BIB_ID
415711
Accession number
MA 1852.35
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Bristol, England, 1814 July.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (4 ages, with address) ; 18.8 x 11.6 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 to "J. J. Morgan, Esq're / W. Allston's, Esq're."."
Place of writing inferred from contents. Date of writing from published letter cited below which dates it to "Late July 1814" and in a footnote suggests "This letter must have been written not long before Remorse was produced in Bristol on 1 Aug. 1814."
According to a footnote to the published letter cited below, Coleridge's essays on the Fine Arts, referred to in this Letter, appeared August 18, 20 and 27 and September 10 and 24 in Felix Farley's Bristol Journal.
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 to "J. J. Morgan, Esq're / W. Allston's, Esq're."."
Place of writing inferred from contents. Date of writing from published letter cited below which dates it to "Late July 1814" and in a footnote suggests "This letter must have been written not long before Remorse was produced in Bristol on 1 Aug. 1814."
According to a footnote to the published letter cited below, Coleridge's essays on the Fine Arts, referred to in this Letter, appeared August 18, 20 and 27 and September 10 and 24 in Felix Farley's Bristol Journal.
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
Discussing, at length, the talent of Washington Allston; beginning by relating details of an illness he succumbed to "an hour after dinner" and saying that despite a glass of punch that Mrs. Daniel gave him which relieved him, he feels he cannot walk to Portland Square to meet with one of the actors in Remorse; discussing an essay he is to write on Allston; expressing his hope "...that this unlucky Indisposition shall be no injury to Allston - I should have done more, had I not been so anxious to do so much. I could not bear the Thought of putting in an ordinary Puff on such a man - or even an anonymous one. I thought, that a bold Avowal of my sentiments on the fine Arts, as divided into - Poetry - 1 of Language - 2 of the ear - and 3 of the Eye - & the last subdivided into the plastic (statuary) & the graphic (painting) connected (& as it were isthmused) with common Life by the Link of Architecture - & exemplifying my principles by continued reference to Allston's Pictures - would from the mere curiosity of Malignity & envy answer our friend's pecuniary Interests best : his Fame he will make for himself - for which indeed (& you may tell him so from me) he has but one thing to do - Having arrived at perfection, comparative perfection certainly, in colouring, drawing, and composition, to be as equal to these three in his Expression, (not of a particular Passion but of the living, ever-individualizing Soul, whose chief & best meaning is itself) as even in this he is superior to other artists. - He will remember the Galatea of Rafael in the Farnesini [sic] which we saw together - & understand, my dear Morgan."
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