My dear Sir,—I thank you for your kind and valued present, and equally for the kind letter that accompanied it. What I expressed concerning your translation, I did not say lightly or without examination: and I know enough of myself to be confident that any feeling of personal partiality would rather lead me to doubts and dissatisfactions respecting a particular work in proportion as it might possibly occasion me to overrate the man. For example, if, indeed, I do estimate too highly what I deem the characteristic excellencies of Wordsworth’s poems, it results from a congeniality of taste without a congeniality in the productive power; but to the faults and defects I have been far more alive than his detractors, even from the first publication of the “Lyrical Ballads,” though for a long course of years my opinions were sacred to his own ear. Since my last, I have read over your translation, and have carefully compared it with my distinctest recollections of every specimen of blank verse I am familiar with that can be called epic, narrative, or descriptive, excluding only the dramatic, declamatory, and lyrical—with Cowper, Armstrong, Southey, Wordsworth, Landor (the author of “Gebir”), and with all of my own that fell within comparisons as above defined, especially the passage from 287 to 292, “Sibylline Leaves,”[152]—and I find no other alteration in my judgement but an additional confidence in it. I still affirm that, to my ear and to my judgement, both your metre and your rhythm have in a far greater degree than I know any instance of, the variety of Milton without any mere Miltonisms, that (wherein I in the passage referred to have chiefly failed) the verse has this variety without any loss of continuity, and that this is the excellence of the work considered as a translation of Dante—that it gives the reader a similar feeling of wandering and wandering, onward and onward. Of the diction, I can only say that it is Dantesque even in that in which the Florentine must be preferred to our English giant—namely, that it is not only pure language, but pure English. The language differs from that of a mother or a well-bred lady who had read little but her Bible, and a few good books, only as far as the thoughts and things to be expressed require learned words from a learned poet! Perhaps I may be thought to appreciate this merit too highly; but you have seen what I have said in defence of this in the “Literary Life.” By the bye, there is no Publisher’s name mentioned in the title-page. Should I place any number of copies for you with Gale and Curtis, or at Murray’s?
Believe me, that it will be both a pleasure and a relief to my mind should you bring with you any MSS. that you can yourself make it so as to read them to me.
Mrs. Gillman hopes, that, if choice or chance should lead you and yours near Highgate, you will not deprive us of the opportunity of introducing you to my excellent friend Mr. Gillman, and of shewing by our gladness how much we are, my dear sir, yours and Mrs. Cary’s sincere respecters, and I beg you will accept an expression of particular esteem from your old lecturer,
S. T. Coleridge.
P. S. I return the “Prometheus” and the “Persæ” with thanks. I hope the Cambridge Professor will go through the remaining plays of Æschylus. They are delightful editions.
CCXVII. TO J. H. GREEN.[153]
Highgate, Friday morning, November 14, 1817.
Dear Sir,—I arrived at Highgate from Little Hampton yester-night: and the most interesting tidings I heard, were of your return and of your great kindness ... I can only say that I will call in Lincoln’s Inn Fields the first day I am able to come to town—but should your occupation suffer you to take me in any of your rides for exercise or relaxation, need I say with what gladness I should welcome you? Our dinner-hour is four: but alterable without inconvenience to earlier or later. As soon as I have finished my present slave-work I shall write at large to Mr. Tieck. Be pleased to present my respectful regards to Mrs. Green, and believe me, dear sir, with marked esteem,
Your obliged
S. T. Coleridge.