Page:Poems on Various Subjects - Coleridge (1796).djvu/13

Rh word I!—now he transforms himself into a third person,—"the present writer"—now multiplies himself and swells into "we"—and all this is the watchfulness of guilt. Conscious that this said I is perpetually intruding on his mind and that it monopolizes his heart, he is prudishly felicitous that it may not escape from his lips.

This disinterestedness of phrase is in general commensurate with selfishness of feeling: men old and hackneyed in the ways of the world are scrupulous avoiders of Egotism.

Of the following Poems a considerable number are styled "Effusions," in defiance of Churchill's line

"Effusion on Effusion pour away,"