He used, in his hours of relaxation, to relate the state of his feelings, and his adventures during the short time he was a preacher. His congregations were large, and if he had the power of attracting one man of such talents from a distance, it may well be understood how the many near the chapel flocked to listen to him; in short, if one is to give credence to current report, he emptied churches and chapels to hear him. If he had needed any stimulus, this would have been sufficient, but such a mind so intensely occupied in the search after truth needed no external excitement. He has often said, that one of the effects of preaching was, that it compelled him to examine the Scriptures with greater care and industry. with great earnestness, and they were sufficient to excite his powerful and sensitive intellect, so as to induce an observer not well acquainted with him to form this opinion. In the character of preacher, he exhibited more the character of philosopher and poet, never manifesting that sectarian spirit, which too often narrows the mind, or perhaps is rather the result of a narrow mind, and which frequently seems to exclude men from the most substantial forms of Christianity, viz. "Christian charity and Christian humility." His religion was the very opposite of a worldly religion, it was at all times the religion of love. This visit to Shrewsbury, as the probable successor of Mr. Rowe, was undertaken by the advice of Mr. afterwards Dr. Estlin, a Unitarian dissenter and preacher in Bristol, a man possessed of great kindness and of great influence among this sect, to whom Coleridge had been indebted for many kind offices; the result of this visit forms a part of the sequel. These additional exertions and studies assisted mainly to his final conversion to the whole truth ; for it was still evident that his mind was perplexed, and that his philosophical opinions would soon yield to the revealed truth of Scripture. He has already pointed out what he felt on this important question, how much he differed from the generally received opinions of the Unitarians, confessing that he needed a thorough revolution in his philosophical doctrines, and that an insight into his own heart was wanting. 66 66 66 66 "While my mind was thus perplexed, by a gracious providence," says he, "for which I can never be sufficiently grateful, the generous “and munificent patronage of Mr. Josiah and "Mr. Thomas Wedgewood enabled me to finish my education in Germany. Instead of troubling others with my own crude notions, and juvenile compositions, I was thenceforward "better employed in attempting to store my own head with the wisdom of others. I made "the best use of my time and means; and there "is therefore no period of my life on which I "can look back with such unmingled satisfac"tion." 66 66 He quitted Clevedon and his cottage in the following farewell lines : "Ah! quiet dell! dear cot, and mount sublime ! "That I should dream away the entrusted hours "Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye "Yet even this, this cold beneficence "Praise, praise it, O my Soul! oft as thou scann'st "Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched, "Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies! "I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand, "Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream, Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose, Speed it, O Father! Let thy Kingdom come." He drew his own character when he described that of Satyrane, the idolocast or breaker of idols, the name he went by among his friends and familiars. "From his earliest youth," says he, "Satyrane "had derived his highest pleasures from the “admiration of moral grandeur and intellectual energy; and during the whole of his life he "had a greater and more heartfelt delight in 66 66 "the superiority of other men to himself than men in general derive from their belief of their own. "His readiness to imagine a superiority where it "did not exist, was for many years his predomi“nant foible; his pain from the perception of inferiority in others whom he had heard spoken "of with any respect, was unfeigned and involun"tary, and perplexed him as a something which "he did not comprehend. In the child-like simplicity of his nature he talked to all men as if they were his equals in knowledge and talents, "and many whimsical anecdotes could be related “connected with this habit; he was constantly scattering good seed on unreceiving soils. When "he was at length compelled to see and acknowledge the true state of the morals and intellect "of his contemporaries, his disappointment was severe, and his mind, always thoughtful, be"came pensive and sad :-for to love and sympa“thize with mankind was a necessity of his nature.” 66 66 66 66 He sought refuge from his own sensitive nature in abstruse meditations, and delighted most in those subjects requiring the full exercise of his intellectual powers, which never seemed fatigued-and in his early life never did sun shine on a more joyous being! "There was a time when, though my path was rough, This joy within me dallied with distress, "And all misfortunes were but as the stuff "Whence fancy made me dreams of happiness: "For hope grew round me, like the twining vine, "Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth, 66 My shaping spirit of imagination. "For not to think of what I needs must feel, "Till that which suits a part infects the whole, It was indeed an inauspicious hour "when he changed his abode from the happy groves of Jesus' College to Bristol." But it was so ordained! He sought literature as a trade,—and became an author-" whatever," he would say, "I write, that alone which contains the truth will live, for truth only is permanent. The rest will deservedly perish." He wrote to supply the fountain which was to feed the fertilizing rills,to develope the truth was that at which he aimed, and in which he hoped to find his reward. 66 On the 16th of September, 1798, he sailed from Great Yarmouth to Hamburg, in company with Mr. Wordsworth and his sister in his way to Germany, and now for the first time beheld "his native land" retiring from him. In a series of letters, published first in the * Poetical Works, vol. i. p. 238. |