Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, place not specified, to Henry Nelson Coleridge, 1832 March 1 : autograph manuscript | WorldCat.org (original) (raw)

Summary:Criticizing a motion made by the Marquis of Chandos; saying "By not confining himself to the negative proposition, the simple rejection of the clause grounded on the enormous and unqualified mischief of converting the metropolitan district into vast multitudinous pot-walloping Borough, a worthless Gift, perilous to the Legislature, and a Deijanira's Shirt to the infatuated Hercules, the Metropolis itself; and by attempting to bribe the vacillating, and to conciliate the less tightly pledged, Reformers by a scheme of compensation, the admission of the expedience or necessity of which extracted the very pith out of his own argument, or what ought to have been such - he layed himself fairly open to Macaulay's Reply - which tho' easily answered and even as to it's point, viz. the already existing power of the Metropolitan Population, turned back on himself, was yet one of his best & least flashy speeches." The manuscript ends here

Publication:Joanna Langlais Collection (MA 1855)

Physical Description:1 item (3 pages) ; 18.4 x 11.4 cm

OCLC Number / Unique Identifier:270904518

Notes:

This collection, MA 1855, is comprised of thirteen autograph letters signed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients, written from August 5, 1794 through March 1, 1832. The recipients include Derwent and Hartley Coleridge, William Hart Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Thomas Poole and Dorothy Wordsworth

This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged individually as MA 1848- MA 1857

According to a footnote to the published letter cited below, "On 28 Feb. 1832 the House of Commons took up the question whether the Tower Hamlets, Middlesex, should stand part of Schedule C of the Reform Bill. This schedule provided for the creation of new boroughs, each of which was to send two members to Parliament. Chandos opposed 'the giving of these additional Members to the metropolis' by 'the formation of separate boroughs in the heart of London'. He was effectively answered by Macaulay, and by a majority of 80 the House of Commons voted to place the Tower Hamlets in Schedule C."