The self-supported melancholy Gray
* * * * *
With his high spirit strove the master bard,
And was his own exceeding great reward.
The first Dialogue was published in May 1794. The lines on Gray may have suggested Coleridge's quotation from Genesis, chap. xv, ver. 1, which is supplied in a footnote to line 56.
[1150:1] The 'Eolian Harp', with the title 'Effusion xxxv. Composed August 20, 1795, at Clevedon, Somersetshire', was first published in 1796, and included as 'Composed at Clevedon' in 1797 and 1803. It is possible that it may have been originally printed in a newspaper.
[1150:2] The fourth and last edition of the Lyrical Ballads was issued in 1805.
[1151:1] The List numbers thirty, and of these not more than twenty are strictly speaking Errata. Of the remainder the greater number are textual corrections, emendations, and afterthoughts.
[1151:2] The allusion is to the prolonged and embittered controversy between Coleridge and his friends at Bristol, who had printed his works and advanced him various sums of money on the security of the sheets as printed and the future sale of the works when published. They were angry with him for postponing completion of these works, and keeping them out of their money, and he was naturally and reasonably indignant at the excessive sum charged for paper and printing. The fact was that they had done and intended to do him a kindness, but that in so far as it was a business transaction he suffered at their hands.
[1151:3] The title of these Iambic lines is 'Relictis Aliis Studiis Philosophiam Epicuream amplectitur'.