erbiage,
the marks which even the finest portions show of submersion in the tepid
transcendentalism that wrought such havoc upon Coleridge's mind--these
are its familiar disfigurements. They are not easily removed; for they
enter fairly deeply even in the texture of those portions of the book in
which Coleridge devotes himself, as severely as he can, to the proper
business of literary criticism.

[Footnote 15: _Coleridge: Biographia Literaria_, Chapters I.-IV.,
XIV.-XXII.--_Wordsworth: Prefaces and Essays on Poetry_, 1800-1815.
Edited by George Sampson, with an Introductory Essay by Sir Arthur
Quiller-Couch. (Cambridge University Press.)]

It may be that the prolixity with which he discusses and refutes the
poetical principles expounded by Wordsworth in the preface of _Lyrical
Ballads_ was due to the tenderness of his consideration for Wordsworth's
feelings, an influence to which Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch directs our
attention in his introduction. That is honourable to Coleridge as a man;
but it cannot exculpate him as a critic. For the points he had to make
for and against Wordsworth were few and simple. First, he had to show
that the theory of a poetic diction drawn exclusively from the language
of 'real life' was based upon an equivocation, and therefore was
useless. This Coleridge had to show to clear himself of the common
condemnation in which he had been involved, as one wrongly assumed to
endorse Wordsworth's theory. He had an equally important point to make
for Wordsworth. He wished to prove to him that the finest part of his
poetic achievement was based upon a complete neglect of this theory, and
that the weakest portions of his work were those in which he most
closely followed it. In this demonstration he was moved by the desire to
set his friend on the road that would lead to the most triumphant
exercise of his own powers.

There is no doubt that Coleridge made both his points; but he made them,
in particular the former, at exceeding length, and at the cost of a good
deal of internal contradiction. He sets out, in the former case, to
maintain that the language of poetry is essentially different from the
language of prose. This he professes to deduce from a number of
principles. His axiom--and it is possibly a sound one--is that metre
originated in a spontaneous effort of the mind to hold in check the
workings of emotion. From this, he argues, it follows that to justify
the existence of metre, th