The Evans Family
Ann Evans
27 October 1773
23 November 1773, in St
Mary-le-Bow, City of London, London, England
Maurice
Evans
Charlotte (Lloyd) Evans
Ann was the recipient of some of the letters that Samuel Taylor
Coleridge wrote to the Evans family during his time at Cambrisge. Two
of these letters have survived:
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp37-8:
February 19,
1792.
DEAR ANNE,
- To be sure I felt myself rather disappointed at my not receiving a
few lines from you; but I am nevertheless greatly rejoiced at your
amicable dispositions towards me. Please to accept two kisses, as the
seals of reconciliation - you will find them on the word "Anne" at the
beginning of the letter - at least there I left them. I must, however,
give you warning, that the next time you are affronted with Brother
Coly, and show your resentment by that most cruel of all punishments,
silence, I shall address a letter to you as long and as sorrowful as
Jeremiah's Lamentations, and somewhat in the style of your sister's
favourite lover, beginning with, -
TO
THE IRASCIBLE MISS
DEAR MISS,
&c.
My dear Anne, you are my Valentine. I dreamt of you this
morning, and I have seen no female in the whole course of the day,
except an old bedmaker belonging to the College, and I don't count her
one, as the bristle of her beard makes me suspect her to be of the
masculine gender. Some one of the genii must have conveyed your image
to me so opportunely, nor will you think this impossible, if you will
read the little volumes which contain their exploits, and crave the
honour of your acceptance.
If I could draw, I would have sent a pretty heart stuck through
with arrows, with some such sweet posy underneath it as this:-
"The
rose is red, the violet blue;
The pink is sweet, and so are you."
But as the Gods have not made me a drawer
(of anything but corks), you must accept the will for the deed.
You never wrote or desired your sister to write concerning the
bodily health of the Barlowites, though you know my affection for that
family. Do not forget this in your next.
Is Mr. Caleb Barlow recovered of the rheumatism? The quiet
ugliness of Cambridge supplies me with very few communicables in the
news way. The most important is, that Mr. Tim Grubskin, of this town,
citizen, is dead. Poor man! he loved fish too well. A violent commotion
in his bowels carried him off. They say he made a very good end. There
is his epitaph:-
"A
loving friend and tender parent dear,
Just in all actions, and he the Lord did fear,
Hoping, that, when the day of Resurrection come,
He shall arise in glory like the Sun."
It was composed by a Mr. Thistlewait,
the town crier, and is much admired. We are all mortal!!
His wife carries on the business. It is whispered about the town
that a match between her and Mr. Coe, the shoemaker, is not improbable.
He certainly seems very assiduous in consoling her, but as to anything
matrimonial I do not write it as a well authenticated fact.
I went the other evening to the concert, and spent the time
there much to my heart's content in cursing Mr. Hague, who played on
the violin most piggishly, and a Miss (I forget her name) - Miss
Humstrum, who sung most sowishly. O the Billington! That I should be
absent during the oratorios! The prince unable to conceal his pain! Oh!
oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh! oh!
To which house is Mrs B. engaged this season?
The mutton and winter cabbage are confoundedly tough here,
though very venerable for their old age. Were you ever at Cambridge,
Anne? The river Cam is a handsome stream of a muddy complexion,
somewhat like Miss Yates, to whom you will present my love (if you
like).
In Cambridge there are sixteen colleges, that look like
workhouses, and fourteen churches that look like little houses. The
town is very fertile in alleys, and mud, and cats, and dogs, besides
men, women, ravens, clergy, proctors, tutors, owls, and other
two-legged cattle. It likewise - but here I must interrupt my
description to hurry to Mr. Costobadie's lectures on Euclid, who is as
mathematical an author, my dear Anne, as you would wish to read on a
long summer's day. Addio! God bless you, ma chère soeur, and your
affectionate frère,
S.T. COLERIDGE.
P.S. I add a postscript on purpose to communicate a joke to you.
