ge. There is a Spanish proverb, that he who has not
seen Seville, has seen nothing. And I grieve to inform the present
unfortunate generation, born under an evil star, coming, in fact, into
the world a day after the fair, that, not having heard Coleridge, they
have _heard_--pretty much what the strangers to Seville have _seen_,
which (you hear from the Spaniards) amounts to nothing. _Nothing_ is
hardly a thing to be proud of, and yet it has its humble advantages. To
have heard Coleridge was a thing to remember with pride as a trophy, but
with pain as a trophy won by some personal sacrifice. To have heard
Coleridge has now indeed become so great a distinction, that if it were
transferable, and a man could sell it by auction, the biddings for it
would run up as fast as for a genuine autograph of Shakespeare. The
story is current under a thousand forms of the man who piqued himself on
an interview which he had once enjoyed with royalty; and, being asked
what he could repeat to the company of his gracious Majesty's remarks,
being an honest fellow he confessed candidly that the King, happening to
be pressed for time, had confined himself to saying, 'Dog, stand out of
my horse's way'; and many persons that might appear as claimants to the
honour of having conversed with Coleridge could perhaps report little
more of personal communication than a courteous request from the great
man not to interrupt him. Inevitably, however, from this character of
the Coleridgean conversation arose certain consequences, which are too
much overlooked by those who bring it forward as a model or as a
splendid variety in the proper art of conversation. And speaking myself
as personally a witness to the unfavourable impression left by these
consequences, I shall not scruple in this place to report them with
frankness.

At the same time, having been heretofore publicly misrepresented and
possibly because misunderstood as to the temper in which I spoke of
Coleridge, and as though I had violated some duty of friendship in
uttering a truth not flattering after his death, I wish so far to
explain the terms on which we stood as to prevent any similar
misconstruction. It would be impossible in any case for me to attempt a
Plinian panegyric, or a French _eloge_. Not that I think such forms of
composition false, any more than an advocate's speech, or a political
partisan's: it is understood from the beginning that they are one-sided;
but still true according