The Italian original is printed in the Notes to P. W., 1893, p. 632.
[Vide ante, p. 409]
The German original is translated from an MS. Notebook of ? 1801.
[Vide ante, p. 414]
See Lessing's 'Zerstreute Anmerkungen über das Epigramm', Sämmtliche Werke, 1824, ii. 22.
[Vide ante, p. 427]
Fede, Speranza, Carità.
Fede.
Speranza.
Fe. Sp. Ca.
Ca. Fe.
Fe. Sp.
Ca.
Sp. Fe.
Ca. Sp.
Fe.
Fe. Sp. Ca.
Madrigali 138, 139.
1663 or 9.
[Vide ante, p. 435]
'An das Meer.'
The German original is printed in the Notes to P. W., 1893, p. 639. See, too, Prefatory Memoir to the Tauchnitz edition of Coleridge's Poems, by P. Freiligrath (1852).
The / Fall / of / Robespierre. / An / Historic Drama. / By S. T. Coleridge, / Of Jesus College, Cambridge. / Cambridge: / Printed by Benjamin Flower, / For W. H. Lunn, and J. and J. Merrill; and Sold / By J. March, Norwich. / 1794. / [Price One Shilling.]
[8o.
Collation.—Title, one leaf, p. [i], [Dedication] To H. Martin, Esq., Of Jesus College, Cambridge (dated, September 22. 1794), p. [3]; Text, pp. [5]-37.
Poems / on / Various Subjects, /By S. T. Coleridge, / Late of Jesus College, Cambridge. / Felix curarum, cui non Heliconia cordi / Serta, nec imbelles Parnassi e vertice laurus! / Sed viget ingenium, et magnos accinctus in usus / Fert animus quascunque vices.—Nos tristia vitae / Solamur cantu. / Stat. Silv. Lib. iv. 4.[1135:1] / London: / Printed for G. G. and J. Robinsons, and / J. Cottle, Bookseller, Bristol. / 1796. /
[8o.
Collation.—Half-title, Poems / on Various Subjects, / By / S. T. Coleridge, / Late / Of Jesus College, Cambridge. /, one leaf, p. [i]; Title, one leaf, p. [iii]; Preface, pp. [v]-xi; Contents, pp. [xiii]-xvi; Text, pp. [1]-168; Notes on Religious Musings, pp. [169]-175; Notes, pp. [177]-188; Errata, p. [189].[1135:2]
Contents.—
Poems on various subjects written at different times and prompted by very different feelings; but which will be read at one time and under the influence of one set of feelings—this is an heavy disadvantage: for we love or admire a poet in proportion as he developes our own sentiments and emotions, or reminds us of our own knowledge.
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. To 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 solace and can find it in employment alone; but full of its late sufferings it can endure no employment not connected with those sufferings. Forcibly to turn away our attention to other subjects is a painful and in general an unavailing effort.
The communicativeness of our nature leads us to describe our own sorrows; in the endeavor to describe them intellectual activity is exerted; and by a benevolent law of our nature from intellectual activity a pleasure results 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 a personal unity 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?
There is one species of egotism which is truly disgusting; not that which leads us to communicate our feelings to others, but that which would reduce the feelings of others to an identity with our own. The Atheist, who exclaims "pshaw!" when he glances his eye on the praises of Deity, is an Egotist; an old man, when he speaks contemptuously of love-verses, is an Egotist; and your sleek favourites of 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. With what anxiety every fashionable author avoids the word I!—now he transforms himself into a third person,—"the present writer"—now multiplies himself and swells into "we"—and all this is the watchfulness of guilt. Conscious that this said I is perpetually intruding on his mind and that it monopolizes his heart, he is prudishly solicitous that it may not escape from his lips.
This disinterestedness of phrase is in general commensurate with selfishness of feeling: men old and hackneyed in the ways of the world are scrupulous avoiders of Egotism.
