BIB_ID
402401
Accession number
MA 1581.43
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Bristol, 1814 June 9.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 23.5 x 18.7 cm
Notes
This letter was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Coleridge) 20.
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).
Address panel with postmarks to "Sir George Beaumont, Bart / S. Audley Street / Grosvenor Square / London."
Coleridge dates this letter "Thursday 10 June 1814" however Thursday was June 9 and the Bristol postmark is June 9.
Henry Daniel was a surgeon attached to the Bristol Infirmary and a friend of Coleridge.
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).
Address panel with postmarks to "Sir George Beaumont, Bart / S. Audley Street / Grosvenor Square / London."
Coleridge dates this letter "Thursday 10 June 1814" however Thursday was June 9 and the Bristol postmark is June 9.
Henry Daniel was a surgeon attached to the Bristol Infirmary and a friend of Coleridge.
Provenance
Purchased as a gift of the Fellows from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Summary
Concerning the "...state of Mrs. Fermor's mental & bodily health;" telling him that in accord with her wishes he set up an interview for her with "one of our most eloquent preachers in Bristol...persuaded her to call on his friend Daniel, a Medical Chirurgeon, whom she has seen twice; relating his lengthy conversation with Daniel about Mrs. Fermor and stating he believes she may be a hypochondriac however suggesting "... that the greatest part of this excellent Woman's Sufferings are connected with the state of her alimentary Canal; with abdominal congestion; & the disproportioned Health & Vigor of her Stomach to that of the lower Viscera;" suggesting she take the medication Daniel is prescribing and stay in Bristol for six to eight weeks under his care and avail herself of the lectures and preaching that she would not have in Bath; adding, Sir! that this & all other things will be alike profitless & vain, if she perseveres in having on all these occasions an opinion of her own, founded on her own fancies;" stating that if she persists in following her own opinions, both he and Daniel believe "...she will become worse & worse : & that a state of absolutely Melancholia will in a few years be the final sad Catastrophe;" adding, in a postscript, that Mrs. Fermor leaves Bristol tomorrow.
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