COLERIDGE, VOL. I (OF 2)***


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LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE


[Illustration]


LETTERS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Edited by

ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE

In Two Volumes

VOL. I







London
William Heinemann
1895
[All rights reserved.]

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company.




INTRODUCTION


Hitherto no attempt has been made to publish a collection of Coleridge's
Letters. A few specimens were published in his lifetime, both in his own
works and in magazines, and, shortly after his death in 1834, a large
number appeared in print. Allsop's "Letters, Conversations, and
Recollections of S. T. Coleridge," which was issued in 1836, contains
forty-five letters or parts of letters; Cottle in his "Early
Recollections" (1837) prints, for the most part incorrectly, and in
piecemeal, some sixty in all, and Gillman, in his "Life of Coleridge"
(1838), contributes, among others, some letters addressed to himself, and
one, of the greatest interest, to Charles Lamb. In 1847, a series of early
letters to Thomas Poole appeared for the first time in the Biographical
Supplement to the "Biographia Literaria," and in 1848, when Cottle
reprinted his "Early Recollections," under the title of "Reminiscences of
Coleridge and Southey," he included sixteen letters to Thomas and Josiah
Wedgwood. In Southey's posthumous "Life of Dr. Bell," five letters of
Coleridge lie imbedded, and in "Southey's Life and Correspondence"
(1849-50), four of his letters find an appropriate place. An interesting
series was published in 1858 in the "Fragmentary Remains of Sir H. Davy,"
edited by his brother, Dr. Davy; and in the "Diary of H. C. Robinson,"
published in 1869, a few letters from Coleridge are interspersed. In 1870,
the late Mr. W. Mark W. Call printed in the "Westminster Review" eleven
letters from Coleridge to Dr. Brabant of Devizes, dated 1815 and 1816;
and a series of early letters to Godwin, 1800-1811 (some of which had
appeared in "Macmillan's Magazine" in 1864), was included by Mr. Kegan
Paul in his "William Godwin" (1876). In 1874, a correspondence between
Coleridge (1816-1818) and his publishers, Gale & Curtis, was contributed
to "Lippincott's Magazine," and in 1878, a few letters to Matilda Betham
were published in "Fraser's Magazine." During the last six years the vast
store which still remained unpublished has been drawn upon for various
memoirs and biographies. The following works containing new letters are
given in order of publication: Herr Brandl's "Samuel T. Coleridge and the
English Romantic School," 1887; "Memorials of Coleorton," edited by
Professor Knight, 1887; "Thomas Poole and his Friends," by Mrs. H.
Sandford, 1888; "Life of Wordsworth," by Professor Knight, 1889; "Memoirs
of John Murray," by Samuel Smiles, LL. D., 1891; "De Quincey Memorials,"
by Alex. Japp, LL. D., 1891; "Life of Washington Allston," 1893.

Notwithstanding these heavy draughts, more than half of the letters which
have come under my notice remain unpublished. Of more than forty which
Coleridge wrote to his wife, only one has been published. Of ninety
letters to Southey which are extant, barely a tenth have seen the light.
Of nineteen addressed to W. Sotheby, poet and patron of poets, fourteen to
Lamb's friend John Rickman, and four to Coleridge's old college friend,
Archdeacon Wrangham, none have been published. Of more than forty letters
addressed to the Morgan family, which belong for the most part