66 66 66 racy when he classes love and poetry as producing the same effects: 'Love and the wish of poets when their tongue Their own.' "There is one species of egotism which is truly disgusting; not that which leads to communicate our feelings to others, but that which would re"duce the feelings of others to an identity with 66 our own. "The atheist who exclaims 'pshaw,' when “he glances his eye on the praises of Deity, is an egotist; an old man, when he speaks contemptuously of love verses is an egotist; and the "sleek favourites of fortune are egotists when they " condemn all 'melancholy discontented' verses. Surely it would be candid not merely to ask "whether the poem pleases ourselves, but to con"sider whether or no there may not be others, to "whom it is well calculated to give an innocent pleasure. "I shall only add, that each of my readers "will, I hope, remember, that these poems on "various subjects, which he reads at one time " and under the influence of one set of feelings, "were written at different times and prompted by very different feelings; and, therefore, that, "the supposed inferiority of one poem to another may sometimes be owing to the temper of "mind in which he happens to peruse it." In the second edition (the second edition was published in conjunction with his friends Charles Lloyd and Charles Lamb) is added the following: "My poems have been rightly charged "with a profusion of double-epithets, and a general turgidness. I have pruned the double"epithets with no sparing hand; and used my "best efforts to tame the swell and glitter both "of thought and diction. This latter fault, however, had insinuated itself into my Religious Musings with such intricacy of union, that "sometimes I have omitted to disentangle the "weed from the fear of snapping the flower. "A third and heavier accusation has been "brought against me, that of obscurity; but "not, I think, with equal justice. An author " is obscure, when his conceptions are dim and "imperfect, and his language incorrect, or inap propriate, or involved. A poem that abounds "in allusions, like the 'Bard' of Gray, or one "that impersonates high and abstract truths, "like Collins's 'Ode on the Poetical Character,' "claims not to be popular, but should be ac"quitted of obscurity. The deficiency is in “the reader; but this is a charge which every poet, whose imagination is warm and rapid, "must expect from his contemporaries. Milton "did not escape it; and it was adduced with " virulence against Gray and Collins. We now hear no more of it, not that their poems are "better understood at present, than they were "at their first publication; but their fame is "established; and a critic would accuse him"self of frigidity or inattention, who should profess not to understand them: but a living "writer is yet sub judice; and if we cannot "follow his conceptions or enter into his feelings, "it is more consoling to our pride to consider "him as lost beneath, than as soaring above, us. “If any man expect from my poems the same "easiness of style which he admires in a drinking-song for him, I have not written. Intelligibilia, non intellectum adfero. "I expect neither profit nor general fame by my writings; and I consider myself as having "been amply repaid without either. Poetry "has been to me its own 'exceeding great re"ward;' it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has "endeared solitude; and it has given me the "habit of wishing to discover the good and the "beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me." We seem now to have arrived at that period of Coleridge's life which a profound student of his poetry, and himself a pleasing and elegant poet, has considered the period of the "Annus Mirabilis." "The Manhood," he observes, "of Coleridge's true poetical life was in the year 66 1797." This is perfectly true, and at that period he was only twenty-five, as before stated. He was, as is proved in his earlier poems, highly susceptible and sensitive, requiring kindness and sympathy, and the support of something like intellectual friendship. He tells us that he chose his residence at Stowey, on account of his friend Mr. Poole, who assisted and enabled him to brave the storm of "Life's pelting ills." Near him, at Allfoxden, resided Mr. Wordsworth, with whom, he says, Shortly after my settlement "there, I became acquainted, and whose society “I found an invaluable blessing, and to whom "I looked up with equal reverence as a poet, "a philosopher, or a man. His conversation "extended to almost all subjects except physics "and politics; with the latter he never troubled "himself." Although Coleridge lived a most retired life, it was not enough to exempt him from the watchfulness of the spies of government whose employment required some apparent activity before they could receive the reward they expected. Nor did he escape the suspicion of being a dangerous person to the government; which arose partly from his connexion with Wordsworth, and from the great seclusion of his life. Coleridge was ever with book, paper, and pencil in hand, making, in the language of, artists, "Sketches and studies from nature." This suspicion, accompanied with the usual quantity of obloquy, was not merely attached to Coleridge, but extended to his friend," whose perfect innocence was even adduced as a suspicion of his guilt," by one of these sapients, who observed that "as to Coleridge, there is not much harm in him; for he is a whirl-brain, that talks whatever comes uppermost; but that Wordsworth! he is a dark traitor. You never hear him say a syllable on the subject." During this time the brother poets must have been composing or arranging the Lyrical Ballads, which were published the following year, i. e. 1798. Coleridge also in 1797 wrote the "Remorse," or rather the play he first called Osorio, the name of the principal character in it, but finding afterwards that there was a respectable family of that name residing in London, it was changed for the title of the Remorse, and the principal character, Osorio, to Ordonio. This play was sent to Sheridan. 66 The following remarks were given in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria," which wholly clears him from the suspicion of being concerned in making maps of a coast, where a smuggler could not land, and they shew what really was his employment; and how poets may be mistaken at all times for other than what they wish to be considered :-" During the first year that "Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbours, our "conversations turned frequently on the two |