Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge | Page 9

Sublime and Nonsense Atheist Proof of Existence of God Kant's attempt Plurality of Worlds A Reasoner Shakspeare's Intellectual Action Crabbe and Southey Peter Simple and Tom Cringle's Log Chaucer Shakspeare Ben Jonson Beaumont and Fletcher Daniel Massinger Lord Byron and H. Walpole's "Mysterious Mother" Lewis's Jamaica Journal Sicily Malta Sir Alexander Ball Cambridge Petition to admit Dissenters Corn Laws Christian Sabbath High Prizes and Revenues of the Church Sir Charles Wetherell's Speech National Church Dissenters Papacy Universities Schiller's Versification German Blank Verse Roman Catholic Emancipation Duke of Wellington Coronation Oath Corn Laws Modern Political Economy Socinianism Unitarianism Fancy and Imagination Mr. Coleridge's System Biographia Literaria Dissenters Lord Brooke Barrow and Dryden Peter Wilkins and Stothard Fielding and Richardson Bishop Sandford Roman Catholic Religion Euthanasia Recollections, by Mr. Justice Coleridge Address to a God-child

TABLE TALK
December 29, 1822
CHARACTER OF OTHELLO--SCHILLER'S ROBBERS-SHAKSPEARE --SCOTCH NOVELS--LORD BYRON--JOHN KEMMBLE--MATHEWS
Othello must not be conceived as a negro, but a high and chivalrous Moorish chief. Shakspeare learned the sprit of the character from the Spanish poetry, which was prevalent in England in his time.[1]
Jelousy does not strike me as the point in his passion; I take it to be rather an agony that the creature, whom he had believed angelic, with whom he had garnered up his heart, and whom he could not help still loving, should be proved impure and worthless. It was the struggle not to love her. It was a moral indignation and regret that virture should so fall:--"But yet the pity of it, Iago!--O Iago! the pity of it, Iago!" In addition to this, his hourour was concerned: Iago would not have succeeded but by hinting that this honour was compromised. There is no ferocity in Othello; his mind is majestic and composed. He deliberately determines to die; and speaks his last speech with a view of showing his attachment to the Venetian state, though it had superseded him.
[Footnote 1: Caballaeros Granadinos, Aunque Moros, hijos d'algo--ED.]
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Schiller has the material Sublime; to produce an effect he sets you a whole town on fire, and throws infants with their mothers into the flames, or locks up a father in an old tower.[1] But Shakspeare drops a handkerchief, and the same or greater effects follow.
[Footnote 1: This expression--"material sublime"--like a hundred others which have slipped into general use, came originally from Mr. Coleridege, and was by him, in the first instatnce, applied to Schiller's Robbers-- See Act iv, sc. 5.--ED.]
Lear is the most tremendous effort of Shakspeare as a poet; Hamlet as a philosopher or meditater; and Othello is the union of the two. There is something gigantic and unformed in the former two; but in the latter, every thing assumes its due place and proportion, and the whole mature powers of his mind are displayed in admirable equilibrium.
I think Old Mortality and Guy Mannering the best of the Scotch novels.
It seems, to my ear, that there is a sad want of harmony in Lord Byron's verses. Is it not unnatural to be always connecting very great intellectual power with utter depravity? Does such a combination often really exist in rerum naturae?
I always had a great liking--I may say, a sort of nondescript reverence-- for John Kemble. What a quaint creature he was! I remember a party, in which he was discoursing in his measured manner after dinner, when the servant announced his carriage. He nodded, and went on. The announcement took place twice afterwards; Kemble each time nodding his head a little more impatiently, but still going on. At last, and for the fourth time, the servant entered, and said,--"Mrs. Kemble says, sir, she has the rheumatise, and cannot stay." "Add_ism!_" dropped John, in a parenthesis, and proceeded quietly in his harangue.
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Kemble would correct any body, at any time, and in any place. Dear Charles Mathews--a true genius in his line, in my judgment--told me he was once performing privately before the King. The King was much pleased with the imitation of Kemble, and said,--"I liked Kemble very much. He was one of my earliest friends. I remember once he was talking, and found himself out of snuff. I offered him my box. He declined taking any--'he, a poor actor, could not put his fingers into a royal box.' I said, 'Take some, pray; you will obl_ee_ge me.' Upon which Kemble replied,--'It would become your royal mouth better to say, obl_i_ge me;' and took a pinch."
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It is not easy to put me out of countenance, or interrupt the feeling of the time by mere external noise or circumstance; yet once I was thoroughly done up, as you would say. I was reciting, at a particular house, the "Remorse;" and was in the midst of Alhadra's description of the death of her husband, [1] when