had long ceased to be juvenile, were first published in 1796. The second edition, which appeared in May, 1797, omitted nineteen pieces of the previous publication, and added eleven new. The volume, says Mr. H. N. Coleridge, in a note to the Biographia Literaria, comprised poems by Lamb and Lloyd, and on the title-page was printed the prophetic aspiration :

-“Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitiæ junctarumque Camoenarum, quod utinam neque mors solvat; neque temporis longinquitas." *

66

In the London edition of 1803, fifty-two of the pieces, contained in the first and second, were again presented to the public, but, what is now difficult to account for, unaccompanied by many fine poems which were undoubtedly written by that time, but saw not the light till, in 1817, they formed a part of the "Sibylline Leaves," beside the "Ancient Mariner," "The Foster-Mother's Tale" (an off-shoot from Remorse," then entitled "Osorio "), and "The Nightingale a Conversation Poem," which entered the world along with the afterwards celebrated and ever immortal "Lyrical Ballads" of William Wordsworth. Only thirty-six of the Juvenile Poems were included in the collection of Coleridge's "Poetical and Dramatic Works," published by Mr. Pickering in 1828. These, all produced before the Author's twenty-fourth year, 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

• Biographia Literaria, 2nd edit., vol. i., p. 4.

Muse which the over-grateful 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.

2. Poems of Early Manhood are "The Ancient Mariner," "The Wanderings of Cain," "Kubla Khan,” "Christabel," Part I. The "Sibylline Leaves of 1817 comprises many minor poems of the same date as those just mentioned, and likewise another set, which must be referred to Middle Life, that collection extending from 1796 to the time of publication. The second part of "Christabel" we know, on the Poet's own authority, to have been composed in 1800; it therefore occupies an intermediate station between the two eras.

"Remorse" was first cast at Stowey, in 1797 or 8. Alvar's Soliloquy (Act v., Scene 1,) was published with the "Lyrical Ballads," in 1798, under the title of "The Dungeon." The translation of "Wallenstein" was made in the winter of 1800. "Zapolya," published in 1817, must have been composed somewhere between 1814 and 1816.*

3. Poems written in Later Life. The second edition of the "Sibylline Leaves contained a certain number of short poems, quaintly designated "Prose

See Dramatic Works.

in Rhyme, Moralities, Epigrams, and Poems without a Name." The whole of these, as late productions, are placed in the last section, and to them are added many other pieces, serious and sportive, which are known to have been the harvest of the latest season accorded to the Poet in this state of existence.

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 who, not to mention the boon he has conferred on the public in preserving so valuable a record of his Uncle's conversation as is contained in the Table Talk of S. T. Coleridge, performed his task in editing The Friend, The Literary Remains, The Church and State and Lay Sermons, and The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, in a manner which must ever procure him sentiments of gratitude from all who prize the writings of 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 his 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.

:

The "Allegoric Vision," as it cannot be considered poetry in the full sense of the word, and may be read with much more advantage in its proper place-the Introduction to the Author's second Lay Sermon,-the

Editors have thought fit to withdraw from this collection. And a piece of extravagant humour, printed for the first time among the Author's works in 1834, rather it would appear with his acquiescence, than by his desire, has been excluded for the reasons assigned by the Author himself in the Apologetic Preface. The "Devil's Walk," having been reproduced with his full authority in the Edition of 1828, has been retained, restored, however, as in the Edition of 1834, to its original form and completeness. To this extent a discretionary privilege has been exercised, for which, it is believed, that little apology will be required by the public.*

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 Sonnets (pages 41 and 45), from the edition of 1796, the "Day-Dream" (page 221), from the Appendix to Coleridge's "Essays on his own Times," and the "Hymn" (page 315), which is now printed for the first time.

This humorous piece first appeared in the Morning Post, when, according to the Editor of that Journal, it made so great a sensation that several hundred sheets extra were sold by them, as the paper was in request for days and weeks afterwards.