A party of us had been drinking wine together, and three or four
freshmen were most deplorably intoxicated. (I have too great a respect
for delicacy to say drunk.) As we were returning homewards, two of them
fell into the gutter (or kennel). We ran to assist one of them, who
very generously stuttered out, as he lay sprawling in the mud:
"N-n-n-no - n-n-no! save my f-fr-fr-friend there; n-never mind me, I
can swim."
Won't you write me a long letter now, Anne?
P.S. Give my respectful compliments to Betty, and say that I
enquired after her health with the most emphatic energy of impassioned
avidity.
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp52-3:
JESUS
COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, February 10, 1793.
MY DEAR ANNE,
- A little before I had received your mamma's letter, a bird of the air
had informed me of your illness - and sure never did owl or night-raven
("those mournful messengers of heavy things") pipe a more loathsome
song. But I flatter myself that ere you have received this scrawl of
mine, by care and attention you will have lured back the rosy-lipped
fugitive, Health. I know of no misfortune so little susceptible of
consolation as sickness: it is indeed easy to offer comfort, when we
ourselves are well; then we
can be full of grave saws upon the duty of resignation, etc.; but alas!
when the sore visitations of pain come home,
all our philosophy vanishes, and nothing remains to be seen. I speak of
myself, but a mere sensitive animal, with little wisdom and no
patience. Yet if anything can throw a melancholy smile over the pale,
wan face of illness, it must be the sight and attentions of those we
love. There are one or two beings, in this planet of ours, whom God has
formed in so kindly a mould that I could almost consent to be ill in
order to be nursed by them.
O
turtle-eyed affection!
If thou be present
- who can be distrest?
Pain seems to smile, and sorrow is at rest:
No more
the thoughts in wild repinings roll,
And tender murmurs hush the soften'd soul.
But I will not proceed at this rate, for I
am writing and thinking myself fast into the spleen, and feel very
obligingly disposed to communicate the same doleful fit to you, my dear
sister. Yet permit me to say, it is almost your own fault. You were
half angry at my writing laughing
nonsense
to you, and see what you have got in exchange - pale-faced, solemn,
stiff-starched stupidity. I must confess, indeed, that the latter is
rather more in unison with my present feelings, which from one untoward
freak of fortune or other are not of the most comfortable kind. Within
this last month I have lost a brother and a friend! But I struggle for
cheerfulness - and sometimes, when the sun shines out, I succeed in the
effort. This at least I endeavour, not to infect the cheerfulness of
others, and not to write my vexations upon my forehead. I read a story
lately of an old Greek philosopher, who once harangued so movingly on
the miseries of life, that his audience went home and hanged
themselves; but he himself (my author adds) lived many years afterwards
in very sleek condition.
God love you, my dear Anne! and receive as from a brother the
warmest affections of your
S.T. COLERIDGE.
Charlotte Evans
16 July 1771, in St Mary-le-Bow, City of London, London, England
Maurice Evans
Charlotte (Lloyd) Evans
Charlotte Massie (Evans) Kensington
14 February 1815
17 February 1815, in St
Mary, St Marylebone, Middlesex, England
Maurice
Evans
Maria
Benedicta (Massie) Evans
Charles Kensington on 3 July
1841, at Midnapore, Bengal, India.
Asiatic Journal for September-December 1841
p221
MARRIAGES.
July
3. At Midnapore, Charles Kensington, Esq. lieut. M.N.I., to Charlotte
Massie, daughter of the late Maurice Evans, Esq.,
25 February 1879, in
Bangalore, Mysore, India
Times of India 3 March 1879
DEATHS:
Feb 25 at Bangalore Charlotte Massie widow of Lieut C Kensington 14th
MNI
Christopher Evans
Maurice
Evans
Charlotte (Lloyd) Evans
28 April 1771, in St
Mary-le-Bow, City of London, London, England
Elizabeth Evans
7 August 1772, in St Mary-le-Bow, City of London, London, England
Maurice
Evans
Charlotte (Lloyd) Evans
Elizabeth is referred to a number of times in letters written by Samuel
Taylor Coleridge to her mother and sisters. In earlier letters she is
called Bessie and in later ones Eliza. The most notable reference is in
1794 when Coleridge, evidently after a break with the family,
encounters Elizabeth leaving a church in Wrexham, where Eliza lived
with her grandmother. Samuel Coleridge wrote to his friend Robert
Southey from Wrexham on 15 July 1794.
