BIB_ID
415671
Accession number
MA 1848.78
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, England, circa 1807 February 16.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 20.1 x 16 cm
Notes
Coleridge does not give a date of writing and there is no date on the postmark. Based on biographical information, Griggs proposes that this letter was written on or soon after February 16, 1807. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
Place of writing taken from the postmark.
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: "R. Southey, Esqre. / Greta Hall / Keswick / Cumberland."
Place of writing taken from the postmark.
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: "R. Southey, Esqre. / Greta Hall / Keswick / Cumberland."
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
Responding to the idea that Southey might leave his family at Keswick and go to Lisbon; saying that he does not remember Southey mentioning this possibility and if he had, he would have taken the opportunity to discuss his own plans; adding that he had taken it for granted that, for reasons of finances and health, Southey intended to settle near London or Bristol; explaining that he had written to his wife on this subject in order to find out what Southey's plans were, "fearing lest from motives of delicacy you might have insisted on giving up the House to me, or have been wounded"; writing that the prospect of Southey remaining in Keswick indefinitely is very convenient for him, as it means that he does not have to find another place for Sara and the children; writing of his concern for the welfare and happiness of his family and himself; explaining further that the reason he had written to Sara rather than Southey directly was "to know your plans, such as they were without any reference to me, & to guide my own, as far as habitation is concerned, by them"; writing of his regret at not being able to live with them; mentioning that he is shocked but not surprised that Lord Grenville has refused to accept some papers prepared by Southey's uncle about the South American interior: "Good Heavens! what would have been the answer of a French Cabinet? -- And as if the Sea Coast could be politically understood without an accurate knowledge of the Interior -- the force, & resources, and dispositions of the Inhabitants"; saying that his health is much better and he is writing a lot: "I felt as a man revisited by a familiar Spirit the first morning, that I felt that sort of stirring warmth about the Heart, which is with me the robe of incarnation of my genius, such as it is."
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