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(literally) enormous.

Casimir, in the fifth Ode of his third

Book, has happily * expressed this thought.

I shall not make this an excuse, however, for troubling my Readers with any complaints or explanations, with which, as Readers, they have little or no concern. It may suffice 20 (for the present at least) to declare, that the causes that have delayed the publication of these volumes for so long a period after they had been printed off, were not connected with any neglect of my own; and that they would form an instructive comment on the Chapter concerning Authorship

* Classically too, as far as consists with the allegorizing fancy of the modern, that still striving to project the inward, contradistinguishes itself from the seeming ease with which the poetry of the ancients reflects the world without. Casimir affords, perhaps, the most striking instance of this characteristic difference. For his style and diction are really classical: while Cowley, who resembles Casimir in many respects, compleatly barbarizes his Latinity, and even his metre, by the heterogeneous nature of his thoughts. That Dr. Johnson should have passed a contrary judgement, and have even preferred Cowley's Latin Poems to Milton's, is a caprice that has, if I mistake not, excited the surprise of all scholars. I was much amused last summer with the laughable affright, with which an Italian poet perused a page of Cowley's Davideis, contrasted with the enthusiasm with which he first ran through, and then read aloud, Milton's Mansus and Ad Patrem.

as a Trade, addressed to young men of genius in the first volume of this work. I remember the ludicrous effect of the first sentence of an autobiography, which, happily for the writer, was as meagre in incidents as it is well possible for the Life of an Individual to be-"The eventful Life which 5 I am about to record, from the hour in which I rose into existence on this Planet, &c." Yet when, notwithstanding this warning example of Self-importance before me, I review my own life, I cannot refrain from applying the same epithet to it, and with more than ordinary emphasis—and 10 no private feeling, that affected myself only, should prevent me from publishing the same (for write it I assuredly shall, should life and leisure be granted me), if continued reflection should strengthen my present belief, that my history would add its contingent to the enforcement of one important 15 truth, viz. that we must not only love our neighbours as ourselves, but ourselves likewise as our neighbours; and that we can do neither unless we love God above both.

"Who lives, that's not

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Depraved or depraves? Who dies, that bears Not one spurn to the grave-of their friends' gift?” Strange as the delusion may appear, yet it is most true that three years ago I did not know or believe that I had an enemy in the world and now even my strongest sensations of gratitude are mingled with fear, and I reproach myself for 25 being too often disposed to ask,-Have I one friend ?— During the many years which intervened between the composition and the publication of the CHRISTABEL, it became almost as well known among literary men as if it had been on common sale, the same references were made to it, and the 30 same liberties taken with it, even to the very names of the imaginary persons in the poem. From almost all of our most celebrated Poets, and from some with whom I had no personal acquaintance, I either received or heard of expressions of admiration that (I can truly say) appeared to 35

myself utterly disproportionate to a work, that pretended to be nothing more than a common Faery Tale. Many, who had allowed no merit to my other poems, whether printed or manuscript, and who have frankly told me as much, 5 uniformly made an exception in favour of the CHRISTABEL and the Poem entitled LOVE. Year after year, and in societies of the most different kinds, I had been entreated to recite it and the result was still the same in all, and altogether different in this respect from the effect produced by Io the occasional recitation of any other poems I had composed. This before the publication. And since then, with very few exceptions, I have heard nothing but abuse, and this too in a spirit of bitterness at least as disproportionate to the pretensions of the poem, had it been the most pitiably 15 below mediocrity, as the previous eulogies, and far more inexplicable. In the Edinburgh Review it was assailed with a malignity and a spirit of personal hatred that ought to have injured only the work in which such a tirade appeared and this review was generally attributed (whether 20 rightly or no I know not) to a man, who both in my presence and in my absence has repeatedly pronounced it the finest poem in the language.—This may serve as a warning to authors, that in their calculations on the probable reception of a poem, they must subtract to a large amount from the 25 panegyric, which may have encouraged them to publish it, however unsuspicious and however various the sources of this panegyric may have been. And, first, allowances must be made for private enmity, of the very existence of which they had perhaps entertained no suspicion-for personal 30 enmity behind the mask of anonymous criticism: secondly for the necessity of a certain proportion of abuse and ridicule in a Review, in order to make it saleable, in consequence of which, if they have no friends behind the scenes, the chances must needs be against them; but lastly and 35 chiefly, for the excitement and temporary sympathy of

