ledgment in the instances in which he was indebted to him. That, in general terms, is the charge. The defence is, that in this work there are certain general admissions in which he owns his obligations, and certain protestations, under which he strongly deprecates the charge of plagiarism even while he is in the very act of committing the offence. The question then comes to be- What weight is to be attached to these general admissions? What are weto understand from them? Do they speak out plainly, and lead us to form an accurate notion of what Coleridge's dealings with Schelling really are? Do they cover the whole extent of his obligation to him? or do they not rather lead the reader to rank him (from his own showing) almost pari passu with the German philosopher in the latter's own particularline of thought? To what extent do these protestations, or can any such protestations entitle him, or any one, to appropriate, without a specific acknowledgment, the property of another man? These questions can only be answered by attending to the terms in which his admissions and disclaimers are couched. In the Biographia Literaria, p. 148, Coleridge writes thus. We give the whole of his defence :

"In Schelling's 'NATUR-PHILOSOPHIE,' (Schelling, we may remark, never published any work under this title,) and the SYSTEM DES TRANSCENDENTALEN IDEALISMUS, I first found a genial coincidence with much that I had toiled out for myself, and a powerful assistance in what I had yet to do. It would be a mere act of justice to myself were I to warn my future readers that an identity of thought, or even similarity of phrase, will not at all times be a certain proof that the passage has been borrowed from Schelling, or that the conceptions were originally learned from him. In this instance, as in the Dramatic Lectures of Schlegel, to which I have before alluded from the same motive of self-defence against the charge of plagiarism, many of the most striking resemblances, indeed all the main and fundamental ideas, were born and matured in my mind before I had ever seen a single page of the German philosopher; and, I might indeed affirm with truth, before the more important works of Schelling had been written, or at least made public.

God forbid! that I

should be suspected of a wish to enter into a rivalry with Schelling for the honours so unequivocally his right, not only as a great and original genius, but as the founder of

To

the philosophy of nature. Schelling we owe the completion, and the most important victories of this revolution in philosophy. To me it will be happiness and honour enough should I succeed in rendering the system itself intelligible to my countrymen, and in the appli. cation of it to the most awful of subjects for the most important of purposes. Whether a work is the offspring of a man's own spirit, and the product of original thinking, will be discovered by those who are its sole legitimate judges, by better tests than the mere reference to dates. For readers in general, let whatever shall be found in this or any future work of mine that resembles or coincides with the doctrines of my German predecessor, though contemporary, be wholly attributed to him; provided that the absence of distinct references to his books, which I could not at all times make with truth, as designating citations or thoughts actually derived from him, and which, I trust, would, after this general acknowledgment, be superfluous, be not charged on me as an ungenerous concealment or intentional plagiarism."

Such are the terms in which Coleridge, arming himself beforehand, anticipates and deprecates the charge of plagiarism, and justifies all the liberties he may think proper to take with the writings of Schelling. Our decided opinion is, that his arms are very inef. fectual, his panoply full of flaws, and that the ground he takes up, though specious enough, and an apparent shelter, will be found to be altogether untenable.

In the first place, we remark, that so long as human nature and the laws of evidence remain what they are, "an identity of thought and similarity of phrase," occurring in the case of two authors, must be held as a very strong proof that one of them has borrowed from the other. But in the present case it is not similarity: it is absolute sameness of phrase that we are prepared to bring forward against Coleridge; and this we maintain to be in every instance a certain proof that the passages, about which the question is, have been borrowed. If a man were to publish some verses like Milton's Penseroso, the probability, to say the least, would be, that he had borrowed a good deal from Milton; but if he were to publish as his own some verses the same as the Penseroso, we should at once pronounce him, with complete certainty, and in spite of all he might say to the

"a

contrary, to be a downright plagiarist. In the same way Coleridge, who has dealt in this manner, and (a few extremely insignificant variations and interpolations excepted) in no other manner, with the writings of the German philosopher, must be held, notwithstanding all his warnings and protestations, to have afforded us certain proof that the passages have been borrowed from Schelling, and the conceptions originally learned from him;" and that he himself has been guilty of direct palpable plagiarism, and, we regret to say, of worse than plagiarism, in thus giving the denial to a fact established by the clearest and most irresistible evidence.

