Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, London, to William Godwin, 1811 March 29 : autograph manuscript signed.

Describing his motive in writing a poem for children (see previous letter, MA 2204.29, for context) as being simply to "weave a few tendrils around your destined Walking-stick, which like those of the wood-bine (that, serpent-like climbing up, and with tight spires embossing, the straight Hazel, rewards the lucky School-boy's Search in the winter copse) may remain on it, when the wood-bine, root and branch, lies trampled in the earth;" saying that Godwin's last letter affected him strongly; describing in detail the history of his relationship with Godwin as a thinker and an individual, beginning with the sonnet he dedicated to him in 1795 on Southey's recommendation; describing how he differed from Godwin on religious matters and how that initially made him a "warm & boisterous Anti-Godwinist;" saying that he first began to truly appreciate Godwin when he found himself disgusted by "the altered tone & language of many, whom I had long known as your Admirers and Disciples;" criticizing the traitorousness and ignorance of these individuals, who earned Godwin ridicule by claiming that everything in his Political Justice was "new thoughts, downright creations! and by their own vanity, which enabled them to forget, that every thing must be new to Him who knows nothing;" describing other types of admirers who also brought Godwin's ideas into disrepute: "In all these there was such a want of common sensibility, such a want of that gratitude to an intellectual benefactor, which even an honest reverence for their past Selves should have secured, as did then, still does, & ever will, disgust me;" attempting to explain Southey's conduct towards Godwin, without justifying it; arguing "I verily believe, that his conduct originated wholly & solely in the effects, which the Trade of Reviewing never fails to produce at certain times on the best minds - presumption, petulance, and callousness to personal feelings, and a disposition to treat the reputations of their Contemporaries as play-things placed at their own disposal;" describing Southey's harsh review of one of Coleridge's poems in Lyrical Ballads in comparison to his review of Godwin's Life of Chaucer; adding that he thinks Southey's behavior stems from the fact that he has never failed at anything or disappointed others, and therefore finds it difficult to feel remorse or admit that he might be wrong: "Be[lieve] me, there is a bluntness of Conscience superinduced by a very unusual Infrequency, as well as by the Habit & Frequency, of wrong actions;" writing further about the problems with reviewers and reviewing ("an immoral employment"); saying that he has been confined by ill health, but that he intends to visit William Hazlitt, who is "almost my next door neighbor;" sending his kind remembrances to Mary Jane Godwin.