I have not been able to obtain any exact account of all my Father's courses of lectures, given after his visit to Germany, but find, from letters and other sources of information that he lectured in London, before going to Malta, in 1804; on his return from Malta, in 1807; again in 1808; in 1811; in 1814, in which year he also lectured at Bristol; in 1817; and, for the last time, I believe, in 1819. His early lectures at Bristol are mentioned in the biographical sketch.[148]
The poetic or imitative art, an ancient critic has observed, must needs describe persons either better than they are, at the present time, or worse, as they are exactly. The fact is, however, that in literary fiction _individuals_ can seldom be exhibited _exactly_ such as they are, the subtle interminglings of good and evil, the finely balanced qualities that exist in the actual characters of men, even those in whom the colours are deepest and the lines most strongly traced, being _too_ fine and subtle for dramatic effect. Indeed it is scarcely possible to present a man as he truly is except in plain narrative; his mind cannot be properly manifested save in and through the very events and circumstances which gave utterance to his individual being and which his peculiar character helped to mould and produce. When taken out of these and placed in the alien framework of the novelist or dramatist it becomes another thing; the representation may convey truth of human nature in a broad way, and seem _drawn to the life_, if the writer have a lively wit, but as a portrait of a particular person it is often the more a falsehood the more natural it appears.
To poetic descriptions these remarks do not apply. They are, for the most part, mere views of a character in its elevated and poetic aspects--tributes of admiration to its beautiful qualities. Such are the fine stanzas, already quoted, in which the _poet_ Coleridge is described by the great Poet, his Friend:[149] and such are some less known, composed by a poet of a later generation, who never saw my Father face to face. Of these the last four will serve for a conclusion to this sketch. I give them here for the sake of their poetic truth and the earnest sympathy they manifest with the studious poet--