When_ I came home.' The _'tis_ and _'twas_, which have been
superannuated for a century in England, except in poetic forms, still
linger in Scotland and in Ireland, and these forms also at intervals
look out from Coleridge's prose. Coleridge is also guilty at odd times
(as is Wordsworth) of that most horrible affectation, the _hath_ and
_doth_ for _has_ and _does_. This is really criminal. But amongst all
barbarisms known to man, the very worst--and this also, we are sorry to
say, flourishes as rankly as weeds in Scotch prose, and is to be found
in Coleridge's writings--is the use of the _thereof_, _therein_,
_thereby_, _thereunto_. This monstrous expression of imperfect
civilization, which for one hundred and fifty years has been cashiered
by cultivated Englishmen as _attorneys' English_, and is absolutely
frightful unless in a lease or conveyance, ought (we do not scruple to
say) to be made indictable at common law, not perhaps as a felony, but
certainly as a misdemeanour, punishable by fine and imprisonment.

In nothing is the characteristic mode of Coleridge's mind to be seen
more strikingly than in his treatment of some branches of dramatic
literature, though to that subject he had devoted the closest study. He
was almost as distinguished, indeed, for the points he missed as for
those he saw. Look at his position as regards some questions concerning
the French drama and its critics, more particularly the views of
Voltaire, though some explanation may be found in the fact, which I have
noticed elsewhere, that Coleridge's acquaintance with the French
language was not such as to enable him to read it with the easy
familiarity which ensures complete pleasure. But something may also be
due to his deep and absorbed religious feeling, which seemed to
incapacitate him from perceiving the points where Voltaire, despite his
scepticism, had planted his feet on firm ground. Coleridge was aware
that Voltaire, in common with every Frenchman until the present
generation, held it as a point of faith that the French drama was
inapproachable in excellence. From Lessing, and chiefly, from his
_Dramaturgie_, Coleridge was also aware, on the other hand, upon what
erroneous grounds that imaginary pre-eminence was built. He knew that it
was a total misconception of the Greek unities (excepting only as
regards the unity of fable, or, as Coleridge otherwise calls it, the
_unity of interest_) which had misled the French. It was a huge blunde