Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia LiterariaColeridge, Samuel Taylor
General
Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 -- Correspondence
[141] [Letters CCXL-CCLIX follow 218.]
CHAPTER XXIX
ALARIC WATTS
[While at Highgate, Coleridge contributed some short pieces of poetry,
which may be regarded as his Autumn Leaves, to the Annals got up by
Alaric Alexander Watts and F. M. Reynolds, to which Sir Walter Scott and
the other leading literary men of the time were induced to send their
less ambitious pieces. Fine steel engravings accompanied the poems and
novelettes; and one of these by Stoddart, entitled the _Garden of
Boccaccio_, was the subject of a poem by Coleridge in the _Keepsake_ of
1829. For this poem and some trifling epigrams Coleridge received the
sum of £50 (_Life of Alaric Watts_, i, 292). The name of Coleridge must
have stood high to command so large a fee for the things given to the
_Keepsake_. The _Lines on Berengarius_ appeared in the _Literary
Souvenir_ of 1827, and _Youth and Age_ and _Work without Hope_ in the
_Bijou_ of 1828.
Some conception of the importance of these annuals may be gathered from
stating that the _Literary Souvenir_ of 1827, got up by Alaric Watts,
sold to the number of 7,712 copies in England, between November and
April, and 700 in America of the ordinary edition, and 528 of a
large-paper edition. There were other annuals besides these already
mentioned, called the _Forget-me-Not_, _Friendship's Offering_, _The
Amulet_, _The Winter's Wreath_, _The Anniversary_, _The Gem_, and other
kindred publications (_Life of Alaric Watts_, i, 305).
The most finished production of Coleridge's latest period is _Alice Du
Clos_, a ballad of the Romantic Movement. Much speculation as to the
date of its origin has been put forth, some thinking it belongs to the
time when the _Ancient Mariner_, _Christabel_, and the _Three Graves_
were written, others placing it between the publication of the last two
Editions of the Collected Poems, 1829-1834. But in Letter 205 of date
8th October 1822, the quotation of the two lines
That names but seldom meet with Love,
And Love wants courage without a name!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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