If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin-compasses are two, Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th' other do. And though it in the centre sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must Like th' other foot, obliquely run. Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun._ --Donne._ In all these examples it is apparent that whatever is improper or vicious is produced by a voluntary deviation from nature in pursuit of something new and strange, and that the writers fail to give delight by their desire of exciting admiration. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. (1772-1834) IV. ON POETIC GENIUS AND POETIC DICTION. The following passage forms Chapters xiv and xv of Coleridge's _Biographia Literaria_, published in 1817 It has been selected as giving a less imperfect impression of his powers as a critic than any other piece that could have been chosen The truth is that, great in talk and supreme in poetry, Coleridge was lost directly he sat down to express himself in prose His style is apt to be cumbrous, and his matter involved. We feel that the critic himself was greater than any criticism recorded either in his writings or his lectures The present extract may be defined as an attempt, and an attempt less inadequate than was common with Coleridge, to state his poetic creed, and to illustrate it by reference to his own poetry and to that of Wordsworth and of Shakespeare. In what he says of Shakespeare he is at his best. He forgets himself, and writes with a single eye to a theme which was thoroughly worthy of his powers. In the earlier part of the piece, and indeed indirectly throughout, he has in mind Wordsworth's famous Preface to the _Lyrical Ballads_, which is to be found in any complete edition of Wordsworth's poems, or in his poise writings, as edited by Dr. Grosart.