[41] John the Baptist, a Poem.
[42] Monody on John Henderson.
[43] Miss Sarah Fricker, afterwards, Mrs. Coleridge.
[44] Relating to these Sonnets, chiefly satirising himself, Mr. C. has said, in his "Biographia;" "So general at that time, and so decided was the opinion concerning the characteristic vices of my style, that a celebrated physician, (Dr. Beddoes) speaking of me, in other respects, with his usual kindness, to a gentleman who was about to meet me at a dinner party, could not however resist giving him a hint not to mention, in my presence, 'The House that Jack Built' for that I was as sore as a boil about that sonnet, he not knowing that I myself was the author of it."
Mr. Coleridge had a singular taste for satirising himself. He has spoken of another ludicrous consequence arising out of this indulgence.
"An amateur performer in verse, expressed to a common friend, a strong desire to be introduced to me, but hesitated in accepting my friend's immediate offer, on the score that 'he was, he must acknowledge, the author of a confounded severe epigram on Mr. C.'s 'Ancient Mariner,' which had given him great pain.' I assured my friend, that if the epigram was a good one, it would only increase my desire to become acquainted with the author, and begged to hear it recited; when, to my no less surprise than amusement, it proved to be one which I had myself, sometime before, written and inserted in the Morning Post."
TO THE AUTHOR OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.
Your Poem must eternal be,
Dear Sir, it cannot fail,
For 'tis incomprehensible,
And without head or tail."
[45] The motto was the following:
Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitae et similium junctarumque Camoenarum; quod utinam neque mors solvat, neque temporis longinquitas!—Groscoll. Epist. ad Car. Utenhov. et Ptol. Lux. Tast.