ADVERTISEMENT. HITHERTO the productions of Coleridge have been known only to a select few. They are not such as may be read once for amusement, and then forgotten, but they deserve a second perusal; and he who reads them twice with attention will not be contented with that. His beauties are not scattered over the surface, to be gathered at a glance, but are hidden under a peculiarity of composition, originating with the highly gifted Author himself 66 His poetry is considered to be of a threefold nature-as works of passionate and exalted meditation (witness his 'Lines on an Autumnal Evening,' his 'Religious Musings,' his 'Ode to the Departing Year,' and many other of his earlier Poems) as out-pourings of the wild inspiration of old romance (is it needful to refer to his Ancient Mariner' and his Genevieve?")" while others of his verses contain, in small space, treasures of matured philosophy, and mingle "intimations of holy truths with pleasant and simple images." "His reputation may not have spread so widely as that of other writers," "but it has risen to a dignity and elevation, surpassing that gained by most men, in the estimation of those, in whose hearts it is the poet's highest distinction and glory to have his name embalmed *." * Athenæum, Aug. 2, 1834. PREFACE. Το 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. censure it in a Monody or Sonnet is almost as absurd as to dislike a circle for being round. Why, then, write Sonnets 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 a painful and most often an unavailing effort. But O! how grateful to a wounded heart From others' eyes bid artless sorrows flow, 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 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 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 which the Author developes his own feelings. The sweet voice of Cona* 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 *Ossian. |