The Kubla Khan Manuscript and Its First Collector

8/12/2019 The Kubla Khan Manuscript and Its First Collector

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-kubla-khan-manuscript-and-its-first-collector 1/16

THE KUBLA KHAN MANUSCRIPT AND ITS

FIRST COLLECTOR

HILTON KELLIHER

C O L E R I D G E ' S Kubla Khan, Or, A Vision in a Dream, first printed with Christabel

The Pains of-Sleep in 1816, has long been regarded as one of the great literary icons

the Ro ma ntic m ovem ent. C oleridge's famous accoun t of its conception in the summer

autumn of 1797 - the lonely Exmoor farmhouse, the effects of an 'anod yne ' , and tpoetical reverie interrupted by the arrival of a person on business from P or lo ck

contributed in no small m easure to the h ypno tic sway that it has always exercised ov

the imagination of ts readers. Awe and wonderment were, if anything, only increased b

the researches of J. L. Lowes and others into its sources, which proved to have stretche

far beyond the simple sentence in Purchas his Pilgrimage that was allegedly the immedi

inspiration.^ Yet thes e fifty-four ve rses were, the au thor later insisted, m erely

Fragment rescued from a broken trance in which images, rising up before him

things , had shaped themselves into a poem of two or three hu nd red lines. Some schola

have been sceptical, seeing in Coleridge's insistence on the dream -origins of the poea mere fiction masking his inability to complete it, though this line of argument

nowadays little regarded.

Rather surprisingly for an au tho r who left such a mass of papers behind him , th e on

manuscript text of the poem that is know n to survive is the a utograp h fair copy public

displayed for many years now in the British Lib rary galleries.^ T his first came to t

notice of scholars in 1934, and was a cquired for the nation in 1962 from the widow

the Marquess of Crewe who had inherited it from his father, the bibliophile Richa

Monckton Milnes (1809-85), first Baron Houghton.^ Milnes had bought it at auction a

Putt ick and Simpson's premises in Leicester Squ are on 28 April 1859, where it was l109 (fig. i) in the C atalogue of a Very Select a nd Interesting Collection of utogra

Letters. It shows a strange sense of values th at while the autograph of this, the mo

famous opium poem, fetched £1 15s Milnes had to pay £2 is for a two-page letter

1812 (lot 483) in which Southey lamented that Coleridge's drug hab it was 'inc ura ble

Market values at the time are put into further perspec tive by the fact that the D uche

of M arlb or ou gh 's allegedly auto grap h c harac ter of Qu een An ne (lot 359) cost M ilnes ̂ £

and a letter of Dry de n (lot 209) £7 los.' ' Of course, other things being equal, older item

have generally tended to realize higher price s; but we can only speculate wh at the un iq

manuscr ipt of Co leridge's most magical poem m ight fetch now adays.

184



I J A T 'S S A LE. 17

CoLEHiDGE (Samuel Taylor).

A utograph poetry, signed, 2 pages 4to. T hi s fragment with a good deal m ore not recoverable, compo sed, in

a sort of reverie hrought on by two gruns of opium, taken to check5 dysentery, 17 97 ; it comm ences:—

In Xannadik did Cubla Khan

A stately Pleasure om e

decreeWh ere Alpht the sacred river ran ^Hiro* Caves measureless to man,Down to a sanless sea.**

110 CoKQMVE (W illiam ) drama tic poet b. 1670, d. 1729A.L.S. , 1 page ^to., to J . K eally, Esq,, with seal June 7,

1 7 0 1 ^ ane? TERY

Fig. I. The 1859 sale catalogue description of Kubla Khan. S.C. Puttick 573, p. 17 (detail)

A fairly cursory examination of the contents of the Puttick catalogue reveals that itcomprised at least the major portion of a collection of autographs formed by Ehzabeth

Smith, widow of Thomas Smith, a Gloucestershire J.P. She was the daughter of Richard

Chandler, a wealthy woolstapler who in 1750 had built Constitution House at the east

end of Bell Lane in Gloucester, where she was born about 1770.^ Her husband, Thomas

Smith, was a native of Cirencester who had trained as a barrister, but 'from an

impediment of speech, did not make a public exercise of his profession'.^ The couple set

up home first at Padhill and then at Bownhams, or Bownham House, both near

Minchinhampton in Gloucestershire: later on they settled in a late eighteenth-century

house at Easton Gre y, near M alm esbu ry, in Wiltshire. ^ S m ith is described as well-

informed and liberal-minded, 'a gentleman and philosopher in his pleasures and habits;

a philanthropist and public character in his forms of living and acting'. He was

apparently known as 'The Maecenas of his Neighb ourh ood '.^ A fter his death on 31 May

1822 his widow sought 'consolation in books and business, for she attends to the details

of a farm which used to afford am usem ent and em ploym ent to him '.^ Sh e was 'a person

of muc h originahty of ch arac ter... a Un itarian, and therefore not m uch in sym pathy with

the ordinary county and clerical society, but was intimate both at Bowood with Lord and

Lady Lansdowne, and at Gatcombe with Mr. Ricardo. She had a large and valuable

library and collection of autographs, which were sold and dispersed at her death [on 6

January 1859], for she hved to the great age of ninety-two.'^** Easton Grey and the otherestates then passed by the terms of her husband's will to Graham Smith (d. 1871), eldest

son of his cousin Richard. It was presumably he who arranged, with considerable

dispatch, for the sale of her collection.

