Supplement.
Advertisement243
Lines to Joseph Cottle, by S. T. Coleridge246
On an Autumnal Evening, by ditto,249
In the manner of Spencer (sic), by ditto,256
The Composition of a Kiss, by ditto,260
To an Infant, by Ditto264
On the Christening of a Friend's Child, by ditto,264
To the Genius of Shakespeare, by Charles Lloyd,267
Written after a Journey into North Wales, by ditto,270
A Vision of Repentance, by Charles Lamb,273

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

[Pp. [xiii]-xvi.]

Compositions resembling those of the present volume are not
unfrequently condemned for their querulous Egotism. But Egotism is to be
condemned then only when it offends against Time and Place, as in an
History or an Epic Poem. To censure it in a Monody or Sonnet is almost
as absurd as to dislike a circle for being round. Why then write Sonnets 5
or Monodies? Because they give me pleasure when perhaps nothing else
could. After the more violent emotions of Sorrow, the mind demands
amusement, and can find it in employment alone; but full of its late
sufferings, it can endure no employment not in some measure connected
with them. Forcibly to turn away our attention to general subjects is 10
a painful and most often an unavailing effort:

But O! how grateful to a wounded heart
The tale of Misery to impart—
From others' eyes bid artless sorrows flow,
And raise esteem upon the base of woe! 15

Shaw.

The communicativeness of our Nature leads us to describe our own
sorrows; in the endeavour to describe them, intellectual activity is exerted;
and from intellectual activity there results a pleasure, which is gradually
associated, and mingles as a corrective, with the painful subject of the 20
description. "True!" (it may be answered) "but how are the Public
interested in your Sorrows or your Description?" We are for ever
attributing personal Unities to imaginary Aggregates.—What is the Public,
but a term for a number of scattered Individuals? Of whom as many
will be interested in these sorrows, as have experienced the same or 25
similar.

"Holy be the lay,
Which mourning soothes the mourner on his way."

If I could judge of others by myself, I should not hesitate to affirm, that
the most interesting passages in our most interesting Poems are those, in 30
which the Author developes his own feelings. The sweet voice of Cona[1144:1]
never sounds so sweetly as when it speaks of itself; and I should almost
suspect that man of an unkindly heart, who could read the opening of the
third book of the Paradise Lost without peculiar emotion. By a law of
our Nature, he, who labours under a strong feeling, is impelled to seek for 35
sympathy; but a Poet's feelings are all strong. Quicquid amet valde amat.
Akenside therefore speaks with philosophical accuracy, when he classes
Love and Poetry, as producing the same effects:

"Love and the wish of Poets when their tongue
Would teach to others' bosoms, what so charms 40
Their own."—Pleasures Of Imagination.