et ceased to vibrate in men's ears, what a sensation was gathering
amongst the educated classes on this particular subject! What a tumult
of anxiety prevailed to "hear Mr Coleridge"--or even to talk with a
man who _had_ heard him! Had he lived till this day, not Paganini
would have been so much sought after. That sensation is now decaying;
because a new generation has emerged during the ten years since his
death. But many still remain whose sympathy (whether of curiosity in
those who did _not_ know him, or of admiration in those who _did_)
still reflects as in a mirror the great stir upon this subject which
then was moving in the world. To these, if they should enquire for the
great distinguishing principle of Coleridge's conversation, we might
say that it was the power of vast combination "in linked sweetness
long drawn out." He gathered into focal concentration the largest body
of objects, _apparently_ disconnected, that any man ever yet, by any
magic, could assemble, or, _having_ assembled, could manage. His great
fault was, that, by not opening sufficient spaces for reply or
suggestion, or collateral notice, he not only narrowed his own field,
but he grievously injured the final impression. For when men's minds
are purely passive, when they are not allowed to re-act, then it is
that they collapse most, and that their sense of what is said must
ever be feeblest. Doubtless there must have been great conversational
masters elsewhere, and at many periods; but in this lay Coleridge's
characteristic advantage, that he was a great natural power, and also
a great artist. He was a power in the art, and he carried a new art
into the power.

But now, finally--having left ourselves little room for more--one or
two words on Coleridge as an opium-eater.

We have not often read a sentence falling from a wise man with
astonishment so profound, as that particular one in a letter of
Coleridge's to Mr Gillman, which speaks of the effort to wean
one's-self from opium as a trivial task. There are, we believe,
several such passages. But we refer to that one in particular which
assumes that a single "week" will suffice for the whole process of so
mighty a revolution. Is indeed leviathan _so_ tamed? In that case the
quarantine of the opium-eater might be finished within Coleridge's
time, and with Coleridge's romantic ease. But mark the contradictions
of this extraordinary man. Not long ago we were domesticated with a
venerable rustic, st