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp77-78:
I saw a face in Wrexham Church this
morning, which recalled "Thoughts full of bitterness and images" too
dearly loved! now past and but "Remembered like sweet sounds of
yesterday!" ...
Monday, 11 o'clock. Well, praised be God! here I am. Videlicet,
Ruthin, sixteen miles from Wrexham. At Wrexham Church I glanced upon
the face of a Miss E. Evans, a young lady with [whom] I had been in
habits of fraternal correspondence. She turned excessively pale; she
thought it my ghost, I suppose. I retreated with all possible speed to
our inn. There, as I was standing at the window, passed by Eliza Evans,
and with her to my utter surprise her sister, Mary Evans, quam efflictim et perdite amabam.
I apprehend she is come from London on a visit to her grandmother, with
whom Eliza lives. I turned sick, and all but fainted away! The two
sisters, as H. informs me, passed by the window anxiously several times
afterwards; but I had retired.
Elizabeth Benedicta Evans
22 May 1816, in London, England
13 June 1816, in St
Mary, St Marylebone, Middlesex, England
Maurice
Evans
Maria
Benedicta (Massie) Evans
25
June 1899, in Ramsey, Isle of Man, aged 83
1881:
18 Lezaryre Road, Lezayre, Isle of Man
Laura (Evans) Ferris
1 July 1825
8 January 1826, in
Portchester, Hampshire, England
Maurice
Evans
Maria
Benedicta (Massie) Evans
Edward Fiott Ferris on 19 November
1846, in Chunar, Bengal, India.
Edward is listed as the son of Thomas Ferris. Laura is
listed as the daughter of Morison Evans.
Simmond's Colonial Magazine Jan-Apr 1847 p364
MARRIAGES.
At Chunar, on the 19th Nov. Edward Fiott, son of the Rev. Thomas
Ferris, Vicar of Darlington, Sussex, to Laura, youngest daughter of the
late Maurice Evans, Esq., Army and Navy Agency, Strand, London.
Maria Isabella (Evans) Rolston
1817, in Wrexham, Denbighshire, Wales
7 June 1817, in Wrexham,
Denbighshire, Wales
Maurice
Evans
Maria
Benedicta (Massie) Evans
William
Thomas Kidman Rolston
13 September 1893, in Ramsey,
Isle of Man, aged 76
1863: Albion Terrace, Ramsey, Isle of Man (Thwaites Directory 1863)
1881:
18 Lezaryre Road, Lezayre, Isle of Man
1883: 18 Albion Terrace, Ramsey, Isle of Man (Smiths Directory 1883)
1889: 18 Albion Terrace, Ramsey, Isle of Man (Porters Directory 1889)
Maria Benedicta Evans
Maurice
Evans
Maria
Benedicta (Massie) Evans
- Maria is named
as the daughter of Maurice Evans in proceeedings of the estate of her
uncle, William Evans (London Gazette 10 July 1860 p2600). At
that time she is listed as a spinster.
Mary (Evans) Todd
 |
|
Painting
of Mary (Evans) Todd
by Jospeh Allen
|
1770
Maurice
Evans
Charlotte (Lloyd) Evans
Fryer
Todd on 13 October 1795
1843
History most remembers Mary as
the first love of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The two met around 1790,
when Samuel was at boarding school in London with Mary's younger
brother, Tom.
Samuel was very close to the whole Evans family, visiting their London
home while at schol and later when he was at Cambridge. He treated Mary
as a beloved sister, not disclosing his love for her until, after a
period apart, he saw her by chance in Wrexham in 1894 and, gearing of
her engagement, he
wrote to her declaring his love which she firmly rejected.
