HPB-SB-10-253: Difference between revisions

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{{Style S-Small capitals| “Senex”}} writes:—Since I wrote the note on Coleridge’s habit, when residing with his friend Gillman, of annotating the books circulated by the Highgate Book Club, I have picked up a copy of Dr. John Brown’s interesting little tract, “Bibliomania,” and in it I find two passages to which I hope you will allow me to draw attention. The first, which with Brown’s comment would occupy too much of your space to admit of my quoting it, refers to a curious note in Coleridge’s handwriting in a copy of Whistle craft’s (Hookham Frere) ''Prospectus and Specimen'' ''of an Intended National Work, ''“which formerly belonged to Mr. Gillman,” and probably is one of the books to which I referred, and as such strongly confirmatory of what I had said upon the subject. Some half-dozen pages of the Doctor’s essay are occupied with his account of Coleridge’s own copy of the first edition of Southey’s ''Joan of Arc, ''which is one of those volumes of which Lamb speaks as “enriched with S. T. C.’s annotations, tripling their value.” I only propose to refer to one of them. Coleridge had a large share in the composition of this poem, and criticises it pretty freely. The greater part of Book II. was written by Coleridge himself, and is marked as his composition. At the long passage beginning “Maid beloved of Heaven,” he has written, “These are very fine lines, though I say it that should not; but hang me if I know, or ever did know, the meaning of them, though my own composition.” Startling as this candid confession is, it has been paralleled in my own time by as great a poet as Coleridge, as I have reason to know. When Lord Francis Egerton was translating ''Faust ''he came to a passage which puzzled him. He referred to all the numerous writings upon Goethe’s masterpiece by his admiring countrymen, but without success; and, as a last resource, he determined to write to the poet himself. He did so, and in due time received a very courteous reply, nearly identical with Coleridge’s confession—at least, so far as an acknowledgment on Goethe’s part that he really did not know what he had in his mind when he wrote the passage in question. I hope I shall not be looked upon as a literary heretic if I suggest to such of my friends as are in the habit of discussing so interminably some of the more obscure passages in the writings of Shakespeare, that if through mes-{{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|10-254}}