Of the following Poems a considerable number are styled "Effusions," in defiance of Churchill's line
I could recollect no title more descriptive of the manner and matter of the Poems—I might indeed have called the majority of them Sonnets—but they do not possess that oneness of thought which I deem indispensible (sic) in a Sonnet—and (not a very honorable motive perhaps) I was fearful that the title "Sonnet" might have reminded my reader of the Poems of the Rev. W. L. Bowles—a comparison with whom would have sunk me below that mediocrity, on the surface of which I am at present enabled to float.
Some of the verses allude to an intended emigration to America on the scheme of an abandonment of individual property.
The Effusions signed C. L. were written by Mr. Charles Lamb, of the India House—independently of the signature their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them. For the rough sketch of Effusion XVI, I am indebted to Mr. Favell. And the first half of Effusion XV was written by the Author of "Joan of Arc", an Epic Poem.
(i)
I cannot conclude the Preface without expressing my grateful acknowledgments to Mr. Cottle, Bristol, for the liberality with which (with little probability I know of remuneration from the sale) he purchased the poems, and the typographical elegance by which he endeavoured to recommend them, (or)—the liberal assistance which he afforded me, by the purchase of the copyright with little probability of remuneration from the sale of the Poems.
[This acknowledgement, which was omitted from the Preface to the First Edition, was rewritten and included in the 'Advertisement' to the 'Supplement' to the Second Edition.]
(ii)
A man beloved of Science and of Freedom, these Poems are
respectfully inscribed by
The Author.
[In a letter to Miss Cruikshank (? 1807) (Early Recollections, 1837, i. 201), Coleridge maintains that the 'Sonnet to Earl Stanhope', which was published in Poems, 1796 (vide ante, pp. 89, 90), 'was inserted by the fool of a publisher [Cottle prints 'inserted by Biggs, the fool of a printer'] in order, forsooth, that he might send the book and a letter to Earl Stanhope; who (to prove that he is not mad in all things) treated both book and letter with silent contempt.' In a note Cottle denies this statement, and maintains that the 'book (handsomely bound) and the letter were sent to Lord S. by Mr. C. himself'. It is possible that before the book was published Coleridge had repented of Sonnet, Dedication, and Letter, and that the 'handsomely bound' volume was sent by Cottle and not by Coleridge, but the 'Dedication' is in his own handwriting and proves that he was, in the first instance at least, particeps criminis. See Note by J. D. Campbell, P. W., 1893, pp. 575, 576.]
Collation.—No title; Introduction, pp. [1]-2; Text (of Sonnets Nos. i-xxviii), pp. 3-16. Signatures A. B. B2. [1796.]
[8o.
[There is no imprint. In a letter to John Thelwall, dated December 17, 1796 (Letters of S. T. C., 1895, i, 206), Coleridge writes, 'I have sent you . . . Item, a sheet of sonnets collected by me, for the use of a few friends, who payed the printing.' The 'sheet' is bound up with a copy of 'Sonnets and Other poems, by The Rev. W. L. Bowles A. M. Bath, printed by R. Cruttwell: and sold by C. Dilly, Poultry, London, mdccxcvi. Fourth Edition,' which was presented to Mrs. Thelwall, Dec. 18, 1796. At the end of the 'Sonnets' a printed slip (probably a cutting from a newspaper) is inserted, which contains the lines 'To a Friend who had declared his intention of Writing no more Poetry' (vide ante, pp. 158, 159). This volume is now in the Dyce Collection, which forms part of the Victoria and Albert Museum. See P. and D. W., 1877, ii, pp. 375-9, and P. W., 1893, p. 544.]
Contents.—
The composition of the Sonnet has been regulated by Boileau in his Art
of Poetry, and since Boileau, by William Preston, in the elegant preface
to his Amatory Poems: the rules, which they would establish, are founded
on the practice of Petrarch. I have never yet been able to discover either
sense, nature, or poetic fancy in Petrarch's poems; they appear to me all 5
one cold glitter of heavy conceits and metaphysical abstractions.
