In a letter to Poole dated March 16, 1801, Coleridge writes: 'I shall . . . immediately publish my Christabel, with the Essays on the "Preternatural", and on Metre' (Letters of S. T. C., 1895, i. 349). Something had been done towards the collection of materials for the first 'Essay', a great deal for the second. In a notebook (No. 22) which contains dated entries of 1805, 1815, &c., but of which the greater portion, as the context and various handwritings indicate, belongs to a much earlier date, there are some forty-eight numbered specimens of various metres derived from German and Italian sources. To some of these stanzas or strophes a metrical scheme with original variants is attached, whilst other schemes are exemplified by metrical experiments in English, headed 'Nonsense Verses'. Two specimens of these experiments, headed 'A Sunset' and 'What is Life', are included in the text of P. W., 1893 (pp. 172, 178), and in that of the present issue, pp. 393, 394. They are dated 1805 in accordance with the dates of Coleridge's own comments or afterthoughts, but it is almost certain that both sets of verses were composed in 1801. The stanza entitled 'An Angel Visitant' belongs to the same period. Ten other sets of 'Nonsense Verses' of uncertain but early date are now printed for the first time.
[1014:2] Sumptuous Tyranny floating this way. [MS.] On p. 17 of Notebook 22 Coleridge writes:—
¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘ ˘, ¯ ˘, ¯
Drunk with I—dolatry—drunk with, Wine.
A noble metre if I can find a metre to precede or follow.
Sūmptŭŏus Dālĭlă flōatĭng thŭs wāy
Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with wine.
Both lines are from Milton's Samson Agonistes.
