BIB_ID
402394
Accession number
MA 1581.27
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Keswick, 1803 October 1.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 38.9 x 30.2 cm
Notes
Written from "Greta Hall, Keswick" over two days, October 1 and October 2, 1803.
Address panel with postmarks and marked "Single Sheet" to "Sir George Beaumont, Bart / Dunmow / Essex" and readdressed, in an unidentified hand, "Coleorton / hall / Ashby De la Zouch / Lastershire." The date of the postmark is 4 October 1803.
This letter was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Coleridge) 4.
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).
The lines that Coleridge wrote using his gout medicine as ink are faded to the point of illegibility but the text of those lines is available in the published letter cited below.
Address panel with postmarks and marked "Single Sheet" to "Sir George Beaumont, Bart / Dunmow / Essex" and readdressed, in an unidentified hand, "Coleorton / hall / Ashby De la Zouch / Lastershire." The date of the postmark is 4 October 1803.
This letter was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Coleridge) 4.
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).
The lines that Coleridge wrote using his gout medicine as ink are faded to the point of illegibility but the text of those lines is available in the published letter cited below.
Provenance
Purchased as a gift of the Fellows from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Summary
Describing, in detail, his ailments which include a tooth and face ache which has prevented him from writing to them; telling them "Mr. Edmondson has no doubt, that I have Gout; but very serious doubts whether my worse sufferings do not originate in an affection of the mesenteric Glands" however he adds he is willing to try a new Gout medicine; describing how he wrote the preceding lines using his Gout medicine as ink; relating his dread of falling asleep and his "...fear, that a hot climate is my only medicine; & it seems better to die than to live out of England;" describing the affect on him of the death of Robert Emmett, "just 24!" and detailing his own life in politics when he was that age; saying "I was retiring from Politics, disgusted beyond measure by the manners & morals of the Democrats, & fully awake to the inconsistency of my practice with the speculative Principles. My speculative Principles were wild as Dreams - they were 'Dreams linked to purposes of Reason'; but they were perfectly harmless - a compound of Philosophy & Christianity...;" adding a lengthy and detailed discourse on his political philosophy, ambitions, his views on religion and revolution and saying "...fortunately for me, the Government, I suppose, knew that both Southey & I were utterly unconnected with any party or club or society...This insulation of myself & Southey, I suppose, the Ministers knew / knew that we were Boys : or rather, perhaps, Southey was at Lisbon, & I at Stowey, sick of Politics, & sick of Democrats & Democracy, before the Ministers had ever heard of us : for our career of Sedition....lasted by 10 months; saying if when he was 24 he "... had been imprisoned, my health & constitution were such as that it would have been almost as certain as Death to me, as the Executioner has been to poor young Emmett"; comparing his youth and political zeal to that of Emmett's; mourning and praising Emmett; saying that writing this letter to them "...added to the recollection of the unwise & unchristian feelings, with which at poor Emmett's Age I contemplated all persons of your rank in Society, & that recollection confronted with my present Feelings towards you - it has agitated me, dear Friends! and I have written, my Heart at a full Gallop adown Hill. - And now, good night - I will finish this Letter tomorrow morning;" continuing "Sunday Noon" saying that he was much affected by the beautiful passage which Lady Beaumont took from her sister's letter and wishing they were there with him now; describing the colors and images of nature; telling them that it gave him sincere pleasure to know that his Ode pleased them and that he hopes to finish it; adding that he sent Lady Beaumont poems entitled Chamouny, The inscription for the Fountain, & Tranquility; saying that Southey "...seems very happy, at present. His eyes plague him; but he is a hard Task-master to them. He is the most industrious man, I know or have ever known;" relating what Southey is working on and mentioning that he has not heard from Hazlitt about the portraits; relating news of his children, referring to Derwent as a "cube of Fat" and mentioning that Sara is teething; asking, in a postscript, how Sir George's health "..bears up under the bustle of military Preparation."
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