Chapter 129

was published in _Poems_, 1796 (vide _ante_, pp. 89, 90), 'was inserted by the fool of a publisher [Cottle prints 'inserted by Biggs, the fool of a printer'] in order, forsooth, that he might send the book and a letter to Earl Stanhope; who (to prove that he is not _mad_ in all things) treated both book and letter with silent contempt.' In a note Cottle denies this statement, and maintains that the 'book (handsomely bound) and the letter were sent to Lord S. by Mr. C. himself'. It is possible that before the book was published Coleridge had repented of Sonnet, Dedication, and Letter, and that the 'handsomely bound' volume was sent by Cottle and not by Coleridge, but the 'Dedication' is in his own handwriting and proves that he was, in the first instance at least, _particeps criminis_. See Note by J. D. Campbell, _P. W._, 1893, pp. 575, 576.]

CONTENTS

PAGE Monody to Chatterton 1 To the Rev. W. J. H. 12 Songs of the Pixies 15 Lines on the Man of Ross 26 Lines to a beautiful Spring 28 Epitaph on an Infant 31 Lines on a Friend 32 To a Young Lady with a Poem 36 Absence, a Farewell Ode 40 Effusion 1, to Bowles 45 Effusion 2, to Burke 46 Effusion 3, to Mercy 47 Effusion 4, to Priestley 48 Effusion 5, to Erskine 49 Effusion 6, to Sheridan 50 Effusion 7, to Siddons [signed 'C. L.'] 51 Effusion 8, to Kosciusco 52 Effusion 9, to Fayette 53 Effusion 10, to Earl Stanhope 54 Effusion 11 ['Was it some sweet device'--'C. L.'] 55 Effusion 12 ['Methinks how dainty sweet'--'C. L.'] 56 Effusion 13, written at Midnight ['C. L.'] 57 Effusion 14 59 Effusion 15 60 Effusion 16, to an Old Man 61 Effusion 17, to Genevieve 62 Effusion 18, to the Autumnal Moon 63 Effusion 19, to my own heart 64 Effusion 20, to Schiller 65 Effusion 21, on Brockley Coomb 66 [Effusion 22,] To a Friend with an unfinished Poem 68 Effusion 23, to the Nightingale 71 Effusion 24, in the manner of Spencer 73 Effusion 25, to Domestic Peace 77 Effusion 26, on a Kiss 78 Effusion 27 80 Effusion 28 82 Effusion 29, Imitated from Ossian 84 Effusion 30, Complaint of Ninathoma 86 Effusion 31, from the Welsh 88 Effusion 32, The Sigh 89 Effusion 33, to a Young Ass 91 Effusion 34, to an Infant 94 Effusion 35, written at Clevedon 96 Effusion 36, written in Early Youth 101 Epistle 1, written at Shurton Bars 111 Epistle 2, to a Friend in answer to a Melancholy Letter 119 Epistle 3, written after a Walk 122 Epistle 4, to the Author of Poems published in Bristol 125 Epistle 5, from a Young Lady 129 Religious Musings 139

III

[A SHEET OF SONNETS.]

_Collation._--No title; Introduction, pp. [1]-2; Text (of Sonnets Nos. i-xxviii), pp. 3-16. Signatures A. B. B{2}. [1796.] [8{o}.

[There is no imprint. In a letter to John Thelwall, dated December 17, 1796 (_Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, i, 206), Coleridge writes, 'I have sent you . . . Item, a sheet of sonnets collected by me, for the use of a few friends, who payed the printing.' The 'sheet' is bound up with a copy of 'Sonnets and Other poems, by The Rev. W. L. Bowles A. M. Bath, printed by R. Cruttwell: and sold by C. Dilly, Poultry, London, MDCCXCVI. _Fourth Edition_,' which was presented to Mrs. Thelwall, Dec. 18, 1796. At the end of the 'Sonnets' a printed slip (probably a cutting from a newspaper) is inserted, which contains the lines 'To a FRIEND who had declared his intention of Writing no more Poetry' (vide _ante_, pp. 158, 159). This volume is now in the Dyce Collection, which forms part of the Victoria and Albert Museum. See _P. and D. W._, 1877, ii, pp. 375-9, and _P. W._, 1893, p. 544.]

