of the Poet.

The story of Milton might be told in two pages. It is this which
distinguishes an epic poem from a romance in metre. Observe the march of
Milton; his severe application; his laborious polish; his deep
metaphysical researches; his prayer to God before he began his great
work; all that could lift and swell his intellect, became his daily food.

I should not think of devoting less than twenty years to an epic poem.
Ten years to collect materials and warm my mind with universal science. I
would be a tolerable Mathematician. I would thoroughly understand
Mechanics; Hydrostatics; Optics, and Astronomy; Botany; Metallurgy;
Fossilism; Chemistry; Geology; Anatomy; Medicine; then the mind of man;
then the minds of men, in all Travels, Voyages, and Histories. So I would
spend ten years; the next five in the composition of the poem, and the
five last in the correction of it. So would I write, haply not unhearing
of that divine and nightly-whispering voice, which speaks to mighty
minds, of predestinated garlands, starry and unwithering.[24]

God love you.

S. T. Coleridge.

P. S. David Hartley is well and grows. Sara is well, and desires a
sister's love to you."


In the spirit of impartiality, it now devolves on me to state a temporary
misunderstanding between even the two Pantisocratans; Mr. Coleridge and
Mr. Southey! The affair occurred in the autumn of 1795, but it could not