Biographia Literaria

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[ Ennead, III. 8. 3. The force of the Greek sunienai is imperfectly expressed by "understand;" our own idiomatic phrase "to go along with me" comes nearest to it. The passage, that follows, full of profound sense, appears to me evidently corrupt; and in fact no writer more wants, better deserves, or is less likely to obtain, a new and more correct edition-ti oun sunienai; oti to genomenon esti theama emon, siopaesis (mallem, theama, emon sioposaes,) kai physei genomenon theoraema, kai moi genomenae ek theorias taes odi, taen physin echein philotheamona uparkei. (mallem, kai moi hae genomenae ek theorias autaes odis). "What then are we to understand? That whatever is produced is an intuition, I silent; and that, which is thus generated, is by its nature a theorem, or form of contemplation; and the birth; which results to me from this contemplation, attains to have a contemplative nature." So Synesius:

'Odis hiera'Arraeta gona

The after comparison of the process of the natura naturans with that of the geometrician is drawn from the very heart of philosophy.]

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[ This is happily effected in three lines by Synesius, in his THIRD HYMN:

'En kai Pan'ta—(taken by itself) is Spinozism.'En d' 'Apan'ton—a mere Anima Mundi.'En te pro panton—is mechanical Theism.

But unite all three, and the result is the Theism of Saint Paul and Christianity. Synesius was censured for his doctrine of the pre- existence of the soul; but never, that I can find, arraigned or deemed heretical for his Pantheism, though neither Giordano Bruno, nor Jacob Behmen ever avowed it more broadly.

Mystas de Noos,Ta te kai ta legei,Buthon arraetonAmphichoreuon.Su to tikton ephus,Su to tiktomenon;Su to photizon,Su to lampomenon;Su to phainomenon,Su to kryptomenonIdiais augais.'En kai panta,'En kath' heauto,Kai dia panton.

Pantheism is therefore not necessarily irreligious or heretical; though it may be taught atheistically. Thus Spinoza would agree with Synesius in calling God Physis en Noerois, the Nature in Intelligences; but he could not subscribe to the preceding Nous kai noeros, i.e. Himself Intelligence and intelligent.

In this biographical sketch of my literary life I may be excused, if I mention here, that I had translated the eight Hymns of Synesius from the Greek into English Anacreontics before my fifteenth year.]

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[ See Schell. Abhandl. zur Erlaeuter. des Id. der Wissenschafslehre.]

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[ Des Cartes, Diss. de Methodo.]

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[ The impossibility of an absolute thing (substantia unica) as neither genus, species, nor individuum: as well as its utter unfitness for the fundamental position of a philosophic system, will be demonstrated in the critique on Spinozism in the fifth treatise of my Logosophia.]

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[ It is most worthy of notice, that in the first revelation of himself, not confined to individuals; indeed in the very first revelation of his absolute being, Jehovah at the same time revealed the fundamental truth of all philosophy, which must either commence with the absolute, or have no fixed commencement; that is, cease to be philosophy. I cannot but express my regret, that in the equivocal use of the word that, for in that, or because, our admirable version has rendered the passage susceptible of a degraded interpretation in the mind of common readers or hearers, as if it were a mere reproof to an impertinent question, I am what I am, which might be equally affirmed of himself by any existent being.

The Cartesian Cogito ergo sum is objectionable, because either the Cogito is used extra gradum, and then it is involved to the sum and is tautological; or it is taken as a particular mode or dignity, and then it is subordinated to the sum as the species to the genus, or rather as a particular modification to the subject modified; and not pre- ordinated as the arguments seem to require. For Cogito is Sum Cogitans. This is clear by the inevidence of the converse. Cogitat, ergo est is true, because it is a mere application of the logical rule: Quicquid in genere est, est et in specie. Est (cogitans), ergo est. It is a cherry tree; therefore it is a tree. But, est ergo cogitat, is illogical: for quod est in specie, non NBCESSARIO in genere est. It may be true. I hold it to be true, that quicquid vere est, est per veram sui affirmationem; but it is a derivative, not an immediate truth. Here then we have, by anticipation, the distinction between the conditional finite! (which, as known in distinct consciousness by occasion of experience, is called by Kant's followers the empirical!) and the absolute I AM, and likewise the dependence or rather the inherence of the former in the latter; in whom "we live, and move, and have our being," as St. Paul divinely asserts, differing widely from the Theists of the mechanic school (as Sir J. Newton, Locke, and others) who must say from whom we had our being, and with it life and the powers of life.]

