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Untitled Article
of Mr . Coleridge comes nearer to these . There is an immense number of them , and late in life , after the author had given up the composition of large works , he gave this aphoristic form to the expression of all his thoughts . We need not say that they are of very unequal merit , but in reading these , one is reminded of one of the sayings of Socrates .
A trap being laid for him to induce him to censure a philosopher , whose mysticism it was thought was opposed to his own plain common sense , he answered— Since I find all is good that I understand of Anaxagoras , I presume that that is good also that I do not understand . ' Of these rhymed proverbs , the tone is gay , and the image taken from daily life : as , for instance , in the following : —
* Age . —Age is a well bred man . He knocks again and again , but then , nobody cries * walk in . " And as he cannot continue standing 1 at the door , he lifts the latch , and bursts in upon you . And then every one cries out , How impertinent !" Many are political , and impartially directed against both parties , —the government and the people . One example of each : — 4 Egalite . No one strives to reach the highest . We begrudge our equals only . And the worst envy in the world is that which every one feels towards his fellows . '
* Furstenregel—Rule for princes . Are men not to indulge in fancy , or in thinking , you must take care to provide pleasure for them . Do you wish really to serve them , you must fleece them and protect them . He might have entitled this ' Prussia and Austria / The third and fourth volumes consist of a repetition of the same kind of subjects and classes which are found in the two earlier
volumes . And though there is no strictly defined chronological line drawn , yet , in general , they point out the change which time had produced in the author ' s mind . The epigrams are less violent , the thoughts are more subtle ; the speculations are essentially the same . In the third volume there is a class of later lyrical poems . We have Masonic songs ; a series on art ; and additional parabolic verses ; and a few translations ; of which the ixiost remarkable
are some passages from Lord Byron ' s Manfred , ' and ' Don Juan / and Manzoni ' s famous * Ode on the Death of Bonaparte / who therein makes his hero die like a capuchin ; and , by a devout death , do honour to the spirit of faith 1 The fourth volume opens with an elaborate Mask , written in the year 1818 , in honour of the Empress of Russia , who then visited her daughter , the consort of the Crown Princess . In this
piece appear , besides a great number of allegorical figures , the leading characters of poems written by Schiller , Wieland , Herder , Goethe , &c . The whole court took part in the performance . And who so fit to represent Mephistopheles , that is , itith reverence be it spoken , the Devil himself , as the poet himself , then near seventy years of age ? The bold truths which he ventures to address could hardly have been tolerated by any tfourt from ftny
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370 Goethe ' s Works .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1832, page 370, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1814/page/10/
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