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Discrete and continuous Fourier transforms analysis
applications and fast algorithms 1st Edition Eleanor Chu
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Eleanor Chu
ISBN(s): 9781420063646, 1420063642
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 3.04 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
DISCRETE AND CONTINUOUS
FOURIER TRANSFORMS
ANALYSIS, APPLICATIONS
AND FAST ALGORITHMS
DISCRETE AND CONTINUOUS
FOURIER TRANSFORMS
ANALYSIS, APPLICATIONS
AND FAST ALGORITHMS

Eleanor Chu
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
MATLAB® is a trademark of The MathWorks, Inc. and is used with permission. The MathWorks does not warrant the
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Contents

List of Figures xi

List of Tables xv

Preface xvii

Acknowledgments xxi

About the Author xxiii

I Fundamentals, Analysis and Applications 1

1 Analytical and Graphical Representation of Function Contents 3
1.1 Time and Frequency Contents of a Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 The Frequency-Domain Plots as Graphical Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Identifying the Cosine and Sine Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Using Complex Exponential Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5 Using Cosine Modes with Phase or Time Shifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.6 Periodicity and Commensurate Frequencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.7 Review of Results and Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.7.1 Practicing the techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.8 Expressing Single Component Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.9 General Form of a Sinusoid in Signal Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.9.1 Expressing sequences of discrete-time samples . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.9.2 Periodicity of sinusoidal sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.10 Fourier Series: A Topic to Come . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.11 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

2 Sampling and Reconstruction of Functions–Part I 27

2.1 DFT and Band-Limited Periodic Signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2 Frequencies Aliased by Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3 Connection: Anti-Aliasing Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.4 Alternate Notations and Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.5 Sampling Period and Alternate Forms of DFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.6 Sample Size and Alternate Forms of DFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

v
vi CONTENTS

3 The Fourier Series 45

3.1 Formal Expansions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.1.1 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.2 Time-Limited Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.3 Even and Odd Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.4 Half-Range Expansions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.5 Fourier Series Using Complex Exponential Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.6 Complex-Valued Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.7 Fourier Series in Other Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.8 Truncated Fourier Series and Least Squares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.9 Orthogonal Projections and Fourier Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.9.1 The Cauchy Schw arz inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.9.2 The Minkowski inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.9.3 Projections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.9.4 Least-squares approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.9.5 Bessel s inequality and Riemann s lemma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.10 Convergence of the Fourier Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.10.1 Starting with a concrete example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.10.2 Pointwise convergence a local property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.10.3 The rate of convergence a global property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
3.10.4 The Gibbs phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.10.5 The Dirichlet kernel perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.10.6 Eliminating the Gibbs effect by the Cesaro sum . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.10.7 Reducing the Gibbs effect by Lanczos smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.10.8 The modi cation of Fourier series coef cients . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
3.11 Accounting for Aliased Frequencies in DFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
3.11.1 Sampling functions with jump discontinuities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

4 DFT and Sampled Signals 109

4.1 Deriving the DFT and IDFT Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.2 Direct Conversion Between Alternate Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.3 DFT of Concatenated Sample Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.4 DFT Coef c ients of a Commensurate Sum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.4.1 DFT coef cients of single-component signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.4.2 Making direct use of the digital frequencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
4.4.3 Common period of sampled composite signals . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
4.5 Frequency Distortion by Leakage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
4.5.1 Fourier series expansion of a nonharmonic component . . . . . . . . 128
4.5.2 Aliased DFT coef cients of a nonharmonic component . . . . . . . . 129
4.5.3 Demonstrating leakage by numerical experiments . . . . . . . . . . . 131
4.5.4 Mismatching periodic extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
4.5.5 Minimizing leakage in practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
4.6 The Effects of Zero Padding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
4.6.1 Zero padding the signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
CONTENTS vii

4.6.2 Zero padding the DFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

4.7 Computing DFT De n ing Formulas Per Se . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
4.7.1 Programming DFT in MATLAB
R
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

5 Sampling and Reconstruction of Functions–Part II 157

5.1 Sampling Nonperiodic Band-Limited Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
5.1.1 Fourier series of frequency-limited X(f ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
5.1.2 Inverse Fourier transform of frequency-limited X(f ) . . . . . . . . . 159
5.1.3 Recovering the signal analytically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
5.1.4 Further discussion of the sampling theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
5.2 Deriving the Fourier Transform Pair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
5.3 The Sine and Cosine Frequency Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
5.4 Tabulating Two Sets of Fundamental Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
5.5 Connections with Time/Frequency Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
5.5.1 Examples of Fourier transform pair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
5.6 Fourier Transform Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
5.6.1 Deriving the properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
5.6.2 Utilities of the properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
5.7 Alternate Form of the Fourier Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
5.8 Computing the Fourier Transform from Discrete-Time Samples . . . . . . . . 178
5.8.1 Almost time-limited and band-limited functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
5.9 Computing the Fourier Coef cients from Discrete-Time Samples . . . . . . . 181
5.9.1 Periodic and almost band-limited function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

6 Sampling and Reconstruction of Functions–Part III 185

6.1 Impulse Functions and Their Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
6.2 Generating the Fourier Transform Pairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
6.3 Convolution and Fourier Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
6.4 Periodic Convolution and Fourier Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
6.5 Convolution with the Impulse Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
6.6 Impulse Train as a Generalized Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
6.7 Impulse Sampling of Continuous-Time Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
6.8 Nyquist Sampling Rate Rediscovered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
6.9 Sampling Theorem for Band-Limited Signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
6.10 Sampling of Band-Pass Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

7 Fourier Transform of a Sequence 211

7.1 Deriving the Fourier Transform of a Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
7.2 Properties of the Fourier Transform of a Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
7.3 Generating the Fourier Transform Pairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
7.3.1 The Kronecker delta sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
7.3.2 Representing signals by Kronecker delta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
7.3.3 Fourier transform pairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
7.4 Duality in Connection with the Fourier Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
viii CONTENTS

7.4.1 Periodic convolution and discrete convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

7.5 The Fourier Transform of a Periodic Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
7.6 The DFT Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
7.6.1 The interpreted DFT and the Fourier transform . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
7.6.2 Time-limited case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
7.6.3 Band-limited case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
7.6.4 Periodic and band-limited case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

8 The Discrete Fourier Transform of a Windowed Sequence 239

8.1 A Rectangular Window of In nite Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
8.2 A Rectangular Window of Appropriate Finite Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
8.3 Frequency Distortion by Improper Truncation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
8.4 Windowing a General Nonperiodic Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
8.5 Frequency-Domain Properties of Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
8.5.1 The rectangular window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
8.5.2 The triangular window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
8.5.3 The von Hann window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
8.5.4 The Hamming window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
8.5.5 The Blackman window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
8.6 Applications of the Windowed DFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
8.6.1 Several scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
8.6.2 Selecting the length of DFT in practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

9 Discrete Convolution and the DFT 267

9.1 Linear Discrete Convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
9.1.1 Linear convolution of two n ite sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
9.1.2 Sectioning a long sequence for linear convolution . . . . . . . . . . . 273
9.2 Periodic Discrete Convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
9.2.1 De n ition based on two periodic sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
9.2.2 Converting linear to periodic convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
9.2.3 De ning the equivalent cyclic convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
9.2.4 The cyclic convolution in matrix form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
9.2.5 Converting linear to cyclic convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
9.2.6 Two cyclic convolution theorems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
9.2.7 Implementing sectioned linear convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
9.3 The Chirp Fourier Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
9.3.1 The scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
9.3.2 The equivalent partial linear convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
9.3.3 The equivalent partial cyclic convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

10 Applications of the DFT in Digital Filtering and Filters 291

10.1 The Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
10.2 Application-Oriented Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
10.3 Revisit Gibbs Phenomenon from the Filtering Viewpoint . . . . . . . . . . . 294
CONTENTS ix

10.4 Experimenting with Digital Filtering and Filter Design . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

II Fast Algorithms 303

11 Index Mapping and Mixed-Radix FFTs 305
11.1 Algebraic DFT versus FFT-Computed DFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
11.2 The Role of Index Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
11.2.1 The decoupling process Stage I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
11.2.2 The decoupling process Stage II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
11.2.3 The decoupling process Stage III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
11.3 The Recursive Equation Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
11.3.1 Counting short DFT or DFT-like transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
11.3.2 The recursive equation for arbitrary composite N . . . . . . . . . . . 313
11.3.3 Specialization to the radix-2 DIT FFT for N = 2ν . . . . . . . . . . 315
11.4 Other Forms by Alternate Index Splitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
11.4.1 The recursive equation for arbitrary composite N . . . . . . . . . . . 318
11.4.2 Specialization to the radix-2 DIF FFT for N = 2ν . . . . . . . . . . . 319

12 Kronecker Product Factorization and FFTs 321

12.1 Reformulating the Two-Factor Mixed-Radix FFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
12.2 From Two-Factor to Multi-Factor Mixed-Radix FFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
12.2.1 Selected properties and rules for Kronecker products . . . . . . . . . 329
12.2.2 Complete factorization of the DFT matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
12.3 Other Forms by Alternate Index Splitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
12.4 Factorization Results by Alternate Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
12.4.1 Unordered mixed-radix DIT FFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
12.4.2 Unordered mixed-radix DIF FFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
12.5 Unordered FFT for Scrambled Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
12.6 Utilities of the Kronecker Product Factorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

