tempt to mass them
together. It cannot indeed be said, that he has ever composed what is
popularly termed a _great_ poem; but he is great in several lines, and
the union of such powers is an essential term in a fair estimate of his
genius. The romantic witchery of the "Christabel," and "Ancient
Mariner," the subtle passion of the love-strains, the lyrical splendour
of the three great odes, the affectionate dignity, thoughtfulness, and
delicacy of the blank verse poems--especially the "Lover's Resolution,"
"Frost at Midnight," and that most noble and interesting "Address to Mr.
Wordsworth"--the dramas, the satires, the epigrams--these are so
distinct and so whole in themselves, that they might seem to proceed
from different authors, were it not for that same individualizing power,
that "shaping spirit of imagination" which more or less sensibly runs
through them all. It is the _predominance_ of this power, which, in our
judgment, constitutes the essential difference between Coleridge and any
other of his great contemporaries. He is the most imaginative of the
English poets since Milton. Whatever he writes, be it on the most
trivial subject, be it in the most simple strain, his imagination, _in
spite of himself_, affects it. There never was a better illustrator of
the dogma of the Schoolmen--_in omnem actum intellectualem imaginatio
influit_. We believe we might affirm, that throughout all the mature
original poems in these volumes, there is not one image, the
_expression_ of which does not, in a greater or less degree,
individualize it and appropriate it to the poet's feelings. Tear the
passage out of its place, and nail it down at the head of a chapter of a
modern novel, and it will be like hanging up in a London exhibition-room
a picture painted for the dim light of a cathedral. Sometimes a single
word--an epithet--has the effect to the reader of a Claude Lorraine
glass; it tints without obscuring or disguising the object. The poet has
the same power in conversation. We remember him once settling an
elaborate discussion carried on in his presence, upon the respective
sublimity of Shakespeare and Schiller in Othello and the Robbers, by
saying, "Both are sublime; only Schiller's is the _material_ sublime--
that's all!" _All_ to be sure; but more than enough to show the whole
difference. And upon another occasion, where the doctrine of the
Sacramentaries and the Roman Catholics on the subject of the Eucharist
was in questi