The resemblance between Coleridge and Amiel is very striking. Both valetudinarians and barely understood by the friends with whom they came into contact, they took refuge in the inner shrine of introspection, and clothed the most abstruse ideas in the most beautiful forms of language and imagery that is only not poetry because it is not verse. While one wrote the story of his own intellectual development in secret and retained the record of it hidden from all eyes, the other scattered his to the winds in the shape of letters, which thus, widely distributed, kept his secret until they were gathered together by later hands. The letters of Coleridge as a collection is one of the most engaging psychological studies of the history of an individual mind. The text of the letters in the present volume is reproduced from the original sources, the "Biographical Supplement", Cottle, Gillman, Allsop, and the "Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey". Fuller texts of some of the letters will be found in "Letters of S. T. C." of 1895, Litchfield's "Tom Wedgwood", and other recent publications. One of the objects of the present work is to preserve the text of the letters as presented in these authentic sources of the life of Coleridge. Letters Nos. 44, 45, and 46, from "Charles Lamb and the Lloyds", by Mr. E. V. Lucas (Smith, Elder and Co.); No. 130 from "Anima Poetae" (W. Heinemann), are printed here by arrangement with the poet's grandson, Ernest Hartley Coleridge, Esq., to whom my sincere thanks are also due for his kindness in reading the proofs. Mr. Coleridge, of course, is not responsible for any of the opinions expressed in this work; but he has taken great pains in putting me right regarding certain views of others who had written on Coleridge, and also on some of the mistakes made by Henry Nelson Coleridge and Sara Coleridge, who had insufficient data on the matters on which they wrote, and definite information on which, indeed, could not be ascertainable in 1847. Coming from Mr. Coleridge--the chief living authority on the life, letters, and published and unpublished writings of S. T. Coleridge--the corrections in the footnotes and elsewhere may be taken as authoritative; and I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to him accordingly, ARTHUR TURNBULL. KIRKCALDY, 31st January, 1911. WORKS RELATING TO COLERIDGE "Early Years and Late Reflections". By Clement Carlyon, M.D. 4 vols. 1836-1858. "Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge". With a Preface by the Editor. Moxon, 1836. 2 vols. Second Edition. By Thomas Allsop. 1858. Third Edition, 1864. "Early Recollections, chiefly relating to the late S. T. Coleridge during his long residence in Bristol". By Joseph Cottle. 2 vols. 1837. "The Letters of Charles Lamb with a Sketch of his Life". By Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, 1837; and "Final Memorials", 1848. "Reminiscences of S. T. Coleridge and Robert Southey". By Joseph Cottle. 1847. 1 vol.