Biographia Literaria: Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions, and Two Lay Sermons, I. the Statesman's Manual, Ii. Blessed Are Ye That Sow Beside All Waters

Reception of the Author sfirst publication The discipline of his taste at school The effect of contemporary writers on youthful minds Bowles s Sonnets Comparison between the poej before and since Pope. FT has been my lot to have had my name introduced, both in con Aversation and in print, more frequently than I find it easy to explain, whether I consider the fewness, unimportance, and limited circulation of my writings, or the retirement and distance in which I have lived, both from the literary and political world. Most often it has been connected with some charge which I could not acknowledge, or some principle which I had never entertained. Nevertheless, had I had no other motive or incitement, the reader would not have been troubled with this exculpation. What my additional purposes were will be seen in the following pages. It will be found that the least of what I have written concerns myself personally. I have used the narration chiefly for the purpose of giving a continuity to the work, in part for the sake of the miscellaneous reflections suggested to me by particular events; but still more as introductory to the statement of my principles in Politics, Religion and Philosophy, and the application of the rules, deduced from philosophical principles, to poetry and criticism. But of the objects which I proposed to myself, it was not the least important to effect, as far as possible, a settlement of the longcontinued controversy concerning the true nature of poetic diction, and at the same time to define with the utmost impartiality the real poetic character of the poet, by whose writings this controversy was first kindled, and has been since fuelled and fanned. In 1794, when I had barely passed the verge of manhood, I published a small volume of juvenile poems. They were received with a degree of favour which, young as I was, I well knew was This is evi
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