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Boston Public Library, MS C.1.22.3. Not previously published.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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When your letter reached me at Minehead Edith was
recovering by degrees so slow as scarcely to be perceptible.
I know not whether her sister Mrs Coleridge was with us when I wrote.
as her recovery became more secure, when our time in the
lodgings was expired, we adopted this plan. she returned to
Stowey with her
sister. I walked to Ilfracombe to see if the place would
suit us, if on returning to Edith after the
few days absence I found her materially better we might
proceed, if not – we were on our way to Bristol. I found her
very much amended, & her amendment daily continues. – I
now write from Coleridges. he is going next week to visit his
friends at Ottery – we shall travel together, & leaving
him & his wife at Ottery proceed to Sidmouth. the
reconciliation between Coleridge & myself which has taken place has
restored me one source of enjoyment. it was chiefly brought
about by his friend Poole – I wish it had been effected without
sinking Lloyd in my opinion.
My walk to Ilfracombe led me thro
Lymouth.s & the river – before,
the little village – the beautiful little village which I am
assured by one who is familiar with Switzerland resembles a
Swiss village. this alone would constitute a view beautiful
enough to repay the weariness of a long journey – but to
compleat it – there is the blue & boundless sea – for
the faint & feeble line of the Welch coast is only to be
seen on the right hand & if the day be perfectly
clear.
Ascending from Lymouth up a road of
serpentizing perpendicularity – steep as the path of an
emmet would be crawling along the coils of a snakes round
& round to a height immediately above wh the place whence he set
out – you reach a lane which by a slight descent brings leads to the Valley of
Stones, a spot which as one of & the greatest wonder
indeed in the West of England would attract many visitors if
the roads were passable by carriages.
Imagine a narrow vale between two ridges of
hills somewhat steep. the xx
southern hills turfed. the vale which runs from E. to West,
covered with huge stones & fragments of stones among the
fern that fills it. the Northern ridge compleatly bare,
excoriated of all turf & all soil – the very bones &
skeleton of the earth, rock reclining upon rock, stone piled
upon stone, a huge & terrific mass. a Palace of the
Preadamite Kingshad subsided. I ascended with
some toil the highest point. two large stones inclining on
each other formed a rude portal on the summit. here I laid
down – a little level platform – about two yards long – lay
before me – & then the eye immediately fell upon the sea
– far very far below. I never felt the sublimity of solitude
before.
You have I trust before this received the
“Annual Anthology”
You have confounded Maurice of Bristolof upon this
subject – & the book is calculated to interest
unscientific readers & to be of use to them. the faculty
dislike Beddoes because he is more able & more
succesful & more celebrated than themselves, &
because he labours to reconcile the art of healing with
common sense, instead of all the parade of mystery with
which it is usually enveloped. Beddoes is a
candid man, trusting more to facts than reasonings. I
understand him when he talks to me – & in case of
illness should rather trust myself to his experiments, than
be killed off secundum artem,
God bless you. direct to the Post Office
Sidmouth. & if you are fortunate enough to obtain the
Zendavesta
Wednesday.