There are, I think, distinct traces of
a Coleridgian legend which has only slowly died out. The actual truth I
believe to be that Coleridge's position from 1818 or 1820 till his
death, though one of the greatest eminence, was in no sense one of the
highest, or even of any considerable influence. Fame and honour, in the
fullest measure, were no doubt his: in that matter, indeed, he was only
receiving payment of long-delayed arrears. The poetic school with which
he was, though not with entire accuracy, associated had outlived its
period of contempt and obloquy. In spite of the two quarterlies, the
Tory review hostile, its Whig rival coldly silent, the public had
recognised the high imaginative merit of _Christabel;_ and who
knows but that if the first edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_ had
appeared at this date instead of twenty years before, it would have
obtained a certain number of readers even among landsmen? [2] But over
and above the published works of the poet there were those
extraordinary personal characteristics to which the fame of his works
of course attracted a far larger share than formerly of popular
attention. A remarkable man has more attractive power over the mass of
mankind than the most remarkable of books, and it was because the
report of Coleridge among those who knew him was more stimulating to
public curiosity than even the greatest of his poems, that his
celebrity in these latter years attained such proportions.
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