AESTHETICAL AND LITERARY.
I. Of Literary Biography and Monuments.
(a) A Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns, 1816.
(b) Letter to a Friend on Monuments to Literary Men, 1819.
(c) Letter to John Peace, Esq., of Bristol, 1844.
These naturally group themselves together. Of the first (a), perhaps it is hardly worth while, and perhaps it is worth while, recalling that WILLIAM HAZLITT, in his Lectures upon the English Poets, attacked WORDSWORTH on this Letter with characteristic insolence and uncritical shallowness and haste. Under date Feb. 24th, 1818, Mr. H. CRABB ROBINSON thus refers to the thing: 'Heard part of a lecture by HAZLITT at the Surrey Institution. He was so contemptuous towards WORDSWORTH, speaking of his Letter about Burns, that I lost my temper. He imputed to WORDSWORTH the desire of representing himself as a superior man' (vol. i. p. 311, 3d ed.). The lecture is included in HAZLITT'S published Lectures in all its ignorance and wrong-headedness; but it were a pity to lose one's temper over such trash. His eyes were spectacles, not 'seeing eyes,' and jaundice-yellow, (b) and (c) are sequels to (a), and as such accompany it.
II. UPON EPITAPHS.
(a) From 'The Friend.' (b and c) From the Author's MSS., for the first time.
Of (a) CHARLES LAMB wrote: 'Your Essay on Epitaphs is the only sensible thing which has been written on that subject, and it goes to the bottom' (Talfourd's 'Final Memorials,' vol. i. p. 180). The two additional Papers—only briefly quoted from in the 'Memoirs' (c. xxx. vol. i.)—were also intended for 'The Friend,' had COLERIDGE succeeded in his announced arrangement of principles. These additional papers are in every respect equal to the first, with Wordsworthian touches and turns in his cunningest faculty. They are faithfully given from the MSS.
III. ESSAYS, LETTERS, AND NOTES ELUCIDATORY AND CONFIRMATORY OF THE POEMS, 1798-1835.
(a) Of the Principles of Poetry and the 'Lyrical Ballads' (1798-1802.)
(b) Of Poetic Diction.
(c) Poetry as a Study (1815).
(d) Of Poetry as Observation and Description, and Dedication of 1815.
(e) Of 'The Excursion:' Preface.
(f) Letters to Sir George and Lady Beaumont and others on the Poems and related Subjects.
(g) Letter to Charles Fox with the 'Lyrical Ballads,' and his Answer, &c.
(h) Letter on the Principles of Poetry and his own Poems to (afterwards) Professor John Wilson.
(a) to (e) form appendices to the early and later editions of the Poems, and created an epoch in literary criticism. COLERIDGE put forth his utmost strength on a critical examination of them, oblivious that he had himself impelled, not to say compelled, his friend to write these Prefaces, as WORDSWORTH signifies. It is not meant by this that COLERIDGE was thereby shut out from criticising the definitions and statements to which he objected.