* * * * *

It is nearly fifteen years since I was, for the first time, enabled to
become a frequent and attentive visitor in Mr. Coleridge's domestic
society. His exhibition of intellectual power in living discourse struck me
at once as unique and transcendant; and upon my return home, on the very
first evening which I spent with him after my boyhood, I committed to
writing, as well as I could, the principal topics of his conversation in
his own words. I had no settled design at that time of continuing the work,
but simply made the note in something like a spirit of vexation that such a
strain of music as I had just heard, should not last forever. What I did
once, I was easily induced by the same feeling to do again; and when, after
many years of affectionate communion between us, the painful existence of
my revered relative on earth was at length finished in peace, my occasional
notes of what he had said in my presence had grown to a mass, of which this
volume contains only such parts as seem fit for present publication. I
know, better than any one can tell me, how inadequately these specimens
represent the peculiar splendour and individuality of Mr. Coleridge's
conversation. How should it be otherwise? Who could always follow to the
turning-point his long arrow-flights of thought? Who could fix those
ejaculations of light, those tones of a prophet, which at times have made
me bend before him as before an inspired man? Such acts of spirit as these
were too subtle to be fettered down on paper; they live--if they can live
any where--in the memories alone of those who witnessed them. Yet I would
fain hope that these pages will prove that all is not lost;--that something
of the wisdom, the learning, and the eloquence of a great man's social
converse has been snatched from forgetfulness, and endowed with a permanent
shape for general use. And although, in the judgment of many persons, I may
incur a serious responsibility by this publication; I am, upon the whole,
willing to abide the result, in confidence that the fame of the loved and