Chandler's second wife, Mrs Smith's stepmother, was an early friend of Maria

Edgeworth and the recipient of two letters of 79 and 1792 that are listed in the Puttick

catalogue (lots 214, 215).^^ In due course Mrs Smith formed an acquaintance with the



novelist who , during a visit to Easton Gre y in De cem ber 1820, wrote to her sister Hon or

in the most glowmg terms about the house and her hosts :̂

This house IS delightful - in a beautiful situation - with river - old trees - fine swells and val

and soft verdure even at this time of the year...The house, convenient, comfortable, perfect

neat , withou t the teizing precision of order - the library-drawing -room furnished with goo

sense - delightful armchairs low sofas - stools, plenty of moveable tables - books on tables an

in open book-cases and in short all that speaks the habits and affords the means of agreeab

occupation. In short Easton Grey might be cited as a happy model of what an English countr

gentlem an's house is or ought to be .. .M rs . Sm iths easy unaffected well bred kind manners an

Mr. Smiths literary and sensible conversation make their house one of the most agreeable I ev

saw.

Last night he read to us from a book of manuscript treasures two admirable letters

M ackintos h written when he was in India and addressed to M r W his haw ... M r. Smith al

shewed us some little unpu blished poems of Lord Byrons and some notes of his in a copy of Sc

Bards and Reviewers which do him honor and which Harriet has copied into our book so that yoshall all see them - in time.

Possibly she had by this time modified the view that she took in 1813 when viewing th

M ilton m anu script in Tr inity College, C am br id g e: ' I have not such delight in seeing th

hand-writing of great authors and great folk as some people have.'^^ During a furth

visit to Easton Grey in November 1821 she mentioned that the Smiths were 'connecte

by friendship with most of the literary people whom we know and with many whom w

do not k n o w - f o r instance Ho bho use - Bu rdett c. '. T he list also included Sydne

Smith, Francis Horner, Smithson Tennant, Francis Wollaston, John Whishaw and S

Samuel Romilly.^^ It is not surprising therefore to find both John Cam Hobhouse an

his friend Byron represented in Mrs Smith's collection (lots 70 and 279), though th

'little unpublished poems' of Byron are not listed in there. It is difficult to identify h

annotated copy of nglish ards and Scots Reviewers (1809, etc.) with any of the two

three now known: possibly it was the one sent in October 1815 to Leigh Hunt, who

him self repre sen ted in the collection by a series of letters to the pu blisher W illiam Butto

(lots 292-294).*^ Again, only one of the letters of Sir James Mackintosh (lot 353) seem

to have been in Mrs Smith's hands at the time of her death. Clearly the collectio

suffered losses as well as gains over the ye ars.

T h e ec onom ist David Ricardo (lot 35), who lived at Gatcom be P ark, near Stroud, ha

first met the Smiths at Haileybury early in May 1814. A letter that he wrote to T.

M alth us on 18 De cem ber 1814 included a plea:

I dined a little while ago at Mr. Smith's whom I first met at your house. Mrs. Smith told me th

she had a collection of the hand writing of a great number of men who had distinguishe

themselves by their writings, and she wished that I would give her a letter of yours to add to h

collection. Knowing that I had many which would not discredit you, I assented; but after

came home I thought I had no right to do it without your consent - which I hope you will n

refuse. ^̂

186



The result was the addition of an interesting document challenging the views of John

Stuart Mill on political economy (lot 355).^^ Clearly Mrs Smith's collection was already

well supplied by this date: most probably, as will shortly be seen, she had begun it more

than a decade earlier. Though this makes her one of the pioneers of the great age of

autograph-hunting, coeval with William Upcott and Dawson Turner, she is not noticed

by A. N. L . M un by , either in the main body of his study of this cult, or in the sum m ary

list of sale-catalogues given in h is appe ndix. ̂ ^ T h e explanation may be that, in her

provincial seclusion, only her closest friends knew of her collecting interests and enjoyedthe fruits. Ye t, thoug h the collection - at least in the state in w hich it reached the

saleroom - was far from being one of the richest of the time, ne ither is it wholly witho ut

interest.

The autographs reflect a wide range of talent in the fields of literature, drama, music,

politics and the sciences - more especially medicine and natural science. As one would

expect, they include a high proportion of contemporaries and not a few women writers.

But along with the specimens from warriors, divines and noblemen that were de rigueur

in all such collections there appear some items of a rather rarer nature, such as

autographs of Americans and dissenters. Mrs Smith's acquisitions came through threemain channels. As we have seen, some were letters addressed to her or to her husband

by eminent men and women who belonged to their circle; while rather more were

memorabilia of distinguished contemporaries that were obtained from or through

friends. The remainder consist of miscellaneous acquisitions, often of earlier periods,

apparently made by purchase from booksellers or at auction. Since the Smiths' social

circle centred on Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and the Bristol area, many of the items have

local origins or connections. The Marquess of Lansdowne seems to have been a kindred

spirit. Perhaps unfortunately for Mrs Smith, his brother and predecessor in the title had

in 1807 sold to the British Museum the famous collection of manuscripts formed by his

father, the first Marquess, who, as it happens, is represented here (lot 320) by letters

addressed to mutual friends.

Among other local residents who from time to time supplied material were the poet

William Lisle Bowles (lot 51) and the Wiltshire topographer John Britton (lot 487) who

mentions the Smiths in passing in his Beauties of Wiltshire ^^ T h e Bristol-educated

philanthropist John Kenyon contributed the only Wordsworth autograph (lot 542).

