Lakes, Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd, who had just been writing ‘The Poetic Mirror,’ a work that contains imitations of all the living poets’ styles, after the manner of ‘Rejected Addresses.’ The burlesque is well done, particularly that of me, but not equal to Horace Smith’s. I was pleased with Hogg; and he wrote me a very witty letter, to which I sent him, I suspect, a very dull reply. Certain it is that I did not spare the Lakists in it; and he told me he could not resist the temptation, and had shewn it to the fraternity. It was too tempting; and as I could never keep a secret of my own, as you know, much less that of other people, I could not blame him. I remember saying, among other things, that the Lake poets were such fools as not to fish in their own waters; but this was the least offensive part of the epistle.”
“Bowles is one of the same little order of spirits, who has been fussily fishing on for fame, and is equally waspish and jealous. What could Coleridge mean by praising his poetry as he does?
“It was a mistake of mine, about his making the woods of Madeira tremble, &c.; but it seems that I might
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