However, Petrarch, although not the inventor of the Sonnet, was the first
who made it popular; and his countrymen have taken his poems as the
model. Charlotte Smith and Bowles are they who first made the Sonnet
popular among the present English: I am justified therefore by analogy 10
in deducing its laws from their compositions.
The Sonnet then is a small poem, in which some lonely feeling is
developed. It is limited to a particular number of lines, in order that the
reader's mind having expected the close at the place in which he finds it,
may rest satisfied; and that so the poem may acquire, as it were, a Totality,—in 15
plainer phrase, may become a Whole. It is confined to fourteen lines,
because as some particular number is necessary, and that particular
number must be a small one, it may as well be fourteen as any other
number. When no reason can be adduced against a thing, Custom is a
sufficient reason for it. Perhaps, if the Sonnet were comprized in less 20
than fourteen lines, it would become a serious Epigram; if it extended to
more, it would encroach on the province of the Elegy. Poems, in which
no lonely feeling is developed, are not Sonnets because the Author has
chosen to write them in fourteen lines; they should rather be entitled
Odes, or Songs, or Inscriptions. The greater part of Warton's Sonnets are 25
severe and masterly likenesses of the style of the Greek επιγραμματα.
In a Sonnet then we require a developement of some lonely feeling, by
whatever cause it may have been excited; but those Sonnets appear to me
the most exquisite, in which moral Sentiments, Affections, or Feelings,
are deduced from, and associated with, the scenery of Nature. Such 30
compositions generate a habit of thought highly favourable to delicacy of
character. They create a sweet and indissoluble union between the
intellectual and the material world. Easily remembered from their briefness,
and interesting alike to the eye and the affections, these are the poems
which we can "lay up in our heart, and our soul," and repeat them "when 35
we walk by the way, and when we lie down, and when we rise up".
Hence the Sonnets of Bowles derive their marked superiority over all
other Sonnets; hence they domesticate with the heart, and become, as it
were, a part of our identity.
Respecting the metre of a Sonnet, the Writer should consult his own 40
convenience.—Rhymes, many or few, or no rhymes at all—whatever the
chastity of his ear may prefer, whatever the rapid expression of his
feelings will permit;—all these things are left at his own disposal. A
sameness in the final sound of its words is the great and grievous defect of the
Italian language. That rule, therefore, which the Italians have 45
established, of exactly four different sounds in the Sonnet, seems to have arisen
from their wish to have as many, not from any dread of finding more. But
surely it is ridiculous to make the defect of a foreign language a reason for
our not availing ourselves of one of the marked excellencies of our own.
"The Sonnet (says Preston,) will ever be cultivated by those who write on 50
tender, pathetic subjects. It is peculiarly adapted to the state of a man
violently agitated by a real passion, and wanting composure and vigor of
mind to methodize his thought. It is fitted to express a momentary burst
of Passion" etc. Now, if there be one species of composition more difficult
and artificial than another, it is an English Sonnet on the Italian Model. 55
Adapted to the agitations of a real passion! Express momentary bursts
of feeling in it! I should sooner expect to write pathetic Axes or pour
forth Extempore Eggs and Altars![1140:1] But the best confutation of such idle rules
is to be found in the Sonnets of those who have observed them, in their
inverted sentences, their quaint phrases, and incongruous mixture of 60
obsolete and Spenserian words: and when, at last, the thing is toiled and
hammered into fit shape, it is in general racked and tortured Prose rather
than any thing resembling Poetry. Miss Seward, who has perhaps
succeeded the best in these laborious trifles and who most dogmatically
insists on what she calls "the sonnet-claim," has written a very 65
ingenious although unintentional burlesque on her own system, in the
following lines prefixed to the Poems of a Mr. Carey.