But that is not the most important feature of the defence to be attended to. We ask, what is the general impression left on a reader's mind by the passage quoted? Is it not this: that Coleridge, having "borne the burden and the heat of the day," and. having made good his own independent advances in philosophy, had, in the person of Schelling, fallen in with a fellow-labourer moving along the same difficult path with himself, and at the most only with a step somewhat firmer than his own? Is it not this: that, having "toiled out much for himself," and "many of the most striking resemblances, indeed all the main and fundamental ideas, having been born and matured in his mind before he had ever seen a single page of the German philosopher," he was prepared to pour from the lamp of an original though congenial thinker a flood of new light upon the dark doctrines with which he so genially coincided? Is not this what we are reasonably led by his language to expect? Nay, is not this what a reader unacquainted with foreign philosophy would believe Coleridge, from his own statement, to be actually performing in the case of the numerous passages throughout the Biographia Literaria, which open up glimpses into a philo. sophy far profounder than the common? Then, as to the exclamation, "God forbid! that I should be suspected of a wish to enter into a rivalry with Schelling for the honours so unequivocally his right;" does it not second this belief, and stand forth as a sort of guarantee that these passages are not literally Schelling's own, but that they are "genial coincidences" on the part of Coleridge, which he

is generously disposed to make over to his "German predecessor, though contemporary?" (He cannot even admit him to have been his predecessor, without a qualification.) And further, in the sentence where Coleridge writes -"Whether a work is the offspring of a man's own spirit, and the product of original thinking, will be discovered by better tests than the mere reference to dates;" is not the impression conveyed, and evidently meant to be conveyed, this, that though Coleridge did not publish his ideas on the transcendental philosophy until after Schelling, still, notwithstanding that, "his work is the offspring of his own spirit, and the product of original thinking?"

Such, unquestionab is the general impression conveyed by Coleridge's indefinite admissions. The question between him and his reader then comes to be this: is this impression a true or a false one? Does Coleridge really perform what he leads the reader to believe he is performing or does he not? For his exculpation must depend very much upon an affirmative answer being returned to this question. Now we should say, that provided Coleridge has any where throughout his book shown any indication of having brought the power of an independent mind to bear upon the difficult problems with which the German metaphysician is manfully grappling, provided he has identified himself with the philosophy, by having reflected upon it the light of his own original thinking then the impression is a true one. Even in that case we think it would have been as well had he acknowledged specifically the instances in which he makes use of Schelling's identical words-but about that we should not have been at all particular-and his not having done so would not have been founded upon by us as a just ground of complaint. Not only should we have found no fault with him; but, knowing the very great value to be attached to a genuine coincidence between two independent thinkers upon any great philosophical question, we should have been exceedingly thankful to him for the pains he had taken in making Schelling's system his own, and his own system Schelling's; both of which things he leads us to believe he does.

But, alas! if this controversy can be decided in Coleridge's favour, (as we think it can,) only provided it should appear that he has contributed something of his own to the stock he so unscrupulously appropriates, we fear that he has not the smallest chance of an acquittal. For it is not true that he has made even the smallest return. Schelling might have been a beggar for any thing that he gives him out of his own pocket, in repayment of the very large sums which he secretly draws from the bank of German transcendentalism. Instead of having toiled out, as he says, " much for himself," he has left the whole of the toil to Schelling: his own toil being merely (without saying one articulate word about it) to render, page after page, into very tolerable English, some of the profound speculations of the German thinker. In every instance in which we meet with any remarks more than usually profound, bearing upon the higher metaphysics, it is Schelling and not Coleridge that we are reading. Instead of having converged (as he leads us to suppose he has done) the rays of his own independent mind into one common focus with the German, he leaves that philosopher shining on alone, and illuminating, as he best may, his own dark discussions. Not one ray of light, we maintain, is any where thrown by him upon Schelling's system; and further than this, we maintain that not only is it an incorrect statement that " many of the most striking resemblances, and all the main and fundamental ideas, were matured in his mind before he had ever seen a single page of the German philosopher" not only is this an incorrect statement; but there is not the smallest evidence in this, or any other of his works, betokening any "coincidence" whatever between him and Schelling-there is no proof to be met with, that he ever travelled so much as one step in the same line of thought with him, except-mark you, reader-except in the case of those passages which are faithful and (with the omission of a few very unimportant interpolations) verbatim translations from that author. There

fore our verdict must be, that Coleridge, in the passages in which he deprecates the charge of plagiarism, and defends his dealings with Schelling, does not speak out plainly-does not, in reality, give the German philosopher his due-does not act fairly towards his reader, but conveys to his

mind an impression that he is doing one thing when he is doing quite another thing; in other words, conveys an impression altogether false, erroneous, and misleading.