Several letters (lots 50, 303) are addressed to Dr William Adams (d. 1789), Master of

Pembroke College, Oxford, and a friend of Samuel Johnson. Adams was also a

prebendary of Gloucester; and his daughter, who had delighted Johnson by her

attentions during his visit to his old college in June 1784, married a Painswick man in1788 and became a near neighbour of the Smiths. We cannot be certain that the letters

written by Coleridge to his friend John Morgan (lots 105-108), who came of a Bristol

Unitarian family and lived nearby at Calne, found their way into Mrs Smith's possession

before Morgan's death in 1820. Although these local connections predominated,

acquisitions occasionally came from much further afield. In the autumn of 1818 the

Smiths were abroad, in France and Italy, where they met some eminent botanists.^ ^ The

187



catalogue includes a letter of introduction written by Alphonse de Candolle to GaetanSavi at Pisa (lot 128).

T h e Puttick sale occupied the afternoons of three consecutive days, from Th ursd ay 2

to Satu rday 30 April 1859 inclusive. Th e final hu nd red and forty-five lots (562-70 6) wer

apparently drawn from other sources; but the bulk of it seems to have consisted of Mr

Smith's own collection, in five hundred and sixty-one lots, that realized £206 is. Bueven here we must tread cautiously. One of the earliest datable items in the whole sal

denotes either a remarkably late acquisition, or, more probably, some infiltration by th

auctioneers of items from other sources - a not uncommon proceeding at the time. Th

letter of the younger Donne (lot 136) to an unidentified nobleman, dated simply

December, had been in the possession of the man-of-letters and collector Samuel Welle

Singer, and sold among his autographs on 3 August 1858 at Sotheby's (lot 39), when

was purchased by one Knight.

Other rarities are likely to have been genuine early acquisitions. A letter of Dryde

concerning Thomas Creech's translation of Lucretius (1682) was offered with a coverinnote dated 1811 from the critic Ed m un d M alone to an unnam ed co rrespondent who ha

su bm itted it for his opinion (lot 209). T hi s letter, first published by Scott in 1808, wa

still in the possession of Monckton Milnes's descendants in 1940.^^ The catalogue entr

records that 'S en din g an autograph of Pope to his corresponde nt, [Malone] writes,

have not a scrap of Shakespeare's handwriting, but I enclose a facsimile of hi

autograph ' . Since Mrs Smith's collection included a stray letter and receipt of Pop

(lots 421, 422), she seems fairly likely to have been the person addressed here. If so, h

hopes of a Shakespeare autograph, especially after the Ireland fiasco had drawn attentio

to their extreme rarity even in public archives, suggest at that comparatively early stag

neither a very informed approach to collecting nor, perhaps, much appreciation of th

likely market value of what she was seeking.

Eig htee nth-c entu ry literature was, not surprisingly, better represented than, that o

earlier periods, though not all the items were what they seemed. To Thomas Gray th

catalogue attribute s an 'Epig ram of M artial paraphrased, i page 8vo., containing 5 lin

in his autograph' (lot 254). This manuscript, which is in fact neither in Gray's autograp

nor apparently of his composition, passed by way of Sotheby's sale of 6 November 195

to the Bibliotheq ue M artin Bod mer at Geneva.^^ Robe rt Burn s was represented by

letter and some verses, both first published in Robert Cromek's eliques of Robert Bur

(1808), the originals of which are now lost.^^ Cromek was the engraver so despised b

Blake, who se 'e ar ne st wish to possess a scrap of the h an d-w riting of B urn s, originally le

to the discovery of most of the papers that compose' the Reliques , bu t unfortunate

the re is no thin g to link him directly w ith M rs Sm ith. ̂ ^ T h at she did co-operate wit

editors is clear from the fact that she allowed a further letter of Burns to be include

in the Aldine edition of 1839.^^ A collection of letters addressed to Garrick, with a fe

autograph specimens, was broken up into single lots (138-160) for the sale and widel

dispersed.

Som e of the most interesting and unusu al acqu isitions were kept to the end of the sal



These included two albums of dramatic (lot 545) and one of royal (lot 546) autographs,

uniformly bound in elegant dark blue morocco, all of which went to the bookseller

George Willis. The annotated and interleaved copy of Theophilus Cibber's Lives of the

Poets (1753) (lot 547) may be the one that had belonged to Isaac R eed a nd afterwards

to Jose ph Haslewoo d and is now in the British Library.^^ Tw o m ysterious lots (552 and

553) comprise novels by the anonymous 'authore ss of Arie l ' . Th e first, entitled 'T h e

Prophecy, or the Damsel of the Cross of Gold', in which the writer was 'assisted by the

Rev. J. T. James, Bishop of Calcutta' (d. 1828), was a manuscript prepared for the press.Whether this lady is to be identified with the 'Mrs Isaacs' who published Ariel or the

nvisi le M onitor in 1801, and her last known work in 1816, is unknown. Another woman

writer, though in a quite different vein, is represented by four volumes of 'Reflections

and Meditations, Moral and Religious' by Sarah Harrison of Daventry (lot 555).