| Sonnet | |
| i. | To a Friend |
| 'Bereave me not of these delightful Dreams.'—W. L. Bowles.[1141:1] | |
| ii. | 'With many a weary step at length I gain.'—R. Southey. |
| iii. | To Scotland |
| 'Scotland! when thinking on each heathy hill.'—C. Lloyd. | |
| iv. | To Craig-Millar Castle in which Mary Queen of Scots was confined. |
| 'This hoary labyrinth, the wreck of Time.'—C. Lloyd. | |
| v. | To the River Otter |
| 'Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West.'—S. T. Coleridge. | |
| vi. | 'O Harmony! thou tenderest Nurse of Pain.'—W. L. Bowles. |
| vii. | To Evening |
| 'What numerous tribes beneath thy shadowy wing.'—Bamfield. | |
| viii. | On Bathing |
| 'When late the trees were stript by winter pale'.—T. Warton. | |
| ix. | 'When eddying Leaves begun in whirls to fly.'—Henry Brooks, (the Author of the Fool of Quality.) |
| x. | 'We were two pretty Babes, the younger she'.—Charles Lamb. |
| [Note]. Innocence which while we possess it is playful as a babe, becomes awful, when it departs from us. That is the sentiment of the line, a fine sentiment, and nobly expressed.—The Editor. | |
| xi. | 'I knew a gentle maid I ne'er shall view.'—W. Sotheby. |
| xii. | 'Was it some sweet device of faery land.'—Charles Lamb. |
| xiii. | 'When last I rov'd these winding wood-walks green.'—Charles Lamb. |
| xiv. | On a Discovery made too late. |
| 'Thou bleedest, my poor Heart! and thy distress.'—S. T. Coleridge. | |
| xv. | 'Hard by the road, where on that little mound.'—Robert Southey. |
| xvi. | The Negro Slave |
| 'Oh he is worn with toil! the big drops run.'—Robert Southey. | |
| xvii. | 'Sweet Mercy! how my very heart has bled.'—S. T. Coleridge. |
| xviii. | 'Could then the babes from yon unshelter'd cot.'—Thomas Russel. |
| xix. | 'Mild arch of promise on the evening sky.'—Robert Southey. |
| xx. | 'Oh! She was almost speechless nor could hold.'—Charles Lloyd. |
| xxi. | 'When from my dreary Home I first mov'd on'—Charles Lloyd. |
| xxii. | 'In this tumultuous sphere for thee unfit.'—Charlotte Smith. |
| xxiii. | 'I love the mournful sober-suited Night.'—Charlotte Smith. |
| xxiv. | 'Lonely I sit upon the silent shore.'—Thomas Dermody. |
| xxv. | 'Oh! I could laugh to hear the midnight wind.'—Charles Lamb. |
| xxvi. | 'Thou whose stern spirit loves the awful storm.'—W. L. Bowles. |
| xxvii. | 'Ingratitude, how deadly is thy smart.'—Anna Seward. |
| xxviii. | To the Author of the "Robbers" |
| 'That fearful voice, a famish'd Father's cry.'—S. T. Coleridge. | |
| [At the foot of l. 14. S. T. C. writes— | |
| 'I affirm, John Thelwall! that the six last lines of this Sonnet to Schiller are strong and fiery; and you are the only one who thinks otherwise.—There's! a spurt of Author-like Vanity for you!'] |
Ode / on the / Departing Year. / By S. T. Coleridge. / Ιου, ιου, ω ω κακα, Υπ' αυ με δεινος ορθομαντειας πονος / Στροβει, ταρασσων φροιμιοις εφημιοις, / . . . . . . / το μελλον ηξει· και συ μην ταχει παρων / Αγαν γ' αληθομαντιν μ' ερεις. / ÆSCHYL. AGAMEM. 1225. / Bristol; Printed by N. Biggs, / and sold by J. Parsons, Paternoster Row, London. / 1796. /
[4o.
