BIB_ID
417286
Accession number
MA 77.6
Creator
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.
Display Date
Bristol, England, 1796 December 31.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1904.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 23.3 x 18.9 cm
Notes
Coleridge gives the date of writing on the address panel. It has also been added at the start of the letter in red ink in an unknown hand.
Place of writing taken from the postmark.
No signature is visible, but it may have been cut away.
This collection, MA 77, is comprised of fifteen letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to John Thelwall, one letter from Coleridge to Susannah (called "Stella") Thelwall, two letters from John Thelwall to Susannah Thelwall, one letter from Peter Crompton to John Thelwall, and one incomplete draft of an article on the death of Queen Charlotte. The letters were written from 1796 to 1803, and the draft may have been written in 1818.
Address panel with postmarks: "John Thelwall / Mr Hardy's / Tavistock Street / Covent Garden / London."
Place of writing taken from the postmark.
No signature is visible, but it may have been cut away.
This collection, MA 77, is comprised of fifteen letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to John Thelwall, one letter from Coleridge to Susannah (called "Stella") Thelwall, two letters from John Thelwall to Susannah Thelwall, one letter from Peter Crompton to John Thelwall, and one incomplete draft of an article on the death of Queen Charlotte. The letters were written from 1796 to 1803, and the draft may have been written in 1818.
Address panel with postmarks: "John Thelwall / Mr Hardy's / Tavistock Street / Covent Garden / London."
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer J. Pearson & Co., 1904. Removed from a bound volume in June 1967.
Summary
Beginning "Enough, my dear Thelwall, of Theology. In my book on [William] Godwin I compare the two Systems - his & Jesus's - & that book I am sure you will read with attention;" agreeing with Thelwall's opinion of Southey's Joan of Arc: "the poem tho' it frequently reach the sentimental, does not display, the poetical, Sublime. In language at once natural, perspicuous, & dignified, in manly pathos, in soothing & sonnet-like description, and above all, in character, & dramatic dialogue, Southey is unrivalled ; but as certainly he does not possess opulence of Imagination, lofty-paced Harmony, or that toil of thinking, which is necessary in order to plan a Whole;" suggesting that "an admirable Poet might be made by amalgamating him & me. I think too much for a Poet ; he too little for a great Poet;" explaining that he and Southey had quarreled: "We are now reconciled ; but the cause of the Difference was solemn - & 'the blasted oak puts not forth it's buds anew' - we are acquaintances - & feel kindliness towards each other ; but I do not esteem, or LOVE Southey, as I must esteem & love the man whom I dared call by the holy name of FRIEND! - and vice versâ Southey of me - I say no more - it is a painful subject - & do you say nothing;" giving Thelwall Southey's current address and saying that he is about to leave for Bath; writing "You imagine that I know [William Lisle] Bowles personally - I never saw him but once ; & when I was a boy, & in Salisbury market-place;" saying that the passage in Thelwall's letter about his mother affected him deeply and adding "Well, true or false, Heaven is a less gloomy idea than Annihilation!"; discussing the nature and origin of life: "Dr [Thomas] Beddoes, & Dr [Erasmus] Darwin think that Life is utterly inexplicable, writing as Materialists - You, I understand, have adopted the idea that it is the result of organized matter acted on by external Stimuli. - As likely as any other system ; but you assume the thing to be proved;" including four lines from The Eolian Harp and adding "by the bye - that is my favorite of my poems - do you like it?"; discussing the views of various physicians, surgeons, and metaphysicians on what constitutes life; writing "And I, tho' last not least, I do not know what to think about it - on the whole, I have rather made up my mind that I am a mere apparition - a naked Spirit! - And that Life is I myself I!"; saying that he has written all this merely to indicate that he would like to read Thelwall's essay on animal vitality and that books can be left for him at Robinson's with instructions to forward them to Joseph Cottle; asking Thelwall's opinion of the poems of his that he had sent and offering to critique Thelwall's poems; adding that he wishes they could "sit by the fireside & joke vivâ voce, face to face - Stella & Sara, Jack Thelwall & I!"; including a poem that he once sent to Thomas Poole, beginning "Such Verse as Bowles, heart-honour'd Poet, sang...".
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