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[ TRANSLATION. "Hence it is clear, from what cause many reject the notion of the continuous and the infinite. They take, namely, the words irrepresentable and impossible in one and the same meaning; and, according to the forms of sensuous evidence, the notion of the continuous and the infinite is doubtless impossible. I am not now pleading the cause of these laws, which not a few schools have thought proper to explode, especially the former (the law of continuity). But it is of the highest importance to admonish the reader, that those, who adopt so perverted a mode of reasoning, are under a grievous error. Whatever opposes the formal principles of the understanding and the reason is confessedly impossible; but not therefore that, which is therefore not amenable to the forms of sensuous evidence, because it is exclusively an object of pure intellect. For this non-coincidence of the sensuous and the intellectual (the nature of which I shall presently lay open) proves nothing more, but that the mind cannot always adequately represent to the concrete, and transform into distinct images, abstract notions derived from the pure intellect. But this contradiction, which is in itself merely subjective (i.e. an incapacity in the nature of man), too often passes for an incongruity or impossibility in the object (i.e. the notions themselves), and seduces the incautious to mistake the limitations of the human faculties for the limits of things, as they really exist."

I take this occasion to observe, that here and elsewhere Kant uses the term intuition, and the verb active (intueri Germanice anschauen) for which we have unfortunately no correspondent word, exclusively for that which can be represented in space and time. He therefore consistently and rightly denies the possibility of intellectual intuitions. But as I see no adequate reason for this exclusive sense of the term, I have reverted to its wider signification, authorized by our elder theologians and metaphysicians, according to whom the term comprehends all truths known to us without a medium.

From Kant's Treatise De mundi sensibilis et intelligibilis forma et principiis. 1770.]

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[ Franc. Baconis de Verulam, NOVUM ORGANUM.]

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[ This phrase, a priori, is in common, most grossly misunderstood, and as absurdity burdened on it, which it does not deserve. By knowledge a priori, we do not mean, that we can know anything previously to experience, which would be a contradiction in terms; but that having once known it by occasion of experience (that is, something acting upon us from without) we then know, that it must have existed, or the experience itself would have been impossible. By experience only now, that I have eyes; but then my reason convinces me, that I must have had eyes in order to the experience.]

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[ Jer. Taylor's Via Pacis.]

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[ Par. Lost. Book V. I. 469.]

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[ Leibnitz. Op. T. II. P. II. p. 53.—T. III. p. 321.]

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[ Synesii Episcop. Hymn. III. I. 231]

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[ 'Anaer morionous, a phrase which I have borrowed from a Greek monk, who applies it to a Patriarch of Constantinople. I might have said, that I have reclaimed, rather than borrowed, it: for it seems to belong to Shakespeare, de jure singulari, et ex privilegio naturae.]

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[ First published in 1803.]

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[ These thoughts were suggested to me during the perusal of the Madrigals of Giovambatista Strozzi published in Florence in May, 1593, by his sons Lorenzo and Filippo Strozzi, with a dedication to their paternal uncle, Signor Leone Strozzi, Generale delle battaglie di Santa Chiesa. As I do not remember to have seen either the poems or their author mentioned in any English work, or to have found them in any of the common collections of Italian poetry; and as the little work is of rare occurrence; I will transcribe a few specimens. I have seldom met with compositions that possessed, to my feelings, more of that satisfying entireness, that complete adequateness of the manner to the matter which so charms us in Anacreon, joined with the tenderness, and more than the delicacy of Catullus. Trifles as they are, they were probably elaborated with great care; yet to the perusal we refer them to a spontaneous energy rather than to voluntary effort. To a cultivated taste there is a delight in perfection for its own sake, independently of the material in which it is manifested, that none but a cultivated taste can understand or appreciate.

After what I have advanced, it would appear presumption to offer a translation; even if the attempt were not discouraged by the different genius of the English mind and language, which demands a denser body of thought as the condition of a high polish, than the Italian. I cannot but deem it likewise an advantage in the Italian tongue, in many other respects inferior to our own, that the language of poetry is more distinct from that of prose than with us. From the earlier appearance and established primacy of the Tuscan poets, concurring with the number of independent states, and the diversity of written dialects, the Italians have gained a poetic idiom, as the Greeks before them had obtained from the same causes with greater and more various discriminations, for example, the Ionic for their heroic verses; the Attic for their iambic; and the two modes of the Doric for the lyric or sacerdotal, and the pastoral, the distinctions of which were doubtless more obvious to the Greeks themselves than they are to us.

