BIB_ID
416544
Accession number
MA 2204.17
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
London, England, 1802 January 21.
Credit line
Purchased from James Richard Scarlett, 8th Baron Abinger, 1962.
Description
1 item (2 pages, with address) ; 22.4 x 18.2 cm
Notes
Coleridge gives the date of writing as "Thursday, 21." The letter is postmarked "January 22, 1802," suggesting that it was written the previous day. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
Coleridge lists the place of writing as "King's Street, Covent Garden."
This collection, MA 2204, is comprised of 41 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Godwin, written between 1800 and 1823. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 2204.1-41).
Address panel with seal and postmarks: "Mr Godwin / Polygon / Somers' Town."
Coleridge lists the place of writing as "King's Street, Covent Garden."
This collection, MA 2204, is comprised of 41 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Godwin, written between 1800 and 1823. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 2204.1-41).
Address panel with seal and postmarks: "Mr Godwin / Polygon / Somers' Town."
Provenance
Purchased, via the London dealer Constance A. Kyrle Fletcher, from James Richard Scarlett, 8th Baron Abinger, in 1962 as a gift of the Fellows.
Summary
Saying that he left London on December 26th and returned just that morning to find Godwin's letters; adding that he was very affected by them and "can say with the strictest truth that I have been to you qualis ab incæpto. I thought indeed, that I had given you a sufficient proof of [it] by the confidence & openness, with which I spoke to you of my own most private concerns. - You perhaps took offence at my not calling on you ; but ill-health has surely a privilege - if you had ever asked me & fixed a day, I should most certainly have come;" saying that in London "I never go any where, nor in any degree follow my free-inclination - I am pushed / & waste my time because of all words I find it most difficult to say, No;" saying that he had not previously heard the news of Godwin's marriage and wishing him "from the depth & warmth of my spirit all happiness & moral progression;" promising to call on him soon and introduce him to "one of the very best, & among the most sensible men, in the Kingdom, my friend, T. Poole."
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