Against the subtleties which would make poetry a study- not a
passion- it becomes the metaphysician to reason- but the poet to
protest. Yet Wordsworth and Coleridge are men in years; the one imbued
in contemplating from his childhood, the other a giant in intellect
and learning. The diffidence, then, with which I venture to dispute
their authority would be overwhelming did I not feel, from the
bottom of my heart, that learning has little to do with the
imagination- intellect with the passions- or age with poetry.
Trifles, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below,
are lines which have done much mischief. As regards the greater
truths, men oftener err by seeking them at the bottom than at the top;
Truth lies in the huge abysses where wisdom is sought- not in the
palpable palaces where she is found. The ancients were not always
right in hiding the goddess in a well; witness the light which Bacon
has thrown upon philosophy; witness the principles of our divine
faith- that moral mechanism by which the simplicity of a child may
overbalance the wisdom of a man.
We see an instance of Coleridge's liability to err, in his
Biographia Literaria- professedly his literary life and opinions, but,
in fact, a treatise de omni scibili et quibusdam aliis.
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