THE POETICAL WORKS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. EDITED BY DERWENT AND SARA COLERIDGE. NEW-YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 346 & 348 BROADWAY, MDCCCLVII. ADVERTISEMENT. THIS volume was prepared for the press by my lamented sister, Mrs. H. N. Coleridge, and will have an additional interest to many readers as the last monument of her highly-gifted mind. At her earnest request, my name appears with hers on the title-page, but the assistance rendered by me has been, in fact, little more than mechanical. The preface, and the greater part of the notes, are her composition:-the selection and arrangement have been determined almost exclusively by her critical judgment, or from records in her possession. A few slight corrections cad unimportant additions are all that have been found necessary, the first and last sheets not having had the benefit of her own revision. PERWENT COLERIDGE. ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, CHELSEA, May, 1852, PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. As a chronological arrangement of Poetry in completed collections is now beginning to find general favour, pains have been taken to follow this method in the present Edition of S. T. Coleridge's Poetical Works, as far as circumstances permitted that is to say, as far as the date of composition of each poem was ascertainable, and as far as the plan could be carried out without effacing the classes into which the Author had himself distributed his most important poetical publication, the "Sibylline Leaves," namely, POEMS OCCASIONED BY POLITICAL EVENTS, OR FEELINGS CONNECTED WITH THEM; LOVE POEMS; MEDITATIVE POEMS IN BLANK VERSE; ODES AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. On account of these impediments, together with the fact, that many a poem, such as it appears in its ultimate form, is the growth of different periods, the agreement with chronology in this Edition is approximative rather than perfect yet in the majority of instances the date of each piece has been made out, and its place fixed accordingly. |