Paley in Evidences and Locke in Philosophy gave way before the inroad of
Transcendentalism.

As the record of the phases of an intellectual development the letters
of Coleridge stand very high; and, indeed, I do not know anything equal
to them except it be the "Journal of Amiel".

The resemblance between Coleridge and Amiel is very striking. Both
valetudinarians and barely understood by the friends with whom they came
into contact, they took refuge in the inner shrine of introspection, and
clothed the most abstruse ideas in the most beautiful forms of language
and imagery that is only not poetry because it is not verse. While one
wrote the story of his own intellectual development in secret and
retained the record of it hidden from all eyes, the other scattered his
to the winds in the shape of letters, which thus, widely distributed,
kept his secret until they were gathered together by later hands. The
letters of Coleridge as a collection is one of the most engaging
psychological studies of the history of an individual mind.

The text of the letters in the present volume is reproduced from the
original sources, the "Biographical Supplement", Cottle, Gillman,
Allsop, and the "Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey". Fuller
texts of some of the letters will be found in "Letters of S. T. C." of
1895, Litchfield's "Tom Wedgwood", and other recent publications. One of
the objects of the present work is to preserve the text of the letters
as presented in these authentic sources of the life of Coleridge.

Letters Nos. 44, 45, and 46, from "Charles Lamb and the Lloyds", by Mr.
E. V. Lucas (Smith, Elder and Co.); No. 130 from "Anima Poetae" (W.
Heinemann), are printed here by arrangement with the poet's grandson,