vantage--from Peter Abelard down
to Thomas Moore, from the subtlest metaphysics to the politics of the
_Courier_. There is no man of genius, in whose praise he descants, but
the critic seems to stand above the author, and "what in him is weak, to
strengthen, what is low, to raise and support:" nor is there any work of
genius that does not come out of his hands like an Illuminated Missal,
sparkling even in its defects. If Mr. Coleridge had not been the most
impressive talker of his age, he would probably have been the finest
writer; but he lays down his pen to make sure of an auditor, and
mortgages the admiration of posterity for the stare of an idler. If he
had not been a poet, he would have been a powerful logician; if he had
not dipped his wing in the Unitarian controversy, he might have soared
to the very summit of fancy. But in writing verse, he is trying
to subject the Muse to _transcendental_ theories: in his abstract
reasoning, he misses his way by strewing it with flowers. All that he
has done of moment, he had done twenty years ago: since then, he may be
said to have lived on the sound of his own voice. Mr. Coleridge is too
rich in intellectual wealth, to need to task himself to any drudgery: he
has only to draw the sliders of his imagination, and a thousand subjects
expand before him, startling him with their brilliancy, or losing
themselves in endless obscurity--

"And by the force of blear illusion,
They draw him on to his confusion."

What is the little he could add to the stock, compared with the
countless stores that lie about him, that he should stoop to pick up a
name, or to polish an idle fancy? He walks abroad in the majesty of an
universal understanding, eyeing the "rich strond," or golden sky above
him, and "goes sounding on his way," in eloquent accents, uncompelled
and free!

Persons of the greatest capacity are often those, who for this reason
do the least; for surveying themselves from the highest point of view,
amidst the infinite variety of the universe, their own share in it seems
trifling, and scarce worth a thought, and they prefer the contemplation
of all that is, or has been, or can be, to the making a coil about doing
what, when done, is no better than vanity. It is hard to concentrate
all our attention and efforts on one pursuit, except from ignorance
of others; and without this concentration of our faculties, no great
progress can be made in any one thing. It is not merely that