philosophy was much more definite than Coleridge's; it gave
substance to his character and edge to his intellect, and, in
the end, can scarcely be distinguished from the emotion
generating his verse. There is, however, no trace of
originality in his speculative writing, and we need not regret
that, after hesitating whether to be a metaphysician or a poet,
he decided against philosophy. Before finally settling to
poetry, he at one time projected a complete and systematic
account of the operations of the human mind. It was to be
divided into sections--childhood, youth, and so on. One of the
first things to be done was to ascertain the real nature of
dreams, and accordingly, with characteristic passion for a
foundation of fact, he turned to the only facts accessible to
him, and tried to describe exactly his own experiences in
dreaming. The result showed that, along with the scientific
impulse, there was working in him a more powerful antagonistic
force. He got no further than telling how once, when walking
with Hogg near Oxford, he suddenly turned the corner of a lane,
and a scene presented itself which, though commonplace, was yet
mysteriously connected with the obscurer parts of his nature.
A windmill stood in a plashy meadow; behind it was a long low
hill, and "a grey covering of uniform cloud spread over the
evening sky. It was the season of the year when the last leaf
had just fallen from the scant and stunted ash." The
manuscript concludes: "I suddenly remembered to have seen that
exact scene in some dream of long--Here I was obliged to leave
off, overcome with thrilling horror." And, apart from such
overwhelming surges of emotion from the depths of
sub-consciousness, he does not seem ever to have taken that
sort of interest in the problems of the universe which is