Beschreibung:

COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR. Autograph manuscript signed of his poem best known as "Sancti Dominici Pallium; a Dialogue between Poet and Friend, found written on the blank leaf at the beginning of Butler's Book of the Church." [No place, 1826? 1827?]. 3 1/2 pages, 4to, on two integral leaves, with two revisions, signed at the end of the poem by Coleridge ("S.T. Coleridge"); the final two-thirds of the fourth page is devoted to an attack in prose by Coleridge on the Catholic Church. This anti-Catholic poem is headed: "Poet and Friend: a Dialogue occasioned by the Report of Mr Eneas M'Donnell's Speech at the British Catholic Association, Charles Butler, Esqre being present. -- See the Revd. Blanco White's Letter to C.B. [Charles Butler] Esqre, p. 80 usque ad finem "; and is titled: "Facit Indignatio Versus." The poem begins: "Poet . I note the Moods and feelings, Men betray, And heed them more than aught they do or say. The lurking Ghosts of many a secret Deed Stillborn, or haply strangled in th' Birth, These best reveal the Smooth Man's inward Creed These mark the Spot where lies the treasure, Worth. Milner , made up of impudence and trick, With cloven tongue prepar'd to hiss or lick, Rome's BRAZEN SERPENT! boldly dares discuss The roasting of thy Heart, O brave John Huss!..." Coleridge's invective following the poem continues in a similar vein: "What a sad Tirade on the Catholic Question in the last Ed. [Edinburgh] Review! - as if the Pope, either in cathedram, or mounted on one of his Bulls , were the Object of our Dread -- and not rather the Romish-Irish Mamalukery, the mitred Commanders of which are to the Pope what the Pacha of Egypt and the Barbary Deys are to the Grand Seignior -- i.e. his sworn Slaves for all Commands that answer their own ends or make a part of their own Plot..." "Sancti Dominici Pallium" was written in 1826; it was given to Alaric Watts for publication in The Literary Souvenir for 1827 but, because of probable strongly negative Catholic and Liberal response was not included. That copy of the poem was lost by Watts, who requested another copy for publication in a periodical. The poem first appeared, under the title "A Dialogue written on a Blank Page of Butler's Book of the Roman Catholic Church" in the newspapers Standard (21 May 1827) and St. James Chronicle (19-22 May 1827). Coleridge altered the title in his Poetical Works (1834) to "Sancti Dominici Pallium; a Dialogue between Poet and Friend, found written on the blank leaf at the beginning of Butler's Book of the Church." See Letters , ed. E.L. Griggs, VI, nos. 1569 and 1607 (and their footnotes). With a letter from Griggs of 15 January 1949 selling this manuscript for "my English friend." (MIlne)