Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Highgate, to George Bartley, 1818 February 16 : autograph manuscript signed.

Suggesting that Bartley may wish to travel to America with Washington Allston and expressing his frustration with the Managers of the Drury Lane Theatre over the dismissal of his tragedy; saying "A very dear Friend of mine, whom I have been for the last ten years in the habit of considering as the first Ideal Painter and the most scientific Colorist of the Age, but whose Heart, and whole moral Being is such that his Genius, is but a Glory about him, proposes returning to America in the course of the Summer. It would be a mutual good fortune, if it should fall out that he and you (I include of course, both halves in the word you) should be fellow passengers. If you should have occasion on your own account to see Mr. Johnston, you will oblige me by saying that the neglect of not even acknowleging the receipt of my letter and the copy of my Tragedy would of itself have only taught me that Managers have privileges, to which Ministers of State do not lay claim, but that it pained me for no other cause than that I had regarded Mr. Johnston as the Friend as well as the official Successor of Mr. Raymond. As soon as I can command a fortnight's leisure, I shall put the finishing Hand to a work, the materials for which have been many years collecting. On the Drama in relation to the privileged Theatres : and in how far it's present degraded state depends on removeable evils. For I trust that there is so such peculiar poison in the air of a Committee Room or a Manager's parlour as to render Insolence, Neglect and Breach of Promise incurable. Indeed, Mr. Raymond was a proof to the contrary : and as far as my own brief experience, extended, I should be ungrateful if I did not add Mr. Arnold's name, but tho' 100 = a hundred, 00001 is but an encumbered one. The cyphers you may translate into committee-ists. I do not hesitate to avow (and shall not be afraid to publish the various facts and grounds on which my convictions rest) that by a strict adherence to a given scheme of management (instead of the present mismanaged Managerment) one of the minor Theatres, with all the disturbing forces of the existing most unjust Monopoly against it, might be brought in the course of a few seasons to the same height, as the comic Theatre of Sacchi at Venice was raised to by the advice and assistance of Carlo Gozzi by which the insolence of the regular Theatre was punished in the most triumphant manner. - It is high time that the Public should know, that a man of Genius with the feelings of a Scholar and a Gentleman cannot enter into their service under the existing Commanders in Chief, as a theatrical Dramatist, and that a gentle Hint should be whispered to the Patentees that to weary out a Poet with this Publication of his Play and then to bring it out for their own exclusive benefit, is one way of saving from 3 to 500£, but neither the honestest or in the long run the most politic way. I however received a direct assurance that the publication of the Zapolya would be deem'd an advantage by the Sub. committee, and instead of presenting the least obstacle to its "after representation" : and a direct promise that it should not interfere with my pecuniary claims, in case of its success."