The “Pope” of Holland House
John Whishaw to Thomas Smith, 28 July 1814
July 28, 1814.
When I said that Madame de
Staël was in a certain degree sincere in her exaggerated opinions
respecting religion and politics, I did not mean that she was destitute of
interested views. I only meant to observe that such irrational minds naturally pass
from one violent extreme to another, and know no medium. This has been the case
with Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, and
many other furious democrats, who have at last subsided into High Church principles
and the most abject Toryism.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
Germaine de Staël (1766-1817)
French woman of letters; author of the novel
Corinne, ou L'Italie
(1807) and
De l'Allemagne (1811); banned from Paris by Napoleon, she
spent her later years living in Germany, Britain, and Switzerland.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
With Coleridge, author of
Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth
survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.