feeling, which the recitation of the poem by an admirer,
especially if he be at once a warm admirer, and a man
of acknowledged celebrity, calls forth in the audience.
For this is really a species of Animal Magnetism, in which
the enkindling reciter, by perpetual comment of looks and 5
tones, lends his own will and apprehensive faculty to his
auditors. They live for the time within the dilated sphere
of his intellectual being. It is equally possible, though not
equally common, that a reader left to himself should sink
below the poem, as that the poem left to itself should flag 10
beneath the feelings of the reader.-But, in my own instance,
I had the additional misfortune of having been gossiped
about, as devoted to metaphysics, and worse than all, to
a system incomparably nearer to the visionary flights of
Plato, and even to the jargon of the Mystics, than to the 15
established tenets of Locke. Whatever therefore appeared
with my name was condemned beforehand, as predestined
metaphysics. In a dramatic poem, which had been sub-
mitted by me to a gentleman of great influence in the
theatrical world, occurred the following passage :-

O we are querulous creatures! Little less
Than all things can suffice to make us happy :
And little more than nothing is enough

To make us wretched."

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Aye, here now! (exclaimed the Critic) here comes Coleridge's 25 Metaphysics! And the very same motive (that is, not that the lines were unfit for the present state of our immense Theatres; but that they were Metaphysics *) was assigned elsewhere for the rejection of the two following passages. The first is spoken in answer to a usurper, who had rested his 30

* Poor unlucky Metaphysics! and what are they? A single sentence expresses the object and thereby the contents of this science. Tvo σeavτóv: et Deum quantum licet, et in Deo omnia scibis. Know thyself: and so shalt thou know God, as far as is permitted to a creature, and in God all things.-Surely, there is a strange-nay, rather a too natural—aversion in many to know themselves.

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plea on the circumstances, that he had been chosen by the acclamations of the people :

"What people? How conven'd? or, if conven'd,
Must not the magic power that charms together
Millions of men in council, needs have power
To win or wield them? Rather, O far rather,
Shout forth thy titles to yon circling mountains,
And with a thousand-fold reverberation

Make the rocks flatter thee, and the volleying air,
Unbribed, shout back to thee, King Emerich !
By wholesome laws to embank the Sovereign Power,
To deepen by restraint, and by prevention

Of lawless will to amass and guide the flood
In its majestic channel, is man's task

And the true patriot's glory! In all else

Men safelier trust to heaven, than to themselves

When least themselves: even in those whirling crowds
Where folly is contagious, and too oft

Even wise men leave their better sense at home,
To chide and wonder at them, when return'd.”

The second passage is in the mouth of an old and experienced Courtier, betrayed by the man in whom he had most trusted:

"And yet Sarolta, simple, inexperienced,

Could see him as he was, and oft has warn'd me.
Whence learned she this? O she was innocent!
And to be innocent is Nature's wisdom!

The fledge-dove knows the prowlers of the air,
Fear'd soon as seen, and flutters back to shelter.
And the young steed recoils upon his haunches,
The never-yet-seen adder's hiss first heard!
Ah! surer than suspicion's hundred eyes
Is that fine sense, which to the pure in heart,
By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness,
Reveals the approach of evil."

As therefore my character as a writer could not easily be more injured by an overt act than it was already in consequence of the report, I published a work, a large portion of which was professedly metaphysical. A long delay occurred