pt
up the intoxicating dream, the fever and the madness of his early
impressions. Liberty (the philosopher's and the poet's bride) had fallen a
victim, meanwhile, to the murderous practice of the hag, Legitimacy.
Proscribed by court-hirelings, too romantic for the herd of vulgar
politicians, our enthusiast stood at bay, and at last turned on the pivot
of a subtle casuistry to the _unclean side_: but his discursive reason
would not let him trammel himself into a poet-laureate or
stamp-distributor, and he stopped, ere he had quite passed that well-known
"bourne from whence no traveller returns"--and so has sunk into torpid,
uneasy repose, tantalized by useless resources, haunted by vain
imaginings, his lips idly moving, but his heart for ever still, or, as the
shattered chords vibrate of themselves, making melancholy music to the ear
of memory! Such is the fate of genius in an age, when in the unequal
contest with sovereign wrong, every man is ground to powder who is not
either a born slave, or who does not willingly and at once offer up the
yearnings of humanity and the dictates of reason as a welcome sacrifice to
besotted prejudice and loathsome power.

Of all Mr. Coleridge's productions, the _Ancient Mariner_ is the only one
that we could with confidence put into any person's hands, on whom we
wished to impress a favourable idea of his extraordinary powers. Let
whatever other objections be made to it, it is unquestionably a work of
genius--of wild, irregular, overwhelming imagination, and has that rich,
varied movement in the verse, which gives a distant idea of the lofty or
changeful tones of Mr. Coleridge's voice. In the _Christobel_, there is
one splendid passage on divided friendship. The _Translation of Schiller's
Wallenstein_ is also a masterly production in its kind, faithful and
spirited. Among his smaller pieces there are occasional bursts of pathos
and fancy, equal to what we might expect from him; but these form the
exception, and not the rule. Such, for instance, is his affecting Sonnet
to the author of the Robbers.

"Schiller! that hour I would have wish'd to die,
If through the shudd'ring midnight I had sent
From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent,
That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry--
That in no after-moment aught less vast
Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout
Black horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout
From the more with'ring scene diminish'd pass'd.
Ah