13 The Family of Prime Factor FFT Algorithms 341

13.1 Connecting the Relevant Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
13.2 Deriving the Two-Factor PFA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
13.2.1 Stage I: Nonstandard index mapping schemes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
13.2.2 Stage II: Decoupling the DFT computation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
13.2.3 Organizing the PFA computation P art 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
13.3 Matrix Formulation of the Two-Factor PFA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
13.3.1 Stage III: The Kronecker product factorization . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
13.3.2 Stage IV: De ning permutation matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
13.3.3 Stage V: Completing the matrix factorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
13.4 Matrix Formulation of the Multi-Factor PFA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
13.4.1 Organizing the PFA computation Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
13.5 Number Theory and Index Mapping by Permutations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
x CONTENTS

13.5.1 Some fundamental properties of integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

13.5.2 A simple case of index mapping by permutation . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
13.5.3 The Chinese remainder theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
13.5.4 The ν-dimensional CRT index map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
13.5.5 The ν-dimensional Ruritanian index map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
13.5.6 Organizing the ν-factor PFA computation Part 3 . . . . . . . . . . . 368
13.6 The In-Place and In-Order PFA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
13.6.1 The implementation-related concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
13.6.2 The in-order algorithm based on Ruritanian map . . . . . . . . . . . 371
13.6.3 The in-order algorithm based on CRT map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
13.7 Ef cient Implementation of the PFA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

14 Computing the DFT of Large Prime Length 375

14.1 Performance of FFT for Prime N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
14.2 Fast Algorithm I: Approximating the FFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
14.2.1 Array-smart implementation in MATLAB
R
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
14.2.2 Numerical results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
14.3 Fast Algorithm II: Using Bluestein s FFT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
14.3.1 Bluestein s FFT and the chirp Fourier transform . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
14.3.2 The equivalent partial linear convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
14.3.3 The equivalent partial cyclic convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
14.3.4 The algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
14.3.5 Array-smart implementation in MATLAB
R
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
14.3.6 Numerical results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Bibliography 389

Index 393
List of Figures

1.1 A time-domain plot of x(t) = 5 cos(2πt) versus t. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.2 A frequency-domain plot of x(t) = 5 cos(2πt). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Time-domain plots of x(t) and its components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 The time and frequency-domain plots of composite x(t). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5 An example: the sum of 11 cosine and 11 sine components. . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.6 Time plot and complex exponential-mode frequency plots. . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.7 Time plot and complex exponential-mode frequency plots. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2.1 Changing variable from t ∈ [0, T ] to θ = 2πt/T ∈ [0, 2π]. . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

2.2 Equally-spaced samples and computed DFT coef cients. . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3 Analog frequency grids and corresponding digital frequency grids. . . . . . . . 31
2.4 The function interpolating two samples is not unique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.5 Functions x(θ) and y(θ) have same values at 0 and π. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.6 The aliasing of frequencies outside the Nyquist interval. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.7 Sampling rate and Nyquist frequency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.8 Taking N = 2n+1 samples from a single period [0, T ]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.9 Rearranging N = 2n+1 samples on the time grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.10 The placement of samples after changing variable t to θ = 2πt/T . . . . . . . . 40
2.11 Rearranging N = 2n+2 samples on the time grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.12 The placement of samples after changing variable t to θ = 2πt/T . . . . . . . . 43
2.13 Taking N = 2n+2 samples from the period [0, 2π] or [−π, π]. . . . . . . . . . 44

3.1 Illustrating the convergence of the N -term Fourier series. . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

3.2 The behavior of the N -term Fourier series near a jump discontinuity. . . . . . . 50
3.3 The converging Fourier series of an even function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.4 The converging Fourier series of an odd function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.5 De ning f (t) = t − t2 for the full range: −1 ≤ t ≤ 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.6 The converging Fourier series of f (t) with jump discontinuities. . . . . . . . . . 57
3.7 The converging Fourier series of f (t) with jump discontinuities. . . . . . . . . . 58
3.8 The graphs of periodic (even) g1 (t) and g1 (t). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.9 The graphs of periodic (odd) g2 (t) and g2 (t). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.10 The graphs of three periods of g3 (t). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.11 Gibbs phenomenon and nite Fourier series of the square wave. . . . . . . . . . 90
3.12 The Dirichlet kernel Dn (λ) for n = 8, 12, 16, 20. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.13 One period of the Dirichlet kernel Dn (λ) for n = 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.14 One period of the Fejer kernel Fn (λ) for n = 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

xi
xii LIST OF FIGURES

3.15 Illustrating the convergence of the Cesaro sums of the square wave. . . . . . . . 99
3.16 Fourier series with coef cients modi ed by the Lanzcos sigma factor. . . . . . . 101
3.17 The three N -point frequency-domain windows for N = 2n+1 = 11. . . . . . . 102
3.18 Graphs of f˜(t) reconstructed using N computed DFT coef cients. . . . . . . . 105

4.1 Mapping t ∈ [0, T ) to θ = 2πt /T ∈ [0, 2π) for 0 ≤  ≤ 2n+1. . . . . . . . 110

4.2 Sampling y(t) at 2 Hz (for three periods) and 3 Hz (for one period). . . . . . . . 125
4.3 Signal reconstructed using computed DFT coef cients from Table 4.1. . . . . . 127
4.4 Sampling y(t) at 2 Hz for 1.5 periods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
4.5 Signal reconstructed using M = 10 DFT coef cients from Table 4.2. . . . . . . 133
4.6 Signal reconstructed using M = 20 DFT coef cients from Table 4.2. . . . . . . 133
4.7 The Gaussian function x(t) and its Fourier transform X(f ). . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.8 Computing ten DFT coef cients from ten signal samples. . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
4.9 Computing twenty DFT coef cients by zero padding ten signal samples. . . . . 139
4.10 The effect of zero padding the DFT as done in Table 4.4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

5.1 The graphs of L (t) for  = −3, 0, 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

5.2 Time-domain and frequency-domain plots of x(t) = e−at . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
5.3 Gaussian function and its real-valued Fourier transform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
5.4 Time-limited rectangular pulse and its Fourier transform. . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
5.5 Connecting Fourier series coef cients to Fourier transform. . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
5.6 A band-limited Fourier transform pair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
5.7 Illustrating the time-shift property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
5.8 Illustrating the derivative of the transform property. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
5.9 Illustrating the derivative of the transform property (n = 2). . . . . . . . . . . . 178

6.1 De ning the Dirac delta function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

6.2 Illustrating properties of the unit impulse function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
6.3 Fourier transform pairs involving the impulse function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
6.4 Illustrating the steps in convolving x(t) with h(t). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
6.5 The result of continuous convolution w(t) = x(t) ∗ h(t). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
6.6 The periodic signal resulted from convolving x(t) with an impulse train. . . . . 196
6.7 The relationship between impulse train and its Fourier transform. . . . . . . . . 199
6.8 Several more examples of z(t) = x(t) ∗ PT (t). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
6.9 Fourier transform of the sequence sampled from x(t) = e−at . . . . . . . . . . . 206
6.10 Reducing the effect of aliasing by increasing sampling rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

7.1 Discrete exponential function and its Fourier transform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

7.2 Obtaining Fourier transform pair by derivative of transform property. . . . . . . 220
7.3 Obtaining Fourier transform pair by the property of linearity. . . . . . . . . . . 221
7.4 The Fourier transform of a bilateral exponential function. . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
7.5 Connecting previously obtained results to new tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

8.1 The rectangular window and its magnitude spectrum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

8.2 The triangular window and its magnitude spectrum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
8.3 The von Hann window and its magnitude spectrum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
8.4 The Hamming window and its magnitude spectrum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
LIST OF FIGURES xiii

8.5 The Blackman window and its magnitude spectrum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

8.6 The one-sided spectrum of UI (f ) = N1 F {xI (t) · wrect (t)}. . . . . . . . . . . . 256
8.7 Non-overlapped mainlobes and separate local maxima. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
8.8 The merging of local maxima due to overlapped mainlobes. . . . . . . . . . . . 258
8.9 A local maximum is smeared out by overlapped mainlobes. . . . . . . . . . . . 259
8.10 Values of UI (fk ) obtainable by the DFT, where fk = k/T (T = 2.2T ). . . . . . 260
8.11 Fourier transforms of zI (t) weighted by four different windows. . . . . . . . . . 261
8.12 The computed DFT of zI (t) truncated by a rectangular window. . . . . . . . . . 261
8.13 The computed DFT of zI (t) weighted by a triangular window. . . . . . . . . . . 262
8.14 The computed DFT of zI (t) weighted by a von Hann window. . . . . . . . . . . 262
8.15 The computed DFT of zI (t) weighted by a Blackman window. . . . . . . . . . 263
8.16 The effects of zero padding a windowed sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
8.17 Improving UI (f ) = N1 F {zI (t)·wtri (t)} by changing window length. . . . . . . 265
8.18 The computed DFT of zI (t)·wtri (f ) after doubling the window length. . . . . . 265
8.19 Improving frequency detection by doubling the sampling rate. . . . . . . . . . . 266

9.1 The steps in performing continuous convolution u(t) = g(t) ∗ h(t). . . . . . . . 268
9.2 The result of continuous convolution u(t) = g(t) ∗ h(t). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
9.3 The steps in performing linear discrete convolution {u } = {g } ∗ {h }. . . . . . 270
9.4 The result of discrete convolution {uk } = {gk } ∗ {hk }. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
9.5 The results of discrete convolution {uk } = {gk } ∗ {hk }. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
9.6 Performing linear convolution {uk } = {gk } ∗ {hk } in two sections. . . . . . . . 274
9.7 The steps in performing periodic discrete convolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
9.8 Converting linear to periodic discrete convolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
9.9 De ning the equivalent cyclic convolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
9.10 Converting linear to cyclic convolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
9.11 Interpreting chirp Fourier transform as a partial linear convolution. . . . . . . . . 287
9.12 Interpreting chirp Fourier transform as a partial cyclic convolution. . . . . . . . . 288

