Royal Institution, in the spring of 1808; in one this question, and always will do so, when it is of which he astonished his auditory by thanking recollected what he has had the power to effect. his Maker, in the most serious manner, for so or- It will not forgive him for writing upon party, and dering events, that he was totally ignorant of a in support of principles that even now are pretty single word of "that frightful jargon, the French nearly exploded, "what was meant for mankind." language!" And yet, notwithstanding this public Coleridge mistook his walk when he set up for a avowal of his entire ignorance of the language, politician, and it is to be feared the public have a Mr. C. is said to have been in the habit, while great deal to regret on account of it. He will not conversing with his friends, of expressing the ut- be known hereafter by his Morning Post articles, most contempt for the literature of that country! but by his verses. Whatever pains his political Whelmed in the wild mazes of metaphysics, papers may have cost him, and from his own acand for ever mingling its speculations with all he count they were laboriously composed, they will does or says, Coleridge has of late produced nothing avail him nothing with posterity. The verses of equal to the power of his pen. A few verses in an Coleridge give him his claim to lasting celebrity, annual, or a sonnet in a magazine, are the utmost and it is in vain that he would have the world of his efforts. He resides at Hampstead, in the house of a friend having a good garden, where he walks for hours together enwrapped in visions of moral value of the truths which he has been the new theories of theology, or upon the most abstruse means of throwing into the general circulation, or of meditations. He goes into the world at times, to the number and value of the minds whom, by his the social dinner-party, where he gratifies his self- conversation or letters, he has excited into activity, love by pouring out the stores of his mind in con- and supplied with the germs of their after-growth! versation to admiring listeners. Were he not apt A distinguished rank might not indeed then be to be too profound, he would make an excellent awarded to my exertions, but I should dare look talker, or rather un grand causeur for a second forward to an honorable acquittal." think otherwise. He says, "Would that the criterion of a scholar's utility were the number and Madame de Sévigné, if such an accomplished feIn temper and disposition Coleridge is kind and male is to be found in the nineteenth century, amiable. His person is bulky and his physiogeither in England or France. The fluency of nomy is heavy, but his eye is remarkably fine; Coleridge's language, the light he throws upon and neither envy nor uncharitableness have his subjects, and the pleasure he feels in commu- made any successful impression in attacking his nicating his ideas, and his knowledge, innate or moral character. His family have long resided acquired, are equally remarkable to the stranger, with Mr. Southey's in the north of England; the He has been accused of indolence, not perhaps narrow pecuniary circumstances of our poet are with reason: the misdirection of his distinguished assigned as the reason. It is ardently desired talents would be a better explanation of that for by all lovers of the Muses, that the author of the which he has been blamable. He attempts to "Ancient Mariner," and of "Genevieve," may justify himself on the score of quantity, by assert- see life protracted to a green old age, and yet ing that some of his best things were published in produce works which may rival those of his denewspapers. The world differs with him upon parted years. 10 L ve S 1 not icles litical I ac ey will erses of elebrity, he world the crimber and been the lation, or om, by his o activity, er-growth! d then be dare look is kind and is physiogkably fine; eness have tacking his ong resided ngland; the our poet are ntly desired author of the evieve," may age, and yet ose of his de 10 impelled to seek for sympathy; but a Poet's feelings Love and the wish of Poets when their tongue Pleasures of Imagination. COMPOSITIONS resembling those here collected are But O! how grateful to a wounded heart The tale of Misery to impart From others' eyes bid artless sorrows flow, Shaw. The communicativeness of our Nature leads us to Fortune are Egotists, when they condemn all "melancholy, discontented" verses. Surely, it would be candid not merely to ask whether the poem pleases ourselves, but to consider whether or no there may not be others, to whom it is well calculated to give an innocent pleasure. I shall only add, that each of my readers will, I hope, remember, that these Poems on various sub scribe them, intellectual activity is exerted; and to imaginary Aggregates. What is the PUBLIC, but a Holy be the lay Which mourning soothes the mourner on his way. If I could judge of others by myself, I should not My poems have been rightly charged with a profusion of double-epithets, and a general turgidness. 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.* This latter above us. If any man expect from my poems the O'er rough and smooth with even step he pass'd, same easiness of style which he admires in a drink- And knows not whether he be first or last. ing-song, for him I have not written. Intelligibilia, * Ossian. • Without any feeling of anger, I may yet be allowed to express some degree of surprise, 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 judgment-seat of the Reviewers during the long interval, I should for at least seventeen years, quarte. 