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Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Previously published: Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (London, 1847), pp. 376–378 [in part].
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 have seldom in the course of my life felt it so painful to answer a letter as on the present occasion.
Of sorrow & humiliation I will say nothing. Let me come at once to the point, – on what grounds can such a subscription be solicited? –
The annuity to which your intended circular refers was given by the two Wedgewoods, Thomas & Josiah
In truth Cottle his embarrasments & his miseries of body
& mind are all owing to one accursed cause: – excess in opium, xx <of> which he habitually takes more than
any was ever known to be taken by any person before him. The Morgansnow has now taken to it again. Of this indeed I was too sure before I heard that his looks bore
testimony of it. Perhaps you were are not aware of the xx costliness of this drug. In the quantity which C. takes it would consume more than the whole annuity which you propose to
raise. A frightful consumption of spr spirits must be added xxxx added to this, – in this way bodily ailments are
produced, & the wonder is that he is still alive.
There are but two grounds on which it xx a subscription of this nature can proceed, – either where the
object is disabled from exerting himself, – or when his exertions are unproductive. C. is in neither of these predicaments. Proposal after proposal has been made to
him by the Booksellers, & he has repeatedly closed with them. He is at this moment as capable of exertion as I am, & would be
paid as well for whatever he might please to do. There are two Reviews (the Quarterly & the Eclectic) in both of which he might
have employment, at ten guineas per sheet, – in the former I could obtain it for him, – in the latter they are urgently desirous of his
assistance. He promises & does nothing. – He has poems which have been written many years & repeatedly advertised; – his wife would transcribe them for the press – all that is wanting is he will not
take the trouble of overseeing this, or collecting them for her. He has footing in the theatre & might annually bring out a play
which would not cost him three months amusing occupation. – But I need not pursue this subject.
What more can I say? – He may have new friends who would subscribe to this plan, but they cannot be many, – &
I but among all those persons who know him, his habits are known also.
Do you as you think best. My own opinion is that C.
ought to come here, & employ himself, – collecting money on the way by lecturing at Birmingham & Liverpool. Should you proceed
in this <your> intention my name must not be mentioned. His wife
& daughter are living with me, – & here he may employ himself
without any disquietude about immediate subsistences. Nothing is wanting to make him easy in circumstances & happy in himself, but
to <leave off opium, &> devote a certain portion of his time to the discharge of his duty. Two hours a day would suffice.
Do not communicate this letter to Wade:
I thought ere this to have answered your former letter & told you of my own goings on &c. But I shall hear again from you.