PREFACE
Poems on various subjects written at different times and prompted by very different feelings; but which will be read at one time and under the influence of one set of feelings—this is an heavy disadvantage: for we love or admire a poet in proportion as he developes our own sentiments and emotions, or reminds us of our own knowledge.
Compositions resembling those of the present volume are not unfrequently 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 solace and can find it in employment alone; but full of its late sufferings it can endure no employment not connected with those sufferings. Forcibly to turn away our attention to other subjects is a painful and in general 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!"[1136:1]
The communicativeness of our nature leads us to describe our own sorrows; in the endeavor to describe them intellectual activity is exerted; and by a benevolent law of our nature from intellectual activity a pleasure results 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 a personal unity 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!"
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 your 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 consider whether or no there may not be others to whom it is well-calculated to give an innocent pleasure. With what anxiety every fashionable author avoids the word I!—now he transforms himself into a third person,—"the present writer"—now multiplies himself and swells into "we"—and all this is the watchfulness of guilt. Conscious that this said I is perpetually intruding on his mind and that it monopolizes his heart, he is prudishly solicitous that it may not escape from his lips.
This disinterestedness of phrase is in general commensurate with selfishness of feeling: men old and hackneyed in the ways of the world are scrupulous avoiders of Egotism.
Of the following Poems a considerable number are styled "Effusions," in defiance of Churchill's line
"Effusion on Effusion pour away."[1136:2]
I could recollect no title more descriptive of the manner and matter of the Poems—I might indeed have called the majority of them Sonnets—but they do not possess that oneness of thought which I deem indispensible (sic) in a Sonnet—and (not a very honorable motive perhaps) I was fearful that the title "Sonnet" might have reminded my reader of the Poems of the Rev. W. L. Bowles—a comparison with whom would have sunk me below that mediocrity, on the surface of which I am at present enabled to float.
Some of the verses allude to an intended emigration to America on the scheme of an abandonment of individual property.
The Effusions signed C. L. were written by Mr. Charles Lamb, of the India House—independently of the signature their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them. For the rough sketch of Effusion XVI, I am indebted to Mr. Favell. And the first half of Effusion XV was written by the Author of "Joan of Arc", an Epic Poem.
Notes attached to a first draft of the Preface to the First Edition [MS. R]
(i)
I cannot conclude the Preface without expressing my grateful acknowledgments to Mr. Cottle, Bristol, for the liberality with which (with little probability I know of remuneration from the sale) he purchased the poems, and the typographical elegance by which he endeavoured to recommend them, (or)—the liberal assistance which he afforded me, by the purchase of the copyright with little probability of remuneration from the sale of the Poems.
[This acknowledgement, which was omitted from the Preface to the First Edition, was rewritten and included in the 'Advertisement' to the 'Supplement' to the Second Edition.]
(ii)
To Earl Stanhope
A man beloved of Science and of Freedom, these Poems are
respectfully inscribed by
The Author.
[In a letter to Miss Cruikshank (? 1807) (Early Recollections, 1837, i. 201), Coleridge maintains that the 'Sonnet to Earl Stanhope', which 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
III
[A Sheet Of Sonnets.]
Collation.—No title; Introduction, pp. [1]-2; Text (of Sonnets Nos. i-xxviii), pp. 3-16. Signatures A. B. B2. [1796.]
[8o.
[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 5
one cold glitter of heavy conceits and metaphysical abstractions.
However, 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 10
in deducing its laws from their compositions.
The Sonnet then is a small poem, in which some lonely feeling is
developed. 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 20
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 25
severe and masterly likenesses of the style of the Greek επιγραμματα.
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 30
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 35
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 40
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
sameness in the final sound of its words is the great and grievous defect of the
Italian language. That rule, therefore, which the Italians have 45
established, 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 50
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. 55
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 60
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 65
ingenious 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. / Ιου, ιου, ω ω κακα, Υπ' αυ με δεινος ορθομαντειας πονος / Στροβει, ταρασσων φροιμιοις εφημιοις, / . . . . . . / το μελλον ηξει· και συ μην ταχει παρων / Αγαν γ' αληθομαντιν μ' ερεις. / ÆSCHYL. AGAMEM. 1225. / Bristol; Printed by N. Biggs, / and sold by J. Parsons, Paternoster Row, London. / 1796. /
[4o.
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 Camœnarum; 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. /
[8o.
Collation.—Title-page, one leaf, p. ; 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 Ptolomœus 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.
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
unfrequently 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 5
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 10
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 20
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 25
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 30
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 35
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 45
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 50
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 55
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 deficiencies.
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 5
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 10
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, 15
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 20
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 25
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. 30
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 35
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 40
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. 45
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. /
[4o.
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. /
[8o.
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. -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. /
[8o.
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.]