[954:1] Lines 3, 4, with the heading 'On an Insignificant,' were written by S. T. C. in Southey's copy of the Omniana of 1812 [see nos. 9, 11]. See P. W., 1885, ii. 402, Note.
[961:1] The antithesis was, perhaps, borrowed from an Epigram entitled 'Posthumous Fame', included in Elegant Extracts, ii. 260.
If on his spacious marble we rely,
Pity a worth like his should ever die!
If credit to his real life we give,
Pity a wretch like him should ever live.
[962:1] The first and second versions are included in Essays, &c., 1850, iii. 976: the third version was first published in 1893.
In 1830 Coleridge re-wrote (he did not publish) the second version as an Epitaph on Hazlitt. The following apologetic note was affixed:—
'With a sadness at heart, and an earnest hope grounded on his misanthropic sadness, when I first knew him in his twentieth or twenty-first year, that a something existed in his bodily organism that in the sight of the All-Merciful lessened his responsibility, and the moral imputation of his acts and feelings.' MS.
[964:1] The 'One who published' was, perhaps, Charles Lloyd, in his novel, Edmund Oliver, 2 vols. 1798. Compare the following Epigram of Prior's:—
To John I ow'd great obligation,
But John unhappily thought fit
To publish it to all the nation:
Sure John and I are more than quit.
[974:1] Extempore, in reply to a question of Mr. Theodore Hook's—'Look at him, and say what you think: Is not he like a Rose?'