truth. It tells of his profound learning and discursive genius; his worth; his social and Christian virtues; and adds, that his disposition was unalterably sweet and angelic: that he was an everenduring, ever-loving friend: the gentlest and kindest teacherthe most engaging home companion. Hazlitt, who knew him in his youth, describes him as rather above the middle size, inclining to corpulency; as having a dreamy countenance, a forehead broad and high, with large projecting eyebrows, and "eyes rolling like a sea with darkened lustre." The description applies with almost equal accuracy to the Poet in age. The wonderful eloquence of his conversation is a prominent theme with all who have written or spoken of him; it was full of matter: his bookish lore, and his wide and intimate acquaintance with men and things were enlivened by a grace and sprightliness absolutely startling;-his manner was singularly attractive, and the tones of his voice were perfect music. Few have obtained greater celebrity in the world of letters; yet few have so wasted the energies of a naturally great mind; few, in short, have done so LITTLE of the purposed and promised MUCH. Some of the most perfect examples that our language can supply, are to be found among his Poems, full of the simplest and purest nature, yet pregnant with the deepest and most subtle philosophy.* His judgment and taste were sound and refined to a degree; and when he spoke of the "little he had published" as being of "little importance," it was because his conception of excellence exceeded even his power to convey it. Those who read his wildest productions-Christabel, and the Ancient Mariner-will readily appreciate the fertile imagination and prodigious strength of the writer; and if they turn to the gentler efforts of his genius, they will find so many illustrations of a passage which prefaces an edition of his Juvenile Verses: "Poetry has been to me its 'exceeding great reward;' it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me." * A complete and beautifully printed edition of the Poems of S. T. Coleridge, in 3 vols. was published by Pickering, revised and arranged by the Poet, shortly before his death. COLERIDGE. THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO. THANKS, gentle artist! now I can descry Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share. Or pause and listen to the tinkling bells From the high tower, and think that there she dwells. With old Boccaccio's soul I stand possest, And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest. The brightness of the world, O thou once free, The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn, And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn; Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls; ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, Oft in my waking dreams do I The moonshine stealing o'er the scene * She lean'd against the armed man, Few sorrows hath she of her own, I played a soft and doleful air, She listened with a flitting blush, I told her of the Knight, that wore I told her how he pined: and, ah ! The low, the deep, the pleading tone, With which I sang another's love, Interpreted my own. She listened with a flitting blush, And she forgave me that I gazed Too fondly on her face! But when I told the cruel scorn Which crazed this bold and lovely Knight, And that he crossed the mountain woods, Nor rested day nor night! That sometimes from the savage den, There came, and looked him in the face, An angel beautiful and bright; And that he knew it was a fiend, This miserable Knight! And how, unknowing what he did, He leap'd amid a murd'rous band, And saved from outrage worse than death The Lady of the Land; And how she wept and clasped his knees, And how she tended him in vain, And ever strove to expiate The scorn, that crazed his brain; And that she nursed him in a cave; His dying words-But when I reached |