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
Coleridge made a new collection of his Poems in 1828, which added to the
Early Poems and _Sibylline Leaves_ seventeen new pieces. The collection
was published in three volumes by Pickering, and included _Remorse_,
_Zapolya_, and _Wallenstein_. Coleridge made many careful revisions; his
corrections are a study in verse making. Another edition was issued in
1829; and here again Coleridge made alterations in twenty-one of the
poems, the chief of which were in the _Monody on the Death of
Chatterton_. The last edition of Coleridge's Poems prepared during his
life was that of 1834, in three volumes, but though the first volume was
out in May, the third volume was not issued from the press till after
his demise on 25th July. The corrections extend to twenty-three poems.
Some are merely restorations of former readings; but they constitute a
real difference from the text of 1829, and must be accepted as
belonging to the Textus Receptus. Henry Nelson Coleridge superintended
the edition, but it is not likely, as Dykes Campbell supposed, that he
made the alterations, for Coleridge was continually readjusting his
texts.
The remainder of Coleridge's life from 1829 was taken up with visits
from his old friends, in composing a Commentary on the New Testament,
writing marginalia on the English Divines, and holding his Thursday
at-homes. In 1830 he published his noble pamphlet _On the Constitution
of Church and State_. Many new friends flocked round the ageing poet, to
be introduced to whose acquaintance was one of the highest literary
treats of London life. Friendship had been the balm of Coleridge's life;
he had had his estrangements and misunderstandings. But he knew well
that
Friendship is a Sheltering Tree,
the pathos of which line can be appreciated only when we recall to mind
that its writer had been denied the full enjoyment of the deeper
friendship called Love.
A good sized volume could be compiled of all the contemporary accounts
of Coleridge. We have already had some of these. Another we must add by
a young American. Coleridge was highly appreciated on the other side of
the Atlantic; his monument in Westminster Abbey was the gift of an
American; and the late Emperor of Brazil was an admirer and student of
Coleridge. The following account is taken from _The Nation_, an American
literary journal, of 14th July 1910:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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