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. fault however had insinuated itself into my Religious Musings with such intricacy of union, that sometimes I have omitted to disentangle the weed from the fear of snapping the flower. A third and heavier accusation has been brought against me, that of obscurity; but not, I think, with equal justice. An Author is obscure, when his conceptions are dim and imperfect, and his language incorrect, or unappropriate, or involved. A poem that abounds in allusions, like the Bard of Gray, or one that impersonates high and abstract truths, like Collins's Ode on the poetical character, claims not to be popularbut should be acquitted of obscurity. The deficiency is in the Reader. But this is a charge which every poet, whose imagination is warm and rapid, must expect from his contemporaries. Milton did not escape it; and it was adduced with virulence against Gray and Collins. We now hear no more of it: not that their poems are better understood at present, than they were at their first publication; but their fame is established; and a critic would accuse himself of frigidity or inattention, who should profess not to understand them. But a living writer is yet sub judice; and if we cannot follow his conceptions or enter into his feelings, it is more consoling to our pride to consider him as lost beneath, than as soaring And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY. AN ALLEGORY. On the wide level of a mountain's head A sister and a brother! This far outstript the other; non intellectum adfero. I expect neither profit nor general fame by my writings; and I consider myself as having been amply repaid without either. Poetry has been to me its own "exceeding great reward:" it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude: and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and the Beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me. S. T. C. JUVENILE POEMS. GENEVIEVE. MAID of my Love, sweet Genevieve! SONNET. TO THE AUTUMNAL MOON. MILD Splendor of the various-vested Night! MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON. O WHAT a wonder seems the fear of death, Away, Grim Phantom! Scorpion King, away! Thee, Chatterton! these unblest stones protect Yet oft, perforce ('t is suffering Nature's call,) Thy corse of livid hue; Or flashes through the tear that glistens in mine eye. Is this the land of song-ennobled line? Is this the land, where Genius ne'er in vain Ah me! yet Spenser, gentlest bard divine, And o'er her darling dead While "'mid the pelting of that merciless storm," Sublime of thought, and confident of fame, How dauntless Ælla fray'd the Dacian foe; Exulting in the spirits' genial throe, In tides of power his life-blood seems to flow. And now his cheeks with deeper ardors flame, Ye woods! that wave d'er Avon's rocky steep, These wilds, these caverns roaming o'er, With wild unequal steps he pass'd along, below. Poor Chatterton! he sorrows for thy fate Poor Chatterton! farewell! of darkest hues Sweet Flower of Hope! free Nature's genial child! And the stern Fate transpierced with viewless dart That didst so fair disclose thy early bloom, within! Ah! where are fled the charms of vernal Grace, Such were the struggles of the gloomy hour, See, see her breast's convulsive throe, Ah! dash the poison'd chalice from thy hand! • Avon. a river near Bristol; the birth-place of Chatterton. The last pale Hope that shiver'd at my heart! dwell Hence, gloomy thoughts! no more my soul shall O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive! Alas vain Phantasies! the fleeting brood SONGS OF THE PIXIES. O'er his hush'd soul our soothing witcheries shed, V. The Pixies, in the superstition of Devonshire, are a race of beings invisibly small, and harmless or friendly to man. At a small distance from a village in that county, half-way up a When Evening's dusky car, Crown'd with her dewy star, wood-covered hill, is an excavation called the Pixies' Parlor. Steals o'er the fading sky in shadowy flight, The roots of old trees form its ceiling and on its sides are innumerable ciphers, among which the author discovered his On leaves of aspen trees We tremble to the breeze, own cipher and those of his brothers, cut by the hand of their Veil'd from the grosser ken of mortal sight childhood. At the foot of the hill flows the river Otter. To this place the Author conducted a party of young Ladies, during the Summer months of the year 1793; one of whom, of stature elegantly small, and of complexion colorless yet clear, was proclaimed the Faery Queen. On which occasion the following irregular Ode was written. I. WHOM the untaught Shepherds call Builds its nest and warbles well; Here the blackbird strains his throat; Welcome, Ladies! to our cell. II. When fades the moon all shadowy-pale, III. But not our filmy pinion We scorch amid the blaze of day, When Noontide's fiery-tressed minion Aye from the sultry heat O'ercanopied by huge roots intertwined We shield us from the Tyrant's mid-day rage. IV. Thither, while the murmuring throng Of wild-bees hum their drowsy song, By Indolence and Fancy brought, A youthful Bard, "unknown to Fame," Wooes the Queen of Solemn Thought, And heaves the gentle misery of a sigh, Gazing with tearful eye, As round our sandy grot appear Many a rudely-sculptured name To pensive Memory dear! Weaving gay dreams of sunny-tinctured hue, We glance before his view : Or, haply, at the visionary hour, nest; Or guide of soul-subduing power The electric flash, that from the melting eye Darts the fond question and the soft reply. VI. Or through the mystic ringlets of the vale Supine he slumbers on a violet bank; VII. Hence, thou lingerer, Light! Mother of wildly-working dreams! we view And clouds, in watery colors drest, |