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Draft for an essay on Queen Charlotte : fragment of an autograph manuscript.

BIB_ID
212072
Accession number
MA 77.20
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
England, 1818 December 4.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1904.
Description
1 items (3 pages) ; 22.1 x 18.1 cm
Notes
Watermark, Muggeridge & Ansell 1817.
Approximate date of writing and explanation of the genesis of the essay from published manuscript cited below, which indicates Coleridge was asked by William Mudford at The Courier to write "...a column or more on the character of the late Queen." Queen Charlotte died November 17, 1818. This item is identified by Erdman as "Draft II." The Morgan also holds "Draft I," cataloged as MA 2033.6.
This collection, MA 77, is comprised of fifteen letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to John Thelwall, one letter from Coleridge to Susannah (called "Stella") Thelwall, two letters from John Thelwall to Susannah Thelwall, one letter from Peter Crompton to John Thelwall, and one incomplete draft of an article on the death of Queen Charlotte. The letters were written from 1796 to 1803, and the draft may have been written in 1818.
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer J. Pearson & Co., 1904. Removed from a bound volume in June 1967.
Summary
Being the draft of an essay; opening with "The characteristics of the Age are so numerous, that they would cease to answer their implied purpose, that of designating its character, but that they may be all traced to one and the same root : a restless overweening Conceit of Rights independent of Duties." Containing references to Ben Jonson and a quotation from Jonson's play Catiline His Conspiracy, as well as commentary on the funeral of Queen Charlotte (December 2, 1818).