Mr. C. told me that he intended to translate the whole of Lessing. I smiled. Mr. C. understood the symbol, and smiled in return.
The above poem is thus printed in the last edition of 1835, by which the two may be compared, and the reader will perhaps think that the alterations are not improvements.
NAMES.
I asked my fair one happy day,
What I should call her in my lay?
By what sweet name from Rome or Greece:
Lalage, Nesera, Chloris,
Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris,
Arethusa, or Lucrece.
Ah, replied my gentle fair,
Beloved, what are names but air?
Choose thou whatever suits the line;
Call me Sappho, call me Chloris,
Call me Lalage, or Doris,
Only, only, call me thine.
Some time after this, Mr. Coleridge being in an ill state of health, recollected that a friend of his, Sir John Stoddart, was the Judge at Malta,[80] and he determined to repair to that island. Here he was introduced to Sir Alexander Ball, the Governor, who happened at that time to be in want of a Secretary, and being greatly pleased with Mr. Coleridge, he immediately engaged him in that capacity.[81]
* * * * *
I shall here for the present leave the narrative of Mr. C. in other and better hands, and proceed to remark, that Mr. Davy and Mr. Coleridge continued their friendly feeling toward each other, through life. Mr. Davy, in a letter to Mr. Poole, (1804.) thus expresses himself:
"I have received a letter from Coleridge within the last three weeks. He writes from Malta, in good spirits, and as usual, from the depth of his being. God bless him! He was intended for a great man. I hope and trust he will, at some period, appear such."
Mr. Davy, after a continuance in Bristol of more than two years, sent me the following letter, with a copy of "Burns's Life and Works," by Dr. Currie.