' The 'coadjutors of God' in Religious
Musings are Milton, Newton, Hartley, and Priestley. In the
beginning of 1798 Coleridge was preaching at the Unitarian Chapel at
Shrewsbury. But on the 13th November 1797, at half-past four in the
afternoon (let us be particular in dating such an event), he and
Dorothy and her brother began their walk over these Quantock hills,
and The Ancient Mariner was born. These are the facts, and rash
indeed would anybody be who should attempt to deduce anything from
them. Of all foolish criticism there is none more foolish than that
which treats the mental movement of men like Coleridge or Wordsworth
as if it were in an imaginary straight line. Excepting lines 123-
270, composed in the latter part of 1796, Coleridge wrote his
contribution to Joan of Arc between 1794 and 1795. The Rose and
Kisses were written in 1793, and On a Discovery Made Too Late in
1794. Could anybody, not knowing the dates, have believed that
these three poems last-named, if not written before the Joan of Arc,
were contemporaneous with it? In the Joan of Arc Coleridge is
immature and led astray by politics, religion, and philosophy, but
in the three little poems where he has subjects akin to him he is
perfect, and could have done nothing better ten years later.
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