ADDENDA I EPIGRAMS, ETC. [A few 'Epigrams' which had gained a place in Coleridge's collected works have been omitted, being found not to belong to him. A few others have been excluded as too trivial. But the omissions have been more than compensated by additions of better quality from MSS. hitherto unprinted. It is difficult at this time of day to deal quite adequately with a certain class of these effusions. To exclude all, would be to mask one side of a man exceptionally many-sided: to include only one or two would equally convey a false impression. Already they have been included in so many editions of Coleridge's works as to have become part and parcel of them, and will always have to be taken into account in any estimate of his genius and character. Few of the less serious of the 'Epigrams' are entirely original: many are translated from Lessing, and as a rule, rendered with no great felicity.] |