Chapter CXIII: Preface: To the Present Edition 1852

As a chronological arrangement of Poetry in completed collections is now beginning to find general favour, pains have been taken to follow this method in the present Edition of S. T. Coleridge's Poetical and Dramatic Works, as far as circumstances permitted--that is to say, as far as the date of composition of each poem was ascertainable, and as far as the plan could be carried out without effacing the classes into which the Author had himself distributed his most important poetical publication, the 'Sibylline Leaves,' namely, POEMS OCCASIONED BY POLITICAL EVENTS, OR FEELINGS CONNECTED WITH THEM; LOVE POEMS; MEDITATIVE POEMS IN BLANK VERSE; ODES AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. On account of these impediments, together with the fact, that many a poem, such as it appears in its ultimate form, is the growth of different periods, the agreement with chronology in this Edition is approximative rather than perfect: yet in the majority of instances the date of each piece has been made out, and its place fixed accordingly.

In another point of view also, the Poems have been distributed with relation to time: they are thrown into three broad groups, representing, first the Youth,--secondly, the Early Manhood and Middle Life,--thirdly, the Declining Age of the Poet; and it will be readily perceived that each division has its own distinct tone and colour, corresponding to the period of life in which it was composed. It has been suggested, indeed, that Coleridge had four poetical epochs, more or less diversely characterised,--that there is a discernible difference betwixt the productions of his Early Manhood and of his Middle Age, the latter being distinguished from those of his Stowey life, which may be considered as his poetic prime, by a less buoyant spirit. Fire they have; but it is not the clear, bright, mounting fire of his earlier poetry, conceived and executed when 'he and youth were house-mates still.' In the course of a very few years after three-and-twenty all his very finest poems were produced; his twenty-fifth year has been called his _annus mirabilis_. To be a 'Prodigal's favourite--[1169:1]then, worse truth! a Miser's pensioner,' is the lot of Man. In respect of poetry, Coleridge was a 'Prodigal's favourite,' more, perhaps, than ever Poet was before.

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[The poems] produced before the Author's twenty-fourth year [1796], devoted as he was to the 'soft strains' of Bowles, have more in common with the passionate lyrics of Collins and the picturesque wildness of the pretended Ossian, than with the well-tuned sentimentality of that Muse which the overgrateful poet has represented as his earliest inspirer. For the young they will ever retain a peculiar charm, because so fraught with the joyous spirit of youth; and in the minds of all readers that feeling which disposes men 'to set the bud above the rose full-blown' would secure them an interest, even if their intrinsic beauty and sweetness were less adequate to obtain it.

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The present Editors have been guided in the general arrangement of this edition by those of 1817 and 1828, which may be held to represent the author's matured judgment upon the larger and more important part of his poetical productions. They have reason, indeed, to believe, that the edition of 1828 was the last upon which he was able to bestow personal care and attention. That of 1834, the last year of his earthly sojourning, a period when his thoughts were wholly engrossed, so far as the decays of his frail outward part left them free for intellectual pursuits and speculations, by a grand scheme of Christian Philosophy, to the enunciation of which in a long projected work his chief thoughts and aspirations had for many years been directed, was arranged mainly, if not entirely, at the discretion of his earliest Editor, H. N. Coleridge. . . Such alterations only have been made in this final arrangement of the Poetical and Dramatic Works of S. T. Coleridge, by those into whose charge they have devolved, as they feel assured, both the Author himself and his earliest Editor would at this time find to be either necessary or desirable. The observations and experience of eighteen years, a period long enough to bring about many changes in literary opinion, have satisfied them that the immature essays of boyhood and adolescence, not marked with any such prophetic note of genius as certainly does belong to the four school-boy poems they have retained, tend to injure the general effect of a body of poetry. That a writer, especially a writer of verse, should keep out of sight his third-rate performances, is now become a maxim with critics; for they are not, at the worst, effectless: they have an effect, that of diluting and weakening, to the reader's feelings, the general power of the collection. Mr. Coleridge himself constantly, after 1796, rejected a certain portion of his earliest published _Juvenilia_: never printed any attempts of his boyhood, except those four with which the present publication commences, and there can be no doubt that the Editor of 1834 would ere now have come to the conclusion, that only such of the Author's early performances as were sealed by his own approval ought to form a permanent part of the body of his poetical works.

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It must be added, that time has robbed of their charm certain sportive effusions of Mr. Coleridge'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.

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S. C.

CHESTER PLACE, REGENT'S PARK.
_March_, 1852.

The Contents of 1852 correspond with those of 1844, 1848, with the following omissions: (1) Anthem for the Children of Christ's Hospital; (2) Sonnet, 'Farewell, parental scenes', &c.; (3) To the Muse; (4) With Fielding's Amelia; (5) Sonnet, 'On receiving an account', &c.; (6) Sonnet, 'On seeing a Youth', &c.; (7) Pain; (8) Epigram, 'Hoarse Mævius', &c.; (9) Casimir ad Lyram; (10) 'On the Christening', &c.; (11) Elegy imitated from Akenside; (12) Phantom; (13) Allegoric Vision; (14) Reproof and Reply; (15) Written in an Album, 'Parry', &c.; (16) To the Author of the Ancient Mariner; (17) Job's Luck; (18) On a Volunteer Singer; together with four songs from the dramas.