10.1 Sampling H(f ) to obtain impulse response of a FIR lter. . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

10.2 Sampled noisy signal x(t) and its magnitude spectrum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
10.3 Discrete linear convolution of {x } and FIR lter {h }. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
10.4 Discrete periodic convolution of {x } and FIR lter {h }. . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
10.5 Computed DFT coef cients of the ltered sample sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . 301
List of Tables

2.1 Alternate symbols and alternate de nitions/assumptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2.2 Constants resulting from assuming unit period or unit spacing. . . . . . . . . . 37
2.3 Using analog frequency versus digital frequency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

3.1 The DFT coef cients computed in Example 3.66 (N = 8, 16, 32). . . . . . . . 106

4.1 Numerical values of M DFT coef cients when TM = To and TM = 3To . . . . 126
4.2 Numerical values of M distorted DFT coef cients when TM = 1.5To. . . . . . 132
4.3 Numerical values of the DFT coef cients plotted in Figures 4.8 and 4.9. . . . . 140
4.4 Zero pad the DFT coef cie nts computed in Example 3.66 (N = 8, 16). . . . . 145
4.5 Variable names in MATLAB code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
4.6 Testing function dft1 matrix.m using MATLAB 5.3 and 7.4. . . . . . . . . . . 149
4.7 Testing function dft2 matrix.m using MATLAB 5.3 and 7.4. . . . . . . . . . . 150
4.8 Testing function dft3 matrix.m using MATLAB 5.3 and 7.4. . . . . . . . . . . 152
4.9 Testing function dft.m using MATLAB 5.3 and 7.4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

5.1 Two sets of fundamental formulas in Fourier analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

5.2 Connections with time/frequency restrictions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
5.3 Fourier transform properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
5.4 Fourier transform properties (expressed in ω = 2πf ). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
5.5 Connections with time-limited restriction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

7.1 Properties of the Fourier transform X̂I (F) of a sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

7.2 Properties of the Fourier transform X̃I (θ) of a sequence (θ = 2πF). . . . . . . . 217

8.1 Spectral characteristics of ve windows (λ = Tf = (N t)f ). . . . . . . . . . 253

14.1 Performance of MATLAB 5.3 built-in FFT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

14.2 Measuring error in computing ifft(fft(x)) in MATLAB 5.3. . . . . . . . . . . . 377
14.3 Performance of MATLAB 7.4 built-in FFT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
14.4 Measuring error in computing ifft(fft(x)) in MATLAB 7.4. . . . . . . . . . . . 378
14.5 Evaluating function M- les Tfft.m and iTfft.m for large prime N . . . . . . . . 382
14.6 Performance of Bluestein s FFT for large primeN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

xv
Preface

The topics in this book were selected to build a solid foundation for the application of Fourier
analysis in the many diverging and continuously evolving areas in the digital signal processing
enterprise. While Fourier transforms have long been used systematically in electrical engi-
neering, the wide variety of modern-day applications of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT)
on digital computers (made feasible by the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms) motivates
people in all branches of the physical sciences, computational sciences and engineering to learn
the DFT, the FFT algorithms, as well as the many applications that directly impact our life to-
day. To understand how the DFT can be deployed in any application area, one needs to have
the core knowledge of Fourier analysis, which connects the DFT to the continuous Fourier
transform, the Fourier series, and the all important sampling theorem. The tools offered by
Fourier analysis enable us to correctly deploy and interpret the DFT results.
This book presents the fundamentals of Fourier analysis and their deployment in signal
processing by way of the DFT and the FFT algorithms in a logically careful manner so that the
text is self-contained and accessible to senior undergraduate students, graduate students, and
researchers and professionals in mathematical science, numerical analysis, computer science,
physics, and the various disciplines in engineering and applied science. The contents of this
book are divided into two parts and fourteen chapters with the following features, and the cited
topics can be selected and combined in a number of suggested ways to suit one s interest or the
need of a related course:
• From the very beginning of the text a large number of graphical illustrations and worked
examples are provided to help explain the many concepts and relationships; a detailed table
of contents makes explicit the logical arrangement of topics in each chapter, each section, and
each subsection.
• Readers of this book are not required to have prior knowledge of Fourier analysis or
signal processing. To provide background, the basic concepts of signals and signal sampling
together with a practical introduction to the DFT are presented in Chapters 1 and 2, while the
mathematical derivation of the DFT is deferred to Chapter 4.
• The coverage of the Fourier series in Chapter 3 (Sections 3.1 3.8) is self-contained, and
its relationship to the DFT is explained in Section 3.11. Section 3.9 on orthogonal projections
and Section 3.10 on the convergence of Fourier series (including a detailed study of the Gibbs
phenomenon) are more mathematical, and they can be skipped in the rst reading.
• The DFT is formally derived in Chapter 4, and a thorough discussion of the relationships
between the DFT spectra and sampled signals under various circumstances is presented with
supporting numerical results and graphical illustrations. In Section 4.7 I provide instructional
MATLAB
1 R
codes for computing the DFT formulas per se, while the fast algorithms for
1 MATLAB is a registered trademark of The MathWorks, Inc.

xvii
xviii PREFACE

computing the DFT are deferred to Part II of the book.

• The continuous Fourier transform is introduced in Chapter 5. The concepts and results
from Chapters 1 through 3 are used here to derive the sampling theorem and the Fourier trans-
form pair. Worked examples of the Fourier transform pair are then given and the properties of
Fourier transform are derived. The computing of Fourier transform from discrete-time sam-
ples is investigated, and the relationship between sampled Fourier transform and Fourier series
coef cients is also established in this chapter.
• Chapter 6 is built on the material previously developed in Chapters 3 and 5. The topics
covered in Chapter 6 include the Dirac delta function, the convolution theorems concerning the
Fourier transform, and the periodic and discrete convolution theorems concerning the Fourier
series. I then show how these mathematical tools interplay to model the sampling process and
develop the sampling theorem directly.
• With the foundations laid in Chapters 1 through 6, the Fourier transform of an ideally
sampled signal is now formally de n ed (in mathematical terms) in Chapter 7, which provides
the theoretical basis for appropriately constructing and deploying digital signal processing tools
and correctly interpreting the processed results in Chapters 8 through 10.
• In Chapter 8 the data-weighting window functions are introduced, the analysis of the
possibly distorted DFT spectra of windowed sequences is pursued, and the various scenarios
and consequences related to frequency detection are demonstrated graphically using numerical
examples.
• Chapter 9 covers discrete convolution algorithms, including the linear convolution algo-
rithm, the periodic (and the equivalent circular or cyclic) convolution algorithm, and their im-
plementation via the DFT (computed by the FFT). The relationship between the chirp Fourier
transform and the cyclic convolution is also established in this chapter.
• The application of the DFT in digital ltering and lters is the topic of Chapter 10. The
Gibbs phenomenon is also revisited in this chapter from a ltering viewpoint.
• Since the FFTs are the fast algorithms for computing the DFT and the associated con-
volution, the Fourier analysis and digital ltering of sampled signals in Part I of the book are
based solely on the DFTs, and Part II of the book is devoted to covering the FFTs exclusively.
While Part II of this book is self-contained, the material in Chapters 11 through 13 is more
advanced than the previous book:
Eleanor Chu and Alan George, Inside the FFT Black Box: Serial and Parallel
Fast Fourier Transform Algorithms, CRC Press, 2000.
• In Chapter 11 the many ways to organize the mixed-radix DFT computation through
index mapping are explored. This approach allows one to study the large family of mixed-
radix FFT algorithms in a systematic manner, including the radix-2 special case. While this
chapter can be read on its own, it also paves the way for the more specialized prime factor FFT
algorithms covered in Chapter 13.
• In Chapter 12 a connection is established between the multi-factor mixed-radix FFT
algorithms and the Kronecker product factorization of the DFT matrix. This process results in
a sparse matrix formulation of the mixed-radix FFT algorithm.
• In Chapter 13 the family of prime factor FFT algorithms is presented. To cover the
mathematical theory behind the prime factor algorithm, the relevant concepts from elementary
number theory concerning the properties of integers are introduced, and the Chinese Remainder
Theorem (CRT) is proved, because CRT and CRT-related index maps are responsible for the
number-theoretic splitting of the DFT matrix, which gives rise to the prime factor algorithm.
PREFACE xix

