[Footnote 15:  Coleridge:  Biographia Literaria, Chapters I.-IV., XIV.-XXII.—­Wordsworth:  Prefaces and Essays on Poetry, 1800-1815.  Edited by George Sampson, with an Introductory Essay by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. (Cambridge University Press.)]

It may be that the prolixity with which he discusses and refutes the poetical principles expounded by Wordsworth in the preface of Lyrical Ballads was due to the tenderness of his consideration for Wordsworth’s feelings, an influence to which Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch directs our attention in his introduction.  That is honourable to Coleridge as a man; but it cannot exculpate him as a critic.  For the points he had to make for and against Wordsworth were few and simple.  First, he had to show that the theory of a poetic diction drawn exclusively from the language of ‘real life’ was based upon an equivocation, and therefore was useless.  This Coleridge had to show to clear himself of the common condemnation in which he had been involved, as one wrongly assumed to endorse Wordsworth’s theory.  He had an equally important point to make for Wordsworth.  He wished to prove to him that the finest part of his poetic achievement was based upon a complete neglect of this theory, and that the weakest portions of his work were those in which he most closely followed it.  In this demonstration he was moved by the desire to set his friend on the road that would lead to the most triumphant exercise of his own powers.

There is no doubt that Coleridge made both his points; but he made them, in particular the former, at exceeding length, and at the cost of a good deal of internal contradiction.  He sets out, in the former case, to maintain that the language of poetry is essentially different from the language of prose.  This he professes to deduce from a number of principles.  His axiom—­and it is possibly a sound one—­is that metre originated in a spontaneous effort of the mind to hold in check the workings of emotion.  From this, he argues, it follows that to justify the existence of metre, the language of a poem must show evidence of emotion, by being different from the language of prose.  Further, he says, metre in itself stimulates the emotions, and for this condition of emotional excitement ‘correspondent food’ must be provided.  Thirdly, the emotion of poetical composition itself demands this same ’correspondent food.’  The final argument, if we omit one drawn from an obscure theory of imitation very characteristic of Coleridge, is the incontrovertible appeal to the authority of the poets.