luther has sketched the most beautiful picture of the nature, and ends, and duties of the wedded life I ever read. St. Paul says it is a great symbol, not mystery, as we translate it.1

"Most women have no character at all," said Pope,2 and meant it for satire. Shakspere, who knew man and woman much better, saw that it, in fact, was the perfection of woman to be characterless. Every one wishes a Desdemona or Ophelia for a wife, creatures who, though they may not always understand you, do always feel you, and feel with you.

SEPTEMBER 28, 1830.
Mental Anarchy.

WHY

HY need we talk of a fiery hell? If the will, which is the law of our nature, were withdrawn from our memory, fancy, understanding, and reason, no other hell could equal, for a spiritual being, what we should then feel, from the anarchy of our powers. It would be conscious madness-a horrid thought!

OCTOBER 5, 1830.

Politics.*-Ear and Taste for Music Different.-English Liturgy.Walking Advertisements.*—Belgian Revolution.

IN politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

An ear for music is a very different thing from a taste for music. I have no ear whatever; I could not sing an air to save my life; but I have the intensest delight in

· Καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν. τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστίν· ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω εἰς Χριστὸν καὶ εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. Ephes., c. v. 31, 32.— H. N. C.

2 "Nothing so true as what you once let fall-
'Most women have no character at all,'—

Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,

And best distinguish'd by black, brown, and fair."

Epist. to a Lady, v. 1.-H. N. C.