_Contents._--

[INTRODUCTION]

The composition of the Sonnet has been regulated by Boileau in his Art / of Poetry, and since Boileau, by William Preston, in the elegant preface / to his Amatory Poems: the rules, which they would establish, are founded / on the practice of Petrarch. I have never yet been able to discover either / sense, nature, or poetic fancy in Petrarch's poems; they appear to me all / one cold glitter of heavy conceits and metaphysical abstractions. How/ever, Petrarch, although not the inventor of the Sonnet, was the first / who made it popular; and _his_ countrymen have taken his poems as the / model. Charlotte Smith and Bowles are they who first made the Sonnet / popular among the present English: I am justified therefore by analogy / in deducing its laws from _their_ compositions.

The Sonnet then is a small poem, in which some lonely feeling is de/veloped. It is limited to a _particular_ number of lines, in order that the / reader's mind having expected the close at the place in which he finds it, / may rest satisfied; and that so the poem may acquire, as it were, a _Totality_,/--in 15 plainer phrase, may become a _Whole_. It is confined to fourteen lines, / because as some particular number is necessary, and that particular / number must be a small one, it may as well be fourteen as any other / number. When no reason can be adduced against a thing, Custom is a / sufficient reason for it. Perhaps, if the Sonnet were comprized in less / than fourteen lines, it would become a serious Epigram; if it extended to / more, it would encroach on the province of the Elegy. Poems, in which / no lonely feeling is developed, are not Sonnets because the Author has / chosen to write them in fourteen lines; they should rather be entitled / Odes, or Songs, or Inscriptions. The greater part of Warton's Sonnets are / severe and masterly likenesses of the style of the Greek +epigrammata+.

In a Sonnet then we require a developement of some lonely feeling, by / whatever cause it may have been excited; but those Sonnets appear to me / the most exquisite, in which moral Sentiments, Affections, or Feelings, / are deduced from, and associated with, the scenery of Nature. Such / compositions generate a habit of thought highly favourable to delicacy of / character. They create a sweet and indissoluble union between the / intellectual and the material world. Easily remembered from their briefness, / and interesting alike to the eye and the affections, these are the poems / which we can "lay up in our heart, and our soul," and repeat them "when / we walk by the way, and when we lie down, and when we rise up". / Hence the Sonnets of _Bowles_ derive their marked superiority over all / other Sonnets; hence they domesticate with the heart, and become, as it / were, a part of our identity.

Respecting the metre of a Sonnet, the Writer should consult his own / convenience.--Rhymes, many or few, or no rhymes at all--whatever the / chastity of his ear may prefer, whatever the rapid expression of his / feelings will permit;--all these things are left at his own disposal. A same/ness in the final sound of its words is the great and grievous defect of the / Italian language. That rule, therefore, which the Italians have estab/lished, of exactly _four_ different sounds in the Sonnet, seems to have arisen / from their wish to have _as many_, not from any dread of finding _more_. But / surely it is ridiculous to make the _defect_ of a foreign language a reason for / our not availing ourselves of one of the marked excellencies of our own. / "The Sonnet (says Preston,) will ever be cultivated by those who write on / tender, pathetic subjects. It is peculiarly adapted to the state of a man / violently agitated by a real passion, and wanting composure and vigor of / mind to methodize his thought. It is fitted to express a momentary burst / of Passion" etc. Now, if there be one species of composition more difficult / and artificial than another, it is an English Sonnet on the Italian Model. / Adapted to the agitations of a real passion! Express momentary bursts / of feeling in it! I should sooner expect to write pathetic _Axes_ or _pour / forth Extempore Eggs_ and _Altars_![1140:1] But the best confutation of such idle rules / is to be found in the Sonnets of those who have observed them, in their / inverted sentences, their quaint phrases, and incongruous mixture of / obsolete and Spenserian words: and when, at last, the thing is toiled and / hammered into fit shape, it is in general racked and tortured Prose rather / than any thing resembling Poetry. Miss Seward, who has perhaps / succeeded the best in these laborious trifles and who most dogmatically / insists on what she calls "the sonnet-claim," has written a very in/genious although unintentional burlesque on her own system, in the / following lines prefixed to the Poems of a Mr. Carey.

