BIB_ID
415616
Accession number
MA 1852.27
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Bristol, England, 1813 November 17.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 26.0 x 20.9 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 "Mrs. Morgan / 19 London Street / Fitzroy Square / London."
Coleridge dates the letter "Bristol, Wednesday Night." The postmark is November 19.
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 "Mrs. Morgan / 19 London Street / Fitzroy Square / London."
Coleridge dates the letter "Bristol, Wednesday Night." The postmark is November 19.
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 lectures at Clifton; saying "...I am vexed not in the most distant kind for or with respect to myself, but because against my will I am compelled to prostrate myself, an unconditional Captive, at the feet of my own Understanding and previous Experience, as to the hollowness of Zealous Acquaintances. Zealous Friends are among God's prime Blessings : but oh! ever while you live, be suspicious of zealous Acquaintances! (Do you remember poor Hartley's distinction of Ac- and In-quaintances - to which by adding Con- I affirmed that we might arrange all whom we were in the frequent habit of seeing? - viz. 1. Acquaintances. 2. Conquaintances. 3. Inquaintances.-) Well, my dear Inquaintances!;" saying he has not seen Allston again, referring to an account of his lecture in a local paper; continuing the letter the following evening and dating it "Thursday Night;" reporting on the success of his Lecture; saying "I have made a famous Lecture to a crowded Room - & all the better, because on account of my mortification at the ill-conduct of those, who had forced me against my own exprest convictions on the Cliftonian lecture, I had not prepared one single word or thought, till 10 mi[nutes] before the lecture commenced-. It was, therefore, quite in my fire-side way, & pleased more than any. - This was to have been the last. However, I am to go on on Tuesday next - & probably for an indefinite time I might with advantage. But I can determine nothing till I hear from you which I expect to do by tomorrow's Post;" discussing whether he should go with her to Keswick; adding that he will be angry if he does not hear from her the following day with an account of her health; adding, in a postscript dated "Friday Afternoon", "No letter from you! - Did you not receive mine of Wednesday with 20£ inclosed? - Two Posts missing, I am half-alarmed -. Pray write."
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