ABSTRACT
To appreciate Coleridge’s poetry aright, you must apprehend his mind’s progress and developement; you must in fact understand its history. The endeavour that has been made in the course of the present address to prepare the mind for the proper examination of these poems, and of the opinions contained in them, will become of service to such young men as may be desirous, to use one of our poet’s phrases, of “learning to think.” The early efforts of Coleridge in poetry had to encounter the malice of criticism. Inferior minds sat in judgement on the superior, and condemned what they wanted capacity to understand. The sublime speculations by which the name of Coleridge will be immortalized, were, however, precisely the qualities of his character which most injured his worldly interests while living.