• Chapter 14 provides full details of the mathematics behind Bluestein s FFT, which is a
(deceptively simple) fast algorithm for computing the DFT of arbitrary length and is partic-
ularly useful when the length is a large prime number. The MATLAB
R
implementation of
Bluestein s FFT is given, and numerical and timing results are reported.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
for they have been sunk in unproductive labour, that is, in
maintaining large establishments, and employing great numbers of
men in doing nothing or mischief; for example, in making ships to
destroy other ships, guns and gunpowder to blow out men’s brains,
pikes and swords to run them through the body, drums and fifes to
drown the noise of cannon and the whizzing of bullets; in making
caps and coats to deck the bodies of those who live by killing others;
in buying up pork and beef, butter and cheese, to enable them to do
this with more effect: in barracks, in transport-ships, in baggage and
baggage-waggons, in horses, bridles and saddles, in suttlers and
followers of the camp, in chaplains of the regiment, in common
trulls, and the mistresses of generals and commanders in chief; in
contractors, in army and navy agents, their partners, clerks,
relations, dependants, wives, families, servants in and out of livery,
their town and country houses, coaches, curricles, parks, gardens,
grottos, hot-houses, green-houses, pictures, statues, libraries; in
treasury scribes, in secretaries and under-secretaries of state, of the
foreign, colonial, and war departments, with their swarms of
underlings, all of whom are maintained out of the labour and sweat
of the country, and for all of whom, and for all that they do (put
together) the country is not one pin the better, or at least, one penny
more in pocket, than if they were at the bottom of the Channel. The
present may have been the most just and necessary war, in a
political, moral, and religious point of view, that ever was engaged in;
but it has also been the most expensive; and what is worse, the
expense remains just the same, though it may have been the most
unjust and unnecessary in the world. We have paid for it, and we
must pay for it equally in either case, and wholly out of our own
pockets. The price of restoring the Pope, the Inquisition, the
Bourbons, and the doctrine of Divine Right, is half of our nine
hundred millions of debt. That is the amount of the government bill
of costs, presented to John Bull for payment, not of the principal but
the interest; that is what he has got by the war; the load of taxes at
his back, with which he comes out of his glorious five and twenty
years’ struggle, like Christian’s load of sins, which whether it will not
fall off from his back like Christian’s, into the Slough of Despond, will
be seen before long. The difference between the expense of a war or a
peace establishment is just the difference between a state of
productive and unproductive labour. Now this whole question, which
from its complexity puzzles many people, and has given rise to a
great deal of partly wilful and partly shallow sophistry,[20] may be
explained in two words.—Suppose I give a man five shillings a day
for going out in a boat and catching fish for me. This is paying for
productive labour: that is, I give him so much for what he does, or a
claim upon so much of the public stock: but in taking so much from
the stock by laying out his five shillings, he adds so much to it by his
labour, or the disposal of his time in catching fish. But if I, having the
money to do what I please with, give him five shillings a day for
shooting at crows, he is paid equally for his trouble, and accordingly
takes so much from the public stock, while he adds nothing to it but
so much carrion. So if the government pay him so much a-day for
shooting at Frenchmen and Republicans, this is a tax, a loss, a
burthen to the country, without any thing got by it; for we cannot,
after all, eat Frenchmen and Republicans when we have killed them.
War in itself is a thriving, sensible traffic only to cannibals! Again—if
I give a man five shillings for making a pair of shoes, this is paying
for productive labour, viz. for labour that is useful, and that must be
performed by some one; but if I give the same man five shillings for
standing on his head or behind my chair while I am picking my teeth,
or for running up a hill and down again for a wager—this is
unproductive labour, nothing comes of it, and though the man who is
thus idly employed lives by it, others starve, upon whose pittance and
whose labour he lives through me. Such is the nature and effect of
war; all the energies of which tend to waste, and to throw an
additional and heavy burthen upon the country, in proportion to the
extent and length of time that it is carried on. It creates so many
useless members of the community: every man paid by the war out of
the taxes paid by the people, is, in fact, a dead body fastened to a
living one, that by its weight drags it to the earth. A five and twenty
years’ war, and nine hundred millions of debt, are really a couple of
millstones round the neck of a country, that must naturally press her
down a little in the scale of prosperity. That seems to be no riddle.
We defy any sophist to answer this statement of the necessary
tendency of war in its general principle to ruin and impoverish a
country. We are not to wonder, when it does so; but when other
causes operate to counteract or retard this tendency. What is
extraordinary in our own case is, that the pernicious effects of war
have been delayed so long, not that they have come upon us at last.[21]
—That money laid out in war is thrown away is self-evident from this
single circumstance, that government never refund. The reason is,
because they never do any thing with their money that produces
money again. They are the worst bankers in the world. The
Exchequer is a true Sinking Fund. If you lend money to a farmer, a
manufacturer, a merchant, he employs it in getting something done,
for which others will pay, because it is useful; as in raising corn, in
weaving cotton, in bringing home sugar or tobacco. But money sunk
in a war brings in no returns—except of killed and wounded. What
will any one give the government for the rotten bones that lie buried
at Walcheren, or the dry ones at Waterloo? Not a six-pence. They
cannot make a collection of wooden legs or dangling sleeves from the
hospitals at Greenwich or Chelsea to set up a raffle or a lottery. They
cannot bring the fruits of the war to auction, or put up the tottering
throne of the Bourbons to the best bidder. They can neither bring
back a drop of the blood that has been shed, nor recover a shilling of
the treasure that has been wasted. If the expenses of the war are not
a burden to the people, which must sink it according to their weight,
why do not government take the whole of this thriving concern into
their own hands, and pay the national debt out of the Droits of
Admiralty? In short, the way to ascertain this point is, by the old
method of reductio ad absurdum: Suppose we had to pay the
expenses of such another peace-establishment and such another war.
Who does not see that they would eat up the whole resources of the
country, as the present peace-establishment and actual debt do just
one half?

Speeches in Parliament on the Distresses of the

Country, by Mr. Western and Mr. Brougham.

(CONCLUDED)

‘Come, let us leave off children’s play, and go to push-pin.’

Polite Conversation.

Aug. 18, 1816.