Both Samuel and Mary married other people in October 1795.
Coleridge's "The Sigh" (1794) mentions Mary by name.
The poetical and dramatic works of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge p20 (1836)
THE SIGH.
When Youth his fairy reign began
Ere Sorrow had proclaimed me man;
While Peace the present hour beguil'd
And all the lovely Prospect smil'd:
Then, Mary! 'mid my lightsome glee
I heav'd the painless Sigh for thee.
And when, along the wilds of woe,
My harass'd Heart was doom'd to know,
The frantic Burst of Outrage keen,
And the slow Pang that gnaws unseen;
Then shipwreck'd on Life's stormy sea
I heav'd an anguish'd Sigh for thee!
But soon Reflection's hand imprest
A stiller sadness on my breast;
And sickly Hope with waning eye
Was well content to droop and die:
I yielded to the stern decree,
Yet heav'd the languid Sigh for thee!
And tho' in distant climes to roam,
A wanderer from my native home,
I fain would sooth the sense of Care
And lull to sleep the Joys, that were!
Thy Image may not banish'd be-
Still, Mary! still I sigh for thee.
Samuel's relationship with Mary started with all the innocence of
youth. In a letter to Thomas Allsop in 1822, printed in Letters, conversations and recollections of S. T.
Coleridge p170 (by Thomas Allsop, 1836), Coleridge remembers:
And, oh, from sixteen to nineteen what hours
of Paradise had
Allen and I, in escorting the Miss Evanses home on a Saturday, who were
then at a milliner's whom we used to think, and who I believe really
was,
such a nice lady;- and we used to carry thither, of a summer morning,
the
pillage of the flower gardens within six miles of town, with Sonnet or
Love Rhyme wrapped round the nose-gay.
Some of Coleridge's letters to Mary have been preserved in Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge, 1895) but unfortunately, by his own
admission, Samuel burnt all he had received from her when she got
engaged, and the only fragment that remains is a portion of a single
letter from this period that he had transcribed in another letter.
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp30-37:
February 13,
[1792] 11 o'clock.
Ten
of the most talkative young ladies now in London!
Now by the most accurate calculation of the specific quantities
of sounds, a female tongue, when it
exerts itself to the utmost,
equals the noise of eighteen sign-posts, which the wind swings
backwards and forwards in full creak. If then one equals eighteen, ten
must equal one hundred and eighty; consequently, the circle at Jermyn
Street unitedly must have produced a noise equal to that of one hundred
and eighty old crazy sign-posts, inharmoniously agitated as aforesaid.
Well! to be sure, there are few disagreeables for which the pleasure of
Mary and Anne Evans' company would not amply compensate; but faith! I
feel
myself half inclined to thank God that I was fifty-two miles off during
this clattering clapperation
of tongues. Do you keep ale at Jermyn
Street? If so, I hope it is not soured.
Such, my dear Mary, were the
reflections that instantly suggested themselves to me on reading the
former part of your letter. Believe me, however, that my gratitude
keeps
pace with my sense of your exertions, as I can most feelingly conceive
the difficulty of writing amid that second edition of Babel with
additions. That your health is restored gives me sincere delight. May
the
giver of all pleasure and pain preserve it so! I am likewise glad to
hear that your hand is re-whiten'd, though I cannot help smiling at a
certain young lady's effrontery
in having boxed a young gentleman's
ears till her own hand became black and blue, and attributing those
unseemly marks to the poor unfortunate object of her resentment. You are
at liberty, certainly, to say what you please.
It has been confidently
affirmed by most excellent judges (tho' the best may be mistaken) that
I
have grown very handsome lately. Pray that I may have grace not to be
vain. Yet, ah! who can read the stories of Pamela, or Joseph Andrews,
or
Susannah and the three Elders, and not perceive what a dangerous snare
beauty is? Beauty is like the grass, that groweth up in the morning and
is withered before night. Mary! Anne! Do not be vain of your beauty!!!!!
