to see I had accidentally preserved, and which was in the

following form:

LONDON PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,

SCOT'S CORPORATION HALL,

CRANE COURT, FLEET STREET,

(ENTRANCE FROM FETTER LANE.)

MR. COLERIDGE

WILL COMMENCE

ON MONDAY, NOV. 18th,

A COURSE OF LECTURES ON SHAKESPEAR AND MILTON,

IN ILLUSTRATION OF

THE PRINCIPLES OF POETRY,

AND THEIR

Application as Grounds of Criticism to the most popular Works of later English Poets, those of the Living included.

AFTER an introductory Lecture on False Criticism, (especially in Poetry,) and on its Causes: two thirds of the remaining course, will be assigned, 1st, to a philosophic Analysis and Explanation of all the principal Characters of our great Dramatist, as OTHELLO, FALSTAFF, RICHARD 3d, IAGO, HAMLET, &c.: and 2nd, to a critical Comparison of SHAKESPEAR, in respect of Diction, Imagery, management of the Passions, Judgment in the construction of his Dramas, in short, of all that belongs to him as a Poet, and as a dramatic Poet, with his contemporaries, or immediate successors, JONSON, BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, FORD, MASSINGER, &c. in the endeavour to determine what of SHAKESPEAR'S Merits and Defects are common to him with other Writers of the same age, and what remain peculiar to his own Genius.

The Course will extend to fifteen Lectures, which will be given on Monday and Thursday evenings successively. The Lectures to commence at past 7 o'clock.

Single Tickets for the whole Course, 2 Guineas; or 3 Guineas with the privilege of introducing a Lady: may be procured at J. Hatchard's, 190, Piccadilly; J. Murray's, Fleet Street; J. and A. Arch's, Booksellers and Stationers, Cornhill; Godwin's Juvenile Library, Skinner Street; W. Pople's, 67, Chancery Lane; or by Letter (post paid) to Mr. S. T. Coleridge, J. J. Morgan's, Esq. No. 7, Portland Place, Hammersmith.

W. Pople, Printer, Chancery Lane, London.

It will be seen that the only date given is "Monday Nov. 18th," without the addition of the year; and when, in July and August 1854, I sent some brief quotations from these Lectures to the Editor of " Notes and Queries," looking at the Prospectus and seeing my figures "1812" in pencil upon it, and finding also that in a Diary I then kept, I had written the same year in ink, I concluded, without farther inquiry, that that date was correct. At what remote period I wrote either the pencil figures, or those in ink, is not very material: suffice it to say, that I could have no reason, nor intention, to misstate the fact, since 1811 would have suited my purpose quite as well, or even better, than 1812; and when I transmitted my first communication to the periodical I have named (for which, and for the rest, I never dreamed of remuneration) for the sake merely of clearness I added "1812" in brackets, in this form, "November 18th (1812)," thereby meaning, that the figures were no part of the document as it had been issued. Such was a very usual course, and I apprehended that it would be well understood.

Nevertheless, in Gilman's incomplete Life of S. T. Coleridge (which I never saw until a short time ago) it was stated that the Lectures were delivered in 1811; and those figures were placed after "November 18th," without brackets, and just as if they had been so printed in the Prospectus. Upon this circumstance a charge has been got up against me, that I inserted "(1812)" for the purpose of deceiving the reader, and that as no Lectures were delivered by Coleridge in 1812, I must have fabricated my communications to "Notes and Queries," and palmed upon its readers my own notions as the dicta of the poet-critic.

The truth is, that Mr. Gilman no more meant to deceive about the year, when he incautiously made it seem as if 1811 had stood in the original Prospectus, than I did when I erroneously supposed that 1812 was the date, and for greater caution placed those figures between brackets. Mr. Gilman was right in his date, but wrong in his mode of printing it: I was wrong in my date, but right in my mode of printing it.

As to the mere matter of fact, I was nearly as correct as Mr. Gilman; for, although the Lectures began in 1811, they did not end until 1812. They commenced on November 18th, at the rate of two in each week; so that, supposing Coleridge not to have been at all interrupted, either by indisposition or by the usual festivities of Christmas, the series of fifteen Lectures could not have been concluded until near the middle of January, 1812. What really happened in this respect I cannot remember: I know nobody alive to whom I can appeal; but my strong persuasion is, that Coleridge was obliged several times to break in upon the regularity of his course. My original memoranda give me no light upon the point, because they are severally headed "Coleridge's First Lecture," 'Second Lecture," &c., without date of the day or year. I have little doubt that the last Lecture was not delivered until February, or even March, and that when I wrote "1812" upon the Prospectus, and in my Diary, I referred to the time when the series had been concluded.

66

But, really and truly, this is a point on which it would be most unreasonable to expect any third person to take the slightest interest; and I can only excuse my notice of it on the score, that the supposed error in date has been made the

ground of serious imputation against me, with reference to Coleridge's Lectures.

My original notes, therefore, were taken at the close of 1811 and at the opening of 1812. I endeavoured in the interval between each lecture to transcribe them; but, from other avocations, I was unable to keep pace with the delivery, and at the termination of the course I must have been considerably in arrear: while I am writing I have two of my short-hand books (sheets of paper stitched together) before me, which remained undecyphered from 1812 until 1854, a period of forty-two years. During the whole time I did not know what had become of any of them. I attended another course by the same lecturer in 1818, of which I had taken and preserved only a few scattered excerpts; and I cannot call to mind whether, even at that date, my notes of the previous lectures of 1811-12 were forthcoming. I know that I afterwards searched for them several times unsuccessfully; and with great diligence about the year 1842, when I was engaged in preparing a new edition of Shakespeare, to which I apprehended the opinions of Coleridge on the different plays would have been an important recommendation. I again failed to find them, and in 1850 I took up my residence in the country, carrying with me only such furniture as I required, and among it a double chest of drawers, in the highest part of which I subsequently discovered some of, but, I lament to say, by no means all, my lost notes. Even these were not brought to light until I was preparing to remove to my present residence, and was employing myself in turning out waste paper and worthless relics from every receptacle.

f

As doubt, however unfairly and unjustifiably, has been cast

on my re-acquisition of these materials, I will just state, with some particularity, of what they consist.

1. Several brochures and fragments of a Diary in my own handwriting, not at all regularly kept, and the earliest entry in which is 10th October, without the year, but unquestionably

1811.

2. Five other small brochures, containing partial transcripts, in long-hand, of Coleridge's first, second, sixth, and eighth lectures.

3. Several brochures, and parts of brochures, of my original short-hand notes, two of which (those of the ninth and twelfth lectures) were complete, but entirely untranscribed.

On turning out these papers from the upper drawer, where they must have been deposited for many years, I looked anxiously for the rest of the series of Lectures, but in vain, and to this day I have recovered no more. I announced the fact of my "find" to the editor of "Notes and Queries sent him a copy of the prospectus with the mistaken date of "1812," and subsequently furnished him with several short extracts from the Lectures themselves. In the meantime I had employed myself in collating my early transcripts with such of the original short-hand notes as I had recovered, and in transcribing the ninth and twelfth Lectures, which still remained in their original state. The early transcripts were not in the first person: they, as it were, narrated the observations and criticisms of Coleridge, with constant repetitions of "he said," "he remarked," "he quoted," &c. On the other hand, my original notes, taken down from the lips of the Lecturer, were, of course, in the first person,-"I beg you to observe," "it is my opinion," "we are struck," &c. I there