"When you have been enabled to form an opinion on Mr. Coleridge's MS., you will oblige me by returning it, as, in fact, I have no authority to let it out of my hands. I think most highly of it, and feel anxious that you should be the publisher; but if you are not, I do not despair of finding those who will."
As the reader knows, Byron, while in England, always gave away the produce of his poems. To Coleridge he destined part of the sum offered to him by Murray for "Parisina" and the "Siege of Corinth." Some difficulty, however, having arisen, because Murray refused to pay the 100 guineas to any other than Byron himself, he borrowed it himself to give it to Coleridge.
At the same time Byron paid so noble a tribute to Coleridge's talent, and to his poem of "Christabel," by inserting a note on the subject in his preface to the "Siege of Corinth," that Coleridge's editor took this note as the epigraph.
"Christabel!—I won't have any one," he said, "sneer at 'Christabel;' it is a fine wild poem."
In 1816 he wrote from Venice to Moore:—
"I hear that the E.R. has cut up Coleridge's 'Christabel,' and declared against me for praising it. I praised it, firstly, because I thought well of it; secondly, because Coleridge was in great distress, and after doing what little I could for him in essentials, I thought that the public avowal of my good opinion might help him further, at least with the booksellers. I am very sorry that J—— has attacked him, because, poor fellow, it will hurt him in mind and pocket. As for me, he's welcome—I shall never think less of Jeffrey for any thing he may say against me or mine in future."
At Genoa he declared, in a memorandum, that Crabbe and Coleridge were pre-eminent in point of power and talent.
At Pisa he blamed those who refused to see in "Christabel" a work of rare merit, notwithstanding the knowledge which he had of Coleridge's ingratitude to him; and refused to believe that W. Scott did not admire the poem, "for we all owe Coleridge a great deal," said he, "and even Scott himself."
And Medwin adds: "Lord Byron thinks Coleridge's poem very fine. He paraphrased and imitated one passage. He considers the idea excellent, and enters into it."
And speaking of Coleridge's psychological poem, he said: "What perfect harmony! 'Kubla Khan' delights me."