Both Wordsworth and Coleridge were in Germany. Southey had quarreled
with Coleridge, and was probably jealous of the latter's extravagant
praise of Wordsworth. He accordingly seized the opportunity to assail
the work without injuring Cottle's interests or entailing the immediate
displeasure of the travelling bards.
He covered his tracks to some extent by referring several times to "the
author," although the joint authorship was well known to him. While
severe in most of his strictures on Wordsworth, Southey reserved his
special malice for _The Ancient Mariner_. He called it "a Dutch attempt
at German sublimity"; and in a letter written to William Taylor on
September 5, 1798--probably while he was writing his discreditable
critique--he characterized the poem as "the clumsiest attempt at German
sublimity I ever saw." Southey's responsibility for the article became
known to Cottle, who communicated the fact to the poets on their return
a year later. Wordsworth declared that "if Southey could not
conscientiously have spoken differently of the volume, he ought to have
declined the task of reviewing it.
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