BIB_ID
402382
Accession number
MA 1581.29
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
London 1804 February 2.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (8 pages, with address) ; 22.5 x 18.4 cm
Notes
This letter was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Coleridge) 6.
This letter is from a large collection of letters written to Sir George Howland Beaumont (1753-1827) and Lady Margaret Willes Beaumont (1758-1829) of Coleorton Hall and to other members of the Beaumont family. See collection-level record for more information (MA 1581.1-297).
Written from "No. 16 / Abingdon St, Westminster."
Address panel with postmark and traces of a seal to "Sir George Beaumont Bt. / Dunmow / Essex." and with the date "London February second 1804."
This letter is from a large collection of letters written to Sir George Howland Beaumont (1753-1827) and Lady Margaret Willes Beaumont (1758-1829) of Coleorton Hall and to other members of the Beaumont family. See collection-level record for more information (MA 1581.1-297).
Written from "No. 16 / Abingdon St, Westminster."
Address panel with postmark and traces of a seal to "Sir George Beaumont Bt. / Dunmow / Essex." and with the date "London February second 1804."
Provenance
Purchased as a gift of the Fellows from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Summary
Thanking them for their kindness and saying "That I do not dare avail myself of your offer, becomes therefore a mere trifle : for the thing itself is but what an expressive motion of the Hand is to a generous Thought - the Symbol, and the Ornament, but not the Essence;" describing in detail all the things that cause his illness, specifically everything he eats and the inclement weather and adding that four doctors have suggested a "... regulated Diet, Tranquillity, and an even & dry climate;"adding that he still plans go to Sicily in hopes of finding these remedies; stating that "...Wordsworth alone knows to the full extent of the Calamity / Yet even this I shall master - if it please the Almighty to continue in me the Thoughts, that have been my Guides, Guardians and Comforters for the last 5 months;" stating that he is proud of what he has accomplished in the last few months given his illnesses and has completed his work "Consolations and Comforts from the exercise and right Application of the Reason, the Imagination, and the Moral Feelings" and describes what he has written about reason, imagination and moral feelings; describing his plan for writing after this work is published and how he will divide his time each month between poetry and essays; listing the essays he hopes to write on Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dr. Samuel Johnson and Dryden; setting forth his analysis of authors and their works and how he sees them; describing his frustration at being "...interrupted two hours. 1. by General Hastings. 2. by Godwin. 3 by the Poet Campbell, who stayed a most inordinate Time - this being the first time I have ever conversed with him / and now I must conclude half a sheet sooner than I expected...;" saying he hopes to dedicate some time to the "Translations of the Drawings; hoping to pay him a visit at Dunmow; apologizing, in a postscript, for sending a letter that is "...so wholly and exclusively all about I myself I; but really in the present moment I am of some anxiety to my own self - & your kindness, dear Sir George! forced me - at least, reduced me, into it."
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