"Prais'd be the Poet, who the sonnet-claim, Severest of the orders that belong Distinct and separate to the Delphic song 70 Shall reverence, nor its appropriate name Lawless assume: peculiar is its frame-- From him derived, who spurn'd the city throng, And warbled sweet the rocks and woods among, Lonely Valclusa! and that heir of Fame, 75 Our greater Milton, hath in many a lay Woven on this arduous model, clearly shewn That English verse may happily display Those strict energic measures which alone Deserve the name of Sonnet, and convey 80 A spirit, force, and grandeur, all their own! "ANNE SEWARD."

"_A spirit, force, and grandeur, all their own!!_"--EDITOR.[1140:2]

[SONNETS]

SONNET

I. TO A FRIEND

'Bereave me not of these delightful Dreams.'--W. L. BOWLES.[1141:1]

II. 'With many a weary step at length I gain.'--R. SOUTHEY.

III. TO SCOTLAND

'Scotland! when thinking on each heathy hill.'--C. LLOYD.

IV. TO CRAIG-MILLAR CASTLE IN WHICH MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS WAS CONFINED.

'This hoary labyrinth, the wreck of Time.'--C. LLOYD.

V. TO THE RIVER OTTER

'Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West.'--S. T. COLERIDGE.

VI. 'O Harmony! thou tenderest Nurse of Pain.'--W. L. BOWLES.

VII. TO EVENING

'What numerous tribes beneath thy shadowy wing.'--BAMFIELD.

VIII. ON BATHING

'When late the trees were stript by winter pale'.--T. WARTON.

IX. 'When eddying Leaves begun in whirls to fly.'--HENRY BROOKS, (_the Author of the Fool of Quality_.)

X. 'We were two pretty Babes, the younger she'.--CHARLES LAMB.

[_Note_]. Innocence which while we possess it is playful as a babe, becomes AWFUL, when it departs from us. That is the sentiment of the line, a fine sentiment, and nobly expressed.--THE EDITOR.

XI. 'I knew a gentle maid I ne'er shall view.'--W. SOTHEBY.

XII. 'Was it some sweet device of faery land.'--CHARLES LAMB.

XIII. 'When last I rov'd these winding wood-walks green.'--CHARLES LAMB.

XIV. ON A DISCOVERY MADE TOO LATE.

'Thou bleedest, my poor HEART! and thy distress.'--S. T. COLERIDGE.

XV. 'Hard by the road, where on that little mound.'--ROBERT SOUTHEY.

XVI. THE NEGRO SLAVE

'Oh he is worn with toil! the big drops run.'--ROBERT SOUTHEY.

XVII. 'Sweet Mercy! how my very heart has bled.'--S. T. COLERIDGE.

XVIII. 'Could then the babes from yon unshelter'd cot.'--THOMAS RUSSEL.

XIX. 'Mild arch of promise on the evening sky.'--ROBERT SOUTHEY.

XX. 'Oh! She was almost speechless nor could hold.'--CHARLES LLOYD.

XXI. 'When from my dreary Home I first mov'd on'--CHARLES LLOYD.

XXII. 'In this tumultuous sphere for thee unfit.'--CHARLOTTE SMITH.

XXIII. 'I love the mournful sober-suited NIGHT.'--CHARLOTTE SMITH.

XXIV. 'Lonely I sit upon the silent shore.'--THOMAS DERMODY.

XXV. 'Oh! I could laugh to hear the midnight wind.'--CHARLES LAMB.

XXVI. 'Thou whose stern spirit loves the awful storm.'--W. L. BOWLES.

XXVII. 'INGRATITUDE, how deadly is thy smart.'--ANNA SEWARD.

XXVIII. TO THE AUTHOR OF THE "ROBBERS"

'That fearful voice, a famish'd Father's cry.'--S. T. COLERIDGE.

