impeachment of Warren Hastings, made the House adjourn “to collect its reason,”—­obviously because its reason had been lost.  Sir William Dolden, who moved the adjournment, frankly confessed that it was impossible to give a “determinate opinion” while under the spell of oratory.  So the lawmakers, who had been fired to white heat, retired to cool down again; and when Sheridan—­always as deep in difficulties as Micawber—­was offered a thousand pounds for the manuscript of the speech, he remembered Fox’s verdict, and refused to risk his unballasted eloquence in print.

Enthusiasm is praised because it implies an unselfish concern for something outside our personal interest and advancement.  It is reverenced because the great and wise amendments, which from time to time straighten the roads we walk, may always be traced back to somebody’s zeal for reform.  It is rich in prophetic attributes, banking largely on the unknown, and making up in nobility of design what it lacks in excellence of attainment.  Like simplicity, and candour, and other much-commended qualities, enthusiasm is charming until we meet it face to face, and cannot escape from its charm.  It is then that we begin to understand the attitude of Goethe, and Talleyrand, and Pitt, and Sir Robert Peel, who saved themselves from being consumed by resolutely refusing to ignite.  “It is folly,” observed Goethe, “to expect that other men will consent to believe as we do”; and, having reconciled himself to this elemental obstinacy of the human heart, it no longer troubled him that those whom he felt to be wrong should refuse to acknowledge their errors.

There are men and women—­not many—­who have the happy art of making their most fervent convictions endurable.  Their hobbies do not spread desolation over the social world, their prejudices do not insult our intelligence.  They may be so “abreast with the times” that we cannot keep track of them, or they may be basking serenely in some Early Victorian close.  They may believe buoyantly in the Baconian cipher, or in thought transference, or in the serious purposes of Mr. George Bernard Shaw, or in anything else which invites credulity.  They may even express their views, and still be loved and cherished by their friends.

How illuminating is the contrast which Hazlitt unconsciously draws between the enthusiasms of Lamb which everybody was able to bear, and the enthusiasms of Coleridge which nobody was able to bear.  Lamb would parade his admiration for some favourite author, Donne, for example, whom the rest of the company probably abhorred.  He would select the most crabbed passages to quote and defend; he would stammer out his piquant and masterful half sentences, his scalding jests, his controvertible assertions; he would skilfully hint at the defects which no one else was permitted to see; and if he made no converts (wanting none), he woke no weary wrath.  But we all have a sneaking sympathy for Holcroft, who, when Coleridge was expatiating rapturously and oppressively upon the glories of German transcendental philosophy, and upon his own supreme command of the field, cried out suddenly and with exceeding bitterness:  “Mr. Coleridge, you are the most eloquent man I ever met, and the most unbearable in your eloquence.”