THE COLERIDGE COTTAGE, NETHER STOWE'S?", PURCHASE SCHEME.
LTO THZ EDITOR OV rat Snt,—You will help us much if you can call attention in the Spectator to this meeting and appeal.—I am, Sir, Stc., "A meeting of the Committee which has been organised for the purchase of the Cottage at Nether Stowey in which Coleridge lived and did his chief poetic work was held in Committee Room C of the House of Lords last week. There were present the Earl of Lytton (chairman), Mr. Etherington Smith (The Temple), Canon Beaching (Westminster), Mr. Ernest Coleridge, Professor Knight (hon. secretary), and Miss Edith Burman (secretary). Lord Lytton read the following letter from Sir Dighton Probyn 'Buckingham Palace, May 13th, 1907. Data Loan Lvrrox,—I am commanded by the King to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enclosing particulars of the proposal to purchase the Cottage at Nether Stowey, in which Coleridge wrote the "Ancient Mariner," and to present it to the nation as a memorial of the poet. In reply! am directed to thank you for the particulars, and to say that his Majesty has read them with much interest, and wishes the movement every success.— Professor Knight reported in detail his correspondence with Mr. Andrew Carnegie in reference to the purchase of the cottage, to which he has promised to subscribe £200. The amount already contributed, along with what is promised prospectively by the • National Trust for the Preservation of Buildings of Historic Interest, Scc.,' and Mr. Carnegie's gift, will be sufficient for the purchase of the Cottage but not for its upkeep ; and for this purpose £200 additional is required. An appeal for this remainder-sum is now made to all lovers of English literature and of its great poets. It is hoped that some of those who have subscribed may add to what they have already given, and that the contributions of others will enable the promoters to realise the object they have aimed at. The following are the members of the Committee of Promoters :—The Earls of Lytton and Crewe, the Right Hon. James Bryce (English Ambassador at Washington), Sir Edward Fry, Mr. T. Herbert Warren (Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford), Mr. Ernest Coleridge, Canons Rawnsley (of Crosthwaite) and Beaching (of Westminster), Mr. J. H. Etherington Smith (of the Inner Temple), Mr. George W. Prothero, the Rev. William Greswell, Mr. Andrew Lang (St. Andrews), the Master of Jesus College, Cambridge (in which Coleridge studied), the Rev. W. Upcott, Christ's Hospital (in which Coleridge was educated), Mr. Montague Crackanthorpe, Professor Mackail (Oxford), Mrs. Humphry Ward, Miss Edith Burman, and Professor Knight (hon. secretary). Subscriptions to the Fund should be sent to the treasurer, the Rev. William Greswell, Dodington Rectory, Bridgwater, Somerset."
[We sincerely hope that the extra L'200 will speedily be raised, and so a fitting memorial preserved of the English poet whose verse possesses above all other the gift of natural magic. There is no such enchanter as Coleridge in our, or perhaps in any, literature.—En. Spectator.]
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