BIB_ID
211684
Accession number
MA 1855.12
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
London, England, 1828 February 19.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 22.9 x 18.8 cm
Notes
This collection, MA 1855, is comprised of thirteen autograph letters signed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients, written from August 5, 1794 through March 1, 1832. The recipients include Derwent and Hartley Coleridge, William Hart Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Thomas Poole and Dorothy Wordsworth.
This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged individually as MA 1848- MA 1857.
Address panel with postmark to "The Rev'd Derwent Coleridge / Helston / Cornwall."
The bottom third of page 3 has been cut away.
This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged individually as MA 1848- MA 1857.
Address panel with postmark to "The Rev'd Derwent Coleridge / Helston / Cornwall."
The bottom third of page 3 has been cut away.
Provenance
Purchased from Joanna Langlais in 1957 as a gift of the Fellows with the special assistance of Mrs. W. Murray Crane, Mr. Homer D. Crotty, Mr. and Mrs. Donald F. Hyde, Mr. Robert H. Taylor and Mrs. Landon K. Thorne. Formerly in the possession of Ernest Hartley Coleridge and Thomas Burdett Money-Coutts, Baron Latymer.
Summary
Concerning payments in arrears that are due to Derwent from the Lady North Exhibition he was elected to in November 1822 by the Mercer's Company; explaining to Derwent his culpability leading to the Mercer's Company wishing to declare a vacancy in the exhibition; saying "Partly by my neglect - not intentional; but I had unluckily mistaken the Clerk of the Mercers' Company's Official Letters for Remembrancers of the Royal Society of Literature, of which I have been a Sleeping Partner, and never opened them - but principally from misinformation, and mistake on the part of R. Sutton Junr, who had given it up in despair & led me to do so - & his Father was abroad. Had be been at home, I almost believe that I should have got the Goldsmiths' Company's Withholding of the Exhibition over-ruled - In short, I wrote a long Letter to the Mercers' Company, in which I modestly contrived to impress them with the importance of my absorbing Studies & (which is true enough) of the precarious state of my Health, and in a private Letter to Mr. Sutton (which he read to the Wardens &c &c of the Company) have a most fascinating account of your merits, my dear Dervy - it lies upon your conscience to make me stand clear on this score, & I am so full of faith that you will, that the affair lies very light on my own - The result was, that the order for transferring the Proceeds was revoked, & it was agreed that nothing more should be required but that you had resided as much as the Heads of the College had required of you -. After I have got the money, You must write to R. Sutton, Esqre - who has really been most zealous on our behalf - & I could have done nothing without him;" supplying the text of the letter Derwent should write authorizing his father to receive the proceeds of the Exhibition due in the past and due in the future; following with the text of a letter to, James Barnes, Esqre, the Clerk of the Mercers' Company, explaining his ill health; saying "I have been long confined with erysypelas now in one leg, now in another; but most seriously, and accompanied with considerable oedema in my right Leg - This is the first day, I have ventured out -. The sufferings from the intolerable Itching, the disturbance, and for ten days, all but the prevention of Sleep, and from the symptomatic prostration of Spirits have been great; but God has been gracious & I am convalescent;" the remaining portion of the manuscript and the signature has been cut away; the phrase "The Gillman's earnest Love.." is written at the top of the first page, above "Grove, Highgate."
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