I will venture to add one other observation before I proceed to the transcription. I am aware that the sentiments which I have avowed concerning the points of difference between the poetry of the present age, and that of the period between 1500 and 1650, are the reverse of the opinion commonly entertained. I was conversing on this subject with a friend, when the servant, a worthy and sensible woman, coming in, I placed before her two engravings, the one a pinky-coloured plate of the day, the other a masterly etching by Salvator Rosa from one of his own pictures. On pressing her to tell us, which she preferred, after a little blushing and flutter of feeling, she replied "Why, that, Sir, to be sure! (pointing to the ware from the Fleet-street print shops);—it's so neat and elegant. T'other is such a scratchy slovenly thing." An artist, whose writings are scarcely less valuable than his pictures, and to whose authority more deference will be willingly paid, than I could even wish should be shown to mine, has told us, and from his own experience too, that good taste must be acquired, and like all other good things, is the result of thought and the submissive study of the best models. If it be asked, "But what shall I deem such?"—the answer is; presume those to be the best, the reputation of which has been matured into fame by the consent of ages. For wisdom always has a final majority, if not by conviction, yet by acquiescence. In addition to Sir J. Reynolds I may mention Harris of Salisbury; who in one of his philosophical disquisitions has written on the means of acquiring a just taste with the precision of Aristotle, and the elegance of Quinctilian.

MADRIGALIGelido suo ruscel chiaro, e tranquilloM'insegno Amor di state a mezzo'l giorno;Ardean le solve, ardean le piagge, e i colli.Ond' io, ch' al piu gran gielo ardo e sfavillo,Subito corsi; ma si puro adornoGirsene il vidi, che turbar no'l volli:Sol mi specchiava, e'n dolce ombrosa spondaMi stava intento al mormorar dell' onda.Aure dell' angoscioso viver mioRefrigerio soave,E dolce si, che piu non mi par graveNe'l ardor, ne'l morir, anz' il desio;Deh voil ghiaccio, e le nubi, e'l tempo rioDiscacciatene omai, che londa chiara,E l'ombra non men caraA scherzare, a cantar per suoi boschetti,E prati festa et allegrezza alletti.Pacifiche, ma spesso in amorosaGuerra co'fiori, e l'erbaAlla stagione acerbaVerdi insegne del giglio e della rosa,Movete, Aure, pian pian; che tregua o posa,Se non pace, io ritrove;E so ben dove:—Oh vago, a mansuetoSguardo, oh labbra d'ambrosia, oh rider, lieto!Hor come un scoglio stassi,Hor come un rio se'n fugge,Ed hor crud' orsa rugge,Hor canta angelo pio: ma che non fassi!E che non fammi, O sassi,O rivi, o belue, o Dii, questa mia vagaNon so, se ninfa, o magna,Non so, se donna, o Dea,Non so, se dolce o rea?Piangendo mi baciaste,E ridendo il negaste:In doglia hebbivi pin,In festa hebbivi ria:Nacque gioia di pianti,Dolor di riso: O amantiMiseri, habbiate insiemeOgnor paura e speme.Bel Fior, tu mi rimembriLa rugiadosa guancia del bet viso;E si vera l'assembri,Che'n te sovente, come in lei m'affiso:Et hor del vago riso,Hor del serene sguardoIo pur cieco riguardo. Ma qual fugge,O Rosa, il mattin lieve!E chi te, come neve,E'l mio cor teco, e la mia vita strugge!Anna mia, Anna dolce, oh sempre nuovoE piu chiaro concento,Quanta dolcezza sentoIn sol Anna dicendo? Io mi pur pruovo,Ne qui tra noi ritruovo,Ne tra cieli armonia,Che del bel nome suo piu dolce sia:Altro il Cielo, altro Amore,Altro non suona l'Ecco del mio core.Hor che'l prato, e la selva si scoiora,Al tuo serena ombrosoMuovine, alto Riposo,Deh ch'io riposi una sol notte, un hora:Han le fere, e git augelli, ognun taloraHa qualche pace; io quando,Lasso! non vonne errando,E non piango, e non grido? e qual pur forte?Ma poiche, non sent' egli, odine, Morte.Risi e piansi d'Amor; ne pero maiSe non in fiamma, o'n onda, o'n vento scrissiSpesso msrce trovaiCrudel; sempre in me morto, in altri vissi:Hor da' piu scuri Abissi al ciel m'aizai,Hor ne pur caddi giuso;Stance al fin qui son chiuso.

