The following articles include Coleridge's contributions to Southey's anonymous Omniana, or Horae Otiosiores, 1812 (reprinted, with differences, from Aikin's Athenaeum, 1807-8), where they are starred in the contents pages as being 'by a different writer'. Inserted among these are Coleridge's marginalia, written in Mr. Gillman's copy of the Omniana, together with as much of the context (usually Southey's) as is necessary to explain the annotation. The Omniana of 1812 are followed by others first added in the Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1836. 1812. 17. HELL.1 *Bellarmin makes sweating and crowding one of the chief torments of Hell, which Lessius (no doubt after an actual and careful survey,) affirms to be exactly a Dutch mile, (about a league and a half English,) in diameter. But Ribera, grounding his map on deductions from the Apocalypse, makes it two hundred Italian miles. Lessius, it may be presumed, was a Protestant,2 for whom, of course, a smaller Hell would suffice.-S. T. C. 37. ANTHONY PURVER. [HIS TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.] 3 I am he who am, is better than I am that I am.-R. S. No! The sense of that is because, or in that [I am,] in [that] I am, [meaning] I [affirm] myself [to be],-[affirming] myself to be, I am. Causa sua. My own [thought] is the ground of my own existence.-C. MS. *45. THOMAS O'BRIEN MACMAHON.4 I have a book, the author of which must have been in a violent passion during the whole time that he was writing it, and certainly had not cooled when he penned the titlepage, for thus it is entitled, The Candor and Good Nature of Englishmen exemplified in their deliberate, cautious, and charitable way of characterizing the 1 The greater part of this article is Southey's, but Coleridge stars and initials as his own the portion we have given. Omitted in 1836. 2 A mistake; see Lessius' in index. 3 The note has been partly cut away in binding. The words in [] are conjectural; the letters italicized are visible. Coleridge stars and initials this as his own. It is not marked by Southey, nor included in 1836. It appears, however, among the Omniana' of the Athenaeum. (Passage 63, in Dec., 1807). Customs, Manners, Constitution, and Religion of Neighbouring Nations, of which their own Authors are everywhere produced as Vouchers their moderate, equitable, and humane mode of governing States dependent on them; their elevated, courteous, and conciliating Stile and Deportment, on all occasions; with, in particular, a true and well-supported specimen of the ingenuous and liberal manner in which they carry on Religious Controversy.— By Thomas O'Brien MacMahon. This book contains one very amusing passage :— 6 'You sent out the children of your princes,' says he, addressing the Irish, and sometimes your princes in person, to enlighten this kingdom, then sitting in utter darkness; and how have they recompensed you? Why, after lawlessly distributing your estates, possessed for thirteen centuries or more by your illustrious families, whose antiquity and nobility, if equalled by any nation in the world, none but the immutable God of Abraham's ever beloved and chosen, though at present wandering and afflicted, people surpasses; after, I say, seizing on your inheritances, and flinging them among their Cocks, Hens, Crows, Rooks, Daws, Wolves, Lions, Foxes, Rams, Bulls, Hogs, and other birds and beasts of prey; or vesting them in the sweepings of their jails, their Smallwoods, Dolittles, Barebones, Strangeways, Smarts, Sharps, Tarts, Sterns, Churls, and Savages; their Greens, Blacks, Browns, Grays, and Whites; their Smiths, Carpenters, Brewers, Barbers, Bakers, and Taylors; their Sutlers, Cutlers, Butlers, Trustlers, and Jugglers; their Norths, Souths, and Wests; their Fields, Rows, Streets, and Lanes; their Tom's sons, John's sons, Will's sons, James's sons, Dick's sons, and Wat's sons; their Shorts, Longs, Lows, Flats, and Squats; their Packs, Slacks, Tacks, and Jacks; and to complete their ingratitude and injustice, they transported a cargo of notorious traitors to the Divine Majesty among you, impiously calling the filthy lumber, Ministers of God's word.'-S. T. C. 60. SMALL WIT. [Coleridge's comment on Southey's article.] The Pun may be traced from its minimum, in which it exists only in the violent intention and desire of the Punster to make one. This is the fluxion or pre-nascent Quantity, the Infinitesimal first Moment, or Differential, of a Punas that of the man who hearing Lincoln mentioned, grumbling most gutturally, shaking his head, and writhing his nose, muttered,- Lincoln, indeed! LINCcoln Linccoln ! SMALL WIT-LIONS OF ROMANCE 327 You may well call it Linkcoln !-(a pause)-I was never so bit with Bugs in a place, in my whole Life before! Here the reason (i. e. vindictive anger striving to ease itself by contempt-the most frequent origin of Puns, next to that of scornful Triumph exulting and insulting-see Paradise Lost, vi.) or cause of the impulse or itch to let a pun was substituted for the Pun itself, which the man's wit could not light on. This therefore is the minim. At the other extreme lies the pun polysyllabic, of which accept the following as a specimen : Two nobles in Madrid were straddling side by side, What figures these men make! The wight, that Euclid cons, 68. CUPID AND PSYCHE [CALDERON'S AUTO SACRAMENTAL]. [Coleridge's comment on Southey's article.] I do not find fault with this outline of the Fable and Plot of Calderon's Cupid and Psyche; but with R. S. for giving this only. Half a dozen passages selected from the 72 Autos Sacramentales and translated as Southey would have translated them-and the sketch of the Plot we should have thanked him for, as an agreeable though unnecessary Over-weight.-S. T. C. 70. LIONS OF ROMANCE. There is a distinction made in Palmerin de Oliva between Leones Coronados and Leones Pardos. The former, who may be called Lions Royal, are those who know blood-royal instinctively, and respect it, I suppose, as a family sort of tie. The others have no such instinct.-R. S. There is a much better reason for this distinction; and I wonder that our zoologists have not noticed the evident diversity (the variety, at least) of the Leones Pardos, or Leopard Lions, with low round foreheads, and the eyes almost at the top of the face, as contrasted with the magnificent Leone Coronado with high square forehead, &c. -C. MS. |