I keep
a cat. Amid the strange collection of strange animals with which I am
surrounded, I think it necessary to have some meek well-looking being,
that I may keep my social affections alive. Puss, like her master, is a
very gentle brute, and I behave to her with all possible politeness.
Indeed, a cat is a very worthy animal. To be sure, I have known some
very
malicious cats in my lifetime, but then they were old - and besides,
they
had not nearly so many legs as you, my sweet Pussy. I wish, Puss! I
could
break you of that indecorous habit of turning your back front to the
fire. It is not frosty weather now.
N.B. If ever, Mary, you should feel
yourself inclined to visit me at Cambridge, pray do not suffer the
consideration of my having a cat to deter you. Indeed, I will keep her
chained up all the while you
stay.
I was in company the other day with a
very dashing literary lady. After my departure, a friend of mine asked
her her opinion of me. She answered: "The best I can say of him is,
that he
is a very gentle bear." What think you of this character?
What a lovely
anticipation of spring the last three or four days have afforded!
Nature
has not been very profuse of her ornaments to the country about
Cambridge; yet the clear rivulet that runs through the grove adjacent
to
our College, and the numberless little birds (particularly robins) that
are singing away, and above all, the little lambs, each by the side of
its
mother, recall the most pleasing ideas of pastoral simplicity, and
almost
soothe one's soul into congenial innocence. Amid these delightful
scenes,
of which the uncommon flow of health I at present possess permits me
the full enjoyment, I should not deign to think of London, were it not
for a little family, whom I trust I need not name. What bird of the air
whispers me that you too will soon enjoy the same and more delightful
pleasures in a much more delightful country? What we strongly wish we
are very apt to believe. At present, my presentiments on that head
amount
to confidence.
Last Sunday, Middleton and I set off at one o'clock on a
ramble. We sauntered on, chatting and contemplating, till to our great
surprise we came to a village seven miles from Cambridge. And here at a
farmhouse we drank tea. The rusticity of the habitation and the
inhabitants was charming; we had cream to our tea, which though not
brought in a lordly dish,
Sisera would have jumped at. Being here
informed that we could return to Cambridge another way, over a common,
for the sake of diversifying our walk, we chose this road, "if road it
might be called, where road was none," though we were not unapprized of
its difficulties. The fine weather deceived us. We forgot that it was a
summer day in warmth only, and not in length; but we were soon reminded
of it. For on the pathless solitude of this common, the night overtook
us
- we must have been four miles distant from Cambridge - the night,
though
calm, was as dark as the place was dreary: here steering our course by
our imperfect conceptions of the point in which we conjectured
Cambridge to lie, we wandered on "with cautious steps and slow."
We feared
the bog, the stump, and the fen: we feared the ghosts of the night - at
least, those material and knock-me-down ghosts, the apprehension of
which
causes you, Mary (valorous girl that you are!), always to peep under
your
bed of a night. As we were thus creeping forward like the two children
in the wood, we spy'd something white moving across the common. This we
made up to, though contrary to our supposed
destination. It proved to be
a man with a white bundle. We enquired our way, and luckily he was
going
to Cambridge. He informed us that we had gone half a mile out of our
way,
and that in five minutes more we must have arrived at a deep quagmire
grassed over. What an escape! The man was as glad of our company as we
of
his - for, it seemed the poor fellow was afraid of Jack o' Lanthorns -
the
superstition of this county attributing a kind of fascination to those
wandering vapours, so that whoever fixes his eyes on them is forced by
some irresistible impulse to follow them. He entertained us with many a
dreadful tale. By nine o'clock we arrived at Cambridge, betired and
bemudded. I never recollect to have been so much fatigued.
Do you spell
the word scarsely? When
Momus, the fault-finding God, endeavoured to
discover some imperfection in Venus, he could only censure the creaking
of her slipper. I, too, Momuslike, can only fall foul on a single s. Yet
will not my dear Mary be angry with me, or think the remark trivial,
when
she considers that half a grain is of consequence in the weight of a
diamond.
