DEATH OF AN INFANT.

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thoughts had turned the same way as yours, where all mourners and friends of those that mourn will naturally go for sure and certain hope and ground of rejoicing, to that most divine chapter of the raising of Lazarus. "Thy brother shall rise again." This indeed is spoken plainly, this is "no parable," no metaphor or figure of speech. But in the next chapter we see the same blessed promise illustrated by a very plain metaphor. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit."

Our loss indeed has been a great disappointment, and even a sorrow; for, strange as it may seem, these little speechless creatures, with their wandering, unspeaking eyes, do twine themselves around a parent's heart from the hour of their birth. Henry suffered more than I could have imagined, and I was sorry to see him watch the poor babe so closely, when it was plain that the little darling was not for this world, and that all our visions of a "darkeyed Bertha," a third joy and comfort of the remainder of our own pilgrimage, must be exchanged for better hopes, and thoughts more entirely accordant with such a religious frame of mind as it is our best interest to attain. I had great pleasure in anticipating the added interest that you would take in her as your godchild. But this is among the dreams to be relinquished. Her remains rest at Hampstead, beside those of my little frail and delicate twins.God bless you, my dear Mary, and your truly attached friend, SARA COLERIDGE.

Note.-Bertha Fanny Coleridge was born on the 13th of July, 1840, and died eleven days afterwards.-E. C.

To her Husband.

IV.

"They sin who tell us love can die."

The Green, Hampstead, September 13th, 1840.-Will death at one blow crush into endless ruin all our mental growths, as an autumnal tempest prostrates the frail summer house, along with its whole complexity of interwoven boughs and tendrils, which had gradually grown up during a long season of quiet and serenity? Surely there will be a second spring when these firm and profuse growths shall flourish again, but with Elysian verdure, and all around them the celestial mead shall bloom with plants of various sizes, down to the tenderest and smallest shrublet that ever pushed up its infant leaves in this earthly soil. Surely every one who has a heart must feel how easily he could part with earth, water, and skies, and all the outward glories of nature; but how utterly impossible it is to reconcile the mind to the prospect of the extinction of our earthly affections, that such a heart-annihilation has all the gloom of a eternal ceasing to be.

October 14th, 1840.-I was thinking lately of my days spent in the prime of childhood at Greta Hall. How differently all things then looked from what they now do! This world more substantial, more bright, and clothed in seemingly fast colours, and yet though these colours have waxed cold and watery, and have a flitting evanescent hue upon them, to change my present mind-scene for that one, rich as it was, would be a sinking into a lower stage of existence; for now, while that which was so bright is dimmer, wholly new features have come forth in the landscape, features that connect this earth "with the quiet of

the sky," and are invested in a solid splendour which more evidently joins in with the glories of the heavens. The softened and subdued appearance of earth, with its pensive evening sadness, harmonizes well with the richer part of the prospect, and though in itself less joyous and radiant that it once was, now forms a fitting and lovely portion of the whole view, and throws the rest into relief as it steals more and more into shadow.

10, Chester Place, October 20th, 1840.-We ought indeed, my beloved husband, to be conscious of our blessings, for we are better off than all below us, perhaps than almost all above us. The great art in life, especially for persons of our age, who are leaving the vale of youth behind us, just lingering still perhaps in the latter stage of it, and seeing the bright golden fields at the entrance of it more distinctly than those nearer to our present station, is to cultivate the love of doing good and promoting the interests of others, avoiding at the same time the error of those who make a worldly business and a matter of pride of pursuits which originated in pure intentions, and bustle away in this secular religious path, with as little real thought of the high prize at which they should aim, and as little growth in heavenliness and change from glory to glory, as if they served mammon more directly. Anything rather than undergo the mental labour of real self-examination, of the study, not of individual self, but of the characters of our higher being which we share with all men. For one man that thinks with a view to practical excellence, we may find fifty who are ready to act on what they call their own thoughts, but which they have unconsciously received from others.

CHAPTER X.

LETTERS TO HER HUSBAND, MRS. PLUMMER, MRS. THOMAS FARRER, MISS TREVENEN, MRS. H. M. JONES, THE REV. HENRY MOORE, THE HON. MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE: 1841-1842.

I.

Necessity of Patience and Hope in Education.

To Mrs. PLUMMER.

April, 1841.-Patience is the most important of all qualifications for a teacher; and the longer one has to do with managing young persons, or indeed persons of any sort or kind, the more one feels its value and indispensability. It is that resource which we constantly have to fall back upon when all else seems to fail, and our various devices, and ways, and means, and ingenuities give way one after another, and seem almost good for nothing but to preach about. By patience I do not mean that worthless substitute for it which hirelings (in temper, for a paid governess is often a much better instructor than a mama) sometimes make use of, a compound of oil and white-lead, as like putty as possible. With patience, hope too must keep company, and the most effective of teachers are those who possess most of the arts of encouraging and inspiriting -spurring onward and sustaining at the same time-both lightening the load as much as may be, and stimulating the youngsters to trot on with it gallantly.

II.

The Lake Poets on Sport-The Life of Wesley.

To her Husband.

Chester Place, October 13th, 1841.-Southey and Wordsworth loved scenery, and took an interest in animals of all

sorts; but not one could they have borne to kill; and S. T. C. was much of the same mind, though he would have made more allowance for the spirit of the chase than the other two. Wordsworth's "Hartleap Well" displays feelings of high refinement. Doubtless there is a sort of barbarism in this love of massacre which still keeps a corner even in cultivated minds, but which the progress of cultivation must tend to dissipate, and perhaps with it some habits that for some persons are more good than evil. Notwithstanding “Hartleap Well," Wordsworth always defended angling, and so did Dora; but the Southeys, from the greatest to the least, gave no quarter to any slaughterous amusement.

What a biography the Life of Wesley is! What wonders of the human mind does it reveal, more especially in the mental histories of Wesley's friends and coadjutors!

III.

Inflexibility of the French Language The Second Part of Faust: its Beauties and Defects-Visionary Hopes.

To the Same.

Chester Place, October 19th, 1841.—I feel more than ever the inflexibility and fixedness of the French language, which will not give like English and German. It has few words for sounds, such as clattering, clanking, jangling, etc., whereas the Germans are still richer than we in such. Derwent wanted, when here, to point out to me some of the beauties of the fifth act of the second part of Faust, which, in point of vocabulary, and metrical variety and power, is, I do suppose, a most wonderful phenomenon. Goethe, with the German language, is like a first-rate musician with a musical instrument, which, under his hand, reveals a treasure of sound such as an ordinary person might play for ever without discovering. Derwent has a most keen sense of this sort of power and merit in a poet, and his remarks