' On
awakening, he proceeded to write out his 'composition,' and
had set down as much of it as is printed here, when 'he was
unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock,'
whose departure, an hour after, left him wellnigh oblivious
of the rest. This confession, which is dated 1816, has been
generally accepted as true; but Coleridge had a trick of dreaming
dreams about himself which makes doubt permissible.
LXIV
From the _Hellenics_ (written in Latin, 1814-20, and translated
into English at the instance of Lady Blessington), 1846. See
Colvin, _Landor_ ('English Men of Letters'), pp. 189, 190.
LXV-LXVII
Of the first, 'Napoleon and the British Sailor' (_The Pilgrim
of Glencoe_, 1842), Campbell writes that the 'anecdote has
been published in several public journals, both French and
English.' 'My belief,' he continues, 'in its authenticity was
confirmed by an Englishman, long resident in Boulogne, lately
telling me that he remembered the circumstance to have been
generally talked of in the place.' Authentic or not, I have
preferred the story to _Hohenlinden_, as less hackneyed, for one
thing, and, for another, less pretentious and rhetorical. The
second (_Gertrude of Wyoming_, 1809) is truly one of 'the glories
of our birth and state.' The third (_idem_) I have ventured to
shorten by three stanzas: a proceeding which, however culpable it
seem, at least gets rid of the chief who gave a country's wounds
relief by stopping a battle, eliminates the mermaid and her song
(the song that 'condoles'), and ends the lyric on as sonorous
and romantic a word as even Shakespeare ever used.
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