Augustus Tulk, Highgate, Thursday Evening, 1818, p. 684, Vol. II,
_Letters_, ed. E. Hartley Coleridge.]

The nakedness of any frailties which poets may possess, makes it the
more contemptible, they feel, for the public to wrap itself in the cloak
of hypocrisy before casting stones. The modern poet's weakness for
autobiographical revelation leaves no secret corners in his nature in
which surreptitious vices may lurk. One might generalize what Keats says
of Burns, "We can see horribly clear in the work of such a man his whole
life, as if we were God's spies." [Footnote: Sidney Colvin, _John Keats_,
p. 285.] The Rousseau-like nudity of the poet's soul is sometimes put
forward as a plea that the public should close its eyes to possible
shortcomings. Yet, as a matter of fact, it is precisely in the lack of
privacy characterizing the poet's life that his enemies find their
justification for concerning themselves with his morality. Since by
flaunting his personality in his verse he propagates his faults among
his admirers, the public is surely justified in pointing out and
denouncing his failings.

Poets cannot logically deny this. To do so, they would have to confess
that their inspirations are wholly unaffected by their personalities.
But this is, naturally, a very unpopular line of defense. That unhappy
worshiper of puritan morals and of the muses, J. G. Holland, does make
such a contention, averring,

God finds his mighty way
Into his verse. The dimmest window panes
Let in the morning light, and in that light
Our faces shine with kindled sense of God
And his unwearied goodness, but the glass