SOURCE: “Coleridge and a Poets' Poet: William Lisle Bowles,” in English Miscellany, Vol. 14, 1963, pp 95-114.

In the following essay, Doughty explores Bowles's influence on three young Romantic poets: Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge.

Such verse as Bowles, heart-honoured poet sang, That wakes the tear yet steals away the pang, 

Coleridge

Amongst the various publications of the year 1789, in England, there appeared a small anonymous volume, a mere pamphlet indeed, issued at Bath, and entitled Fourteen Sonnets, written chiefly on Picturesque Spots during a Journey, 1789. The author, William Lisle Bowles, was a clergyman with means and leisure, a graduate of Trinity College, Oxford, and now 27 years of age. Bowles could never have expected the immediate popularity his little book gained, so unpretentious in form and content. Nor was its popularity short-lived. A second edition appeared before the close of the year, seven editions before the end of the century, and...