[At the foot of l. 14. S. T. C. writes--

'I affirm, John Thelwall! that the six last lines of this Sonnet to Schiller are strong and fiery; and you are the only one who thinks otherwise.--There's! a _spurt_ of Author-like Vanity for you!']

IV

ODE / ON THE / DEPARTING YEAR. / BY S. T. COLERIDGE. / +Iou, iou, ô ô kaka, Yp' au me deinos orthomanteias ponos+ / +Strobei, tarassôn phroimiois ephêmiois+, / . . . . . / +to mellon êxei; kai sy mên tachei parôn / +Agan g' alêthomantin m' ereis+. / ÆSCHYL. AGAMEM. 1225. / BRISTOL; Printed by N. Biggs, / and sold by J. Parsons, Paternoster Row, London. / 1796. / [4{o}.

_Collation._--Title, one leaf, p. [1]; Dedication, To Thomas Poole of Stowey, pp. [3]-4; Text, pp. [5]-15; LINES Addressed to a Young Man of Fortune who abandoned himself to an indolent and causeless Melancholy (signed) [=S. T. Coleridge=], p. 16. [Signatures--B (p. 5)--D (p. 13).]

V

POEMS, / By / S. T. COLERIDGE, / Second Edition. / To which are now added / POEMS / _By_ CHARLES LAMB, / And / CHARLES LLOYD. / Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitiae et similium / junctarumque Camoenarum; quod utinam neque mors / solvat, neque temporis longinquitas! / _Groscoll. Epist. ad Car. Utenhov. et Ptol. Lux. Tast._ / Printed by N. Biggs, / For J. Cottle, BRISTOL, and Messrs. / Robinsons, London. / 1797. / [8{o}.

_Collation._--Title-page, one leaf, p. [i]; Half-title, one leaf, [=Poems=] / by / [=S. T. Coleridge=] / [followed by Motto as in No. II], pp. [iii]-[iv]; Contents, pp. [v]-vi; DEDICATION, _To the Reverend_ GEORGE COLERIDGE of OTTERY St. MARY, / DEVON. Notus in frates animi paterni. _Hor. Carm. Lib._ II. 2. /, pp. [vii]-xii; Preface to the First Edition, pp. [xiii]-xvi; Preface to the Second Edition, pp. [xvii]-xx; Half-title, [=Ode=] / _on the_ / [=Departing Year=] [with motto (5 lines) from Aeschy. Agamem. 1225], one leaf, pp. [1]-[2]; Argument, pp. [3]-[4]; Text, pp. [5]-278; Errata (four lines) at the foot of p. 278.

[Carolus Utenhovius (Utenhove, or Uyttenhove) and Ptolomoeus Luxius Tasteus were scholar friends of the Scottish poet and historian George Buchanan (1506-1582), who prefixes some Iambics 'Carolo Utenhovio F. S.' to his Hexameters 'Franciscanus et Fratres'. In some Elegiacs addressed to Tasteus and Tevius, in which he complains of his sufferings from gout and kindred maladies, he tells them that Groscollius (Professor of Medicine at the University of Paris) was doctoring him with herbs and by suggestion:--'Et spe languentem consilioque juvat'. Hence the three names. In another set of Iambics entitled 'Mutuus Amor' in which he celebrates the alliance between Scotland and England he writes:--

Non mortis hoc propinquitas Non temporis longinquitas Solvet, fides quod nexuit Intaminata vinculum.

