Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Keswick, to William Godwin, 1800 December 17 : autograph manuscript signed.

Telling him that he received "the Newspaper [containing an account of the premiere of Godwin's play Antonio] with a beating heart & laid it down with a heavy one. But cheerily, Friend! it is worth something to have learnt what will not please. [John Philip] Kemble, like Saul, is among the Prophets;" saying that the account of the play in the Morning Post is "so unusually well written & so unfeelingly harsh" that it raised suspicions about who might have written it; encouraging Godwin: "If your interest in the Theatre is not ruined by the fate of this, your first piece, take heart, set instantly about a new one;" suggesting the "Death of Myrza, as related in the Holstein Ambassador's Travels into Pe[r]sia" as a possible subject, since it has "Crowd, Character, Passion, Incident, & Pageantry in it - & the History is so little known, that you may take what Liberties you like without Danger;" mentioning that he plans to spend a few weeks in London after Christmas and that they can then discuss everything; commenting "Your last play wanted one thing, which I believe is almost indispensable in a play - a proper Rogue, in the cutting of whose throat the Audience may take an unmingled pleasure;" saying that he is going to Grasmere at the end of the week and giving the address Godwin should use if he writes ("Mr Wordsworth, / Grasmere, / near / Ambleside..."); adding in a postscript "There is a Paint, the first coating of which, put on paper, becomes a dingy black, but the second turns to bright gold Color. - So I say - Put on a second Coating, Friend!"