by George Watson
Coleridge's own friends started it in his lifetime. Crabb Robinson called him ' poor Coleridge ' and even Lamb, who objected, said ' He is a fine fellow in spite of all his faults and weaknesses.' Today we think we have a juster estimate of Coleridge's genius. But ' how strangely the orthodox critical approach . '.. accords with one's general impression of the works themselves.' And from Kathleen Coburn's monumental edition of the Notebooks (of which the first two volumes have just appeared) * a new image of the man emerges.'