Coleridge as poet reigns securely, but his prose writings, discursive
and often fragmentary, have fallen into neglect. It is interesting to find no less competent an authority than Professor J. H. Muirhead, in Coleridge as Philosopher (Allen and Unwin, 12s. 6d.), asserting the value of the poet's con- tribution to the development of idealism. The book is timely, for the Platonic doctrines are now far more popular than they have been since Coleridge died a century ago. Moreover, it is very clearly and temperately written, and the quotations brought together more methodically than Coleridge could ever have done, are given a reasonable weight—and no more. Professor Muirhead is fully conscious of the infirmities of that nobler mind, and yet shows that Coleridge's philosophic importance has been very greatly underrated. His book deserves serious attention.
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