Page:Biographia literaria; or, Biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions (IA biographialitera04cole).pdf/33

 then living poets, Bowles and Cowper were, to the best of my knowledge, the first who combined natural thoughts with natural diction; the first who reconciled the heart with the head.

It is true, as I have before mentioned, that from diffidence in my own powers, I for a short time adopted a laborious and florid diction, which I myself deemed, if not absolutely vicious, yet of very inferior worth. Gradually, however, my practice conformed to my better judgement; and the compositions of my twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth year (ex. gr. the shorter blank verse poems, the lines which are now adopted in the introductory part of the in the present collection in Mr Southey's Joan of Arc, 2nd book, 1st edition, and the tragedy of Remorse (Coleridge)) are not more below my present ideal in respect of the general tissue of the style than those of the latest date. Their faults were