Hence the wording of the motto. Groscollius is, of course, a _mot à double entente_. It is a name and a nickname. The interpretation of the names and the reference to Buchanan's Hexameters were first pointed out by Mr. T. Hutchinson in the _Athenaeum_, Dec. 10, 1898.]

CONTENTS

[Titles of poems not in 1796 are printed in italics.]

POEMS by S. T. COLERIDGE.

PAGE _Dedication_ vii Preface to the First Edition xiii Preface to the Second Edition xvii _Ode to the New Year_ 1 Monody on Chatterton 17 Songs of the Pixies 29 The Rose 41 The Kiss 43 To a young Ass 45 Domestic Peace 48 The Sigh 49 Epitaph on an Infant 51 Lines on the Man of Ross 52 ---- to a beautiful Spring 54 ---- on the Death of a Friend 57 To a Young Lady 61 To a Friend, with an unfinished Poem 65

SONNETS.

[_Introduction to the Sonnets_ 71-74] To W. L. Bowles 75 On a Discovery made too late 76 On Hope 77 _To the River Otter_ 78 On Brockly Comb 79 To an old Man 81 Sonnet 82 To Schiller 83 _On the Birth of a Son_ 85 _On first seeing my Infant_ 87 Ode to Sara 88 Composed at Clevedon 96 _On leaving a Place of Residence_ 100 _On an unfortunate Woman_ 105 _On observing a Blossom_ 107 _The Hour when we shall meet again_ 109 _Lines to C. Lloyd_ 110 Religious Musings 117

[=Poems=] by CHARLES LLOYD. pp. [151]-189. Second Edition. [=Poems=] _on The Death_ of PRISCILLA FARMER, By her GRANDSON CHARLES LLOYD, pp. [191]-213. Sonnet ['The piteous sobs that choak the Virgin's breath', signed S. T. Coleridge], p. 193. [=Poems=] by CHARLES LAMB _of the India-House_. pp. [215]-240.

SUPPLEMENT.

_Advertisement_ 243 Lines to Joseph Cottle, by S. T. Coleridge 246 On an Autumnal Evening, by ditto, 249 In the manner of Spencer (_sic_), by ditto, 256 The Composition of a Kiss, by ditto, 260 To an Infant, by Ditto 264 _On the Christening of a Friend's Child_, by ditto, 264 To the Genius of Shakespeare, by Charles Lloyd, 267 Written after a Journey into North Wales, by ditto, 270 A Vision of Repentance, by Charles Lamb, 273

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

[Pp. [xiii]-xvi.]

Compositions resembling those of the present volume are not unfre/quently condemned for their querulous Egotism. But Egotism is to be / condemned then only when it offends against Time and Place, as in an / History or an Epic Poem. To censure it in a Monody or Sonnet is almost / as absurd as to dislike a circle for being round. Why then write Sonnets / or Monodies? Because they give me pleasure when perhaps nothing else / could. After the more violent emotions of Sorrow, the mind demands / amusement, and can find it in employment alone; but full of its late / sufferings, it can endure no employment not in some measure connected / with them. Forcibly to turn away our attention to general subjects is / a painful and most often an unavailing effort:

But O! how grateful to a wounded heart The tale of Misery to impart-- From others' eyes bid artless sorrows flow, And raise esteem upon the base of woe! 15 SHAW.

The communicativeness of our Nature leads us to describe our own / sorrows; in the endeavour to describe them, intellectual activity is exerted; / and from intellectual activity there results a pleasure, which is gradually / associated, and mingles as a corrective, with the painful subject of the / description. "True!" (it may be answered) "but how are the PUBLIC / interested in your Sorrows or your Description?" We are for ever / attributing personal Unities to imaginary Aggregates.--What is the PUBLIC, / but a term for a number of scattered Individuals? Of whom as many / will be interested in these sorrows, as have experienced the same or / similar.

"Holy be the lay, Which mourning soothes the mourner on his way."