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[ —

"I've measured it from side to side;'Tis three feet long, and two feet wide."]

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[ —

"Nay, rack your brain—'tis all in vain,I'll tell you every thing I know;But to the Thorn, and to the PondWhich is a little step beyond,I wish that you would go:Perhaps, when you are at the place,You something of her tale may trace.I'll give you the best help I canBefore you up the mountain go,Up to the dreary mountain-top,I'll tell you all I know.'Tis now some two-and-twenty yearsSince she (her name is Martha Ray)Gave, with a maiden's true good will,Her company to Stephen Hill;And she was blithe and gay,And she was happy, happy stillWhene'er she thought of Stephen Hill.And they had fixed the wedding-day,The morning that must wed them bothBut Stephen to another maidHad sworn another oath;And, with this other maid, to churchUnthinking Stephen went—Poor Martha! on that woeful dayA pang of pitiless dismayInto her soul was sent;A fire was kindled in her breast,Which might not burn itself to rest.They say, full six months after this,While yet the summer leaves were green,She to the mountain-top would go,And there was often seen;'Tis said a child was in her womb,As now to any eye was plain;She was with child, and she was mad;Yet often she was sober sadFrom her exceeding pain.Oh me! ten thousand times I'd ratherThat he had died, that cruel father!*     *     *     **     *     *     **     *     *     **     *     *     *Last Christmas when they talked of this,Old Farmer Simpson did maintain,That in her womb the infant wroughtAbout its mother's heart, and broughtHer senses back again:And, when at last her time drew near,Her looks were calm, her senses clear.No more I know, I wish I did,And I would tell it all to youFor what became of this poor childThere's none that ever knewAnd if a child was born or no,There's no one that could ever tell;And if 'twas born alive or dead,There's no one knows, as I have said:But some remember well,That Martha Ray about this timeWould up the mountain often climb."]

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[ It is no less an error in teachers, than a torment to the poor children, to enforce the necessity of reading as they would talk. In order to cure them of singing as it is called, that is, of too great a difference, the child is made to repeat the words with his eyes from off the book; and then, indeed, his tones resemble talking, as far as his fears, tears and trembling will permit. But as soon as the eye is again directed to the printed page, the spell begins anew; for an instinctive sense tells the child's feelings, that to utter its own momentary thoughts, and to recite the written thoughts of another, as of another, and a far wiser than himself, are two widely different things; and as the two acts are accompanied with widely different feelings, so must they justify different modes of enunciation. Joseph Lancaster, among his other sophistications of the excellent Dr. Bell's invaluable system, cures this fault of singing, by hanging fetters and chains on the child, to the music of which one of his school-fellows, who walks before, dolefully chants out the child's last speech and confession, birth, parentage, and education. And this soul-benumbing ignominy, this unholy and heart-hardening burlesque on the last fearful infliction of outraged law, in pronouncing the sentence to which the stern and familiarized judge not seldom bursts into tears, has been extolled as a happy and ingenious method of remedying—what? and how?—why, one extreme in order to introduce another, scarce less distant from good sense, and certainly likely to have worse moral effects, by enforcing a semblance of petulant ease and self-sufficiency, in repression and possible after-perversion of the natural feelings. I have to beg Dr. Bell's pardon for this connection of the two names, but he knows that contrast is no less powerful a cause of association than likeness.]

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[ Altered from the description of Night-Mair in the REMORSE.

"Oh Heaven! 'twas frightful! Now ran down and stared atBy hideous shapes that cannot be remembered;Now seeing nothing and imagining nothing;But only being afraid—stifled with fear!While every goodly or familiar formHad a strange power of spreading terror round me!"

N.B.—Though Shakespeare has, for his own all justifying purposes, introduced the Night-Mare with her own foals, yet Mair means a Sister, or perhaps a Hag.]

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[ But still more by the mechanical system of philosophy which has needlessly infected our theological opinions, and teaching us to consider the world in its relation to god, as of a building to its mason, leaves the idea of omnipresence a mere abstract notion in the stateroom of our reason.]