Far and away the most expensive lot at the sale, however, may or may not have come

from Mrs Smith's collection.^^ It comprised the correspondence of the Rev. William

Broome relating to his own and Elijah Fenton's labours in translating Homer,

und ertaken on behalf of Alexander Pop e whose famous version of the Iliad appeared over

the years 1714 to 1720 and of the Odyssey in 1725 and 1726. T h e p rize item s here weresome fifty-four letters of Pope himself covering the whole period of the enterprise,

together with autograph copies of replies by Broome. On Broome's death at Bath in

Nov em ber 1745 his pape rs seem to have passed to the first Earl C ornw allis, and m ay have

come on to the market about the time that the direct line became extinct in 1824.^^ At

the Puttick sale the whole correspondence was bought by the publisher John Murray II

(1808-92) and eventually appeared in Elwin's and Courthope's edition of The Works of

Alexander Pope issued between 1871 and 1889 un de r his family im prin t. ̂ ^ T he y were

reprinted from this text in the standard modern edition of Pope's letters by George

Sherburn, as the originals were then no longer available.^** In 1859 this fascinating

archive fetched, at jCios, more than half of the sum realized by the whole of the

Smith collection. One would certainly like to know more about the bidding here.

Among all these items Kubla Khan remains the single most powerful literary relic. The

text occupies one and three-quarter sides of a quarto half-sheet of writing paper. In the

blank space on the verso, following the prose note at the conclusion of the poem, stands

an unsigned but contemporary pencil inscription that offers the only indication of its

early provenance. Th is states that the copy had been 'S en t by M ' S outhey , as anAu tograph of C ole ridg e' (fig. 2). A possible alternative reading 'M ' S ou th ey ' that has

been proposed by some scholars seems fairly certainly to be a misapprehension

occasioned by the colon und er the supe rscript ' r ' of 'M ^ ', the effect of which is

compounded by the presence of tiny flecks of foreign matter in or on the paper at this

point.^^ Precisely why, how and, above all, when did it come into Mrs Smith's

possession



. 2. The pencil inscription on the verso of ubla Khan. Add. M S. 50847, f. iv (deta

Robert Southey was a West Countryman and a native of Bristol, though part

brought up by his aunt in Bath. Moreover, thanks to his conversion by Coleridghim self an e rstwhile residen t of Bristol, he was a Unitarian.^^ T he se circumstances wou

have favoured his striking up an acquaintance with the Smiths, though precisely whe

and how is still uncertain. The earliest indication occurs in the letter that Southey wro

to Co leridge from Bristol on 14 M arch 1803, in which he remarked that it 'is nearly

week now since Danvers and I returned from Bownham...'.^^ All that we know of th

visit is that Southey was presented with a copy of Hayley's Life ofCowper a book whi

he described as 'the most pick-pocket work, for its shape and price, and author an

publisher, that ever appeared'.^^ Although he soon after returned to the Lakes, whe

he had taken up residence in 1800, he did not altogether lose contact with his hosts, an

confirmation of his gift of the Kubla Khan manuscript may be gathered from letters

Charles Danvers, the Bristol wine merchant who was his friend and freque

correspondent .

On 7 November 1803 Southey wrote that 'The Bownham letters came in the parce

I will make up something for ®̂ Smith soon - in truth I feel myself very much obli

to her her husband.'^^ Although this predates by mo re than a decade the mention

her collection m ade in Rica rdo's letter we may be confident that this 'som eth in g' was

be an addition to it. There followed a silence of three months before he returned to th

topic, remarking on i February 1804 (fig. 3):*'*^

9



j t^ y ^ r^ ^^c

Fig. J. Letter of Robert Southey, i February 1804. Add. MS. 47890, f. 189V (detail)

This very day I was going to write to M' ^ Smith when Madoc tempted me astray. / will do it

tomorrow £5 this is a promise. I will send her a fragment of Coleridges & my own poem on

Emmett. & withall a letter of such honest confession as shall obtain pardon for a very foolish

delay. Yet in plain truth the awkwardness of sending double enclosures has been a lurking cause

of this delay.

H e was as good as his wo rd , and on 2 F e b r u a r y he wro te to her in te rms ou t l ined in

the Puttick catalogue (lot 478):

He sends a transcript of his own Lamentation for Robert Fmmett 'as the last poem of

communicable length which I have written, and also because of the subject'. He relates an

anecdote of Em me t's escape from Ireland d uring the Rebellion,

there is a strange warp in everyIrishman's nature, they are all either wrong headed or wrong hearted, and the genius w hich they

almost all possess serves only to render them more mischievous'. It was his intention to have

published Madoc by subscription. *I have given up the intention, perceiving, as I had forseen,

that the attempt would be inevitably unsuccessful, and therefore, in some respects, detrimental.

However, the book will, in some shape or other, make its appearance in the course of the ensuing

winter. ' The poem mentioned in the letter accompanies it

The 'fragment of Coleridges', surprisingly not mentioned here, must have been Kubla

Khan While in 1859 the Emmet lament still formed part of the same lot as the letter,

Coleridge's poem had become separated from it, presumably because the arrangementof Mrs Smith's albums was largely alphabetical. It is evident that she had specifically

requested specimens of poetry: the fact that those sent were as yet unpublished would

have added novelty to the gift and a degree of exclusivity to her collection.

At any rate, on i March following Southey was able to report to Danvers that

My letter with its inclosures went to M* ̂ Smith punctually to my promise. - & will probably

induce a reply, as I offered my services when they come into the North in looking out lodgings

191



for them, if they will stay as long as they ought to stay to see the country well, & in directing th

route, & in showing them such things as might else escape their notice.

Three vertical and two horizontal folds still visible in the leaf may confirm that u

han was conveyed by post; and, although the only specimen available for comparis

(A dd. M S . 36467 , f. 293) may date from thirty years later, we may be fairly su re tha

was Mrs Smith's hand that added the pencil note recording its origin. Traces of gluethe foot of the verso probably came from its subsequent mounting in her album.

