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
After noting that Mr. C. left London at the end of his first half year's
engagement, Mr. S. brings forward more letters, containing excuses on
account of illness, but promising a number of essays: two on the war, as
respecting agriculture; one on the raising of rents; one on the riots
(corn riots in 1800); and one on the countenance by Government of
calumnies on the King;--promising also a second part of Pitt and
Buonaparte, which Mr. S. supposes he was constantly dunning for, the
Character of Pitt, published in _The M. P._ early in 1800, having made a
great sensation; proposing a letter to Sir F. Burdett on solitary
imprisonment, and that all these should be published in pamphlets, after
they had been divided into pieces, and published in _The M. P._, he
doubting whether they were of value for a newspaper. Some of these
essays appear to have been sent; it is not specified which or how many.
"Early in 1807," Mr. S. says, "I was confined by a violent fever.
Several weeks I was delirious, and to my astonishment, when I recovered,
Pitt was out of place, and Horne Tooke in Parliament. I did not resume
the conduct of the Paper till the spring. The Paper suffered loss."
The next letter, dated May, 1801, Keswick, speaks of ill health, and
"the habits of irresolution which are its worst consequences,"
forbidding him to rely on himself. Mr. S. had solicited him to write,
and offered terms, and it appears that he did form a new engagement for
the Paper about that time. In a letter of Sept. 1801, he says, "I am not
so blinded by authorship as to believe that what I have done is at all
adequate to the money I have received." Mr. Stuart then produces a
letter with the postmark Bridgewater, of Jan. 19, 1802.[33] These
letters show, he says, that in July and October 1800, in May 1801, on
the 30th of September 1801, Coleridge was at Keswick, that in January
1802, he was at Stowey, that he could not therefore have materially
contributed to the success of _The Morning Post_. "In this last year,"
says Mr. Stuart, "his Letters to Judge Fletcher, and on Mr. Fox, at
Paris, were published." The former were not published till 1814. The six
letters appeared in _The Courier_ on Sept. 20th, 29th, Oct. 21st, Nov.
2nd, Dec. 3rd, 6th, 9th and 10th. The latter appeared on the 4th and 9th
of Nov. 1802. Mr. Stuart speaks of it as a mistake in those who have
supposed that the coolness of Fox to Sir James Mackintosh was occasioned
by his ascribing this "violent philippic," as Lamb called it, to him
(Sir James). "On those to Judge Fletcher," he says, "and many other such
essays, as being rather fit for pamphlets than newspapers, I did not set
much value." On this subject hear Coleridge himself in a letter[34] dated
June 4th, 1811, when he was engaged with Mr. Street.
LETTER 150. TO DANIEL STUART
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