At the height of glory, Giuseppe Garibaldi was perhaps the most famous person in Italy. His name was much more famous than that of Cavour and Mazzini, and many more people would have heard of him than Verdi or Manzoni. Abroad, Garibaldi symbolized the Risorgimento Italy of those dramatic years and the intrepid audacity that contributed so much to the formation of the Italian nation. [...] A professional liberator, he fought for the oppressed people wherever he found them. Despite having the temperament of the fighter and the man of action, he managed to be an idealist distinctly distinct from his colder-minded contemporaries. Everything he did, he did it with passionate conviction and unlimited enthusiasm; a career full of color and unexpected shows us one of the most romantic products of the time. Moreover, he was a lovable and charming person, of transparent honesty, who was obeyed without hesitation and for whom he died happy.[65][66]
Enough, however, has been said of the faults of these early poems; itremains to consider their merits, foremost among which, as might beexpected, is the wealth and splendour of their diction in thesepassages, in which such display is all that is needed for the literaryends of the moment. Over all that wide region of literature, in whichforce and fervour of utterance, depth and sincerity of feeling avail,without the nameless magic of poetry in the higher sense of the word,to achieve the objects of the writer and to satisfy the mind of thereader, Coleridge ranges with a free and sure footstep. It is nodisparagement to his Religious Musings to say that it is to thisclass of literature that it belongs. Having said this, however, it mustbe added that poetry of the second order has seldom risen to higherheights of power. The faults already admitted disfigure it here andthere. We have "moon blasted Madness when he yells at midnight;" weread of "eye-starting wretches and rapture-trembling seraphim," and thereally striking image of Ruin, the "old hag, unconquerable, huge,Creation's eyeless drudge," is marred by making her "nurse" an"impatient earthquake." But there is that in Coleridge's aspirationsand apostrophes to the Deity which impresses one even more profoundlythan the mere magnificence, remarkable as it is, of their rhetoricalclothing. They are touched with so penetrating a sincerity; they are soobviously the outpourings of an awe-struck heart. Indeed, there isnothing more remarkable at this stage of Coleridge's poetic developmentthan the instant elevation which his verse assumes whenever he passesto Divine things. At once it seems to take on a Miltonic majesty ofdiction and a Miltonic stateliness of rhythm. The tender but low-lyingdomestic sentiment of the Æolian Harp is in a moment informed byit with the dignity which marks that poem's close. Apart too from itsliterary merits, the biographical interest of Religious Musingsis very considerable. "Written," as its title declares, but in reality,as its length would suggest and as Mr. Cottle in fact tells us, onlycompleted, "on the Christmas eve of 1794," it gives expressionto the tumultuous emotions by which Coleridge's mind was agitated atthis its period of highest political excitement. His revolutionaryenthusiasm was now at its hottest, his belief in the infant FrenchRepublic at its fullest, his wrath against the "coalesced kings" at itsfiercest, his contempt for their religious pretence at its bitterest."Thee to defend," he cries,
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The years 1797 and 1798 are generally and justly regarded as theblossoming-time of Coleridge's poetic genius. It would be scarcely anexaggeration to say that they were even more than this, and that withinthe brief period covered by them is included not only the developmentof the poet's powers to their full maturity but the untimely beginningsof their decline. For to pass from the poems written by Coleridgewithin these two years to those of later origin is like passing fromamong the green wealth of summer foliage into the well-nigh naked woodsof later autumn. During 1797 and 1798 the Ancient Mariner, thefirst part of Christabel, the fine ode to France, the Fearsin Solitude, the beautiful lines entitled Frost at Midnight,the Nightingale, the Circassian Love-Chant, the piece knownas Love from the poem of the Dark Ladie, and that strangefragment Kubla Khan, were all of them written and nearly allof them published; while between the last composed of these andthat swan-song of his dying Muse, the Dejection, of 1802, thereis but one piece to be added to the list of his greater works. Thistherefore, the second part of Christabel (1800), may almost bedescribed by the picturesque image in the first part of the same poemas
To add literary excellence of the higher order to the peculiarqualities which give force to the newspaper article is for ajournalist, of course, a "counsel of perfection;" but it remains to beremarked that Coleridge did make this addition in a most conspicuousmanner. Mrs. H. N. Coleridge's three volumes of her father's Essayson his own Times deserve to live as literature apart altogetherfrom their merits as journalism. Indeed among the articles in theMorning Post between 1799 and 1802 may be found some of thefinest specimens of Coleridge's maturer prose style. The character ofPitt, which appeared on 19th March 1800, is as remarkable for itsliterary merits as it is for the almost humorous political perversitywhich would not allow the Minister any single merit except that whichhe owed to the sedulous rhetorical training received by him from hisfather, viz. "a premature and unnatural dexterity in the combination ofwords." [6] The letters to Fox, again, though a little artificialisedperhaps by reminiscences of Junius, are full of weight and dignity. Butby far the most piquant illustration of Coleridge's peculiar power isto be found in the comparison between his own version of Pitt's speechof 17th February 1800, on the continuance of the war, with the reportof it which appeared in the Times of that date. With theexception of a few unwarranted elaborations of the arguments here andthere, the two speeches are in substance identical; but the effect ofthe contrast between the minister's cold state-paper periods and thelife and glow of the poet-journalist's style is almost comic. Mr.Gillman records that Canning, calling on business at the editor's,inquired, as others had done, who was the reporter of the speech forthe Morning Post, and, on being told, remarked drily that thereport "did more credit to his head than to his memory."
It appears to me, therefore, on as careful an examination ofthe point as the data admit of, that Coleridge's position in theselatter days of his life has been somewhat mythically exalted by thegeneration which succeeded him. There are, I think, distinct traces ofa Coleridgian legend which has only slowly died out. The actual truth Ibelieve to be that Coleridge's position from 1818 or 1820 till hisdeath, though one of the greatest eminence, was in no sense one of thehighest, or even of any considerable influence. Fame and honour, in thefullest measure, were no doubt his: in that matter, indeed, he was onlyreceiving payment of long-delayed arrears. The poetic school with whichhe was, though not with entire accuracy, associated had outlived itsperiod of contempt and obloquy. In spite of the two quarterlies, theTory review hostile, its Whig rival coldly silent, the public hadrecognised the high imaginative merit of Christabel; and whoknows but that if the first edition of the Lyrical Ballads hadappeared at this date instead of twenty years before, it would haveobtained a certain number of readers even among landsmen? [2] But overand above the published works of the poet there were thoseextraordinary personal characteristics to which the fame of his worksof course attracted a far larger share than formerly of popularattention. A remarkable man has more attractive power over the mass ofmankind than the most remarkable of books, and it was because thereport of Coleridge among those who knew him was more stimulating topublic curiosity than even the greatest of his poems, that hiscelebrity in these latter years attained such proportions. Wordsworthsaid that though "he had seen many men do wonderful things, Coleridgewas the only wonderful man he had ever met," and it was not the doer ofwonderful things but the wonderful man that English society in thosedays went out for to see. Seeing would have been enough, but for acertain number there was hearing too, with the report of it for all;and it is not surprising that fame of the marvellous discourser should,in mere virtue of his extraordinary power of improvised speech, hislimitless and untiring mastery of articulate words, have risen to aheight to which writers whose only voice is in their pens can neverhope to attain. 2ff7e9595c
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