It must be remembered, that we are at present speaking of Coleridge only in reference to his connexion with the transcendental philosophy. He lays a good deal of stress on his possession of "the main and fundamental ideas" of that system. We ourselves, in our day, have had some small dealings with "main and fundamental ideas," and we know this much about them, that it is very easy for any man, or for every man, to have them. There is no difficulty in that. The difficulty lies in bringing them intelligibly, effectively, and articulately out-in elaborating them into clear and intelligible shapes; for this appears to be the nature of fundamental ideas-the more you endeavour to extrude them, the stronger does their propensity become to run inwards, and to get out of sight. Now, it is precisely in the counteraction of this tendency, and in the power to force these ideas outwards, that philosophical genius displays itself. Indeed, it is the ability to do this which constitutes philosophical genius. The mere fact of the ideas being in you is nothing-how are they to be got out of you in the right shape, is the question. It is the delivery and not the conception that is the poser. Wasps and even dungflies, we suppose, are able to collect the juice of flowers, and this juice may be called their "fundamental ideas." So far they are on an equal footing with the bee; that is, they possess the " raw material" just as much as he does. But the bee alone is a genius among flies, because he alone can put out his ideas in the shape of honey, and thereby make the breakfast-table glad. When, therefore, Mr Coleridge tells us, that, before Schelling's time, he was in possession " of all the main and fundamental ideas" of the transcendental philosophy, we replyvery likely-that, in one sense, is just what you, or we, or any weaver in the suburbs might be in possession of; but show us your honey, for that alone will convince us that you are the philosophic genius you wish us to believe you to be. To this Mr Coleridge, instead of producing any stores of his own, makes answer by presenting us with some combs purloined from the hive of a foreign worker, calling them by the alluring title of "genial coincidences.”

We perceive that Mr Gilman, in the one only sentence in which he attempts to defend Coleridge, has, like ourselves, though for a very different purpose, brought forward the bee as an illustration of the case. He thus writes, (Life of Coleridge, p. 245-the italics are his own)-" With regard to the charge made by Mr De Quincy of Coleridge's so borrowing the property of other writers as to be guilty of petty larceny ;' with equal justice might we accuse the bee, which flies from flower to flower in quest of food, and which, by means of the instinct bestowed upon it by the all-wise Creator, extracts its nourishment from the field and the garden, but digests and elaborates it by its own native powers." Now this is precisely what we are complaining Coleridge does not do. Unlike the bee, he steals his honey ready made. A friendly naturalist suggests, that bees will steal ready-made honey too, when they can get at it, and that, therefore, the parallel is not exact. But we reply that, even then, they make a point of elaborating it over again within their own internals before they publish it to their neighbours in the hive. But with regard to the transcendental philosophy, Coleridge has done nothing of this sort-he has digested nothing by his own native powers. The pots all stand in his Biographia exactly as Schelling elaborated and made them up.

There only remains one other point to be got over: it is contained in the last sentence of the defence, where Coleridge strongly deprecates the charge of plagiarism, and endeavours to establish a sort of compact, by which he is to be entitled, without acknowledgment, to make what use he pleases of the works of Schelling. To save space, we beg to refer our readers to the sentence already printed. But even here he artfully leads us away from the idea that he has transferred into his work, almost word for word, many, nay any, of the pages of the German philosopher. Why could he not make his references to Schelling with truth, except on the ground that it was not true that these citations, &c., were actually derived from Schelling?