I had entertained hopes that you would really have sent me a
piece of sticking plaister, which would have been very convenient at
that time, I having cut my finger. I had to buy sticking plaister, etc.
What is the use of a man's knowing you girls, if he cannot chouse you
out of such little things as that? Do not your fingers, Mary, feel an
odd
kind of titillation to be about my ears for my impudence?
On Saturday
night, as I was sitting by myself all alone, I heard a creaking sound,
something like the noise which a crazy chair would make, if pressed by
the tremendous weight of Mr. Barlow's extremities. I cast my eyes
around,
and what should I behold but a Ghost
rising out of the floor! A deadly
paleness instantly overspread my body, which retained no other symptom
of life but its violent
trembling. My hair (as is usual in frights of
this nature) stood upright by many degrees stiffer than the oaks of the
mountains, yea, stiffer than Mr. ---; yet was it rendered oily-pliant
by the
profuse perspiration that burst from every pore. This spirit advanced
with a book in his hand, and having first dissipated my terrors, said
as
follows: "I am the Ghost of Gray.
There lives a young lady" (then he
mentioned your name), "of
whose judgment I entertain so high an opinion,
that her approbation of my
works would make the turf lie lighter on me;
present her with this book, and transmit it to her as soon as possible,
adding my love to her. And, as for you, O young man!" (now he addressed
himself to me) "write no more verses. In the first place your poetry is
vile stuff; and secondly" (here he sighed almost to bursting), "all
poets go
to --ll; we are so intolerably addicted to the vice of lying!" He
vanished,
and convinced me of the truth of his last dismal account by the
sulphurous stink which he left behind him.
His first mandate I have
obeyed, and I hope you will receive safe
your ghostly admirer's present.
But so far have I been from obeying his second injunction, that I never
had the scribble-mania stronger on me than for these last three or four
days: nay, not content with suffering it myself, I must pester those I
love best with the blessed effects of my disorder.
Besides two things,
which you will find in the next sheet, I cannot forbear filling the
remainder of this sheet with an Odeling, though I know and approve your
aversion to mere prettiness,
and though my tiny love ode possesses no
other property in the world. Let then its shortness recommend it to
your
perusal - by the by, the only thing in which it resembles
you, for wit,
sense, elegance, or beauty it has none.
AN ODE IN THE MANNER OF ANACREON.
As late in wreaths gay flowers I bound,
Beneath some roses Love I found,
And by his little frolic pinion
As quick as thought I seiz'd the minion,
Then in my cup the prisoner threw,
And drank him in its sparkling dew:
And sure I feel my angry guest
Fluttering his wings within
my breast!
Are you quite asleep, dear Mary? Sleep
on; but when you awake, read the following productions, and then, I'll
be bound, you will sleep again sounder than ever.
A WISH WRITTEN IN JESUS WOOD, FEBRUARY 10, 1792.
Lo! through the dusky silence of the groves,
Thro' vales irriguous, and thro' green retreats,
With languid murmur creeps the placid stream
And works its secret way.
Awhile meand'ring round its native fields,
It rolls the playful wave and winds its flight:
Then downward flowing with awaken'd speed
Embosoms in the Deep!
Thus thro' its silent tenor may my Life
Smooth its meek stream by sordid wealth unclogg'd,
Alike unconscious of forensic storms,
And Glory's blood-stain'd palm!
And when dark Age shall close Life's little day,
Satiate of sport, and weary of its toils,
E'en thus may slumb'rous Death my decent limbs
Compose with icy hand!
A LOVER'S COMPLAINT TO HIS MISTRESS
WHO DESERTED HIM IN QUEST OF A MORE WEALTHY HUSBAND IN THE EAST
INDIES.
The dubious light sad glimmers o'er the sky:
'T is silence all. By lonely anguish torn,
With wandering feet to gloomy groves I fly.
And wakeful Love still tracks my course forlorn.
And will you, cruel Julia? will you go?
