This is the first complete collection of the poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  The addition to the last edition is not less than a fourth of the whole, and the greatest part of this matter has never been printed before.  It consists of many juvenile pieces, a few of the productions of the poet’s middle life, and more of his later years.  With regard to the additions of the first class, we should not be surprised to hear friendly doubts expressed as to the judgment shown in their publication.  We ourselves think otherwise; and we are very glad to have had an opportunity of perusing them.  There may be nothing in these earlier pieces upon which a poet’s reputation could be built; yet they are interesting now as measuring the boyish powers of a great author.  We never read any juvenile poems that so distinctly foretokened the character of all that the poet has since done; in particular, the very earliest and loosest of these little pieces indicate that unintermitting thoughtfulness, and that fine ear for verbal harmony in which we must venture to think that not one of our modern poets approaches to Coleridge.

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We, of course, cite these lines for little besides their luxurious smoothness; and it is very observable, that although the indications of the more strictly intellectual qualities of a great poet are very often extremely faint, as in Byron’s case, in early youth,—­it is universally otherwise with regard to high excellence in versification considered apart and by itself.  Like the ear for music, the sense of metrical melody is always a natural gift; both indeed are evidently connected with the physical arrangement of the organs, and never to be acquired by any effort of art.  When possessed, they by no means necessarily lead on to the achievement of consummate harmony in music or in verse; and yet consummate harmony in either has never been found where the natural gift has not made itself conspicuous long before.  Spenser’s Hymns, and Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis,” and “Rape of Lucrece,” are striking instances of the overbalance of mere sweetness of sound.  Even “Comus” is what we should, in this sense, call luxurious; and all four gratify the outward ear much more than that inner and severer sense which is associated with the reason, and requires a meaning even in the very music for its full satisfaction.  Compare the versification of the youthful pieces mentioned above with that of the maturer works of those great poets, and you will recognize how possible it is for verses to be exquisitely melodious, and yet to fall far short of that exalted excellence of numbers of which language is in itself capable.  You will feel the simple truth, that melody is a part only of harmony.  Those early flashes were indeed auspicious tokens of the coming glory, and involved some of the conditions and elements of its existence; but the rhythm of the “Faerie Queene” and of “Paradise Lost” was