If I could judge of others by myself, I should not hesitate to affirm, that / the most interesting passages in our most interesting Poems are those, in / which the Author developes his own feelings. The sweet voice of Cona[1144:1] / never sounds so sweetly as when it speaks of itself; and I should almost / suspect that man of an unkindly heart, who could read the opening of the / third book of the Paradise Lost without peculiar emotion. By a law of / our Nature, he, who labours under a strong feeling, is impelled to seek for / sympathy; but a Poet's feelings are all strong. Quicquid amet valde amat. / Akenside therefore speaks with philosophical accuracy, when he classes / Love and Poetry, as producing the same effects:

"Love and the wish of Poets when their tongue Would teach to others' bosoms, what so charms 40 Their own."--PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION.

There is one species of Egotism which is truly disgusting; not that / which leads us to communicate our feelings to others, but that which / would reduce the feelings of others to an identity with 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 Favorites 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 consider 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.

[Pp. [xvii]-xx.]

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

I return my acknowledgments to the different Reviewers for the / assistance, which they have afforded me, in detecting my poetic deficien/cies. I have endeavoured to avail myself of their remarks: one third of / the former Volume I have omitted, and the imperfections of the republished / part must be considered as errors of taste, not faults of carelessness. 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 unappropriate, 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 acquitted 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 himself 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 repayed without either. Poetry has been to / me its own[1146:1] "exceeding great reward": 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.

There were inserted in my former Edition, a few Sonnets of my Friend / and old School-fellow, CHARLES LAMB. He has now communicated to me / a complete Collection of all his Poems; quae qui non prorsus amet, illum / omnes et Virtutes et Veneres odere. My friend CHARLES LLOYD has / likewise joined me; and has contributed every poem of his, which he / deemed worthy of preservation. With respect to my own share of the / Volume, I have omitted a third of the former Edition, and added almost / an equal number. The Poems thus added are marked in the Contents by / Italics. S. T. C. STOWEY, _May_, 1797.

MS. Notes attached to proof sheets of the second Edition.

(_a_) As neither of us three were present to correct the Press, and as my handwriting is not eminently distinguished for neatness or legibility, the Printer has made a few mistakes. The Reader will consult equally his own convenience, and our credit if before he peruses the volume he will scan the Table of Errata and make the desired alterations. S. T. Coleridge. Stowey, May 1797.

(_b_) Table of Contents. (N.B. of my Poems)--and let it be printed in the same manner as Southey's Table of Contents--take care to mark _the new poems_ of the Edition by Italics.

_Dedication._

Preface to the first Edition. _Refer to the_ Second Edition. _Ode on the departing Year._ Monody on the death of Chatterton, etc., etc.--

[_MS. R._]

P. [69].

[Half-title] [=Sonnets=], / _Attempted in the Manner_ / Of The / Rev. W. L. Bowles. / Non ita certandi cupidus, quam propter amorem / Quod te IMITARI aveo. / LUCRET.

[Pp. 71-74.]

INTRODUCTION TO THE SONNETS

For lines 1-63 vide _ante_, No. III, The Introduction to the 'Sheet of Sonnets'. Lines 64 to the end are omitted, and the last paragraph runs thus:

The Sonnet has been ever a favourite species of composition with me; but I am conscious that I have not succeeded in it. From a large number I have retained ten only, as seemed not beneath mediocrity. Whatever more is said of them, ponamus lucro. S. T. COLERIDGE.

[_Note._ In a copy of the Edition of 1797, now in the Rowfant Library, S. T. C. comments in a marginal note on the words 'I have never yet been able to discover sense, nature, or poetic fancy in Petrarch's poems,' &c.--'A piece of petulant presumption, of which I should be more ashamed if I did not flatter myself that it stands alone in my writings. The best of the joke is that at the time I wrote it, I did not understand a word of Italian, and could therefore judge of this divine Poet only by bald translations of some half-dozen of his Sonnets.']

[Pp. 243-245.]

