Transcriber's Note
Every effort has been made to replicate this text asfaithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and otherinconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an obvious erroris noted at the end of this ebook.
The cover image was produced by Jeroen Hellingman and has been placedinto the public domain.
COLERIDGE
By S. L. BENSUSAN
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
67 LONG ACRE, W. C., AND EDINBURGH
NEW YORK: DODGE PUBLISHING CO.
CONTENTS
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| INTRODUCTION | 7 | |
| I. | EARLY YEARS | 13 |
| II. | IN SEARCH OF THE IDEAL | 25 |
| III. | IN THE LAKE COUNTRY AND AT MALTA | 33 |
| IV. | TROUBLED YEARS | 41 |
| V. | COLERIDGE AS AN OBSERVER OF NATURE | 61 |
| VI. | COLERIDGE AS POET AND CRITIC | 75 |
| INDEX | 93 |
COLDERIDGE
[Pg 7]INTRODUCTION
Among the great writers whose activity is associated with the closingyears of the eighteenth and the opening of the nineteenth centuries, areseveral who claim more respect than popularity. If they were poets,their works find a place in a thousand libraries, but the dust gathersupon covers long unopened, and only the stray enthusiast removes it.Southey, Cowper, and Coleridge, for example, are authors of well-nighuniversal acceptance, but who, outside the ranks of professed studentsof poetry, could claim an intimate acquaintance with their work? In AnAnthology of Longer Poems published at Oxford two years ago andprepared by two Professors of English Literature, Southey, for all hisgreat gifts, is not represented at all, and William Cowper isresponsible for nothing more than the familiar lines to his mother'spicture.
Dryden and Alexander Pope, Goldsmith, Gray, Crabbe, and Thomson arelittle more than names to the most of the generation that has justentered upon its inheritance. Perhaps, if the truth be told, thepresent-day reading public cannot keep pace with[Pg 8] its ever-growing task,and satisfies its conscience by paying to the worthy dead the sacrificeof a small expenditure. In the old time it was hard to gather a modestlib