ON TAXATION. WE can inform Jonathan what are the inevitable consequences of being too fond of glory: taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot; taxes upon everything which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion; taxes on everything on earth, and the waters under the earth — on everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at home; taxes on the raw material; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man; taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health — on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice; on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride at bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay. The school-boy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent., into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent., flings himself back upon his chintz bed, which has paid twenty-two per cent., and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from two to ten per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble; and he is then gathered to his fathers to be taxed no more. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Devonshire in 1772. He was the son of a poor cu rate, and the youngest of ten children. His early education was received at Christ's Hcspital, in London. Charles Lamb was his school-fe.low, and has made a touching allusion to him in one of the Essays of Elia. Coleridge was unusually precocious, and was thoroughly spoiled by the ill-judging fondness of his uncle, who took charge of him after the death of his father. He went to the University at Cambridge, but quitted it after two years, on account of debts, it is supposed. He enlisted as a common soldier, but was discharged, after a few months' service, on the interposition of his friends. He became an intimate friend of Southey, and the two poets subsequently married sisters. It does not appear that Coleridge had either property, employment, or any rational prospect of earning a living at the time of his marriage; but his early years were his best and most productive ones. The Ancient Mariner, the Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni, the first part of Christabel, and other minor poems, displaying the highest qualities of im`gination, were written in his twenty-fifth year. To quiet the pangs of his diseased nerves, he commenced the use of opium; and the habit, once established, was never broken. In the quantity of this terrible drug which he came to consume he left even De Quincey far behind; and the effect of this slavery to a morbid appetite upon his health, his intellect, and his moral character made the record of all his subsequent life pitiable. Vast projects were conceived, as baseless as the domes of Kubla Khan; great quartos were planned, of which not a line was written but the title page. His wife and children left him in despair, and took refuge with Southey. All that he earned was insufficient for his wants, and his begging letters show too well the depth of his abasement. He found a home at last with a certain Mr. Gillman, who was proud of his famous guest; and there he lived for eighteen years, until his death in 1834 Coleridge had, by nature, all the great qualities which constitute a poet. We cannot predict the future growth of the poetic art; but it is difficult to imagine a state of society in which his best works will not be read with pleasure, if not with ungrudging admiration. The splendor of his imagery, the force and the subtilty of thought, and the natural melody of his verse have placed him, by common consent, among the few immortal names. We cannot forget, as we wish we could, the selfish indulgence, the aimless indolence, the habitual untruth, and the unspeakable degradation of his later years; and we must lament that, with a mind so ill balanced, his very genius should have taken the form of a "splendid disease." His poems were collected by his son and daughter, and are published in three volumes. His prose essays, published in The Friend, are finely written, and are as clear in meaning as metaphysical treatises in general. A very striking description of him occurs in Carlyle's Life of Stirling, one of the most beautiful and characteristic works of the great essayist. HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald, awful head, O, sovran Blanc ! The Arvé and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form, Thy habitation from eternity. O, dread and silent mount, I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought. Entranced in prayer, Yet, like some sweet, beguiling melody, So sweet we know not we are listening to it, — Thou, the mean while, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy, Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven. Awake, my soul! Not only passive praise Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale Or when they climb the sky or when they sink, And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, And who commanded, and the silence came, - Ye icefalls, ye that from the mountain's brow Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Answer, and let the ice-plains echo, God! God! sing ye meadow streams with gladsome voice; Ye living flowers, that skirt the eternal frost; Utter forth, God, and fill the hills with praise! Once more, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks, Slow travelling, with dim eyes suffused with tears, To rise before me rise, O, ever rise; The bride hath paced into the hall; Nodding their heads, before her go The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast; "And now the storm-blast came, and he "With sloping masts and dipping prow, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, "And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold; And ice, mast high, came floating by, "And through the drifts the snowy clifts Nor shapes of men nor beasts we kenThe ice was all between. 'At length did cross an albatross ; Thorough the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name. "It ate the food it had never eat, "And a good south wind sprung up behind; The albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariners' hollo. "In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine, Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moonshine." "'Twas right,' said they, such birds to slay That bring the fog and mist.' "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. |