man gifted like Mr Wordsworth, and made him
appear, in his second avowed publication, like a bad imitator of the
worst of his former productions.

We venture to hope, that there is now an end of this folly; and that,
like other follies, it will be found to have cured itself by the
extravagances resulting from its unbridled indulgence. In this point of
view, the publication of the volumes before us may ultimately be of
service to the good cause of literature. Many a generous rebel, it is
said, has been reclaimed to his allegiance by the spectacle of lawless
outrage and excess presented in the conduct of the insurgents; and we
think there is every reason to hope, that the lamentable consequences
which have resulted from Mr Wordsworth's open violation of the
established laws of poetry, will operate as a wholesome warning to those
who might otherwise have been seduced by his example, and be the means
of restoring to that antient and venerable code its due honour and
authority.--_The Edinburgh Review_.

[Footnote H: See Vol. I. p. 63, &c.--Vol. VII. p. 1, &c.]

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

_Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision. The Pains of Sleep_. By S.T.
COLERIDGE, ESQ. London, Murray, 1816.

The advertisement by which this work was announced to the publick,
carried in its front a recommendation from Lord Byron,--who, it seems,
has somewhere praised Christabel, as 'a wild and singularly original and
beautiful poem.' Great as the noble bard's merits undoubtedly are in
poetry, some of his latest _publications_ dispose us to distrust his
authority, where the question is what ought to meet the public eye; and
the works before us afford an additional proof, that his judgment on
such matters is not absolutely to be relied on. Moreover, we are a
little inclined to doubt the value of the praise which one poet lends
another. It seems now-a-days to be the practice of that once irritable
race to laud each other without bounds; and one can hardly avoid
suspecting, that what is thus lavishly advanced may be laid out with a
view to being repaid with interest. Mr Coleridge, however, must be
judged by his own merits.

It is remarked, by the writers upon the Bathos, that the true _profound_
is surely known by one quality--its being wholly bottomless; insomuch,
that when you think you have attained its utmost depth in the work of
some of its great masters, another, or peradventure the same, astonishes
you, immediately after, by a pl