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, Penrith, to John James Morgan, 1812 March 27 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
415585
Accession number
MA 1852.19
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Penrith, England, 1812 March 27.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 22.9 x 18.9 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 / 71 Berners Street / Oxford Street / London."
Coleridge dates this letter "Good Friday Night / Penrith." The postmark is March 30, 1812. Good Friday fell on March 27th in 1812.
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
Reporting on the severe weather and the impassable roads due to the heavy snow; saying he may be delayed but will make sure to get him the 50£; discussing various financial matters related to the Friend; discussing his relationship with Wordsworth and his failure to visit him at Grasmere; saying "I have received four Letters in 3 days about my not having called on Wordsworth as I passed thro' Grasmere - & this morning a most impassioned one from Mrs. Clarkson - Good God! how could I? how can I ? - I have no resentment - and unless Grief & Anguish be resentment, I never had - but unless I meet him as of yore, what use is there in it? What but mere pain? I am not about to be his Enemy - I want no stimulus to serve him to the utmost whenever it should be in my power. - And can any friend of mine wish me to go without apology received, and as to a man the best-beloved & honored, who had declared me a nuisance, an absolute nuisance - & this to such a Creature as Montagu? And who since then has professed his determination to believe Montagu rather than me, as to my assertion to Southey that Montagu prefaced his Discourse with the words - 'Nay, but Wordsworth has commissioned me to tell you, first, that he has no Hope of you, &c &c &c. - A nuisance! - & then a deliberate Liar! O Christ! if I dared after this crouch to the Man, must I not plead guilty to these charges, & be a Liar against my own Soul? No more of this! And be assured, I will never hereafter trouble you with any recurrence to it;" sending his regards to Mary and Charlotte.