we ourselves having,
perhaps, been guilty of too wantonly stirring these waters at one time
of our lives; and in the attempt to make matters more clear, only, it
may be, succeeded in muddying them. Stolberg, Matthison, Schiller,
Frederika Brun, Schelling, and others, whom he has been supposed to have
robbed of trifles, he could not expect to lurk[8] in darkness, and
particularly as he was actively contributing to disperse the darkness
that yet hung over their names in England. But really for such
bagatelles as were concerned in this poetic part of the allegation--even
Bow Street, with the bloodiest Draco of a critical reviewer sitting on
the bench, would not have entertained the charge. Most of us, we
suppose, would be ready enough to run off with a Titian or a Correggio,
provided the coast were clear, and no policemen heaving in sight; but to
be suspected of pocketing a silver spoon, which, after all, would
probably turn out to be made of German silver--faugh!--we not only defy
the fiend and his temptations generally, but we spit in his face for
such an insinuation. With respect to the pretty toy model of Hexameter
and Pentameter from Schiller, we believe the case to have arisen thus:
in talking of metre, and illustrating it (as Coleridge often did at
tea-tables) from Homer, and then from the innumerable wooden and
cast-iron imitations of it among the Germans--he would be very likely to
cite this little ivory bijou from Schiller; upon which the young ladies
would say: 'But, Mr. Coleridge, we do not understand German. Could you
not give us an idea of it in some English version?' Then would he, with
his usual obligingness, write down his mimic English echo of Schiller's
German echo. And of course the young ladies, too happy to possess an
autograph from the 'Ancient Mariner,' and an autograph besides having a
separate interest of its own, would endorse it with the immortal
initials 'S. T. C.,' after which an injunction issuing from the Court of
Chancery would be quite unavailing to arrest its flight through the
journals of the land as the avowed composition of Coleridge. They know
little of Coleridge's habits who suppose that his attention was
disposable for cases of this kind. Alike, whether he were unconsciously
made by the error of a reporter to rob others, or others to rob him, he
would be little likely to hear of the mistake--or, hearing of it by some
rare accident, to take any pains for its correction. It is probable