BIB_ID
415866
Accession number
MA 1854.8
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Calne, England, 1816 January 16.
Credit line
Purchased from Joanna Langlais, 1957.
Description
1 item (2 pages, with address) ; 22.0 x 18.1 cm
Notes
Dr. Brabant was an English physician in Devizes who also had an interest in German Higher Criticism. Coleridge was a patient of Dr. Brabant during the years he lived in Calne.
This collection, MA 1854, is comprised of ten autograph letters signed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to R.H. Brabant, written from March 10, 1815 through December 5, 1816. It also includes 4 pages of autograph notes and one fragment of an autograph letter signed to Brabant. The fragment is written from Calne but is undated.
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 seal to "R. Brabant, Esq're / Devizes."
This collection, MA 1854, is comprised of ten autograph letters signed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to R.H. Brabant, written from March 10, 1815 through December 5, 1816. It also includes 4 pages of autograph notes and one fragment of an autograph letter signed to Brabant. The fragment is written from Calne but is undated.
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 seal to "R. Brabant, Esq're / Devizes."
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
Expressing his anxiety at not hearing from him, sending his wishes for a good New Year and relating news of the progress on his play; reporting "I go on pretty well, and am decently industrious. - Three acts of a Play, amounting on an average to 400 Lines each, all in verse and carefully revised, you will deem no contemptible proof. - I only wish, that I could settle with my own mind the exact point of Duty - Lord Byron has behaved very politely; but never answered the most important parts of my Letter - and this which I am now putting the last hand to, is not the Tragedy, I promised to Drury Lane - while the present piece must depend almost for it's fate, certainly for it's success, on the talents of the Actresses - in an equal, perhaps, in a greater degree than on those of the Actors. For there are three female Characters, each perfectly distinct from the other, and all prominent. - Now at D.L. they have not a single tolerable Actress : and excepting Kean scarcely one effective Tragic Actor. - If I sent it to C.G., it will either be damned on the first night, or have a more than ordinary Run - from the boldness and originality of the Plan. If I send it to D.L., it will run a still greater Risk of instant failure from the technical Criticasters, and no chance of popularity;" sending his respects to Mrs. Brabant.
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