LLIAM HAZLITT 1778-1830

COLERIDGE AS PREACHER

It was in January of 1798 that I rose one morning before daylight, to
walk ten miles in the mud to hear this celebrated person preach.
Never, the longest day I have to live, shall I have such another walk
as this cold, raw, comfortless one, in the winter of the year 1798.
When I got there the organ was playing the 100th Psalm, and when it was
done Mr Coleridge rose and gave out {119} his text, "And he went up
into the mountain to pray, _himself, alone_." As he gave out this text
his voice "rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes," and when he
came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and
distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had
echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might
have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St
John came into my mind, "of one crying in the wilderness, who had his
loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey." The
preacher then launched into his subject like an eagle dallying with the
wind. The sermon was upon peace and war; upon church and state--not
their alliance but their separation--on the spirit of the world and the
spirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as opposed to one another.
He talked of those who had "inscribed the cross of Christ on banners
dripping with human gore." He made a poetical and pastoral
excursion--and to show the fatal effects of war, drew a striking
contrast between the simple shepherd boy, driving his team afield, or
sitting under the hawthorn, piping to his flock, "as though he should
never be old," and the same poor country lad, crimped, kidnapped,
brought into town, made drunk at an alehouse, turned into a wretched
drummer-boy, with his hair sticking on end with powder and pomatum, a
long cue at his back, and tricked out in the loathsome finery of the
profession of blood:

"Such were the notes our once-loved poet sung."

And for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I had heard the
music of the spheres. Poetry and {120} Philosophy had met together.
Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye and with the sanction of
Religion. This was even beyond my hopes. I returned home well
satisfied. The sun that was still labouring pale and wan through the
sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an emblem of the good cause; and
the cold, dank drops of dew that hung half melted on the beard of