Further contact with the Smiths was envisaged at this period. On 17 February 18

Southey told his brother Tom that 'the Smiths of Bownham (who gave me Hayleys L

of Cowper) will probably visit the Lakes this year'.^^ In late Spring Southey was aw

from hom e, but had re turne d by 12 Ju ne , when he told

I was thoroughly wearied in London ... I had no time to look for the Smiths. Probably they w

let me know their appro ach that lodgings may be pro cured for th em , & you also will arrange

with the m , tha t you m ay me et. Sep tem ber is the best m onth , or even later, for beauty. If you co

du rin g the cloudles s w eather of full sum mer you lose the light & shades, the scene shifting

machinery of heaven which form so great a part of mountains magnificence.

By 2 July, however, he was imploring Danvers to 'come at once. About the Smith

know no thi ng . You can easily find them out and know their p lans, & regulate your o

accordingly'.^^ On 22 July he wrote that lodgings were available for Danvers and hims

at a little inn in Grasmere, and that Wordsworth would show them all the best walk

Southey added, however, that' Should the Smiths come with you the house at Grasme

will not have room'.^^ This is seemingly the last that is heard of their plans: whether th

ever came to fruition is not known, though a letter of August rather seems to suggnot. *^ Perhaps it is significant that in 1807 Southey sent Thomas Smith directions f

tourists in the Lakes (lot 480).

I l l

The first detailed examination of the Crewe manuscript was that published two decad

ago by Norman Fruman whose investigations brought into sharp focus doubts that h

already been expressed about the poem's genesis and the date, or rather dates, given

Coleridge for its composition.^^ According to the manuscript noteThis fragment with a good deal more, not recoverable, composed, in a sort of Reverie brou

on by two g rains of Opiu m , taken to check a dysentery , at a Farm House between Porloc

Linton, a quarter of a mile from Culbone Church, in the fall of the year, 1797.

In 1816 this was elaborated into the well-known account of its mystical conception, a

which the poet 'instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserve

Fruman concluded that the variants between the sole surviving manuscript and

version eventually printed indicate that the evolution of this account was a piece

Coleridgean myth-making. Yet the testimony of Southey's covering letter has obvi

192



relevance here. In referring to Kubla Khan as a 'fragment' he clearly did not mean

merely a 'scrap' of Coleridge's handwriting. Rather he was repeating the author's own

definition of the poem, and one that is of especial significance precisely because it was

accepted by one of his closest friends at least as early as February 1804. In these

circumstances it would be more than interesting to know what more, if anything,

Southey might have said about the poem by way of introducing it to the recipient.

Unfortunately his letter, which was bought by the dealer George Willis for £1 12s,

seems to have gone to ground.According to the note in the manuscript, composition took place in 'the fall of 1797',

but in the Christabe volume the date given is 'the summer of the year 1797'. What seems

to be the earliest reference to the poem takes the form of a pun made in October 1798

by Dorothy Wordsworth in the journal that she kept during her stay with her brother

and Coleridge in Goslar. Here she speaks of 'carrying Kubla to a fountain' - KubeV

being the German word for a bucket- apparently in allusion to the 'mighty fountain'

of the poem.*^ (It is harder to believe that she intended a pun on Khan.) Later, in

December 1800, clear quotations from the poem were made in some verses written by

the actress and author Mary Robinson, ahas 'Perdita'. *^ Yet such is the continuinguncertainty that editors have been obliged to guess at either September—October 1797,

May 1798 or even October 1799. Where the available evidence is confined to two

witnesses, precise chronology is of vital importance in attempting to determine the

development of the text. Although we now know that th e uniqu e m anus cript of the poem

was in existence by February 1804, the question that inevitably suggests itself is w hether

this was of recent transcription. Was it, that is, written out by Coleridge at Southey's

prompting at or around that date, expressly as a presentation-copy for Mrs Smith, or

merely taken up from papers that were already to hand at Greta H all? If the former, then

it almost certainly dates from some time after Southey's letter to Danvers of November

1803: if the latter, further researches will have to cover the whole period as far back as

1797.

In the period immediately under consideration Coleridge and Southey were together

at Greta Hall only un til 20 Dec em ber 1803, when Coleridge visited the W ord wo rths at

Grasmere. Sickness caused him to remain there until mid-January. It is tempting to see

more than mere coincidence in an entry made in his notebooks during this time that

records his reading Wordsworth's copy o f Hakluytus Posthum us or Purchas his Pilgrimes,

by the very author whose earlier volume had sparked off Kubla Khan.^^ Moreover,

continuing traffic between Dove Cottage and Greta Hall is attested by his surviving

directions for the forwarding of some portrait-sketches of himself by two requests to his

wife to procure ink and by his concern that Southey had not yet received a book sent to

him.^^ At all even ts, a date any later than 13 Jan ua ry for copying Kubla Khan is highly

improbable since on that day he left for London and, shortly after, for Malta to take up

his new post as secretary to Sir Alexander Ball. He did not return to England until

August 1806.

On the other hand, it may seem unlikely that, ill as his own obsessive complaints show

193



him to have been, and on the point of departure from friends and country, Colerid

would have been disposed to gratify a request for an autograph. Indeed the wording

Southey s letter of i February 1804 might be taken to indicate a last minute resoluti

prom pted by conscience, and made in Coleridge s absence. Did Southey perhaps h

the fair copy already in his own possession, or did he seek permission to take it fro

among papers left by Coleridge at Greta Hall? If the latter, we should have to assuthat the author retained another copy, now lost, which served as the basis for the t

printed a dozen years later. This is hardly an insuperable objection, since the lines w

probably fixed in his memory; but we might do well all the same to ponder

implications of such a possibility as a means to explaining some indisputably author

but perhaps merely ccident l variants of a sort that might have been thrown up by

effort of recollection, or rather recreation, of the poem twelve years later.