 The war has wasted the resources of the country in foolery, which
the country has now to pay for in a load of taxes on its remaining
resources, its actual produce and labour. The tax-gatherer is a
government-machine that takes sixty-five millions a-year from the
bankrupt pockets of the nation, to give to those who have brought it
into that situation; who takes so much from the necessaries of life
belonging to the poor, to add to the superfluities of the rich; who
adds so much to the hard labour of the working part of the
community, to ‘relieve the killing languor and over-laboured
lassitude of those who have nothing to do’; who, in short, out of the
grinding poverty and ceaseless toil of those who pay the taxes,
enables those who receive them to live in luxury and idleness.
Mr. Burke, whom we have just quoted, has said, that ‘if the poor
were to cut the throats of the rich, they would not have a meal the
more for it.’ First, (for truth is the first thing in our thoughts, and not
to give offence the second) this is a falsehood; a greater one than the
answer of a Bond-street lounger, who coming out of a confectioner’s
shop, where he has had a couple of basons of turtle-soup, an ice,
some jellies, and a quantity of pastry, as he saunters out picking his
teeth and putting the change into his pocket, says to a beggar at the
door, ‘I have nothing for you.’ We confess, we have always felt it an
aukward circumstance to be accosted in this manner, when we have
been caught in the act of indulging a sweet tooth, and it costs us an
additional penny. The rich and poor may at present be compared to
the two classes of frequenters of pastry-cooks’ shops, those on the
outside and those on the in. We would seriously advise the latter,
who see the gaunt faces staring at them through the glass-door, to
recollect, that though custard is nicer than bread, bread is the
greatest necessary of the two.—We had forgot Mr. Burke’s sophism,
to which we reply in the second place, that the cutting of throats is a
figure of speech, like the dagger which he produced in the House of
Commons, not necessary to the speculative decision of the question.
The most civil, peaceable, and complaisant way of putting it is this—
whether if the rich were to give all that they are worth to the poor,
the latter would be none the richer for it? If so, the rich would be
none the poorer, and so far could be no losers on Mr. Burke’s own
hypothesis, which supposes, with that magnanimity of contempt for
plain matter of fact which distinguished the author’s theories, that
the rich have nothing, and the poor have every thing? Had not Mr.
Burke a pension of 4000l. a-year? Was this nothing? But even this is
not the question neither. It is not, whether if the rich were to part
with all they have to the poor (which is a mere absurdity) but
whether if the rich do not take all they have left from the poor (which
we humbly hope is a proposition that has common sense in it) the
latter may not be the better off with something to live upon than with
nothing? Whether, if the whole load of taxes could be taken off from
them, it would not be a relief to them? Whether, if half the load of
taxes were taken off from them, it would not be a relief to them?
Whether, if any part of the load of taxes that can be taken off from
them were taken off, it would not in the same proportion be a relief
to them? We will venture to say, that no one will deny these
propositions who does not receive so much a year for falsehood and
impudence. The resistance which is made to the general or abstract
principle is not intended to prevent the extreme sweeping
application of that principle to the plundering or (as Mr. Burke will
have it) to the cutting the throats of the rich, but it is a manœuvre, by
getting rid of the general principle altogether, viz. that the
extravagance and luxury of the rich, war, taxes, &c., have a tendency
to increase the distresses of the poor, or measures of retrenchment
and reform to lighten those distresses—to give carte-blanche to the
government to squander the wealth, the blood, the happiness of the
nation at pleasure; to grant jobs, places, pensions, sinecures,
reversions without end, to grind down, to starve and impoverish the
country with systematic impunity. It is a legerdemain trick played off
by hireling politicians, to enable their patrons and employers to pick
our pockets and laugh in our faces at the same time.
It has been said by such persons that taxes are not a burthen to the
country; that the wealth collected in taxes returns through those who
receive to those who pay them, only divided more equally and
beneficially among all parties, just (they say) as the vapours and
moisture of the earth collected in the clouds return to enrich the soil
in soft and fertilizing showers. We shall set ourselves to shew that
this is not true.
Suppose a society of ten persons, without taxes to pay, and who
live on their own labour, on the produce of the ground, and the
exchange of one commodity among themselves for another. Some of
these persons will be naturally employed in tilling the ground, others
in tending cattle, others, in making instruments of husbandry, others
in weaving cloth, others in making shoes, others in building houses,
others in making roads, others in buying and selling, others in
fetching and carrying what the others want. All will be employed in
something that they want themselves, or that others want. In such a
state of society, nothing will be given for nothing. If a man has a
bushel of wheat, and only wants half of it, he will give the other half
to some one, for making him a coat or a pair of shoes. As every one
will be paid for what he does out of the earnings of the labour of
others, no one will waste his time or his strength in doing any thing
that is not wanted by some one else, that is not as useful and
necessary, to his subsistence and comfort, and more so, than the
commodity which he gives in exchange for it. There will be no
unproductive labour. What each person gets will be either in
proportion to what he has done for himself, or what he has added to
the comforts of others. Exchange there will be no robbery. The
wealth of all will be the result of the exertions of each individual, and
will circulate equally and beneficially, because those who produce
that wealth will share it among themselves. This is an untaxed state
of society, where wealth changes hands indeed, but finds its level,
notwithstanding.—Now suppose two other individuals to be fastened
upon this society of ten persons—a government-man and a fund-
holder. They change the face of it in an instant. The equilibrium, the
balance is upset. The amount of the wealth of the society before was
a thousand pounds a-year, suppose. The two new-comers take a writ
out of their pockets, by which they quietly lay hands on five hundred
of it as their fair portion. Where are the ten persons now? Mr. Burke,
Mr. Coleridge, Mr. Vansittart, The Courier, say—Just where they
were before! We say, No such thing. For three reasons: 1. It cannot be
denied that the interlopers, the government-man and his friend, the
fund-holder, who has lent him money to sport with on all occasions,
are substantial bonâ fide persons, like other men, who live by eating,
drinking, &c., and who, if they only shared equally with the other ten
what they had got amongst them, (for they add nothing to the
common stock) must be a sufficient burthen upon the rest, that is,
must diminish the comforts or increase the labour of each person
one-fifth. To hear the other side talk, one would suppose that those
who raise and are paid out of the taxes never touch a farthing of
them, that they have no occasion for them, that they neither eat nor
drink, nor buy clothing, or build houses with them; that they live
upon air, or that harmless food, bank notes (a thing not to speak of),
and that all the money they are so anxious to collect is distributed by
them again for the sole benefit of others, or passes back through the
Exchequer, as if it were a conduit-pipe or empty tunnel, into the
hands of the original proprietors, without diminution or diversion.
Now this is not so. 2. Not only do our government-man and his
friend live like other people upon their means, but they live better
than other people, for they have better means, that is, these two take
half of what the other ten get. They would be fools if they gave it back
to them; no, depend upon it, they lay out their five hundred a-year
upon themselves, for their own sole use, benefit, pleasure, mirth, and
pastime. For each of these gentlemen has just five times as much to
spend as any of those that he lives upon at free cost, and he has
nothing to do but to think how he shall spend it. He eats and drinks
as much as he can, and always of the best and most costly. It is
pretended that the difference in the consumption of the produce of
the soil is little or nothing, for a poor man’s belly will hold as much
as a rich man’s. But not if the one is full and the other empty. The
man who lives upon the taxes, feasts upon venison and turtle, and
crams himself to the throat with fish, flesh, and fowl; the man who
pays the taxes, upon a crust of mouldy bread, and fat rusty bacon:
the man who receives the taxes drinks rich and sparkling wines, hock
and canary; the man who pays them, sour small beer. If the poor
man gets drunk and leads an idle life, his family starve: the rich man
drinks his three bottles a day and does nothing, while his family live
on the fat of the land. If the poor man dies of hard labour and poor
living, his family comes to the parish; if the rich man dies of hard
living and want of exercise, he leaves his family to be provided for by
the state. But, 3. All that the government-man and the fund-holder
do not spend upon their bellies, in revelling and gormandising, they
lay out upon their backs, their houses, their carriages, &c., in
inordinate demands upon the labour of the former ten persons, who
are now employed, not in working for one another, but in pampering
the pride, ostentation, vanity, folly, or vices, of our two gentlemen
comers. After glutting their physical appetites, they take care to apply
all the rest to the gratification of their factitious, arbitrary, and
fantastic wants, which are unlimited, and which the universe could
not supply. ‘They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet even Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these:’—while the poor are
clothed in rags, and the dogs lick up their sores. The money that is
taken from you and me, or the more industrious members of the
community, and that we should have laid out in having snug,
comfortable houses built for us all, or two bed-rooms for our families
instead of one, is employed, now that it has got into the tax-
gatherer’s hands, in hiring the same persons to build two enormous
houses for the government-man and the fund-holder, who live in
palaces while we live in hovels. What are we, the people, the original
ten men, the better for that? The taxes enable those who receive
them to pay our masons, carpenters, &c., for working for them. If we
had not been forced to pay the money in taxes, the same persons
would have been employed by us for our common benefit. Suppose
the government-man takes it into his head to build a colossus, a
rotunda, a pyramid, or anything else equally absurd and gigantic, it
would, we say, be a nuisance in proportion to its size. It would be ten
times as great a nuisance if it was ten times bigger. If it covered a
whole county, it would ruin the landed interest. If it was spread over
the whole country, the country must starve. When the government-
man and the fund-holder have got their great houses built, they must
next have them furnished with proportionable magnificence, and by
the same means; with Persian and Turkey carpets, with Egyptian
sofas, down beds, silk curtains, china vases, services of plate, tables,
chairs, stoves, glasses, mirrors, chandeliers, paper hangings,
pictures, busts, ornaments, kickshaws without number, while you
and I live on a mud floor, with bare walls, stuck with a penny ballad,
with a joint-stool to sit upon, a tea-pot without a tea-spout to drink
out of, a truckle-bed or some straw and a blanket to lie upon! Yet Mr.
Burke says, that if we were suddenly converted into state-pensioners
with thirty-thousand a year, we could not furnish our houses a bit the
better for it. This is like Lord Peter, in the Tale of a Tub. Then the
government-man and his friend must have their train of coaches,
horses, dogs, footmen dressed in blue, green, yellow, and red, lazy
rascals, making work for the taylor, the hatter, the shoemaker, the
button-maker, the hair-dresser, the gold and silver laceman, to
powder, dress, and trick them out, that they may lounge behind their
mistresses’ coaches, walk before their sedan chairs, help on their
master’s stockings, block up his doors, and perform a variety of little
nameless offices, much to the ease and satisfaction of the great, but
not of the smallest benefit to any one else. With respect to the article
of dogs and horses, a word in Mr. Malthus’s ear. They come under
the head of consumption, and a swinging item they are. They eat up
the food of the children of the poor. The pleasure and coach-horses
kept in this kingdom consume as much of the produce of the soil as
would maintain all the paupers in it. Let a tax be laid upon them
directly, to defray the expense of the poor-rates, and to suspend the
operation of Mr. Malthus’s geometrical and arithmetical ratios. We
see no physical necessity why that ingenious divine should put a stop
to the propagation of the species, that he may keep two sleek
geldings in his stable. We have lately read Swift’s account of the
Houynhyms and Yahoos. There is some truth in it; but still it has not
reconciled us to Mr. Malthus’s proposal of starving the children of
the poor to feed the horses of the rich. But no more of that! We have
said enough at present to shew how the taxes fly away with the
money of a nation; how they go into the hands of the government-
man and the fund-holder, and do not return into the pockets of the
people, who pay them. For the future, Mr. Burke’s assertion, that the
taxes are like the vapours that ascend into the clouds and return to
the earth in fertilizing showers, may pass for an agreeable metaphor,
but for nothing more. A pretty joke truly, this, of the people’s
receiving their taxes back again in payment for what the rich want of
them. It is as if I should buy a pound of beef in a butcher’s shop, and
take the money out of his own till to pay him! It is as if a bill is
presented to me for payment, and I ask the notary for the money to
take it up with! It is as if a Noble Earl was to win 50,000l. of a Noble
Duke over-night, and offer to return it to him the next morning, for
one of his estates! It is as if Mr. Burke had been robbed of a bond for
4000l. and the fortunate possessor had offered to restore it, on
receiving in lieu his house and gardens at Beaconsfield! Having thus
pointed out the nature of the distress, we need not inquire far for the
remedy.
 A Lay-Sermon on the Distresses of the
Country, addressed to the Middle and
Higher Orders. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq.
[22]
Printed for Gale and Fenner, price 1s.
——‘Function
Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.’
‘Or in Franciscan think to pass disguis’d.’

Sept. 8, 1816.

This Lay-Sermon puts us in mind of Mahomet’s coffin, which was

suspended between heaven and earth, or of the flying island at
Laputa, which hovered over the head of Gulliver. The ingenious
author, in a preface, which is a masterpiece in its kind, having
neither beginning, middle, nor end, apologizes for having published
a work, not a line of which is written, or ever likely to be written. He
has, it seems, resorted to this expedient as the only way of appearing
before the public in a manner worthy of himself and his genius, and
descants on the several advantages to be derived from this original
mode of composition;—That as long as he does not put pen to paper,
the first sentence cannot contradict the second; that neither his
reasonings nor his conclusions can be liable to objection, in the
abstract; that omne ignotum pro magnifico est, is an axiom laid
down by some of the best and wisest men of antiquity; that hitherto
his performance, in the opinion of his readers, has fallen short of the
vastness of his designs, but that no one can find fault with what he
does not write; that while he merely haunts the public imagination
with obscure noises, or by announcing his spiritual appearance for
the next week, and does not venture out in propria persona with his
shroud and surplice on, the Cock-lane Ghost of mid-day, he may
escape in a whole skin without being handled by the mob, or uncased
by the critics; and he considers it the safest way to keep up the
importance of his oracular communications, by letting them remain
a profound secret both to himself and the world.
In this instance, we think the writer’s modesty has led him into a
degree of unnecessary precaution. We see no sort of difference
between his published and his unpublished compositions. It is just as
impossible to get at the meaning of the one as the other. No man ever
yet gave Mr. Coleridge ‘a penny for his thoughts.’ His are all maiden
ideas; immaculate conceptions. He is the ‘Secret Tattle’ of the press.
Each several work exists only in the imagination of the author, and is
quite inaccessible to the understandings of his readers—‘Yet virgin of
Proserpina from Jove.’—We can give just as good a guess at the
design of this Lay-Sermon, which is not published, as of the Friend,
the Preliminary Articles in the Courier, the Watchman, the
Conciones ad Populum, or any of the other courtly or popular
publications of the same author. Let the experiment be tried, and if,
on committing the manuscript to the press, the author is caught in
the fact of a single intelligible passage, we will be answerable for Mr.
Coleridge’s loss of character. But we know the force of his genius too
well. What is his Friend itself but an enormous title-page; the longest
and most tiresome prospectus that ever was written; an endless
preface to an imaginary work; a table of contents that fills the whole
volume; a huge bill of fare of all possible subjects, with not an idea to
be had for love or money? One number consists of a grave-faced
promise to perform something impossible in the next; and the next is
taken up with a long-faced apology for not having done it. Through
the whole of this work, Mr. Coleridge appears in the character of the
Unborn Doctor; the very Barmecide of knowledge; the Prince of
preparatory authors!
‘He never is—but always to be wise.’

