A Stream by Glimpses: Coleridge’s later Imagination

Abstract

It is not unfitting, considering the unobtrusive but important contributions of his later writings to the development of nineteenth-century theology, that a lecture to commemorate Coleridge should be given in a church; it is more particularly fitting that it should take place in this church, where, some ten years ago, his body was finally reburied after many years of neglect — and where a large congregation (including the late T. S. Eliot) gathered to honour him in a ceremony which was more like a serious marriage-feast than a second funeral. Yet one is also driven to reflect that when his most brilliant work was achieved he was a unitarian preacher veering towards pantheism; while this in turn recalls an immortal exchange with Lamb. ‘Lamb’, said Coleridge once, ‘You have heard me preach, I think?’ ‘Coleridge’, he replied, ‘I have never heard you do anything else.’¹

Coleridge Memorial Lecture for the bicentenary year given in St Michael’s Church, Highgate.