Coleridge wrote originally, "As thou thyself [i.e.
Wordsworth--see next note] had'st fram'd the tender lay." This he changed to "Edmund's self" when he first printed the poem in 1802; and finally to "Otway's self." Thomas Otway was a dramatist of the time of Charles II (born 1651, died 1685).

He wrote, among other plays, two tragedies of wonderful pathetic power, "The Orphan" and "Venice Preserved." The theme and style of the former of these, especially, no doubt suggested his name to Coleridge here.

Otway's own career was pathetic; he died young, neglected, and according to one story, starved.
To this story Coleridge alludes in one of his early poems, the "Monody on the Death of Chatterton:" "While, 'mid the pelting of that merciless storm, Sunk to the cold earth Otway's famished form!" 121--*'T is of a little child*, etc.

Alluding to Wordsworth's "Lucy Gray," which had been published in the second edition of "Lyrical Ballads," 1800.
YOUTH AND AGE 60, 12--*trim skiffs*, etc.

Fulton had invented the steamboat in 1807.