The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 22

c. 19.)

6. There is great physiognomic tact in Sterne. See it particularly displayed in his description of Dr. Slop, accompanied with all that happiest use of drapery and att.i.tude, which at once give reality by individualizing and vividness by unusual, yet probable, combinations:--

Imagine to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor Slop, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a serjeant in the horseguards. ... Imagine such a one;--for such I say, were the outlines of Dr. Slop's figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling through the dirt upon the 'vertebrae' of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty colour--but of strength,--alack! scarce able to have made an amble of it, under such a fardel, had the roads been in an ambling condition;--they were not. Imagine to yourself Obadiah mounted upon a strong monster of a coach-horse, p.r.i.c.ked into a full gallop, and making all practicable speed the adverse way. (Vol.

ii. c. 9.)

7. I think there is more humour in the single remark, which I have quoted before--"Learned men, brother Toby, don't write dialogues upon long noses for nothing!"--than in the whole Slawkenburghian tale that follows, which is mere oddity interspersed with drollery.

8. Note Sterne's a.s.sertion of, and faith in, a moral good in the characters of Trim, Toby, &c. as contrasted with the cold scepticism of motives which is the stamp of the Jacobin spirit. Vol. v. c. 9.

9. You must bear in mind, in order to do justice to Rabelais and Sterne, that by right of humoristic universality each part is essentially a whole in itself. Hence the digressive spirit is not mere wantonness, but in fact the very form and vehicle of their genius. The connection, such as was needed, is given by the continuity of the characters.

Instances of different forms of wit, taken largely:

1. "Why are you reading romances at your age?"--"Why, I used to be fond of history, but I have given it up,--it was so grossly improbable."

2. "Pray, sir, do it!--although you have promised me."

3. The Spartan mother's--

"Return with, or on, thy s.h.i.+eld."

"My sword is too short!"--"Take a step forwarder."

4. The Gasconade:--

"I believe you, Sir! but you will excuse my repeating it on account of my provincial accent."

5. Pasquil on Pope Urban, who had employed a committee to rip up the old errors of his predecessors.

Some one placed a pair of spurs on the heels of the statue of St. Peter, and a label from the opposite statue of St. Paul, on the same bridge;--

'St. Paul.' "Whither then are you bound?"

'St. Peter.' "I apprehend danger here;-they'll soon call me in question for denying my Master."

'St. Paul.' "Nay, then, I had better be off too; for they'll question me for having persecuted the Christians, before my conversion."

6. Speaking of the small German potentates, I dictated the phrase,--'officious for equivalents.' This my amanuensis wrote,--'fis.h.i.+ng for elephants;'--which, as I observed at the time, was a sort of Noah's angling, that could hardly have occurred, except at the commencement of the Deluge.

LECTURE X.

DONNE--DANTE--MILTON--PARADISE LOST.

DONNE.[1]

Born in London, 1573.--Died, 1631.

I.

With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots, Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots; Rhyme's st.u.r.dy cripple, fancy's maze and clue, Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.

II

See lewdness and theology combin'd,-- A cynic and a sycophantic mind; A fancy shar'd party per pale between Death's heads and skeletons and Aretine!-- Not his peculiar defect or crime, But the true current mintage of the time.

Such were the establish'd signs and tokens given To mark a loyal churchman, sound and even, Free from papistic and fanatic leaven.

The wit of Donne, the wit of Butler, the wit of Pope, the wit of Congreve, the wit of Sheridan--how many disparate things are here expressed by one and the same word, Wit!--Wonder-exciting vigour, intenseness and peculiarity of thought, using at will the almost boundless stores of a capacious memory, and exercised on subjects, where we have no right to expect it--this is the wit of Donne! The four others I am just in the mood to describe and inter-distinguish;--what a pity that the marginal s.p.a.ce will not let me!

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where can we--find two fitter hemispheres Without sharp north, without declining west?

'Good-Morrow', v. 15, &c.

The sense is;--Our mutual loves may in many respects be fitly compared to corresponding hemispheres; but as no simile squares ('nihil simile est idem'), so here the simile fails, for there is nothing in our loves that corresponds to the cold north, or the declining west, which in two hemispheres must necessarily be supposed. But an ellipse of such length will scarcely rescue the line from the charge of nonsense or a bull.

'January,' 1829.

Woman's constancy.

A misnomer. The t.i.tle ought to be--

Mutual Inconstancy.

Whether both th' Indias of spice and 'mine', &c.

'Sun Rising', v. 17.