PREFACE
The Preface is the same as that of 1808 and 1828, with the addition of the following passage (quoted as a foot-note to the sentence:—'I have pruned the double-epithets with no sparing hand; and used my best efforts to tame the swell and glitter both of thought and diction.')—'Without any feeling of anger, I may yet be allowed to express some degree of surprize, that after having run the critical gauntlet for a certain class of faults, which I had, viz. a too ornate, and elaborately poetic diction, and nothing having come before the judgement-seat of the Reviewers during the long interval, I should for at least seventeen years, quarter after quarter, have been placed by them in the foremost rank of the proscribed, and made to abide the brunt of abuse and ridicule for faults directly opposite, viz. bald and prosaic language, and an affected simplicity both of matter and manner—faults which assuredly did not enter into the character of my compositions.—Literary Life, i. 51. Published 1817.' In the Biog. Lit. (loc. cit.) the last seven lines of the quotation read as follows—'judgement-seat in the interim, I should, year after year, quarter after quarter, month after month (not to mention sundry petty periodicals of still quicker revolution, 'or weekly or diurnal') have been for at least seventeen years consecutively dragged forth by these into the foremost rank of the proscribed, and forced to abide the brunt of abuse, for faults directly opposite, and which I certainly had not. How shall I explain this?'
Contents.—The Contents of Vols. I and III are identical with the Contents of Vols. I and III of 1828 (No. XX): A 'Song' (Tho' veiled in spires of myrtle wreath), p. 78, and 'The Alienated Mistress: A Madrigal' (If Love be dead, &c.), p. 93 of Vol. II, 1828, are omitted in Vol. II of 1829; and 'The Allegoric Vision,' 'The Improvisatore, or John Anderson, My Jo, John' [New Thoughts on old Subjects], and 'The Garden of Boccaccio' are inserted in Vol. II of 1829; between 'The Wanderings of Cain' and 'Remorse', pp. 116-42. The text of 1829, which J. D. Campbell followed in P. W., 1893, differs from that of 1828.
XXII
The / Poetical Works / Of / Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. / Complete in One Volume. / Paris / Published by A. and W. Galignani / No. 18, Rue Vivienne / 1829. /
[8o.
Collation.—General half-title, one leaf; The imprint, Printed by Jules Didot Senior, / Printer to His Majesty, Rue du Pont-de-Lodi, No. 6, is on the reverse of the half-title; Title, one leaf, unpaged; Notice of the Publishers, one leaf, unpaged; half-title, The / Poetical Works / of / Samuel Taylor Coleridge. / pp. [i-ii]; Contents, pp. [iii]-iv; Memoir of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, pp. [v]-xi; Text, pp. [1]-225.
[Note.—A lithographed vignette of a Harp, &c., is in the centre of the title-page. The frontispiece consists of three portraits of Coleridge (Northcote), Shelley, and Keats, engraved by J. T. Wedgwood.
The contents are identical with those of 1829, with the following additions: (1) 'Recantation—illustrated in the story of the Mad Ox'; (2) 'The Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie' (as published in the Morning Post, Dec. 21, 1799); (3) 'The Composition of a Kiss'; (4) 'To a Friend together with an unpublished Poem'; (5) 'The Hour when we shall meet again'; (6) 'Lines to Joseph Cottle'; (7) 'On the Christening of a Friend's Child'; (8) 'The Fall of Robespierre'; (9) 'What is Life?'; (10) 'The Exchange'; (11) Seven Epigrams, viz. (1) 'Names'; (2) Job's Luck'; (3) 'Hoarse Maevius', &c.; (4) 'There comes from old Avaro's', &c.; (5) 'Last Monday', &c.; (6) 'Your Poem ', &c. (7) 'Swans sing', &c. ('Job's Luck' had been republished in The Crypt, 1827, and the other six in The Keepsake, 1829.) 'Fancy in Nubibus, or the Poet in the Clouds' (vide ante, p. [435]), p. 216, was repeated on p. 217, under the title 'Sonnet, composed by the Seaside, October 1817', with two variants, 'yield' for 'let' in line 4, and 'To' for 'Own' in line 5. 'Love's Burial-Place', and Song, 'Tho' veiled', &c., which had appeared in 1828, were not included in Galignani, 1829.]