Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia LiterariaColeridge, Samuel Taylor
General
Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 -- Correspondence
more of it, but do me the _justice_ to believe that any intentions or
feelings of which I have been conscious have ever been of a kind most
contrary to any form of disrespect, omissive or commissive; to which,
let me add, that _I should_ be doing what Mr. Allsop (I am sure) would
_not_ do, _if having_ shown you _consciously_ any _dis_respect I
continued to subscribe myself _his_ friend, not to speak of any
profession of being what in very truth I am, my dear Mrs. Allsop,
Sincerely and affectionately _yours_,
S. T. COLERIDGE.[132]
Thomas Monkhouse referred to in the above letter was a cousin of Mrs.
Wordsworth, with whom Lamb on 4th March 1823 "dined in Parnassus with
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Rogers, and Tom Moore, half the poetry of England
clustered and constellated in Gloucester Place" (_Ainger_, ii, 69).
LETTER 211. TO MR. AND MRS. ALLSOP
Grove, Highgate, April 8th, 1824.
Dear Mrs. Allsop,
There are three rolls of paper, Mr. Wordsworth's translation of the
first, second, and third books, two in letter-paper, one in a little
writing-book, in the drawer under the side-board in your dining-room. Be
so good as to put them up and give them to the bearer should Mr. Allsop
not be at home.
My dear Allsop,
You I know will have approved of my instant compliance with Mr.
Gillman's request of returning with him; and I know, too, that both Mrs.
Allsop and yourself will think it superfluous in me to tell you what you
must be sure I cannot but feel. I trust that when I next return from
you, I shall have--not to thank you less--but with less painful
recollections of the trouble and anxiety I have occasioned you.
In the agitation of leaving Mrs. Allsop, I forgot to take with me the
translation of Virgil. Could I, that is, dared I, wait till Sunday, I
might make it one way of inducing you to spend the day with me. Upon the
whole, however, I had better send than increase my anxieties, so I will
send Riley with this note.
My Grandfatherly love and kisses to the Fairy Prattler and the meek boy.
I did heave a long-drawn wish this morning, as the sun and the air too
were so genial, that the latter had been in the good woman's house at
Highgate well wrapped up. A fortnight would do wonders for the dear
little fellow. You and Mrs. Allsop may rely on it that I would see him
every day during his stay here, if there were only one hour in which it
did not rain vehemently.
God bless you,
And your obliged and most
affectionately attached friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
T. Allsop, Esq.
Coleridge wrote about this time to Wordsworth regarding his translation
of part of Virgil (Knight's _Life of Wordsworth_, ii, 302), and threw
cold water on the project of Wordsworth's entering into rivalry with
Dryden.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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