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another poem which he had been preparing for the vokime — Christabel. 

 The second edition contained Wordsworth's celebrated Preface. 



Certainly the best poetry which Coleridge ever wrote was this, 

 written in the Somersetshire village. In this sense he was hardly one of 

 the Lake Poets ; but this name was given to him in common with Words- 

 worth and Southey, a few years afterwards, after the removal of the three 

 friends to Cumberland. Indeed, if we regard the name as being the 

 designation of a "school" which revokitionized the current ideas of 

 poetry, Coleridge was never anything else but a "Lake Poet," widely as 

 he differed from the others. 



Coleridge's place amongst poets is indisputable. Mr. Hort says : 

 " One of the most common complaints against him is, that he quitted a 

 sphere in which he was so pre-eminently fitted to shine, for others in 

 which a poetic mind cannot but go astray. The few pages of Philo- 

 sophical Poetry which he wrote, are not at all characteristic of him. It 

 is not by this kind of poetry that he has made good his claim to be 

 ranked amongst poets. His dramatic compositions were still less 

 successful." "It is by his Odes, and still more by his Ballads, that he 

 must at last be judged." For two main articles of his literary creed, the 

 absence of arbitrary treatment in all true poetry, and the worthlessness of 

 artificial diction, we saw that he was largely indebted to his school-master; 

 for the halo of beauty and fascination which is thrown round his best 

 compositions, The Attfient Mariner, Christabel, and the ballad on Love, 

 he was indebted to nothing but his own brilliant imagination. And it is 

 undoubtedly this gift which makes us all acknowledge the true poet in 

 him. " His place," says Swinboume, " is amongst the highest of all 

 time. The highest lyric work is either passionate or imaginative. Of 

 passion Coleridge had nothing ; but for height and perfection of imagin- 

 ative quality, he is the greatest of lyric poets. This was his special 

 power, and this his special praise." 



If you wish to see what Coleridge makes of this " fusing power of 

 the Imagination," as he calls it, I would refer you to the Biographia 

 Literaria, chapters 13 and 14. It was his own chief excellence to 

 possess it ; and when he was at work on the Lyrical Ballads, he set 



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