-Platonic school. In "Biographia Literaria" (chap. 9) Coleridge refers
to his "early study of Plato and of Plotinus, with the commentaries and
the 'Theologia Platonica' of the illustrious Florentine; of Proclus, and
Gemistius Pletho."

_Duns Scotus_ (1265 or 1275-1308) and _Thomas Aquinas_ (1227-1274), two
great theologians of the Catholic Church.

_Jacob Behmen_ or Boehme (1575-1624), a German religious mystic who exerted
considerable influence on English religious thought in the eighteenth
century. In the "Biographia Literaria" (chap. 9) Coleridge writes: "A meek
and shy quietist, his intellectual powers were never stimulated into
feverous energy by crowds of proselytes, or by the ambition of
proselyting. Jacob Behmen was an enthusiast in the strictest sense, as not
merely distinguished, but as contradistinguished from a fanatic.... The
writings of these Mystics acted in no slight degree to prevent my mind
from being imprisoned within the outline of any single dogmatic system."

_Swedenborg_, Emanuel (1688-1772), the Swedish scientist and mystic from
whom have sprung some of the modern theosophical cults.

_Religious Musings_, published in his "Poems on Various Subjects" (1796).

_the glad prose of Jeremy Taylor_. Cf. "Literature of the Age of
Elizabeth," Lecture VII: "In his writings, the frail stalk of human life
reclines on the bosom of eternity. His Holy Living and Dying is a divine
pastoral. He writes to the faithful followers of Christ, as the shepherd
pipes to his flock. He introduces touching and heartfelt appeals to
familiar life; condescends to men of low estate; and his pious page
blushes with modesty and beauty. His style is prismatic. It unfolds the
colours of the rainbow; it floats like the bubble through the air; it is
like innumerable dew-drops that glitter on the face of morning, and
tremble as they glitter. He does not dig his way underground, but slides
upon ice, borne on the winged car of fancy. The dancing light he throws
upon objects is like an Aurora Borealis, playing betwixt heaven and
earth.... In a word, his writings are more like fine poetry than any other
prose whatever; they are a choral song in praise of virtue, and a hymn to
the Spirit of the Universe."

_Bowles_, William Lisle (1762-1850), published "Fourteen Sonnets" in 1789,
and a second edition containing twenty-one in the same year. In the first
chapter of the "Biographia Literaria," Coleridge credits the sonnets of
Bowles with