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Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Don. c. 79. 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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I should send you this prospectusstability I dare not be a voucher. That Coleridges head is full every body knows. & I know that his common place books are full also; – if he has but the
resolution to arrange them & put his scattered materials <fragments> in order. there will be no lack of
materials, [MS torn]atever he will do, will be of the best very best order, – no man living is so capable of
instructing [MS torn]blic, & if he puts his design in execution it will be doing great food at a seasonable time.
You will wish me to say something about that country of which we are all thinking, & for which so many are
fearing & desponding. I have no fears for Spain. Great reverses we must hear of, Bonaparte at Madrid,xxxxx <do> in their present contest. Bad as their religion is it is a mighty ally in times
like these: xx they are as sincere in it as ever, & probably more attached to it because the higher clergy have long been men
of most exemplary lives. – Bad as their government is, it has never corrupted the people as ours has done. –
they are patriots, – we alas, are whigs & tories, outs & ins. – tantararara
Yet there is hope at home as well as abroad. That cry which was heard against the cursed Cintra convention came
from the heart of England. & there is a stirring among the bones which seems to indicate that the Day of
xxxxxxxxxxx Resurrection <& of Judgement> is at hand. at public meetings men do as they are bid. because
their votes are bought & sold like any other dirty commodity. – but in private you hear but one opinion, – one sense of
national degradation. – one feeling ‘that it is not & it cannot come to good’
I have reason to expect our excellent good friend Danvers here at
midsummer. He is to conduct his wards to Liverpool, & will bring David on to the
Lakes. This last summer is the only one that we have past without some abiding guest. My brother Tom was called off in June by the Admiralty, & is now I trust lying snug at anchor
in Torbay. that shocking system of keeping up the blockade thro all weather, having happily been given up, to the salvation of
ships & seamen. The Doctor is officiating at Durham, with fair prospect of
soon halving the practice of the place. – but I look at the Magazine Obituaries, & do not find any such increase of mortality
there as should induce me to think he has much to do. He would grin at me with anger if he heard that sentence. As I
not have not seen him since his return from Lisbon, I purpose paying him a visit early in the new year. We are but
fourscore miles asunder, & it is good fortune that our lots have not been more distant.
Of myself the news is that I am weary of waiting for any reduction in the price of paper, & so my History of
Brazil will set off this week to the press.xxxxx you heard at Bownham,
I have mislaid your present address & must direct to Bownham.