ADVERTISEMENT

I have excepted the following Poems from those, which I had determined to omit. Some intelligent friends particularly requested it, observing, that what most delighted me when I was "young in _writing_ poetry, would probably best please those who are young in _reading_ poetry: and a man must learn to be _pleased_ with a subject, before he can yield that attention to it, which is requisite in order to acquire a just taste." I however was fully convinced, that he, who gives to the press what he does not thoroughly approve in his own closet, commits an act of disrespect, both against himself and his fellow-citizens. The request and the reasoning would not, therefore, have influenced me, had they not been assisted by other motives. The first in order of these verses, which I have thus endeavoured to _reprieve_ from immediate oblivion, was originally addressed "To the Author of Poems published anonymously, at Bristol." A second edition of these poems has lately appeared with the Author's name prefixed; and I could not refuse myself the gratification of seeing the name of that man among my poems, without whose kindness they would probably have remained unpublished; and to whom I know myself greatly and variously obliged, as a Poet, a Man and a Christian.

The second is entitled "An Effusion on an Autumnal Evening; written in early youth." In a note to this poem I had asserted that the tale of Florio in Mr. Rogers' "Pleasures of Memory" was to be found in the Lochleven of Bruce. I did (and still do) perceive a certain likeness between the two stories; but certainly not a sufficient one to justify my assertion. I feel it my duty, therefore, to apologize to the Author and the Public, for this rashness; and my sense of honesty would not have been satisfied by the bare omission of the note. No one can see more clearly the _littleness_ and futility of imagining plagiarisms in the works of men of Genius; but _nemo omnibus horis sapit_; and my mind, at the time of writing that note, was sick and sore with anxiety, and weakened through much suffering. I have not the most distant knowledge of Mr. Rogers, except as a correct and elegant Poet. If any of my readers should know him personally, they would oblige me by informing him that I have expiated a sentence of unfounded detraction, by an unsolicited and self-originating apology.

Having from these motives re-admitted two, and those the longest of the poems I had omitted, I yielded a passport to the three others, [pp. 256, 262, 264] which were recommended by the greatest number of votes. There are some lines too of Lloyd's and Lamb's in this Appendix. They had been omitted in the former part of the volume, partly by accident; but I have reason to believe that the Authors regard them, as of inferior merit; and they are therefore rightly placed, where they will receive some beauty from their vicinity to others much worse.

VI

FEARS IN SOLITUDE, / Written in 1798, during the Alarm of an Invasion. / To which are added, / France, an Ode; / And / Frost at Midnight. / By S. T. COLERIDGE. / London: / Printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul's Churchyard. / 1798. / [4{o}.

_Collation._--Half-title, Fears in Solitude, . . . Frost at Midnight, (six lines) [Price ONE SHILLING and SIXPENCE.], one leaf, unpaged; Title, one leaf, unpaged; Text, pp. [1]-23; Advertisement of 'Poems, by W. Cowper', p. [24].

VII

The / PICCOLOMINI, / or the / First Part of WALLENSTEIN, / A Drama / In Five Acts. / Translated From The German Of / Frederick Schiller / By / S. T. COLERIDGE. / LONDON: / Printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees, Paternoster Row. / 1800. / [8{o}.

_Collation._--Half-title, Translation from a Manuscript Copy attested by the Author / THE PICCOLOMINI, or the First Part of WALLENSTEIN. / Printed by G. Woodfall, Pater-noster Row /, one leaf, unpaged; Title, one leaf, unpaged; Preface of the Translator, pp. [i]-ii; two pages of Advertisements commencing with: Plays just published, etc.; one leaf unpaged; on the reverse Dramatis Personae; Text, pp. [1]-214; _In the Press, and speedily will be published_, From the German of Schiller, THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN; Also WALLENSTEIN'S CAMP, a Prelude of One Act to the former Dramas; with an Essay on the GENIUS OF SCHILLER. By S. T. COLERIDGE. N.B. The Drama will be embellished with an elegant Portrait of WALLENSTEIN, engraved by CHAPMAN, pp. [215]-[216].