Collation.—Title, one leaf, p. [1]; Dedication, To Thomas Poole of Stowey, pp. [3]-4; Text, pp. [5]-15; Lines Addressed to a Young Man of Fortune who abandoned himself to an indolent and causeless Melancholy (signed) S. T. Coleridge, p. 16. [Signatures—B (p. 5)—D (p. 13).]
Poems, / By / S. T. Coleridge, / Second Edition. / To which are now added / Poems / By Charles Lamb, / And / Charles Lloyd. / Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitiae et similium / junctarumque Camœnarum; quod utinam neque mors / solvat, neque temporis longinquitas! / Groscoll. Epist. ad Car. Utenhov. et Ptol. Lux. Tast. / Printed by N. Biggs, / For J. Cottle, Bristol, and Messrs. / Robinsons, London. / 1797. /
[8o.
Collation.—Title-page, one leaf, p. [i]; Half-title, one leaf, Poems / by / S. T. Coleridge / [followed by Motto as in No. II], pp. [iii]-[iv]; Contents, pp. [v]-vi; Dedication, To the Reverend George Coleridge of Ottery St. Mary, / Devon. Notus in frates animi paterni. Hor. Carm. Lib. II. 2. /, pp. [vii]-xii; Preface to the First Edition, pp. [xiii]-xvi; Preface to the Second Edition, pp. [xvii]-xx; Half-title, Ode / on the / Departing Year [with motto (5 lines) from Aeschy. Agamem. 1225], one leaf, pp. [1]-[2]; Argument, pp. [3]-[4]; Text, pp. [5]-278; Errata (four lines) at the foot of p. 278.
[Carolus Utenhovius (Utenhove, or Uyttenhove) and Ptolomœus Luxius Tasteus were scholar friends of the Scottish poet and historian George Buchanan (1506-1582), who prefixes some Iambics 'Carolo Utenhovio F. S.' to his Hexameters 'Franciscanus et Fratres'. In some Elegiacs addressed to Tasteus and Tevius, in which he complains of his sufferings from gout and kindred maladies, he tells them that Groscollius (Professor of Medicine at the University of Paris) was doctoring him with herbs and by suggestion:—'Et spe languentem consilioque juvat'. Hence the three names. In another set of Iambics entitled 'Mutuus Amor' in which he celebrates the alliance between Scotland and England he writes:—
Hence the wording of the motto. Groscollius is, of course, a mot à double entente. It is a name and a nickname. The interpretation of the names and the reference to Buchanan's Hexameters were first pointed out by Mr. T. Hutchinson in the Athenaeum, Dec. 10, 1898.]
[Titles of poems not in 1796 are printed in italics.]
Poems by S. T. Coleridge.
Poems by Charles Lloyd. pp. [151]-189. Second Edition.
Poems on The Death of Priscilla Farmer, By her Grandson Charles Lloyd, pp. [191]-213.
Sonnet ['The piteous sobs that choak the Virgin's breath', signed S. T. Coleridge], p. 193.
Poems by Charles Lamb of the India-House. pp. [215]-240.
| Supplement. | |
| Advertisement | 243 |
| Lines to Joseph Cottle, by S. T. Coleridge | 246 |
| On an Autumnal Evening, by ditto, | 249 |
| In the manner of Spencer (sic), by ditto, | 256 |
| The Composition of a Kiss, by ditto, | 260 |
| To an Infant, by Ditto | 264 |
| On the Christening of a Friend's Child, by ditto, | 264 |
| To the Genius of Shakespeare, by Charles Lloyd, | 267 |
| Written after a Journey into North Wales, by ditto, | 270 |
| A Vision of Repentance, by Charles Lamb, | 273 |
[Pp. [xiii]-xvi.]
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. To censure it in a Monody or Sonnet is almost
as absurd as to dislike a circle for being round. Why then write Sonnets 5
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 10
a painful and most often an unavailing effort: