SOURCE: Moore, Thomas. Review of Christabel; Kubla Khan, A Vision; The Pains of Sleep, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edinburgh Review, 27 (September 1816): 58–67.

In the following review of “Kubla Khan,” originally published in the Edinburgh Review, Moore notes the circumstances of the poem's composition and describes its soporific quality.

‘Kubla Khan’ is given to the public, it seems, ‘at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity’; but whether Lord Byron the praiser of ‘the Christabel’, or the Laureate, the praiser of Princes,¹ we are not informed. As far as Mr. Coleridge's ‘own opinions are concerned', it is published, ‘not upon the ground of any poetic merits', but ‘as a Psychological Curiosity’! In these opinions of the candid author, we entirely concur; but for this reason we hardly think it was necessary to give the minute detail which the Preface contains, of the circumstances attending its composition. Had...