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[ As the ingenious gentleman under the influence of the Tragic Muse contrived to dislocate, "I wish you a good morning, Sir! Thank you, Sir, and I wish you the same," into two blank-verse heroics:—

To you a morning good, good Sir! I wish.You, Sir! I thank: to you the same wish I.

In those parts of Mr. Wordsworth's works which I have thoroughly studied, I find fewer instances in which this would be practicable than I have met to many poems, where an approximation of prose has been sedulously and on system guarded against. Indeed excepting the stanzas already quoted from THE SAILOR'S MOTHER, I can recollect but one instance: that is to say, a short passage of four or five lines in THE BROTHERS, that model of English pastoral, which I never yet read with unclouded eye.—"James, pointing to its summit, over which they had all purposed to return together, informed them that he would wait for them there. They parted, and his comrades passed that way some two hours after, but they did not find him at the appointed place, a circumstance of which they took no heed: but one of them, going by chance into the house, which at this time was James's house, learnt there, that nobody had seen him all that day." The only change which has been made is in the position of the little word there in two instances, the position in the original being clearly such as is not adopted in ordinary conversation. The other words printed in italics were so marked because, though good and genuine English, they are not the phraseology of common conversation either in the word put in apposition, or in the connection by the genitive pronoun. Men in general would have said, "but that was a circumstance they paid no attention to, or took no notice of;" and the language is, on the theory of the preface, justified only by the narrator's being the Vicar. Yet if any ear could suspect, that these sentences were ever printed as metre, on those very words alone could the suspicion have been grounded.]

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[ I had in my mind the striking but untranslatable epithet, which the celebrated Mendelssohn applied to the great founder of the Critical Philosophy "Der alleszermalmende KANT," that is, the all-becrushing, or rather the all-to-nothing-crushing Kant. In the facility and force of compound epithets, the German from the number of its cases and inflections approaches to the Greek, that language so

"Bless'd in the happy marriage of sweet words."

It is in the woful harshness of its sounds alone that the German need shrink from the comparison.]

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[ Sammlung einiger Abhandlungen von Christian Garve.]

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[ Sonnet IX.]

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[ Mr. Wordsworth's having judiciously adopted "concourse wild" in this passage for "a wild scene" as it stood to the former edition, encourages me to hazard a remark, which I certainly should not have made in the works of a poet less austerely accurate in the use of words, than he is, to his own great honour. It respects the propriety of the word, "scene," even in the sentence in which it is retained. Dryden, and he only in his more careless verses, was the first, as far as my researches have discovered, who for the convenience of rhyme used this word in the vague sense, which has been since too current even in our best writers, and which (unfortunately, I think) is given as its first explanation in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary and therefore would be taken by an incautious reader as its proper sense. In Shakespeare and Milton the word is never used without some clear reference, proper or metaphorical, to the theatre. Thus Milton:

"Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palmA sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascendShade above shade, a woody theatreOf stateliest view."

I object to any extension of its meaning, because the word is already more equivocal than might be wished; inasmuch as to the limited use, which I recommend, it may still signify two different things; namely, the scenery, and the characters and actions presented on the stage during the presence of particular scenes. It can therefore be preserved from obscurity only by keeping the original signification full in the mind. Thus Milton again,

—–"Prepare thee for another scene."]

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[ —

Which Copland scarce had spoke, but quickly every hill,Upon her verge that stands, the neighbouring vallies fill;Helvillon from his height, it through the mountains threw,From whom as soon again, the sound Dunbalrase drew,From whose stone-trophied head, it on the Windross went,Which tow'rds the sea again, resounded it to Dent.That Brodwater, therewith within her banks astound,In sailing to the sea, told it to Egremound,Whose buildings, walks, and streets, with echoes loud and long,Did mightily commend old Copland for her song.Drayton's POLYOLBION: Song XXX.]

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[ Translation. It behoves me to side with my friends, but only as far as the gods.]

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[ "Slender. I bruised my shin with playing with sword and dagger for a dish of stewed prunes, and by my troth I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since."—So again, Evans. "I will make an end of my dinner: there's pippins and cheese to come."]

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[ This was accidentally confirmed to me by an old German gentleman at Helmstadt, who had been Klopstock's school and bed-fellow. Among other boyish anecdotes, he related that the young poet set a particular value on a translation of the PARADISE LOST, and always slept with it under his pillow.]