Читать книгу The Letters Volume 2 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Страница 28

348 Strand, May 23, 1808.

Dear Sir,—Without knowing me you have been, perhaps rather unwarrantably, severe on my morals and understanding, inasmuch as you have, I understand,—for I have not seen the Reviews,—frequently introduced my name when I had never brought any publication within your court. With one slight exception, a shilling pamphlet^[44] that never obtained the least notice, I have not published anything with my name, or known to be mine, for thirteen years. Surely I might quote against you the complaint of Job as to those who brought against him “the iniquities of his youth.” What harm have I ever done you, dear sir, by act or word? If you knew me, you would yourself smile at some of the charges, which, I am told, you have fastened on me. Most assuredly, you have mistaken my sentiments, alike in morality, politics, and—what is called—metaphysics, and, I would fain hope, that if you knew me, you would not have ascribed self-opinion and arrogance to me. But, be this as it may, I write to you now merely to intreat—for the sake of mankind—an honourable review of Mr. Clarkson’s “History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade.”^[45] I know the man, and if you knew him you, I am sure, would revere him, and your reverence of him, as an agent, would almost supersede all judgment of him as a mere literary man. It would be presumptuous in me to offer to write the review of his work. Yet I should be glad were I permitted to submit to you the many thoughts which occurred to me during its perusal. Be assured, that with the greatest respect for your talents—as far as I can judge of them from the few numbers of the “Edinburgh Review” which I have had the opportunity of reading—and every kind thought respecting your motives,

I am, dear sir, your ob. humb. ser’t,

S. T. Coleridge.

—— Jeffray (sic), Esq.,

to the care of Mr. Constable, Bookseller, Edingburgh (sic).