It must be added, that time has robbed of their charm certain sportive effusions of Mr. C.'s later years, which were given to the public, in the first gloss and glow of novelty in 1834, and has proved that, though not devoid of the quality of genius, they possess, upon the whole, not more than an ephemeral interest. These the Editors have not scrupled to omit on the same grounds and in the same confidence that has been already explained.

Four short pieces only have been added, the third and ninth Sonnets1 (pages 37 and 40), from the edition of 1796, the DayDream' (page 196)," from the Appendix to Coleridge's Essays on his own Times,' and the Hymn (page 281), which is now printed for the first time.

ADVERTISEMENT

THE last authorised edition of S. T. Coleridge's Poems, published by Mr. Moxon in 1852, bears the names of Derwent and Sara Coleridge, as joint editors. I shared in the responsibility, but cannot claim any share in the credit of the undertaking. This edition I propose to leave intact as it came from her own hands. I wish it to remain as one among other monuments of her fine taste, her solid judgment, and her scrupulous conscientiousness.

A few pieces of some interest appear, however, to have been overlooked. Two characteristic sonnets, not included in any former edition of the Poems, have been preserved in an anonymous work, entitled 'Letters, Recollections, and Conversations

of S. T. Coleridge.' These, with a further selection from the omitted pieces, principally from the Juvenile Poems, have been added in an Appendix.2 So placed, they will not at any rate interfere with the general effect of the collection, while they add to its completeness.

[The brief Life of the Author' mentioned on the title-page, appears under the heading, INTRODUCTORY ESSAY,' and occupies pp. xxiii. -lix.]

XIX

THE POETICAL AND DRAMATIC WORKS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, founded on the Author's latest edition of 1834, with many additional pieces now first included, and a collection of various readings. In Four Volumes. Volume One [Two, Three, Four]. London: Basil Montagu Pickering. 1877.

Reissued, with additions, and with the imprint of:-' London: Macmillan and Co. 1880.

1 To Nature, p. 190, and Farewell to Love, p. 173. The first edition of the Letters,' etc., was anonymous, but when reprinted in 1864, the name of the author, Thomas Allsop, was given. --ED.

2 yet remain To mourn the hours of youth'-(printed by mistake as Coleridge's-the lines are by Bowles); Count Rumford, p. 64; Fragment from an unpublished Poem, p. 64; To the Rev. W. J. Hort, p. 44; To a Primrose, p. 64; On the Christening of a Friend's Child, p. 83; Mutual Passion, p. 143: The Silver Thimble, p. 51; Translation from Ottfried's Gospel, p. 144; Israel's Lament, p. 187; and The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, verbatim from the Lyrical Ballads' of 1798, which will also be found in 'APPENDIX E' of the present volume.-ED.

Octavo; Vol. I. Contents, etc., pp. viii. ; Memoir of S. T. Coleridge [including bibliographical matter], pp. ix. - cxviii.; Poems, pp. 217; Appendix, pp. 218-224. Vol. II. Contents, etc., pp. xii.; Poems, pp. 352; Supplement, pp. 355*-364*; Appendix, pp. 353-381. Vol. III. Fall of Robespierre' and Wallenstein,' pp. 413. Vol. IV. Remorse' and 'Zapolya,' pp. 290.

XX

THE POETICAL WORKS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. Edited with Introduction and Notes by T. Ashe, B. A. of St. John's College, Cambridge. In two volumes. London: George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1885. [With Portrait of Coleridge after Hancock, and a view of Greta Hall, Keswick.]

Octavo; Vol. I. Title, etc., pp. v. ; Introduction, etc., pp. xv.-clxxxvi.; Poems, pp. 1-212. Vol. II. Contents, etc., pp. xiii.; Poems, pp. 1-409.

[This edition is described as belonging to The Aldine Edition of the British Poets.'-ED.]

An excellent edition of Coleridge's Poetical and Dramatic Works was published by Galignani of Paris in 1829, in a volume together with equally excellent editions of Shelley and Keats. Besides the whole of the Contents of the English edition of 1829, Galignani's contains Recantation; Introduction to the Ballad of the Dark Ladie, with the prose preface; To a Friend, with an unfinished Pocm; The Hour when we shall meet again; the Lines to Cottle; On the Christening of a Friend's Child; Fall of Robespierre; What is Life? The Exchange; Fancy in nubibus; and several Epigrams. A Memoir of Coleridge is prefixed.