Whether or not there remains any possibility that the copy originated at some earl

period altog ethe r, F ru m an s remark that as aids to establishing the date of

m an us crip t the test im on y of wa terma rks, paper, ink and han dw riting - all this am uc h m ore can neve r lead to a conclusive a nsw er is particularly unfortunate.^^ For

the absence of new documentary evidence these physical details remain of paramo

importance. The only practical hope for settling the date of copying would be

discovery, among other manuscript remains of Coleridge, Southey or even

W or dsw ort hs , of a dated or datable d ocu m ent written on paper of precisely the same ty

Fo r th e pre sen t, how ever, this remains m erely a pious hop e. T he blue-tinted paper

Kubla Khan m easu ring some 295 m m in height and 185 mm in width, was torn from

whole sheet of some 370 mm x 295 mm. The undated watermark bears a seated figure

Britan nia within an ellipse surm ou nte d by a crown , the chain-lines around it being spa

at 26 mm and the whole device m easuring n o m m in height by 73 mm in width

capital C, or more probably G, occurs within the double border of the ellip

imm ediately below the crown. Fo r w hat it may be worth, in the course of sporadic

fairly tho rou gh search of the m ajor caches of Co leridge s and of Sou they s papers in

British Lib rary , the Pierp ont M orga n Lib rary and at the Wordsworth Library

G ras m ere I have com e across no w atermark that m atches this one.̂ ^ Nevertheless i

not beyond all hope that the answering half of the sheet may still survive in a letter

other document. If so, study of similar marks suggests that it will bear as counterm

either the letters G R within a circle or ellipse, or else J C intertwined in a lozen

or perha ps a crown, w ith or withou t the legend G R above it.^^

So uthe y s part in the acq uisition of the Kubla Khan manuscript almost certai

implies that Coleridge and the Smiths were not personally acquainted in February 18

(It seems likely enough, however, that they would have had an opportunity of meet

in the years 1813-16, when he was living at Calne with John Morgan.) Even if this w

not the case, in view of his well-known dilatoriness in small matters it may still h

fallen to his closest companion at the time to fulfil an earlier promise of a specimen

his hand writing . Inevitably, So uthey s willingness to subm it to chores of this nature

not survive three decades of applications from the ever-growing ranks of relic-seek

9



In 1831 he complained that I have entered into a society for the discourage m ent of

autograph collectors; which society will not be dissolved till the legislature in its wisdom

shall take me asures for suppressing that troublesom e and increasing ^̂

A P P E N D I X

S E L E C T E D L I T E R A R Y A N D O T H E R I T E M S F R O M M R S S M I T H S C O L L E C T I O N

( P U T T I C K S A LE , L O T S 1-561

Boswell, James. Letter to Dr William Adams, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford; 21 Jan.

1785 (50). Original now in R. B. Adams collection. For further letters addressed to Adams, see

272, 303-

Bo wle s, W. L. Lette r to M r. Sm ith, n.d., with mem oranda and verses, in the autograph of Sir

J. C. Hobh ouse, on Lord B yron s attack on M r. B ow les (51).

Burns, Robert. Letter to Robert Ainslie, Jr, partly in verse; 23 Aug. 1787 (66). Original nowin Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Letter to [Captain Riddell of Carse]; 16 Oct. 1789 (67).

Verses T o Terraughty on his birthday , beg. He alth to the Maxw ells veteran chief (68).

By ron, Lo rd . L etter to J. C. Hobhouse, A thens; 28 Feb . 1811 (70). Text and whereabouts

unknown.

See also, su b Bowles.

Clarkson, Thomas. Letters to Joseph Cottle; 11 Mar. 1825, etc. (102).

Letter to Richard Chandler; 24 Oct. 1791 (443).

Coleridge, S. T. Letters to J. J. Morgan, printed in ollected Letters ed. E. L. Griggs, viz:

27 Mar. 1812 (105). Coll. Letters no. 859.

16 July 1814 (106). Coll. Letters no. 944 (dated only *Late July 181 4 ).

7 Jan. 1818 (107). Coll. Letters no. 1093.

28 Jan. 1818 (108). Coll. Letters no. 1105.

Kubla Khan (109). Add. MS. 50847.

Co wp er, W ill ia m . Verses T o D octor Austen of Cecil Str eet , beg. Au sten, accept a grateful

verse from m e ; May 1792 (116). ^

D on ne , Jo hn , Jr . Letter to Lord ; 4 Dec. n.y. (136).

D ry de n, Jo hn . Letter rel. to Creech s Lucretius, n.d.; with covering letter of Edm und Malone

(209).

195



Edgeworth Maria. Letter to Mrs Chandler; 15 Mar. 1792 (215).

Garrick David. Letters to him, etc.; 1762-78, n.d. (138-160).

G r a y T h o m a s . Ep igra m of Ma rtial para phr ase d... containing 25 lines in his auto grap h (25

Pope Alexander. Poetical and other Scraps, the greater part autograph and original, with a f

printed papers; etc. a parcel (420).

Letter to Mr Cole, rel. to legal proceedings against one Corbet; n.d. (421). First printed b

Elwin and Courthope, Works, vol. x, p. 238, F ro m adve rtisement of an autog raph collection so

at Puttick and Sim pson s, 29th April 18 59 .

