Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Highgate, to Hartley Coleridge, 1822 July 1 : autograph manuscript signed.

Criticizing both Hartley and Derwent, at length and in detail; commenting on Hartley's brief "experiment" in "...writing for the Press - and the result - I do not know, what conclusion you have drawn from it - has been such, as makes me shrink , and sink away inwardly, from the thought of a second trial; telling him he feels he is unsuited to be a "domestic" tutor as "...you cannot accomodate your time or temper to the giving a couple of Sessions a day to one child, or bear to be told of your irregularity, without resenting it, as an insult;" relating the anxiety and difficulties under which Mr. and Mrs. Gillman are living; expressing his frustration, at length and in detail, with Derwent's lack of communication and lack of appreciation for the hospitality the Gillmans have shown to the Coleridges; saying " Derwent, poor fellow! in his answer to Mrs. Gillman's note, putting off the dinner party, complained that he was always the obliged party, without any means of returning the obligation. I need not reply - so must every young man be who has to begin the world without fortune. For there is nothing, which either he or you could rationally wish, from which you would have been precluded by my circumstances (whatever they may be for myself and in other respects) or by your own wills. - Passing over the effect, which your being at Highgate must have in diminishing Mr. and Mrs. G's power of hospitality to Derwent, and of welcoming him during a portion of his long Vacation, and of shewing occasional attentions to a College Friend - yet I am scarcely more convinced of my own Being than I am that Mr. Gillman would have made efforts and endured inconveniences beyond prudence, if Derwent from his first settlement at Cambridge had but done half of what Mr. G had a right to expect, and what Derwent could not be ignorant, would have been especially gratifying to him; above all, from a son of mine. Had he but once a month (and once a fortnight ought to have been no Task exacted by Duty, but a duty made pleasurable by kind and genial recollections) but had he once a month written such a letter, as he probably has written to the Hopwoods - now a rhyming epistle, or a description of his acquaintance - characters - jokes - criticisms - any thing which would have implied that his Father's best Friends, and his own most zealous & kind Hosts, had a place in his Heart and Memory - Mr. G. would have struggled with contrivances for his reception, as long and as often as it would have been desirable or proper even on Derwent's own account. - But instead of this (it seems cruel to speak of it, while he is lying on a bed of sickness; but it is for you and to you that I am now stating the truth) his whole conduct and the style of his Letters have been that of a man making use of another - The one thing that of all others could not but offend whatever was excellent in my friend's character - Add too, that this process of alienation, that commenced in the feelings, was carried on & deepened by his Judgement and moral principles, when he believed himself to see that shewing off, and shewy connections, were uppermost - and of late by his most strange neglect of his old & faithful friend, Jameson - (If you know any cause of this (reason there can be none) as any little miff between them - for heaven's sake make me or Mr. or Mrs. G. acquainted with it : for it has sunk deep into their minds - & Montagu spoke of it with contemptuous reprobation. - Reflect - and then say - whether my Circumstances, tho' they preclude or interfere with the power of remedying, have caused any privations, that either you or your Brother have suffered - still, I am persuaded, that every thing necessary for your happiness is in your power, if you are yourself in your power - I could not be easy without making these remarks - & my spirits are too weak to talk to you on the subject. If any thing tries your temper here, you ought to be glad of it, as an opportunity of disciplining it for the severer Trials, which (if i can found any thing on your Mother's last letter & her conversation with Mr. Watson & of these it is religion with me to say no more to you than that the Sum makes a strong contrast with Mrs. Gillman's Motives and Feelings respecting you) you will meet with at Keswick, without the greatest caution on your part. To Mr. Dawes exclusively you must look and apply yourself. - God bless you! While I live I will do what I can - what & whether I can, must in the main depend on yourself not on your affectionate Father."