This is certainly the ground upon which the reader is led to believe that he refrains from giving his references. He is not able to bring himself to admit that all the profounder philosophical observations contained in his work are entirely the German's, but wishes to have it understood that they are all his own "genial coincidences" with Schelling. Genial coincidences, forsooth! where every one word of the one author tallies with every one word of the other! Credat Judæus Apella: non ego. We have already said, and are prepared to show, that Coleridge contributes nothing to the expansion or explanation of Schelling's system; therefore the sentence we are writing about must be brought to stand thus: "For readers in general, let nothing that shall be found in this or any other work of mine be attributed to Schelling, provided no fault be found with me should I ever be discovered to have cabbaged from his works ad libitum." The logic of that "provided" baffles us entirely. But even admitting that there are resemblances to Schelling to be found in his works, what right could he have to lay down such an arrangement as this, that he would make all these over to Schelling in the event of their being found to resemble him; provided he, in the mean time, might pay himself secretly what he pleased for them out of the funds of that philosopher, and provided no one would blame him should his doings ever be brought to light? The logical propriety of the "provided" escapes us in this case also. How could he tell how little his resemblances might be worth, and how great might be the value of his purloinings from Schelling? How is any security that this bargain is a fair one to be established? To cut the question short, then, we do not think that any man is entitled to enter such a protestation as this, or that it can be listened to for a moment as a defence, in the event of his being convicted of extensive plagiarism. It appears to us to be much worse than no defence at all; for this is the manner in which it is evidently calculated and designed to cut. So long as these plagiarisms are undetected, this manner of wording the protest will ensure to the author (as it did to Coleridge during the whole of his life) the credit of being original, and when they are detected, (if thatever happens,) it will give him the benefit of his protestation as a defence: in other words, if the plagiarisms are not detected, Schelling's passages remain Coleridge's, and if they are detected, the latter calculates upon getting out of the scrape by pleading that he had, in a manner, admitted them. Ay! ay! the manner of the admission is precisely the question; how does he admit them? We think we have already made clear what we now repeat, that the manner of his admission of them is such as naturally to lead every reader who trusts to his work, and looks no farther, to believe that nothing can be further from his practice and from his intention than plagiarism, in the way and to the extent which we are now about to point out.

Let us here make a passing remark upon what Coleridge says in reference to his " coincidences" with Schlegel. He tells us (see quotation) that, as in reference to Schlegel, his views upon dramatic art, so in reference to Schelling, his views on transcendental metaphysics, were matured before he knew any thing about either author. On the subject of his resemblances to Schlegel, we are not prepared to speak on our own authority. But as he himself here perils the fact of his priority to and independence of Schlegel upon the truth of what he says respecting his priority to and independence of Schelling, placing both instances upon exactly the same footing, we are entitled to say, that as in the case of Schelling we know him to be a consummate plagiarist, and original in nothing; so in the case of Schlegel, we think it more than probable that he has borrowed ready-made from that author every thing in which he " genially coincides" with him.

We now proceed to particularize Coleridge's plagiarisms, in the order in which they occur in the first vo-lume of the Biog. Lit., for to it our accusation is confined. Of course, our limits will not permit us to make almost any extracts illustrative of our charge; they will permit us to offer little or no criticism on the merits either of the borrowed or the original

passages; and still less will they allow us to enter into any explanation touching the transcendental philosophy in general; but we can at least state the exact pages of Coleridge in which the plagiarisms occur, and the corresponding pages of Schelling from which they are taken. And we pledge ourselves to do this with the most scrupulous accuracy; for not our own credit merely, but the general character of this Magazine, will be, to a certain extent, perilled upon our faithfulness.

*

The first instance in which we detect Coleridge translating closely from Schelling occurs in p. 130, beginning at the words "how being" the last clause is interpolated, we think not very wisely. This and the next sentence are to be found in Schelling's Transcendental Idealism, p. 113. The next two sentences (Biog. Lit. p. 131) are to be found (slightly altered from the original) in Transc. Id. p. 112. Then Coleridge interposes a short sentence of his own; after which we come to the words, "Matter has no inward. We remove one surface but to meet with another." This occurs in two places in Schelling's works; vide Phil. Schrift.† p. 240, and Ideen, ‡ Introduction, p. 22. On turning over to p. 133, Biog. Lit., we find that nearly the whole of the first paragraph is taken from the Transc. Id. p. 113, though here the translation is not so close as usual. But the passage is remarkable, as containing a stroke which we daresay many admirers have considered peculiarly Coleridgian. Taking out of Schelling's mouth the words in which he is describing the futility of materialism, as an explanation of the phenomena of thought, Coleridge says, "When we expected to find a body, behold, we had nothing but its ghost!-the apparition of a defunct substance!" Now this illustration, and every thing connected with it, belongs exclusively to Schelling. "To explain thinking," says he, " as a material phenomenon, is only possible by making a ghost of matter." Transc. Id. p. 113.

After turning over a few leaves, we come to the only passage in the