The additions were (1) Sonnet to Pitt, 'Not always', &c.; (2) Sonnet, 'Not Stanhope', &c.; (3) To the Author of Poems published anonymously at Bristol; (4) The Day-Dream, 'If thou wert here', &c.; (5) The Foster-Mother's Tale; (6) A Hymn; (7) The Alienated Mistress. A Madrigal; (8) To a Lady, 'Tis not the lily brow', &c.; (9) Song, 'Tho' veiled', &c.; (10) L'envoy. 'In vain we supplicate', &c.

The Notes, pp. 379-88, contain, _inter alia_, the Latin original of 'Kisses' (vide _ante_, p. 46), and the Sonnet, 'No more my visionary Soul shall dwell', attributed by Southey to Favell (vide _ante_, p. 68).

XXXV

THE DRAMATIC WORKS of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by Derwent Coleridge. A New Edition. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. 1852. [8{o}, pp. xvi + 427.

CONTENTS

Remorse. A Tragedy in Five Acts.
Zapolya. A Christmas Tale. In two Parts. Part I. The Prelude, &c.
Zapolya. Part II. The Sequel, entitled 'The Usurper's Fate.'
The Piccolomini; or the first part of 'Wallenstein.' A Drama.
Translated from Schiller.
The Death of Wallenstein. A Tragedy. In Five Acts.
Notes.

_Note._--The Preface contains a critical estimate of _Remorse_ and _Zapolya_, and of the translation of Schiller's _Wallenstein_. At the close of the Preface [pp. xii-xiv] the Editor comments on the strictures of a writer in the _Westminster Review_, Art. 3 July 1850 (vide _ante_, p. 811), and upholds the merits of the Translation as a whole. The Preface is dated 'St. Mark's College, Chelsea, _July_, 1852'.

XXXVI

THE COMPLETE WORKS of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. With an Introductory Essay upon his Philosophical and Theological opinions. Edited by Professor Shedd. In Seven Volumes. Vol. vii. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, Nos. 329 and 331 Pearl Street, Franklin Square. 1853.

Second Title.--The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1853. [8{o}, pp. xiv + 15-702.

The Contents are identical with those of 1834, with ten additions first collected in 1844. The Fall of Robespierre is included in the Dramatic Works. 'Lines in Answer to a Letter from Bristol', pp. 67-70, are reprinted as 'Lines Written at Shurton Bars near Bridgewater', pp. 103-5 (vide _ante_, p. 96). Vol. vii was republished with an Index to the preceding six volumes in 1854.

XXXVII

THE POEMS of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by Derwent and Sara Coleridge. With a Biographical Memoir By Ferdinand Freiligrath. Copyright Edition. Leipzig Bernhard Tauchnitz 1860.

_Collation._--General Half-title, one leaf, Collection of British Authors. Vol. 512. The Poems, &c. (4 lines). In One Volume, p. [i]; Title, p. [iii]; Half-title, Biographical Memoir of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. By Ferdinand Freiligrath, p. [iv]; Advertisements, p. [v]; Biographical Memoir, pp. [vi]-xxviii; Advertisement (to ed. of 1852), p. xxix; Preface, pp. [xxxi]-xl; Contents, pp. [xli]-xlv. Text, pp. [1]-336; Notes, pp. [337]-344.

XXXVIII

THE POEMS of S. T. Coleridge. London: Bell and Daldy. 1862.
[16{mo}, pp. xiii + 299.

XXXIX

THE POEMS of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by Derwent and Sara Coleridge. With an Appendix. A New Edition. London: Edward Moxon & Co., Dover Street. 1863.

[8{o}, pp. xxvii + [1]-378 + Notes, pp. [379]-388 + Appendix, pp. [391]-404.

The text of the Poems is identical with that of 1852, but a fresh 'Advertisement', pp. [iii]-iv, is prefixed to the 'Advertisement' dated May, 1852.

_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. In writing my name with my sister's, I yielded to her particular desire and request, but the work was performed almost entirely by herself. My opinion was consulted as to the general arrangement, and more especially as to the choice or rejection of particular pieces. Even here I had no occasion to do more than confirm the conclusions to which she had herself arrived, and sanction the course which she had herself adopted. 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. So placed, they will not at any rate interfere with the general effect of the collection, while they add to its completeness.

All these buds of promise were once withdrawn, and, afterwards reproduced by the Author. It is not easy now to draw a line of separation, which shall not be deemed either too indulgent, or too severe. [The concluding lines of the 'Advertisement' dealt with questions of copyright]. DERWENT COLERIDGE.