BIB_ID
402387
Accession number
MA 1581.31
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
London, 1804 March 8.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 23.4 x 19.1 cm
Notes
This letter was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Coleridge) 8.
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).
Dated "Thursday 1/2 past 11. March 8th, 1804." Place of writing inferred from contents.
Address panel to "Sir George Beaumont Bart / Dunmow / Essex."
The sculpture referred to in this letter is "Aphrodite fastening her sandal."
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).
Dated "Thursday 1/2 past 11. March 8th, 1804." Place of writing inferred from contents.
Address panel to "Sir George Beaumont Bart / Dunmow / Essex."
The sculpture referred to in this letter is "Aphrodite fastening her sandal."
Provenance
Purchased as a gift of the Fellows from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Summary
Describing, in detail, his visit to Mr. Knight and referring to the similarities of Mr. Knight's face to "...that of a living Bronze. It is the hardest countenance, I ever beheld, in a man of rank and letters....In the following moment the likeness of his face to that Mask-portrait of Wordsworth at Keswick struck me with greater force; and till I had left the House, I did not recollect, that Lady Beaumont had observed the same;" adding that he had breakfast at Mr. Greenough's and is planning to return to Mr. Knight's; saying he will "...send the oxygenated chalybeate Drops by today's Coach and giving very detailed instructions, dosages, and advice on how to take them; adding that he is waiting to return to Mr. Knight and will leave the letter open to continue when he returns; continuing the letter at "1/4 after One;" adding that Mr. Knight "shewed me his views of Sicily chiefly by Hackart - from which I learnt what I knew before, that I shall see nothing in Sicily of half the beauty of Cumberland / and not one 100th part of the number of the grand and the impressive. My Sole Object is Health / I never even think of any thing else...;" describing a bronze figure "...tho' imperfect, absolutely enamoured me - I have seldom in my Life experienced such a Burst of pleasurable Sense of Beauty / it represents a Venus or Venus-like figure, as from the Bath, on one leg, putting on her Sandal on the upraised leg - I am not afraid of the charge of using violent language, when I say you will be enchanted;" concluding that on Saturday he will write after meeting and dining with Mr. Sotheby at Davy's Room and sending his remembrances to his Mother.
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