S.H.1825. AIDS TO REFLECTION IN THE FORMATION OF A MANLY CHARACTER ON THE SEVERAL GROUNDS OF PRUDENCE, MORALITY, AND RELIGION: ILLUSTRATED BY SELECT PASSAGES FROM OUR ELDER DIVINES, ESPECIALLY FROM ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON. BY S. T. COLERIDGE. This makes, that whatsoever here befalls, You in the region of yourself remain, Neighb'ring on Heaven: and that no foreign land. DANIEL. LONDON: PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEY, AND 13, WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL-MALL. 1825. 55 ADVERTISEMENT. IN the bodies of several species of Animals there are found certain Parts, of which neither the office, the functions, nor the relations could be ascertained by the Comparative Anatomist, till he had become acquainted with the state of the Animal before birth. Something sufficiently like this (for the purpose of an illustration, at least) applies to the Work here offered to the Public. In the introductory portion there occur several passages, which the Reader will be puzzled to decypher, without some information respecting the original design of the Volume, and the Changes it has undergone during its immature and embryonic state. On this account only, I think myself bound to make it known, that the Work was proposed and begun as a mere Selection from the Writings of Archbishop Leighton, under the usual title of The Beauties of Archbishop Leighton, with a few notes and a biographical preface by the Selector. Hence the term, Editor, subscribed to the notes, and prefixed alone or conjointly to the Aphorisms, accordingly as the Passage was written entirely by myself, or only modified and (avowedly) interpolated. I continued the use of the word on the plea of uniformity: though like most other deviations from propriety of language, it would probably have been a wiser choice to have omitted or exchanged it. The various Reflections, however, that pressed on me while I was considering the motives for selecting this or that passage; the desire of enforcing, and as it were integrating, the truths contained in the Original Author, by adding those which the words suggested or recalled to my own mind; the conversation with men of eminence in the Literary and Religious Circles, occasioned by the Objects which I had in view; and lastly, the increasing disproportion of the Commentary to the Text, and the too marked difference in the frame, character, and colors of the two styles; soon induced me to recognize and adopt a revolution in my plan and object, which had in fact actually taken place without my intention, and almost unawares. It would indeed be more correct to say, that the present Volume owed its accidental origin to the intention of compiling one of a different description, than to speak of it as the same Work. It is not a change in the child, but a changeling. Still, however, the selections from Leighton, which will be found in the prudential and moral Sections of this Work, and which I could retain consistently with its present form and matter, will both from the intrinsic excellence and from the characteristic beauty of the passages, suffice to answer two prominent purposes of the original plan; that of placing in a clear light the principle, which pervades all Leighton's Writings-his sublime View, I mean, of Religion and Morality as the means of reforming the human Soul in the Divine Image (Idea); and that of exciting an interest in the Works, and an affectionate reverence for the name and memory, of this severely tried and truly primitive Churchman. S. T. C. PREFACE. AN Author has three points to settle: to what sort his Work belongs, for what Description of Readers it is intended, and the specific end or object, which it is to answer. There is indeed a preliminary Interrogative respecting the end which the Writer himself has in view, whether the Number of Purchasers, or the Benefit of the Readers. But this may be safely passed by; since where the book itself or the known principles of the writer do not supersede the question, there will `seldom be sufficient strength of character for good or for evil, to afford much chance of its being either distinctly put or fairly answered. I shall proceed therefore to state as briefly as possible the intentions of the present volume in reference to the three first-mentioned, viz. What? For Whom? and For what? I. WHAT? The answer is contained in the Titlepage. It belongs to the class of didactic Works. Consequently, those who neither wish instruction for them |