Search -
The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ed. by T. Ashe
The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Ed by T Ashe Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1885 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: Southey like the " stroke of lightning" he said it would. What does he say on hearing of it? "He had long been dead to me, but his decease has naturally wakened up old recollections." Very naturally. When Wordsworth read aloud the news from a letter H. N. Coleridge had written him, " his voice at first faltered, and then broke; but soon divine faith that the change was a blest one overcame aught of human grief, and he concluded in an equable though subdued tone." Lamb's tribute was characteristic. Like a faithful dog he fretted away and died. § 2. COLERIDGE AS A POET. " The rapt one, of the godlike forehead." -- Wordsworth. " A most original genius." -- De Quincey. " I consider Crabbe and Coleridge as the first of these times in point of power and genius." -- Byron. " He is the only person I ever knew who answered to the idea of a man of genius." -- Hazlitt. " If there be any man of grand and original genius alive at this moment in Europe, it is Coleridge." -- Prof. Wilson. " Most distinguished for his knowledge and genius." -- Wordsworth. There is no call on us to sit in judgment on Coleridge as a poet, and our space is limited; but there are a few things we wish to say. Wordsworth will have it1 that the first requisites of a poet are the power of observing accurately and the power of describing faithfully, which is as much as to say he must be endowed with intelligence, and be able to rule it. Coleridge certainly possessed these qualifications. He was a minute observer of nature 2 and of human nature, and an accurate por- trayer of both. But his strength lay rather in particulars than in ...« less