Sig nature to a printed receipt for subscription to his translation of H om er s Iliad n.d. (422

Co rrespon denc e with Broom e, Fento n, and oth ers, rel. to Pop e s H om er; 1713-26 (544).

R o g e r s , Samue l . Le tter to , sending an invitation to meet W ordsw orth; n.d. (439).

R og et , P . M . Letters to M r S mith ; 1819, 1822 (443).

Letter to Mrs Smith; 23 Oct. 1841 (6).

Scott, Sir Walter. Letters to John Murray, etc.; 1807-30, n.d. (451-4)-

Verses and songs (specified) by or in his han d; 1801, n.d. (455, 456).

Sloane, Sir Hans. Letter to John Locke, 25 Aug. 1694 (469).

Southey, Robert. Letters, 1797-1816 (476-486), including:

Le tter to Mrs Sm ith, enclosing Lam entatio n for Robert Em m ett ; 2 Feb. 1804 (478).

Letter to T. Smith, viz:

4 June 1807, 25 June 1807 (479, 480).5 Dec . 1808, rel. to S T C s com monplace-books (481).6 Fe b. 1809, rel. to S T C s prospectuse s, etc. (477).

2 June 1812, requesting transcript of Apuleius for Omniana (482).

I Ju ly, 8 July 1812, rel. to ST C s opium habit (483, 484).

20 M ar. 1816, rel. to ST C s play [ sorio}] (485).

Letter to Wordsworth; n.d. [1832?] (486).

W il li a m s , H el en M ar ia . Letter to Miss Smith from Paris ; dated 21 Florimel [Floreal?],

10 [i.e. 21 Apr. 1802] (539).

Wollstonecraf t , Mary. On poetry: i p . quarto (38) .

W ord sw ort h , W ill ia m . Letter to John Kenyon (542).

196



1 John Livingston Lowes, The Road to Xanadu

(Boston and New York, 1927); and Elizabeth W.

Schneider , Goleridge, Opium, and Kubla Khan

(Chicago, 1953).

2 Add. MS. 50847.

3 Announced by Alice D. Snyder, Times Literary

Supplement, 2 Aug. 1934, p. 541 , and exhibited

at the Lamb and Coleridge Centenary Exhibition

in the National Portrait Gallery, 1934.

4 British Library Journal, viii (1982), p. 28 and n.

75 Obituary in Gentleman^s Magazine (Mar. 1859),

p. 3 31, col. b; and see Transactions of the Bristol

and Gloucestershire Archaeo logical Society, lxiv

(1943), pp. 234-5 ^^d V G H Gloucestershire,

vol. iv (1988), p. 162.

6 Gentleman ̂ s Magazine (July 1822), p. 91 , col. b;

quoted in Lady Seym our ' s The Pope of Holland

House (London, 1906), pp. 6-8. See also Piero

Sraffa and M . H . D ob b (eds.). The Work s...of

David Ricardo (Cambridge, 1951^3), vols . v i ,p . 135, n. I, and v iii, pp . 56, 75.

7 In The Buildings of England series Bownham

House, Rodborough, is noticed by David Verey,

Gloucestershire, I: The Go tswolds ( Ha r m o n d s -

worth, 1970), p. 381, and Ea ston Grey by

Nicolaus Pevsner, Wiltshire, 2nd edn., rev. by

Bridget Cherry (Harmondsworth, 1975), p. 233.

8 L. G. H. Ho rton-S mith , 'T h e seat and manor of

Easton Grey, co. Wilts , and Tho ma s Sm ith , J .P . ,

T h e Maecenas o f h is Ne ighb ourh ood ' ,

Wiltshire Gazette, 5 Jul y 1934 (not seen).

9 Ricardo, Works, vol. ix, p. 264.

10 Lady Seymour, op. cit. , p. 8.

11 She was born Miss Evans, a niece of Charles

Carill Worsley of Platt Hall, Rusholme, and

married Richard Chandler on 28 Aug. 1791 at St

Pancras: see Gentleman s Magazine (1791), p.

774. Miss Edgeworth had first met her about

1781.

12 Maria Edgew orth , Letters from England,

1813-1844, ed. Christina Colvin (Oxford, 1971),

p. 227.

13 Edgeworth , Ghosen Letters, ed. F . V. Barry(London, 1931), pp. 178-9.

14 Letters from England, 1813-184 4, pp. 270, 271.

15 See Lord Byron, The Gomplete Poetical Works,

ed. Jerom e J. M cG an n, vol. i (Oxford, 1980), pp .

394-6 . The Hunt copy (4th edn., 1811) is now in

the Victoria and Albert Museum, as Forster

Printed Book 1267. An annotated copy of the

same edition, now in the possession of John

Murray, was reproduced in facsimile by the

Roxburghe Club in 1936. This and the set of

revised proofs that are now BL, Egerton M S .

2028 were both acquired in 1867 from the heirs

o f R . C .Da l l a s .

16 Ricardo, Works, vol. vi, pp. 164-5.

17 Ibid., p. 139, n. 2: ' In a note in the Economic

Journal, June 1907, pp. 273 -6, Professor Foxw ell

suggested that [the letter of M alth us to Ricar do,

9 Oct. 1814] may have been one given by

Ricardo to M rs Sm ith of Easton G rey for h er

collection of autographs (see pp. 164—5 ^^^ ^^9

below); this is the more plausible inasmuch as

M rs Sm ith's collection was sol d and dispersed

at her death in 1859 . ' See also The Pope of

Holland House, p. 8.

18 A. N. L . Munby , The Gult of the Autograph

Letter (London, 1962), passim.

