BIB_ID
415573
Accession number
MA 1852.17
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Keswick, England, 1812 February 23.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 22.7 x 18.5 cm
Notes
This collection, MA 1852, is comprised of 40 autograph letters signed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Mr. and Mrs. John James Morgan, written from November 1807 through October 1826. Coleridge lived with the Morgans from 1810-1816.
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 individually as MA 1848- MA 1857.
Address panel with postmarks to "J. J. Morgan, Esq're / 7. Portland Place / Hammersmith / London" with a line in Greek on the top fold of the address panel with a small ink drawing of a person's head beneath it.
Date of writing from published letter cited below. Coleridge simply dates the letter "Sunday" and February 23rd was a Sunday in 1812. The postmark is February 28, 1812 and the letter is stamped "Keswick."
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 individually as MA 1848- MA 1857.
Address panel with postmarks to "J. J. Morgan, Esq're / 7. Portland Place / Hammersmith / London" with a line in Greek on the top fold of the address panel with a small ink drawing of a person's head beneath it.
Date of writing from published letter cited below. Coleridge simply dates the letter "Sunday" and February 23rd was a Sunday in 1812. The postmark is February 28, 1812 and the letter is stamped "Keswick."
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
Relating news of his arrival at Keswick and of his children; commenting on how bright Sara is with her strong command of the English language; commenting on Derwent and Hartley, saying "Derwent is the self-same fond small Samuel Taylor Coleridge as ever. When I sent for them from Mr. Dawes, he came in dancing for joy, while Hartley turned pale & trembled all over - then after he had taken some cold water instantly asked me some questions about the connection of the Greek with the Latin, which latter he has just begun to learn. Poor Derwent, who has by no means strong health, (having inherited his poor father's tenderness of Bowels & Stomach & consequently capriciousness of animal Spirits) has complained to me (having no other possible grievance) that Mr. Dawes does not love him, because he can't help crying when he is scolded, & because he an't such a genius, as Hartley - and that tho' Hartley should have done the same thing, yet all the others are punished, & Mr. Dawes only looks at Hartley, & never scolds him - & that all the boys think it very unfair he is a genius!...A Gentleman who took a third of the Chaise with me from Ambleside & whom I found a well-informed & thinking Man, said after two hours' knowledge of us, that the two boys united would be a perfect representative of myself;" describing the "violent cold" he caught from the "dampness of the House" and the remedies he was using to cure it; saying he "...passed thro' Grasmere; but did not call on Wordsworth. - I hear from Mrs. C., that he treats the affair as a trifle & only wonders at my resenting it - & that Dorothy Wordsworth before my arrival expressed her confident hope, that I should come to them at once! I, who 'for years past had been an Absolute Nuisance in the Family';" relating his proposed itinerary on his way back to London with his hopes of being able to Lecture in Liverpool; expressing his disappointment that they had not replied to any of the letters he sent them on his travels to Keswick; adding, in a postscript, eleven lines in Latin as follows: "Dignum notatu est : uxor mea casta est, modesta, prudens, mater optima, forma aeque ac moribus eximia, et mihi quidem pulchrior adhuc videtur, quam primis nostris amplexibus visa est. Ego autem vir iste sum, cui ipsa natura cor totum et tota praecordia amoribus complevit, cujus ipsis in medullis aegra quaedam necessitas inest, ut amem aliquam, et ab aliqua redamer - vir in delicias, blanditiasque faemineas et dulcia cum corporis tum animae coeuntis susurramina natali et ingenita proclivitate raptus in omnia promptus, quae maritum decent, et quae nequeo non cupire - et tamen tanquam uxor mea mea soror uterina fuisset, frigesco et horreo vel ipsa imaginatione con gressus conjugalis. - Deo Gratias! illa quoque non vult nec desiderat."
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