1. Genevieve, p. 1.

་

This seems to be the earlicst composition of Coleridge which has been preserved. He has dated it as early as 'æt. 14,' and in Poems, 1796, it has the note: This little poem was written when the author was a boy.' It was first printed in the Cambridge Intelligencer for Nov. 1, 1794, with a text almost identical with the following from an early MS. :

Maid of my Love! sweet Genevieve! In Beauty's light Thou glid'st along; Thy Eye is like the star of eve,

Thy voice is soft as Seraph's song. Yet not thy heavenly beauty gives

This heart with passion soft to glow: Within thy soul a voice there lives!

It bids thee hear the tale of woe. When sinking low the suffrer wan Beholds no hand stretcht out to save, Fair as the bosom of the swan

That rises graceful o'er the wave, I've seen thy breast with pity heave, And therefore love I thee, sweet Genevieve!'

There was a tradition in Christ's Hospital that Genevieve was addressed to the daughter of Coleridge's school 'nurse.' For the head boys to be in love with their nurses' daughters was an institution of long standing. The lines have frequently been set to music.

2. Dura Navis, p. 1.

Here printed for the first time from an early, probably contemporary, autograph copy which Coleridge annotated in 1823. The annotations are partially and incorrectly printed in Gillman's Life, p. 25.

3. Nil pejus est cælibe vitâ, p. 2.

Printed here for the first time from the book into which the headmaster of Christ's

Hospital, James Boyer, caused his boys to transcribe their best poetical and prose exercises. It has been carefully preserved by his family, and it is by the courtesy of the headmaster's grandson and namesake that I am enabled to print these verses. This note and acknowledgment applies equally to Julia, p. 4; Quæ nocent docent, p. 4; Progress of Vice, p. 8; and Monody on the Death of Chatterton (first version), P. 8. The second and fourth are now printed for the first time.

4. Sonnet to the Autumnal Moon, p. 3.

Marked æt. 16' by Coleridge in an annotated copy of Poems, 1828. First printed in Poems, 1796, and excluded from Poems, 1797, in spite of Lamb's remonstrances. The text has never been altered.

5. Anthem for the Children of Christ's Hospital, p. 3.

First printed in P. W. 1834. An early MS. exists, with the title, Anthem written as if intended to have been sung by the Children of Christ's Hospital. The differences in text are unimportant.

6. Julia, p. 4.

First printed in A History of the Royal Foundation of Christ's Hospital, by the Rev. W. Trollope, M.A., 1834, p. 191. First collected in P. and D. W. 1877-80. Here printed verbatim from the original

11. To a Young Lady, with a Poem on

the French Revolution, p. 6.

This poem, though variously dated by Coleridge 1792' and '1794,' has been placed here because there is no other known poem but the one immediately preceding to which it could apply. Quite possibly the preceding poem may have been written in or about 1792. The lines To a Young Lady were written in 1792, and addressed to Miss F. Nesbitt, of whom see Notes 36, 37.' Coleridge did not meet Sara' until 1794. The concluding lines are an addition of 1794 or 1795, for a rough draft of them, much pulled about, exists among a number of Watchman (1796) MSS. The lines were printed

in the first number of that paper. Southey's Retrospect was not published until 1795.

12. Life, p. 7.

First printed in P. W. 1834, but the text there differs slightly from each of two early MS. copies. To one of these the title is Sonnet written just after the Author left the Country in Sept. 1789, ætat 15. Coleridge was about 17 in 1789, but this error pervades these early family MS. The other MS. is headed Sonnet, by S. T. C., written in September 1789.

13. Progress of Vice, p. 8.

First published in P. W. 1834, but here first printed verbatim from Coleridge's copy in Boyer's book. See 'Note 3.'

14. Monody on the Death of Chatterton. * First Version, 1790,' p. 8. 'Latest Version, 1829,' p. 61.

The First Version' is printed verbatim from Boyer's book (see 'Note 3') and is undoubtedly the earliest form of the poem. The text does not differ materially from that printed from a Note-book in the handwriting of the late Sir John Taylor Coleridge, the nephew of the poet, kept at Eton College in 1807,' given in P. and D. W. 1877-80 (ii. 355*); nor from either of two other early MS. copies I have seen, one of them being in the handwriting of the poet, and sent from school to his brother George, along with the Monody on a Tea-Kettle (p. 12) and An Invocation (p. 10).

The poem next appeared, altered and enlarged, but anonymously, in Launcelot Sharpe's edition of Chatterton's Poems (Cambridge, 1794), where it is thus introduced:

The Editor thinks himself happy in the permission of an ingenious Friend to insert the following Monody.'

In Poems, 1796, the Monody took the first place, and (subject to a few verbal alterations) consisted of the 1794 version with the addition of 11. 119 to the end of