VIII

The / DEATH / of / WALLENSTEIN. A Tragedy / In Five Acts. / Translated from the German of / FREDERICK SCHILLER, / By / S. T. COLERIDGE. / LONDON: / Printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees, Paternoster Row, / _By G. Woodfall, No. 22, Paternoster-Row_. / 1800. / [8{o}.

_Collation._--Title, one leaf, unpaged; General Title, Wallenstein. / A Drama / In Two Parts. / Translated, &c., _ut supra_, one leaf, unpaged; Preface of the Translator, two leaves, unpaged; on reverse of second leaf Dramatis Personae; Text, pp. [1]-157; The Imprint, _Printed by G. Woodfall, No. 22, Paternoster-Row, London_, is at the foot of p. 157; Advertisement of 'Books printed by T. N. Longman', &c., p. [158].

[The Frontispiece (sometimes attached to No. VII) is an engraving in stipple of Wallenstein, by J. Chapman.]

IX

[=Poems=], / By / S. T. COLERIDGE. / Felix curarum, &c. (six lines as on title of No. II). Third edition. / LONDON: / Printed by N. Biggs, Crane-Court, Fleet-street, / For T. N. Longman and O. Rees, Pater- / Noster-Row. / 1803. / [8{o}.

_Collation._--Title, one leaf, p. [i]; Contents, pp. [iii]-[iv]; Preface, pp. [v]-xi; Text, pp. [1]-202; The Imprint, Biggs, Printer, Crane-Court, Fleet-street, is at the foot of p. 202.

[The Preface consists of the Preface to the First and Second Editions as reprinted in No. IV, with the following omissions from that to the Second Edition, viz. Lines 1-5, and Lines 37-45. The Preface to the First Edition (pp. [v]-viii) is signed S. T. C. The Preface to the Second Edition (pp. ix-xi) has no heading, but is marked off by a line from the Preface to the First Edition.

The Third Edition contains all the poems published in the First and Second Editions except (1) To the Rev. W. J. H. (1796); (2) Sonnet to Kosciusko (1796); (8) Written after a Walk (1796); (4) From a Young Lady (1796); (5) On the Christening of a Friend's Child (1797); (6) Introductory Sonnet to C. Lloyd's 'Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer' (1797). The half-title to the Sonnets, p. [79], omits the words 'Attempted in the Manner, &c. (see No. V).

The Introduction to the Sonnets is reprinted on pp. 81-4, verbatim from the Second Edition.]

X

POEMS, / By / S. T. COLERIDGE, Esq. / [8{o}.

_Collation._--Half-title (as above), one leaf, p. [1]; The Imprint, Law and Gilbert, Printers, St. John's Square, London, is at the foot of p. [2]; Text, pp. [3]-16; The Imprint, Printed by Law and Gilbert, St. John's Square, London, is at the foot of p. 16 [n. d. ? 1812].

_Contents._--

Fears in Solitude, pp. [3]-9: France, an Ode, pp. 10-13: Frost at Midnight, pp. 14-16.

[The three poems which form the contents of the Pamphlet were included in the _Poetical Register_ for 1808-1809 which was reissued in 1812. The publishers were F. G. and S. Rivington, the printers Law and Gilbert, St. John's Square, Clerkenwell. The type of the pamphlet is the type of the _Poetical Register_, but the poems were set up and reprinted as a distinct issue. There is no record of the transaction, or evidence that the pamphlet was placed on the market. It was probably the outcome of a private arrangement between the author and the publisher of the _Poetical Register_.]

XI

REMORSE. / A Tragedy, / In Five Acts. / _By_ S. T. COLERIDGE. / Remorse is as the heart, in which it grows: / If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews / Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy, / It is a poison-tree, that pierced to the inmost / Weeps only tears of poison! /