BIB_ID
402400
Accession number
MA 1581.42
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
London, 1811 December 7.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 23.2 x 18.7 cm
Notes
In a note to this letter in the published version cited below, Griggs states "Coleridge must have meant to write Dawe and not Allston. George Dawe (1781-1829) exhibited his bust of Coleridge at the Royal Academy in 1812.
This letter was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Coleridge) 19.
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 "J.J. Morgan's, Esq're., 7 Portland Place, Hammersmith. / Saturday Morning 7 Decembr. 1811."
Address panel with postmarks to "Sir G. Beaumont, Bart / Dunmow / Essex."
This letter was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Coleridge) 19.
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 "J.J. Morgan's, Esq're., 7 Portland Place, Hammersmith. / Saturday Morning 7 Decembr. 1811."
Address panel with postmarks to "Sir G. Beaumont, Bart / Dunmow / Essex."
Provenance
Purchased as a gift of the Fellows from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Summary
Explaining that he stayed in town "...in order to have a Mask taken, from which or rather with which Allston means to model a Bust of me" and thus he did not receive his letter until late on Thursday night and then he got a really bad toothache on Friday morning making him unable to reply until now; saying how grateful he is for his continued friendship; telling him that Mr. Dawe "...plaistered my face for me, says that he never saw so excellent a Mask, and so unaffected by any expression of Pain or Uneasiness...which I was vain enough to desire to be packed up and sent to Dunmow - with it you will find a chalk drawing of my face, which I think far more like than any former attempt, excepting Allston's full length Portrait of me....Dawe is engaged on a picture (the figures about 4 feet) from my Poem of Love...His Sketch is very beautiful & has more expression than I ever found in his former productions - excepting indeed his Imogen;" relating details of what Allston and Dawe are working on and his hopes for Allston's future fame; adding that he has not been to the Courier office in months; saying "I detest writing Politics, even on the right side - and when I discovered that the Courier was not the independent Paper, I had been led to believe, and had myself over and over again asserted, I wrote no more for it. Greatly indeed do I prefer the present Ministers to the Leaders of any other Party - but indiscriminate Support of any class of men, I dare not give - especially when there is so easy and honorable an Alternative as not to write Politics at all, - which henceforth, nothing but blank Necessity shall compel me to do. I will write for the "Permanent", or not at all;" referring, in a postscript, to his Lectures and to Dr. Bell's writings on Southey.
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