He is the Dog in the Manger of literature, an intellectual Mar-Plot,

who will neither let any body else come to a conclusion, nor come to
one himself.[23] This gentleman belongs to the class of eclectic
philosophers; but whereas they professed to examine different
systems, in order to select what was good in each, our perverse critic
ransacks all past or present theories, to pick out their absurdities,
and to abuse whatever is good in them. He takes his notions of
religion from the ‘sublime piety’ of Jordano Bruno, and considers a
belief in a God as a very subordinate question to the worship of the
Three Persons of the Trinity. The thirty-nine articles and St.
Athanasius’s creed are, upon the same principle, much more
fundamental parts of the Christian religion than the miracles or
gospel of Christ. He makes the essence of devotion to consist in
Atheism, the perfection of morality in a total disregard of
consequences. He refers the great excellence of the British
Constitution to the prerogative of the Crown, and conceives that the
old French Constitution must have been admirably defended by the
States-General, which never met, from the abuses of arbitrary power.
He highly approves of ex officio informations and special juries, as
the great bulwarks of the liberty of the press; taxes he holds to be a
providential relief to the distresses of the people, and war to be a
state of greater security than peace. He defines Jacobinism to be an
abstract attachment to liberty, truth, and justice; and finding that
this principle has been abused or carried to excess, he argues that
Anti-jacobinism, or the abstract principles of despotism,
superstition, and oppression, are the safe, sure, and undeniable
remedy for the former, and the only means of restoring liberty, truth,
and justice in the world. Again, he places the seat of truth in the
heart, of virtue in the head; damns a tragedy as shocking that draws
tears from the audience, and pronounces a comedy to be inimitable,
if nobody laughs at it; labours to unsettle the plainest things by far-
fetched sophistry, and makes up for the want of proof in matters of
fact by the mechanical operations of the spirit. He judges of men as
he does of things. He would persuade you that Sir Isaac Newton was
a money-scrivener, Voltaire dull, Bonaparte a poor creature, and the
late Mr. Howard a misanthrope; while he pays a willing homage to
the Illustrious Obscure, of whom he always carries a list in his
pocket. His creed is formed not from a distrust and disavowal of the
exploded errors of other systems, but from a determined rejection of
their acknowledged excellences. It is a transposition of reason and
common sense. He adopts all the vulnerable points of belief as the
triumphs of his fastidious philosophy, and holds a general retainer
for the defence of all contradictions in terms and impossibilities in
practice. He is at cross-purposes with himself as well as others, and
discards his own caprices if ever he suspects there is the least ground
for them. Doubt succeeds to doubt, cloud rolls over cloud, one
paradox is driven out by another still greater, in endless succession.
He is equally averse to the prejudices of the vulgar, the paradoxes of
the learned, or the habitual convictions of his own mind. He moves
in an unaccountable diagonal between truth and falsehood, sense
and nonsense, sophistry and common-place, and only assents to any
opinion when he knows that all the reasons are against it. A matter of
fact is abhorrent to his nature: the very air of truth repels him. He is
only saved from the extremities of absurdity by combining them all
in his own person. Two things are indispensable to him—to set out
from no premises, and to arrive at no conclusion. The consciousness
of a single certainty would be an insupportable weight upon his
mind. He slides out of a logical deduction by the help of metaphysics:
and if the labyrinths of metaphysics did not afford him ‘ample scope
and verge enough,’ he would resort to necromancy and the cabbala.
He only tolerates the science of astronomy for the sake of its
connection with the dreams of judicial astrology, and escapes from
the Principia of Newton to the jargon of Lily and Ashmole. All his
notions are floating and unfixed, like what is feigned of the first
forms of things flying about in search of bodies to attach themselves
to; but his ideas seek to avoid all contact with solid substances.
Innumerable evanescent thoughts dance before him, and dazzle his
sight, like insects in the evening sun. Truth is to him a ceaseless
round of contradictions: he lives in the belief of a perpetual lie, and
in affecting to think what he pretends to say. His mind is in a
constant estate of flux and reflux: he is like the Sea-horse in the
Ocean; he is the Man in the Moon, the Wandering Jew.—The reason
of all this is, that Mr. Coleridge has great powers of thought and
fancy, without will or sense. He is without a strong feeling of the
existence of any thing out of himself; and he has neither purposes
nor passions of his own to make him wish it to be. All that he does or
thinks is involuntary; even his perversity and self-will are so. They
are nothing but a necessity of yielding to the slightest motive.
Everlasting inconsequentiality marks all that he attempts. All his
impulses are loose, airy, devious, casual. The strongest of his
purposes is lighter than the gossamer, ‘that wantons in the idle
summer-air’: the brightest of his schemes a bubble blown by an
infant’s breath, that rises, glitters, bursts in the same instant:—
 ‘Or like the Borealis race,
That flit ere you can mark their place:
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white, then gone for ever.’

His mind has infinite activity, which only leads him into numberless
chimeras; and infinite resources, which not being under the guidance
of his will, only distract and perplex him. His genius has angel’s
wings; but neither hands nor feet. He soars up to heaven, circles the
empyrean, or dives to the centre of the earth, but he neither lays his
hands upon the treasures of the one, nor can find a resting place for
his feet in the other. He is no sooner borne to the utmost point of his
ambition, than he is hurried away from it again by the same fantastic
impulse, or his own specific levity. He has all the faculties of the
human mind but one, and yet without that one, the rest only impede
and interfere with each other—‘Like to a man on double business
bound who both neglects.’ He would have done better if he had
known less. His imagination thus becomes metaphysical, his
metaphysics fantastical, his wit heavy, his arguments light, his poetry
prose, his prose poetry, his politics turned—but not to account. He
belongs to all parties and is of service to none. He gives up his
independence of mind, and yet does not acquire independence of
fortune. He offends others without satisfying himself, and equally by
his servility and singularity, shocks the prejudices of all about him. If
he had had but common moral principle, that is, sincerity, he would
have been a great man; nor hardly, as it is, appears to us—
‘Less than arch-angel ruined, and the excess
Of glory obscur’d.’

We lose our patience when we think of the powers that he has

wasted, and compare them and their success with those, for instance,
of such a fellow as the ——, all whose ideas, notions, apprehensions,
comprehensions, feelings, virtues, genius, skill, are comprised in the
two words which Peachum describes as necessary qualifications in
his gang, ‘To stand himself and bid others stand!’
When his six Irish friends, the six Irish gentlemen, Mr. Makins,
Mr. Dunkley, Mr. Monaghan, Mr. Gollogher, Mr. Gallaspy, and Mr.
O’Keeffe, after an absence of several years, discovered their old
acquaintance John Buncle, sitting in a mixed company at
Harrowgate Wells, they exclaimed with one accord—‘There he is—
making love to the finest woman in the universe!’ So we may say at a
venture of Mr. Coleridge—‘There he is, at this instant (no matter
where) talking away among his gossips, as if he were at the Court of
Semiramis, with the Sophi or Prestor John.’ The place can never
reach the height of his argument. He should live in a world of
enchantment, that things might answer to his descriptions. His talk
would suit the miracle of the Conversion of Constantine, or Raphael’s
Assembly of the Just. It is not short of that. His face would cut no
figure there, but his tongue would wag to some purpose. He is fit to
take up the deep pauses of conversation between Cardinals and
Angels—his cue would not be wanting in presence of the beatific
vision. Let him talk on for ever in this world and the next; and both
worlds will be the better for it. But let him not write, or pretend to
write, nonsense. Nobody is the better for it. It was a fine thought in
Mr. Wordsworth to represent Cervantes at the day of judgment and
conflagration of the world carrying off the romance of Don Quixote
under his arm. We hope that Mr. Coleridge, on the same occasion,
will leave ‘the Friend’ to take its chance, and his ‘Lay Sermon’ to get
up into the Limbo of Vanity, how it can.
 The Statesman’s Manual; or the Bible the
best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight. A
Lay Sermon, addressed to the Higher Classes
of Society. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq. Gale and
Fenner.

Dec. 29, 1816.

