Page:Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Lamb, etc., being selections from the Remains of Henry Crabb Robinson.djvu/126



HAT Coleridge delivered at least four courses of lectures in London during the winters of 1808, 1811, 1812, and 1818 is well known, as is also the fact that his success as a public lecturer was variable, though it is only from the imperfect and disjointed notes taken by some of his audience, notably J. Payne Collier and H. Crabb Robinson, that the epoch-making criticism of Shakespeare and the later Elizabethan dramatists was put together and ultimately published by Mrs. Henry Coleridge for the first time in 1849.

Among the Remains of Crabb Robinson there exist accounts of Coleridge's lectures, criticisms of his method and manner by his friends, and above all the full syllabuses of the courses of 1811, 1812, and 1818, not all of which have hitherto been printed. Crabb Robinson first met Coleridge in private at Charles Lamb's on November 14, 1810, but his interest in the poet had been roused long before. He writes in his Reminiscences of Coleridge, Wordsmorth, Lamb etc.: "I have a distinct recollection of reading The Monthly Review of the first volume of Coleridge's poems (before I went abroad in 1800) and of the delight the extracts gave me, and my friend Mrs. Clarkson having become intimate with him, he became an object of interest with me from my return from Germany in 1805." Mrs. Clarkson suggested that Robinson should advertise Coleridge's lectures among his friends in 1808, and he eagerly responded though he was himself unable to attend them regularly. Coleridge, doubtless at Mrs. Clarkson's request, sent Robinson an order of admission accompanied by the letter which will be found on pp. 28, 29 of this edition of the Reminiscences.

Though prevented by his engagements from regular attendance at the lectures, Crabb Robinson diligently took notes