This letter is written on the last two pages of a printed prospectus for the periodical The Friend. Coleridge has made autograph corrections and markings on the prospectus.
The letter is not dated. In the Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Griggs proposes that it was written on or around December 4, 1808, based on other letters by Coleridge from this period. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
This collection, MA 1848, is comprised of 92 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Robert Southey, written between 1794 and 1819. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 1848.1-92).
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 as MA 1848-1857.
Address panel: "Robert Southey, Esqre. / Greta Hall / Keswick."
Enclosing 35 prospectuses for The Friend (no longer with the item); discussing in detail how The Friend will be printed and mailed, based on where the subscribers are located (whether they are scattered throughout the country or concentrated in cities and towns); saying that he does not have grounds for calculating how many subscribers he might expect, nor has he made up his mind about the minimum number he would like to have in order to commit to proceeding with the project; adding that he is sorry that Southey cannot go to J.C. Curwen's and that he himself does not want to go but feels it is unkind to let Wordsworth go alone; saying that he has just learned from "Miss H." (Sara Hutchinson) that Wordsworth has decided not to go; writing that the state of public affairs depresses him, "and yet I think there is a stirring and heaving in the mind of the People, Populi absque Plebe, which might have a channel made for it by the zealous and united Efforts of 3 or 4 sturdy Thinkers who both think & write feelingly"; giving his thoughts about the possibility of reform in Parliament; adding "There is now but one sentiment respecting the Army, the Effect of Court Patronage, and the pernicious consequences of a Ministry, absolutely the menials of the King, and the absolute Privation of all Responsibility in the great State-agents, from the --- & the Duke of York down to Lord Melville & Mr. Trotter"; mentioning that he has had a slight attack of dysentery and is now better, though still weak; saying that he has ordered 30 prospectuses to be sent to Southey's brother in Durham and to William Taylor in Norwich, and requesting that Southey write to them and find other individuals to whom they could be sent: "In short, do you what you can for me, which I regard as a sort of Lord's Prayer -- i.e. Thanksgiving in the Shape of Petition"; asking in the postscript if Mr. Calvert could do anything for him at Carlisle and directing Sara to "alter the word 'are' into 'is', the last word but 8 in the fourth article of the Subjects" (this instruction has been crossed out, though the correction has been made).