BIB_ID
415353
Accession number
MA 1848.41
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Bishop Middleham, England, 1801 August 12.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 22.7 x 18.5 cm
Notes
Coleridge gives the place of writing as "Bishop's Middleham."
No year of writing is given, but based on the contents of the letter, it was most likely written in 1801. Coleridge lists the date of writing as "Wednesday, August 11," but in that year, month and week, Wednesday was the 12th. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
The letter is not signed.
This collection, MA 1848, is comprised of 92 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Robert Southey, written between 1794 and 1819. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 1848.1-92).
This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged as MA 1848-1857.
Address panel with postmarks: "Mrs Danvers / Kingsdown Parade / Bristol / Single Sheet / (for Mr Southey)."
No year of writing is given, but based on the contents of the letter, it was most likely written in 1801. Coleridge lists the date of writing as "Wednesday, August 11," but in that year, month and week, Wednesday was the 12th. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
The letter is not signed.
This collection, MA 1848, is comprised of 92 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Robert Southey, written between 1794 and 1819. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 1848.1-92).
This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged as MA 1848-1857.
Address panel with postmarks: "Mrs Danvers / Kingsdown Parade / Bristol / Single Sheet / (for Mr Southey)."
Provenance
Purchased from Joanna Langlais in 1957 as a gift of the Fellows, with the special assistance of Mrs. W. Murray Crane, Mr. Homer D. Crotty, Mr. and Mrs. Donald F. Hyde, Mr. Robert H. Taylor and Mrs. Landon K. Thorne. Formerly in the possession of Ernest Hartley Coleridge and Thomas Burdett Money-Coutts, Baron Latymer.
Summary
Commenting on Southey's negotiations with Longman over "Madoc" and writing "I am glad that Longman played the Jew with you. Do not, whatever you do, do not send Madoc hastily out of your hands"; praising the poem highly; warning him against writing for Daniel Stuart at the Morning Post; suggesting projects for Southey, saying he wishes he could have his mother with him and recommending "Change -- & chearfulness -- and Rest" for his health; including two lines in Latin; referring to Humphry Davy: "After I had written what I wrote to you concerning him, & had sent off my letter, a reproof rose up in my heart -- & I said to myself -- O when wilt thou be cured of the idle trick of letting thy Wishes make Romances out of men's characters?"; describing an affecting letter he had from Davy and saying that he did not think "his sphere of utility extended by his removal to London; and I think those most likely to be permanently useful who most cherish their best feelings"; discussing the relative merits of Shakespeare, Milton and Newton; saying that he has seen no new books except Godwin's, that he agrees entirely with Southey's opinion of it and commenting "I was so much delighted with all the rest of the Pamphlet that I could have myself pulled his nose for that loathsome & damnable passage"; saying that Dr. Fenwick at Durham dissuaded him from swimming in the open sea, telling him it could be fatal, but he had "Faith in the Ocean" and "bathed regularly, frolicked in the Billows, and it did me a proper deal of good"; mentioning that he is on his way back towards Keswick, but he plans to spend a week in Dinsdale first, at the sulphur baths there; adding "I long to behold you" and sending his love to Edith; saying that after his first swim, he composed a poem, "which will please you as a sign of convalescence," as it has been a long time since he "cropt a flowering weed on the sweet Hill of Poesy"; including the poem, which begins "God be with thee, gladsome Ocean!"
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