retiring from the ministry and devoting himself entirely to the study
of poetry and philosophy. Coleridge was staying at the house of
Hazlitt's father when the letter containing this liberal offer reached
him, "and he seemed," says the younger Hazlitt, "to make up his mind to
close with the proposal in the act of tying on one of his shoes."
Another inducement to so speedy an acceptance of it is no doubt to be
found in the fact of its presenting to Coleridge an opportunity for the
fulfilment of a cherished desire--that, namely, of "completing his
education," as he regarded it, by studying the German language, and
acquiring an acquaintance with the theology and philosophy of Germany
in that country itself. This prospect he was enabled, through the
generosity of the Wedgwoods, to put into execution towards the end of
1798. But before passing on from this culminating and, to all intents
and purposes, this closing year of Coleridge's career as a poet it will
be proper to attempt something like a final review of his poetic work.
Admirable as much of that work is, and unique in quality as it is
throughout, I must confess that it leaves on my own mind a stronger
impression of the unequal and imperfect than does that of any poet at
all approaching Coleridge in imaginative vigour and intellectual grasp.
It is not a mere inequality and imperfection of style like that which
so seriously detracts from the pleasure of reading Byron. Nor is it
that the thought is often _impar sibi_--that, like Wordsworth's,
it is too apt to descend from the mountain-tops of poetry to the flats
of commonplace, if not into the bogs of bathos. In both these respects
Coleridge may and does occasionally offend, but his workmanship is, on
the whole, as much more artistic than Byron's as the material of his
poetry is of more uniformly equal value than Wordsworth's. Yet, with
almost the sole exception of the _Ancient Mariner_, his work is in
a certain sense more disappointing than that of either. In spite of his
theory as to the twofold function of poetry we must finally judge that