ABSTRACT
The most fruitful friendship Davy made with a poet was with S. T. Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads had been published in the summer of 1798, and Wordsworth and Coleridge had left Somerset for their travels in Germany in the early autumn, just before Davy came to Clifton. The intention was to include many poems of the original edition, together with a second volume of new poems in which it was-first intended that Christabel, so much admired by Davy, should have a place. Davy shared some faculty of soul with Wordsworth; but he was not prostrate with adoration. Yet, although Davy was quick and comprehensive where Wordsworth was narrow and profound, they were more like each other than either was like Coleridge. Could Davy’s influence over Coleridge have been stronger at this time Christabel would never have been allowed to remain much read privately, imitated, but unpublished until 1816.
