[159] Ludwig Tieck published his _Sternbald's Wanderungen_ in 1798.
[160] Heinse's _Ardinghello_ was published in 1787.
[161] Richter's _Vorschule der Aisthetik_ was published in 1804 (3 vols.).
[162] See _Table Talk_ for January 3 and May 1, 1823. See, also, _The Friend_, Essay iii. of the First Landing Place. Coleridge's _Works_, Harper & Brothers, 1853, ii. 134-137, and "Notes on Hamlet," _Ibid._ iv. 147-150.
[163] Charles Augustus Tulk, described by Mr. Campbell as "a man of fortune with an uncommon taste for philosophical speculation," was an eminent Swedenborgian, and mainly instrumental in establishing the "New Church" in Great Britain. It was through Coleridge's intimacy with Mr. Tulk that his writings became known to the Swedenborgian community, and that his letters were read at their gatherings. I possess transcripts of twenty-five letters from Coleridge to Tulk, in many of which he details his theories of ontological speculation. The originals were sold and dispersed in 1882.
A note on Swedenborg's treatise, "De Cultu et Amore Dei," is printed in _Notes Theological and Political_, London, 1853, p. 110, but a long series of marginalia on the pages of the treatise, "De Coelo et Inferno," of which a transcript has been made, remains unpublished.
For Coleridge's views on Swedenborgianism, see "Notes on Noble's Appeal," _Literary Remains_; Coleridge's _Works_, Harper & Brothers, 1853, v. 522-527.
[164] It may be supposed that it was Blake, the mystic and the spiritualist, that aroused Tulk's interest, and that, as an indirect consequence, the original edition of his poems, "engraved in writing-hand," was sent to Coleridge for his inspection and criticism. The _Songs of Innocence_ were published in 1787, ten years before the _Lyrical Ballads_ appeared, and more than thirty years before the date of this letter, but they were known only to a few. Lamb, writing in 1824, speaks of him as _Robert_ Blake, and after praising in the highest terms his paintings and engravings, says that he has never read his poems, "which have been sold hitherto only in manuscript." It is strange that Coleridge should not have been familiar with them, for in 1812 Crabb Robinson, so he tells us, read them aloud to Wordsworth, who was "pleased with some of them, and considered Blake as having the elements of poetry, a thousand times more than either Byron or Scott." None, however, of these hearty and genuine admirers appear to have reflected that Blake had "gone back to nature," a while before Wordsworth or Coleridge turned their steps in that direction. _Letters of Charles Lamb_, 1886, ii. 104, 105, 324, 325; H. C. Robinson's _Diary_, i. 385.