Here is the true Simon Pure. We have by anticipation given some

account of this Sermon. We have only to proceed to specimens in
illustration of what we have said.
It sets out with the following sentence:—
‘If our own knowledge and information concerning the Bible had
been confined to the one fact of its immediate derivation from God,
we should still presume that it contained rules and assistances for all
conditions of men under all circumstances; and therefore for
communities no less than for individuals.’
Now this is well said; ‘and ’tis a kind of good deed to say well.’ But
why did not Mr. Coleridge keep on in the same strain to the end of
the chapter, instead of himself disturbing the harmony and
unanimity which he here very properly supposes to exist on this
subject, or questioning the motives of its existence by such passages
as the following, p. 23 of the Appendix:
‘Thank heaven! notwithstanding the attempts of Mr. Thomas
Paine and his compeers, it is not so bad with us. Open infidelity has
ceased to be a means even of gratifying vanity; for the leaders of the
gang themselves turned apostates to Satan, as soon as the number of
their proselytes became so large, that Atheism ceased to give
distinction. Nay, it became a mark of original thinking to defend the
Belief and the Ten Commandments; so the strong minds veered
round, and religion came again into fashion.’
Now we confess we do not find in this statement much to thank
heaven for; if religion has only come into fashion again with the
strong minds—(it will hardly be denied that Mr. Coleridge is one of
the number)—as a better mode of gratifying their vanity than ‘open
infidelity.’ Be this as it may, Mr. Coleridge has here given a true and
masterly delineation of that large class of Proselytes or their
teachers, who believe any thing or nothing, just as their vanity
prompts them. All that we have ever said of modern apostates is poor
and feeble to it. There is however one error in his statement,
inasmuch as Mr. Thomas Paine never openly professed Atheism,
whatever some of his compeers might do.
It is a pity that with all that fund of ‘rules and assistances’ which
the Bible contains for our instruction and reproof, and which the
author in this work proposes to recommend as the Statesman’s
Manual, or the best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight, in times
like these, he has not brought forward a single illustration of his
doctrine, nor referred to a single example in the Jewish history that
bears at all, in the circumstances, or the inference, on our own, but
one, and that one he has purposely omitted. Is this to be credited?
Not without quoting the passage.
‘But do you require some one or more particular passage from the
Bible that may at once illustrate and exemplify its application to the
changes and fortunes of empires? Of the numerous chapters that
relate to the Jewish tribes, their enemies and allies, before and after
their division into two kingdoms, it would be more difficult to state a
single one, from which some guiding light might not be struck.’ [Oh,
very well, we shall have a few of them. The passage goes on.] ‘And in
nothing is Scriptural history more strongly contrasted with the
histories of highest note in the present age, than in its freedom from
the hollowness of abstractions.’ [Mr. Coleridge’s admiration of the
inspired writers seems to be very much mixed with a dislike of Hume
and Gibbon.]—‘While the latter present a shadow-fight of Things and
Quantities, the former gives us the history of Men, and balances the
important influence of individual minds with the previous state of
national morals and manners, in which, as constituting a specific
susceptibility, it presents to us the true cause, both of the influence
itself, and of the Weal or Woe that were its consequents. How should
it be otherwise? The histories and political economy of the present
and preceding century partake in the general contagion of its
mechanic philosophy.’ [“still harping on my daughter”] ‘and are the
product of an unenlivened generalizing understanding. In the
Scriptures they are the living educts of the Imagination; of that
reconciling and mediatory power, which incorporating the reason in
Images of the Sense, and organising (as it were) the flux of the
Senses by the permanence and self-circling energies of the Reason,
gives birth to a system of symbols, harmonious in themselves, and
consubstantial with the truths, of which they are the conductors.
These are the Wheels which Ezekiel beheld when the hand of the
Lord was upon him, and he saw visions of God as he sat among the
captives by the river of Chebar. Whither soever the Spirit was to go,
the wheels went, and thither was their spirit to go; for the spirit of
the living creature was in the wheels also. The truths and the
symbols that represent them move in conjunction, and form the
living chariot that bears up (for us) the throne of the Divine
Humanity. Hence by a derivative, indeed, but not a divided
influence, and though in a secondary, yet in more than a
metaphorical sense, the Sacred Book is worthily entitled the Word of
God,’ p. 36.
So that, after all, the Bible is not the immediate word of God,
except according to the German philosophy, and in something
between a literal and metaphorical sense. Of all the cants that ever
were canted in this canting world, this is the worst! The author goes
on to add, that ‘it is among the miseries of the present age that it
recognises no medium between literal and metaphorical,’ and
laments that ‘the mechanical understanding, in the blindness of its
self-complacency, confounds Symbols with Allegories.’—This is
certainly a sad mistake, which he labours very learnedly to set right,
‘in a diagonal sidelong movement between truth and falsehood.’—We
assure the reader that the passages which we have given above are
given in the order in which they are strung together in the Sermon;
and so he goes on for several pages, concluding his career where the
Allies have concluded theirs, with the doctrine of Divine Right; which
he does not however establish quite so successfully with the pen, as
they have done with the sword. ‘Herein’ (says this profound writer)
‘the Bible differs from all the books of Greek philosophy, and in a
two-fold manner. It doth not affirm a Divine Nature only, but a God;
and not a God only, but the living God. Hence in the Scriptures alone
is the Jus Divinum or direct Relation of the State and its Magistracy
to the Supreme Being, taught as a vital and indispensable part of
ALL MORAL AND ALL POLITICAL WISDOM, even as the Jewish alone was a
true theocracy!’
Now it does appear to us, that as the reason why the Jus Divinum
was taught in the Jewish state was, that that alone was a true
theocracy, this is so far from proving this doctrine to be a part of all
moral and all political wisdom, that it proves just the contrary. This
may perhaps be owing to our mechanical understanding. Wherever
Mr. C. will shew us the theocracy, we will grant him the Jus Divinum.
Where God really pulls down and sets up kings, the people need not
do it. Under the true Jewish theocracy, the priests and prophets
cashiered kings; but our lay-preacher will hardly take this office upon
himself as a part of the Jus Divinum, without having any thing better
to shew for it than his profound moral and political wisdom. Mr.
Southey hints at something of the kind in verse, and we are not sure
that Mr. Coleridge does not hint at it in prose. For after his
extraordinary career and interminable circumnavigation through the
heaven of heavens, after being wrapt in the wheels of Ezekiel, and
sitting with the captives by the river of Chebar, he lights once more
on English ground, and you think you have him.
‘But I refer to the demand. Were it my object to touch on the
present state of public affairs in this kingdom, or on the prospective
measures in agitation respecting our Sister Island, I would direct
your most serious meditations to the latter period of the reign of
Solomon, and the revolutions in the reign of Rehoboam his son. But I
tread on glowing embers. I will turn to a subject on which all men of
reflection are at length in agreement—the causes of the Revolution
and fearful chastisement of France.’—Here Mr. Coleridge is off again
on the wings of fear as he was before on those of fancy.—This trifling
can only be compared to that of the impertinent barber of Bagdad,
who being sent for to shave the prince, spent the whole morning in
preparing his razors, took the height of the sun with an astrolabe,
sung the song of Zimri, and danced the dance of Zamtout, and
concluded by declining to perform the operation at all, because the
day was unfavourable to its success. As we are not so squeamish as
Mr. Coleridge, and do not agree with him and all other men of
reflection on the subject of the French Revolution, we shall turn back
to the latter end of the reign of Solomon, and that of his successor
Rehoboam, to find out the parallel to the present reign and regency
which so particularly strikes and startles Mr. Coleridge.—Here it is
for the edification of the curious, from the First Book of Kings:—
‘And the time that Solomon reigned over all Israel was forty years.
And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of
David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead. And
Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to
make him king.[24] And Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel
came and spake unto Rehoboam, saying, Thy father (Solomon) made
our yoke grievous; now, therefore, make thou the grievous service of
thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we
will serve thee. And he said unto them, Depart yet for three days,
then come again to me. And the people departed. And King
Rehoboam consulted with the old men that stood before Solomon his
father while he yet lived, and said, How do ye advise, that I may
answer this people? And they spake unto him, saying, If thou wilt be
a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer
them, and speak good words unto them, then they will be thy
servants for ever. But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which
they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were
grown up with him, and which stood before him: And he said unto
them, What counsel give ye, that we may answer this people, who
have spoken to me, saying, Make the yoke which thy father did put
upon us lighter? And the young men that were grown up with him
spake unto him, saying, Thus shalt thou speak unto this people that
spake unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, but make
thou it lighter unto us; thus shalt thou say unto them, My little finger
shall be thicker than my father’s loins. And now, whereas my father
did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father
hath chastised you with whips: but I will chastise you with
scorpions. So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the
third day, as the king had appointed, saying, come to me again the
third day. And the king answered the people roughly, and forsook
the old men’s counsel that they gave him: And spake to them after
the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke
heavy, and I will add to your yoke; my father also chastised you
with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. Wherefore the
king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the
Lord, that he might perform his saying which the Lord spake by
Ahijah, the Shilonite, unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat.’ [We here see
pretty plainly how the principle of ‘a true theocracy’ qualified the
doctrine of Jus Divinum among the Jews; but let us mark the
sequel.] ‘So when all Israel saw that the King hearkened not unto
them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we
in David: neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your
tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David. So Israel
departed unto their tents. Then king Rehoboam sent Adoram, who
was over the tribute; and all Israel stoned him with stones that he
died; therefore king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his
chariot to flee to Jerusalem. So Israel rebelled against the house of
David unto this day. And it came to pass when all Israel heard that
Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the
congregation, and made him king over all Israel.’
Here is the doctrine and practice of divine right, with a vengeance.
We do not wonder Mr. Coleridge was shy of instances from his
Statesman’s Manual, as the rest are like this. He does not say
(neither shall we, for we are not salamanders any more than he, to
tread on glowing embers) whether he approves of the conduct of all
Israel in this case, or of the grand, magnificent, and gracious
answer of the son of Solomon; but this we will say, that his bringing
or alluding to a passage like this immediately after his inuendo
(addressed to the higher classes) that the doctrine of divine right is
contained par excellence in the Scriptures alone, is we should
suppose, an instance of a power of voluntary self-delusion, and of a
delight in exercising it on the most ticklish topics, greater than ever
was or ever will be possessed by any other individual that ever did or
ever will live upon the face of the earth. ‘Imposture, organised into a
comprehensive and self-consistent whole, forms a world of its own,
in which inversion becomes the order of nature.’ Compared with
such powers of inconceivable mental refinement, hypocrisy is a great
baby, a shallow dolt, a gross dunce, a clumsy devil!
Among other passages, unrivalled in style and matter by any other
author, take the following:—
 ‘When I named this Essay a Sermon, I sought to prepare the
inquirers after it for the absence of all the usual softenings suggested
by worldly prudence, of all compromise between truth and courtesy.
But not even as a Sermon would I have addressed the present
Discourse to a promiscuous audience: and for this reason I likewise
announced it in the title-page, as exclusively ad clerum, i.e. (in the
old and wide sense of the word[25]) to men of clerkly acquirements, of
whatever profession.’ [All that we know is, that there is no such title-
page to our copy.] ‘I would that the greater part of our publications
could be thus directed, each to its appropriate class of readers. But
this cannot be! For among other odd burs and kecksies, the
misgrowth of our luxuriant activity, we have a Reading Public, as
strange a phrase, methinks, as ever forced a splenetic smile on the
staid countenance of meditation; and yet no fiction! For our readers
have, in good truth, multiplied exceedingly, and have waxed proud.
It would require the intrepid accuracy of a Colquhoun’—[Intrepid
and accurate applied to a Colquhoun! It seems that whenever an
objection in matter of fact occurs to our author’s mind, he
instinctively applies the flattering unction of words to smooth it over
to his conscience, as you apply a salve to a sore]—‘to venture at the
precise number of that vast company only, whose heads and hearts
are dieted at the two public ordinaries of literature, the circulating
libraries and the periodical press. But what is the result? Does the
inward man thrive on this regimen? Alas! if the average health of the
consumers may be judged of by the articles of largest consumption’—
[Is not this a side-blow at the Times and Courier?]—‘if the secretions
may be conjectured from the ingredients of the dishes that are found
best suited to their palates; from all that I have seen, either of the
banquet or the guests, I shall utter my profaccia’—[‘Oh thou
particular fellow!‘]—‘with a desponding sigh: From a popular
philosophy, and philosophic populace, good sense deliver us!’
Why so, any more than from a popular religion or a religious
populace, on Mr. Coleridge’s own principle, p. 12, ‘Reason and
religion are their own evidence’? We should suspect that our unread
author, the ‘Secret Tattle’ of the Press, is thus fastidious, because he
keeps an ordinary himself which is not frequented. He professes to
be select: but we all know the secret of ‘seminaries for a limited
number of pupils.’ Mr. Coleridge addresses his Lay-Sermon ‘to the
higher classes,’ in his printed title-page: in that which is not printed
he has announced it to be directed ad clerum, which might imply the
clergy, but no: he issues another EXTENT for the benefit of the
Reading Public, and says he means by the annunciation ad clerum,
all persons of clerkly acquirements, that is, who can read and write.
What wretched stuff is all this! We well remember a friend of his and
ours saying, many years ago, on seeing a little shabby volume of
Thomson’s Seasons lying in the window of a solitary ale-house, at the
top of a rock hanging over the British Channel,—‘That is true fame!’
If he were to write fifty Lay-Sermons, he could not answer the
inference from this one sentence, which is, that there are books that
make their way wherever there are readers, and that there ought
every where to be readers for such books!
To the words Reading Public, in the above passage, is the
following note, which in wit and humour does not fall short of Mr.
Southey’s ‘Tract on the Madras System’:—
‘Some participle passive in the diminutive form, eruditorum natio
for instance, might seem at first sight a fuller and more exact
designation: but the superior force and humour of the former
become evident whenever the phrase occurs, as a step or stair in the
climax of irony.... Among the revolutions worthy of notice, the
change in the introductory sentences and prefatory matter in serious
books is not the least striking. The same gross flattery, which
disgusts us in the dedications to individuals, in the elder writers, is
now transferred to the nation at large, or the Reading Public; while
the Jeremiads of our old moralists, and their angry denunciations
against the ignorance, immorality, and irreligion of the people
appear (mutatis mutandis, and with an appeal to the worst passions,
envy, discontent, scorn, vindictiveness,[26] &c.) in the shape of bitter
libels on ministers, parliament, the clergy; in short, on the state and
church, and all persons employed in them. Likewise, I would point
out to the reader’s attention the marvellous predominance at present
of the words, Idea and Demonstration. Every talker now-a-days has
an Idea; aye, and he will demonstrate it too! A few days ago, I heard
one of the Reading Public, a thinking and independent smuggler,
euphonise the latter word with much significance, in a tirade against
the planners of the late African expedition: “As to Algiers, any man
that has half an Idea in his skull must know, that it has been long
ago dey-monstered, I should say, dey-monstrified,” &c. But the
phrase, which occasioned this note, brings to my mind the mistake of
a lethargic Dutch traveller, who, returning highly gratified from a
showman’s caravan, which he had been tempted to enter by the
words Learned Pig, gilt on the pannels, met another caravan of a
similar shape, with the Reading Fly on it, in letters of the same size
and splendour. “Why, dis is voonders above voonders,” exclaims the
Dutchman, takes his seat as first comer, and soon fatigued by
waiting, and by the very hush and intensity of his expectation, gives
way to his constitutional somnolence, from which he is roused by the
supposed showman at Hounslow, with a “In what name, Sir, was
your place taken? are you booked all the way for Reading?” Now a
Reading Public is (to my mind) more marvellous still, and in the
third tier of “Voonders above voonders.“‘
A public that could read such stuff as this with any patience would
indeed be so. We do not understand how, with this systematic
antipathy to the Reading Public, it is consistent in Mr. Coleridge to
declare of ‘Dr. Bell’s original and unsophisticated plan,’ that he
‘himself regards it as an especial gift of Providence to the human
race, as an incomparable machine, a vast moral steam-engine.’
Learning is an old University mistress, that he is not willing to part
with, except for the use of the church of England; and he is sadly
afraid she should be debauched by the ‘liberal ideas’ of Joseph
Lancaster! As to his aversion to the prostitution of the word Idea to
common uses and in common minds, it is no wonder, from the very
exalted idea which he has given us of this term.
‘What other measures I had in contemplation it has been my
endeavour to explain elsewhere.... O what treasures of practical
wisdom would be once more brought into open day by the solution of
this problem,’ to wit, ‘a thorough recasting of the moulds in which
the minds of our gentry, the characters of our future land-owners,
magistrates, and senators, are to receive their shape and fashion.
Suffice it for the present to hint the master-thought. The first man,
on whom the light of an Idea dawned did in that same moment
receive the spirit and the credentials of a Lawgiver; and as long as
man shall exist, so long will the possession of that antecedent
knowledge which exists only in the power of an idea, be the one
lawful qualification for all dominion in the world of the senses,’ p. 52.
Now we do think this a shorter cut towards the undermining of the
rotten boroughs, and ousting the present ministry, than any we have
yet heard of. One of the most extraordinary ideas in this work is
where the Author proves the doctrine of free will from the existence
of property; and again, when he recommends the study of the
Scriptures, from the example of Heraclitus and Horace. To conclude
this most inconclusive piece of work, we find the distant hopes and
doubtful expectations of the writer’s mind summed up in the
following rare rhapsody. ‘Oh what a mine of undiscovered treasures,
what a new world of power and truth would the Bible promise to our
future meditation, if in some gracious moment one solitary text of
all its inspired contents should but dawn upon us in the pure
untroubled brightness of an IDEA, that most glorious birth of the
godlike within us, which even as the light, its material symbol,
reflects itself from a thousand surfaces, and flies homeward to its
parent mind, enriched with a thousand forms, itself above form, and
still remaining in its own simplicity and identity! O for a flash of that
same light, in which the first position of geometric science that ever
loosed itself from the generalizations of a groping and insecure
experience, did for the first time reveal itself to a human intellect in
all its evidence and in all its fruitfulness, Transparence without
Vacuum, and Plenitude without Opacity! O! that a single gleam of
our own inward experience would make comprehensible to us the
rapturous Eureka, and the grateful hecatomb of the philosopher of
Samos: or that vision which, from the contemplation of an
arithmetical harmony, rose to the eye of Kepler, presenting the
planetary world, and all their orbits in the divine order of their ranks
and distances; or which, in the falling of an apple, revealed to the
ethereal intuition of our own Newton the constructive principle of
the material universe. The promises which I have ventured to hold
forth concerning the hidden treasures of the Law and the Prophets
will neither be condemned as paradox, or as exaggeration, by the
mind that has learnt to understand the possibility that the reduction
of the sands of the sea to number should be found a less stupendous
problem by Archimedes than the simple conception of the
Parmenidean One. What, however, is achievable by the human
understanding without this light may be comprised in the epithet
κενόσπουδοι and a melancholy comment on that phrase would the
history of the human Cabinets and Legislatures for the last thirty
years furnish! The excellent Barrow, the last of the disciples of Plato
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