Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Nether Stowey, to Robert Southey, 1803 February 15 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
415406
Accession number
MA 1848.51
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Nether Stowey, England, 1803 February 15.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 20.1 x 16.3 cm
Notes
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: "Robert Southey Esqre / St James's Parade / Kingsdown / Bristol / Single Sheet."
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
Saying that after many days of waiting, he has finally received a letter from Thomas Wedgwood telling him to go on alone to Gunville and that his health seems so poor that Wedgwood thinks he should not accompany him to the Continent in the spring; saying that his health is in fact "better than what he knew it to be, when he last took me from the North, expressly under the idea of going with him to Italy in the middle of March" and that he believes Wedgwood is in low spirits and will change his mind when he meets Coleridge at Gunville; describing the itinerary that he would follow if he went to Europe on his own; correcting Southey on a geographical point; saying that Thomas Poole's account of his recent travels in France and Switzerland was "exceedingly interesting & instructive" and relaying messages from Poole; mentioning that his health is average and including two lines in Greek on the subject; saying that, following an attack, he has been confined to his bedroom and is being waited on by a little boy: "I dearly love to be waited on by children. A penny, & cheerful Praise, mills them like chocolate. -- Besides, it is right & isocratic!"; discussing the possibility of Mary Lovell getting a position as a governess and saying that Southey should impress on her the sense that it all depends upon her changing her behavior and temper, otherwise he will be unable to give her a reference; chiding her for her pride and urging her to show that she is "of a cheerful unrepining Disposition & fond of children"; telling Southey that he still thinks that they should move to Keswick, as long as it is just Southey, his wife Edith and their daughter Margaret (who Coleridge calls "the Passionate Pearl"), since his wife has told him that she would be unhappy living with Mary; referring to Southey's ill treatment by his brother; recommending the move to Keswick strongly, though writing "I shall certainly be absent -- even if I live -- two years"; describing all the advantages, financial and otherwise, of the idea, "& Mrs Southey & Mrs Coleridge will, I doubt not, be great Comforts to each other"; saying that he intends to become a member of the Equitable Assurance Society or propose a smaller annuity to the Wedgwoods, in order to guarantee that Sara Coleridge receives money after his death; sending "Kisses to the Pearl -- & remembrances to the Mother of Pearl"; adding in a postscript that he doesn't like the idea of asking the Wedgwoods for money for Sara since he feels he could only ask for it on the condition that she became a widow, "whereas nothing would give me greater pleasure on my Death bed, than the probability of her marrying a second time, happily."