19 Vol. iii (1825), p. 134, which in part is quoted

from Sir Richard Colt Hoare's History of Modern

Wiltshire (London, 1822—4).

20 Lady Seymour, op. cit. , p. 32.21 Charles E . W ard (ed.). Letters of John Dryden

(D urha m, N .C. , 1942), le t ter 7 , pp. 14-16, and

see notes, p. 149.

22 Roger Lon sdale (ed.) . The Poems of Thomas

Gray, William Go llins and Oliver Go ldsmith

(London, 1969), pp. 352-3 .

23 J . De Lancey Ferguson (ed.) , Letters of Robert

Burns (Oxford, 1985), vol. i , pp. 443-4, and

James Kinsley (ed.) , Poems and Songs of Robert

Burns (Oxford, 1968), vol. ii , pp. 571-2. These

were first printed in Cromek's Reliques of Robert

Burns (London, 1808), pp. 95-7 and 402-3

respectively.

24 Reliques, p. xi.

25 Letters of Robert Burns, vol. i , pp. 149-50.

26 Haslewood sale-cat., Eva ns, 16 De c. 1833, lot

286, bought by Wilkes, and now BL, Printed

Book 276.g.38-42.

27 It is given to one W eb b in the Alphabetical list of

some of the principal s ales of literary property

music and works of art conducted by Messrs Puttick

£5' Simpson ..., 1846 to 1870 (presented to the

Dept. of Printed Books, Bri t ish Museum, byJ. H . Puttick , 21 Jan . 187 1; a typescript copy,

1928, is press-marked C.i3i .k . i5) , p . 57. The

same name occurs in the margin of the BL copy

of the Puttick sale-catalogue.

28 Dictionary of National Biography , sub ' B r o o m e ,Wil l iam' .

29 Works, vol. viii (or vol. iii of the Gorrespondence)(1872), pp. 30-185.

30 George She rburn (ed.) , Gorrespondence of

197



Alexander Pope, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1956); and see

Index of English Literary Manuscripts, vol. iii,

1700-1800, Part 3 , ed . Margaret M. Smith and

Alexander Lindsay (L ondo n, 1992), pp. 13-15.

31 T . C . Skea t , 'Ku b la K ha n ' , British Museum

Qitarterly, xxvi, nos. 3-4 (1963), pp. 77-83 (see

esp . p . 82 , n . 4 ) , th o ug h t ' M ^ . .. a much m oreprobable reading ' . The al ternative view was

taken by Joh n Shelton in 'T h e Autograph

M anuscr ip t o f K ub la Khan and an In te rp re t -

a t i o n ' , Review of English Literature, vii, no. i

(Jan. 1966), pp. 32-42.

32 Lette rs of the Unitar ia n m inis ter Th om as

Belsham , addressed both to Th om as Sm ith and

to his wife in 1806, are found in the collection

(lot zi).

7^ C. C. Southey (ed.) . Life and Correspondence of

Robert Southey (184 9-50 ), vol. ii , p. 20 1, where

'R ow nh am ' is p r in ted in e r ro r fo r 'Bow nha m ' .

34 Ibi d., p. 203.

35 B L, A dd. M S . 30928, f. 37V.

36 B L, Add . M S . 47890, f 189V.

37 B L, A dd. M S . 30928, f. 41V.

38 B L, Add. M S . 30927, f. io6v.

39 BL , Ad d. M S . 47890, f. 197.

40 Ibid., f. 199.

41 BL , Add. M S . 30928, f 45V.

42 Ibid., f 47V.

43 Coleridge, The Dam aged Archangel (London ,

1972), ch. 22, pp. 334-50, and notes, pp. 537-54-

44 E. de Selincourt (ed.) . Journals of Do rothy

Wordsworth (London, 1941), vol. i , p. 34.

45 Robinson , Memoirs (London, 1801), vol. iv, pp.

145-9-

46 Desp i te Ka th leen Coburn {Notebooks of Sam

Taylor Coleridge, vol. i (London, 1957), No

#1840, 16.223), the catalogue of Wordswor

books makes no mention of this four-volu

work, but only of Purchas his Pilgrimage,

edn. (London, 1617), of which incidenta

Coleridge's own copy is now in the LibraryWorcester College, Oxford. See Chester L.

Alice C. Shaver, Wordsworth s Library: A C

lo u (New York and Lo nd on , 1979), p. 208;

Ralph J. Coffman, Coleridge s Library (Bos

1987), p. 169.

47 Coleridge, Collected Letters, ed. E. L. Gr

(Oxford, 1956-71), vol. ii , pp. 1024-8, Let

531-3-

48 Op. cit. , p. 541, n. 23.

49 Cf. Edward Heawood, Watermarks Mainly of

ijth and i8th Ce nturies (Hilversum, 1950),213, which is dated 1794 and counter-mar

'G R ', thou gh the source is said to have bee

letter written in 1799.

50 Cf., respectively , letters of Coleridge to Pool

BL , Ad d. M S . 35343, f. 89 (dated 30 M

1796); f. 274 (18 Apr. 1801); f. 106 (29 M

1796); and f. 91 ( I I Apr. 1796). Th ere is so

possibility that the present mark matches

found in the fragmentary letter of August 18

now Dov e Cottage M S . 32, p. 11 {Coll

Letters, no. 454a), seen by the writer many y

ago.

51 Lives of the U neducated Poets (1831), ed. J

Childers (London, 1925), p. 168, quoted by

N . L. Munby, op. cit. , p. 10.

198



Documents

The Kubla Khan Manuscript and Its First Collector