Biographia Epistolaris, vol 1 | Page 2

work, the letters published in the Collection of 1895, the place of which in the narrative is indicated in footnotes.
[Footnote: What has been added is enclosed in square brackets.]
The letters are drawn from the following sources:
"Biographical Supplement", 1847 ............................................ 33 Cottle's "Reminiscences", 1847 ............................................. 78 The original "Friend", 1809 ................................................. 5 "The Watchman", 1796 ........................................................ 1 Gillman's "Life of Coleridge", 1838 ......................................... 7 Allsop's "Letters, Conversations, etc., of S. T. C"., 1836 (1864) .......... 45 "Essays on his Own Times", 1850 ............................................. 1 "Life and Correspondence of R. Southey", 1850 ............................... 7 Editorials of Poems, etc .................................................... 8 "Literary Remains of S. T. C., 1836, etc" ................................... 3 "Blackwood's Magazine", October, 1821 ....................................... 1 "Fragmentary Remains of Humphry Davy", 1858 ................................ 15 "Macmillan's Magazine", 1864 (Letters to W. Godwin) ......................... 9 Southey's "Life of Andrew Bell", 3 vols., 1844 .............................. 2 "Charles Lamb and the Lloyds", by E. V. Lucas ............................... 3 "Anima Poetae", by E. H. Coleridge, 1895 .................................... 1
The letters of Coleridge have slowly come to light. Coleridge was always fond of letter-writing, and at several periods of his career he was more active in letter-writing than at others. He commenced the publication of his letters himself. The epistolary form was as dear to him in prose as the ballad or odic form in verse. From his earliest publications we can see he loved to launch a poem with "A letter to the Editor," or to the recipient, as preface. The "Mathematical Problem", one of his juvenile facetiae in rhyme, was thus heralded with a letter addressed to his brother George explaining the import of the doggerel. His first printed poem, "To Fortune" (Dykes Campbell's Edition of the "Poems", p. 27), was also prefaced by a short letter to the editor of the "Morning Chronicle". Among Coleridge's letters are several of this sort, and each affords a glimpse into his character. Those with the "Raven" and "Talleyrand to Lord Grenville" are characteristic specimens of his drollery and irony.
Coleridge's greatest triumphs in letter-writing were gained in the field of politics. His two letters to Fox, his letters on the Spaniards, and those to Judge Fletcher, are his highest specimens of epistolary eloquence, and constitute him the rival of Rousseau as an advocate of some great truth in a letter addressed to a public personage. In clearness of thought and virile precision of language they surpass the most of anything that Coleridge has written. They never wander from the point at issue; the evolution of their ideas is perfect, their idiom the purest mother-English written since the refined vocabulary of Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, and Harrington was coined.
Besides the political letters, Coleridge published during his lifetime four important letters of great length written during his sojourn in Germany. Three of these appeared in the "Friend" of 1809, and indeed were the finest part of that periodical; and one was first made public in the "Amulet" of 1829. Six letters published in "Blackwood's Magazine" of 1820-21, and a few others of less importance, brought up the number of letters published by Coleridge to 46. The following is a list of them:
7th Nov. 1793, "To Fortune," Ed. "Morning Chronicle" ................ 1 22nd Sept. 1794, Dedication to "Robespierre," to H. Martin ........... 1 1st April 1796, Letter to "Caius Gracchus," "The Watchman" ........... 1 26th Dec. 1796, Dedication to the "Ode to the Departing Year," to T. Poole ........... 1 1798, Ed. "Monthly Magazine, re Monody on Chatterton"................. 1 1799, Ed. "Morning Post," with the "Raven" ........................... 1 21 Dec. 1799, Ed. "Morning Post," with "Love" ........................ 1 10th Jan. 1800, Ed. "Morning Post, Talleyrand to Lord Grenville" ..... 1 18th Nov. 1800, "Monthly Review," on "Wallenstein" ................... 1 1834, To George Coleridge, with "Mathematical Problem" ............... 1 Political Letters to the "Morning Post" and "Courier" ................ 21 1809, Letters of Satyrane, etc., in the "Friend" ..................... 8 1820-21, Letters to "Blackwood's Magazine" ........................... 6 1829, "The Amulet," "Over the Brocken" .............................. 1 -- 46
The "Literary Remains," published in 1836, added ..................... 4
Allsop, in his "Letters, Conversations, etc.", gave to the world ..... 46
Cottle followed in 1837, with his "Early Recollections", in which .... 84 letters or fragments of letters made their appearance
Gillman in 1838 published 11 letters or fragments, 4 of which had already appeared in the works of Allsop and Cottle and in the "Friend", leaving a contribution of ................................. 7
The "Gentleman's Magazine" followed in 1838 with letters to Daniel Stuart ........................................17
Cottle, in 1847, re-cast his "Early Recollections", and called his work "Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey", and added the splendid Wedgwood series of 19 letters, and a few others of less importance, in all ...................................................25
The "Biographical Supplement" to the 1847 edition of the "Biographia Literaria" contained 33 letters, 11 of which were from Cottle; leaving a contribution of ............................................22
In 1850, Coleridge's