And trust you to the Ocean's dark dismay?
Shall the wide, wat'ry world between us flow?
And winds unpitying snatch my Hopes away?
Thus could you sport with my too easy heart?
Yet tremble, lest not unaveng'd I grieve!
The winds may learn your own delusive art,
And faithless Ocean smile - but to deceive!
I have written too long a letter. Give me a hint, and I will
avoid a repetition of the offence. It's a compensation for the
above-written rhymes (which if you ever condescend to read a second
time, pray let it be by the light of their own flames) in my next
letter I will send some delicious poetry lately published by the
exquisite Bowles.
To-morrow morning I fill the rest of this sheet with a letter to
Anne. And now, good night, dear sister! and peaceful slumbers await us
both!
S.T. COLERIDGE
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp41-42:
JESUS
COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, February 22,
[1792].
DEAR MARY, - Writing long
letters
is not the fault into which I am most apt to fall, but whenever I do,
by some inexplicable ill luck, my prolixity is always directed to those
whom I would yet least of all wish to torment. You think, and think
rightly, that I had no occasion to increase
the preceding accumulations of wearisomeness, but I wished to inform
you that I have sent the poem of Bowles, which I mentioned in a former
sheet; though I dare say you would have discovered this without my
information. If the pleasure which you receive from the perusal of it
prove equal to that which I have received, it will make you some small
return for the exertions of friendship, which you must have found
necessary in order to travel through my long, long, long letter.
Though it may be a little effrontery to point out
beauties, which would be obvious to a far less sensible heart than
yours, yet I cannot forbear the self-indulgence of remarking to you the
exquisite description of Hope in the third page and of Fortitude in the
sixth; but the poem "On leaving a place of residence" appears to me to
be almost superior to any of Bowles's compositions.
I hope that the Jermyn Street ledgers are well. How can they be
otherwise in such lovely keeping?
Your Jessamine Pomatum, I trust, is as strong and as odorous as
ever, and the roasted turkeys at Villiers Street honoured, as usual,
with a thick crust of your Mille (what do you call it?) powder.
I had a variety of other interesting inquiries to make, but time
and memory fail me.
Without a swanskin waistcoat, what is man? I have got a swanskin
waistcoat, - a most attractive external.
Yours with sincerity of friendship,
SAMUEL
TAYLOR C.
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp47-52:
JESUS
COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, February 7, 1793.
I would to Heaven, my dear Miss Evans, that
the god of wit, or news, or politics would whisper in my ear something
that might be worth sending fifty-four miles - but alas! I am so
closely blocked by an army of misfortunes that really there is no
passage left open for mirth or anything else. Now, just to give you a
few articles in the large inventory of my calamities. Imprimis, a
gloomy, uncomfortable morning. Item, my head aches. Item, the Dean has
set me a swinging imposition for missing morning chapel. Item, of the
two only coats which I am worth in the world, both have holes in the
elbows. Item, Mr. Newton, our mathematical lecturer, has recovered from
an illness. But the story is rather a laughable one, so I must tell it
you. Mr. Newton (a tall, thin man with a little, tiny blushing face) is
a great botanist. Last Sunday, as he was strolling out with a friend of
his, some curious plant suddenly caught his eye. He turned round his
head with great eagerness to call his companion to a participation of
discovery, and unfortunately continuing to walk forward he fell into a
pool, deep, muddy, and full of chickweed. I was lucky enough to meet
him as he was entering the college gates on his return (a sight I would
not have lost for the Indies), his best black clothes all green with
duckweed, he shivering and dripping, in short a perfect river god. I
went up to him (you must understand we hate each other most cordially)
and sympathized with him in all the tenderness of condolence. The
consequence of his misadventure was a violent cold attended with fever,
which confined him to his room, prevented him from giving lectures, and
freed me from the necessity of attending them; but this misfortune I
supported with truly Christian fortitude. However, I constantly asked
after his health with filial anxiety, and this morning, making my usual
inquiries, I was informed, to my infinite astonishment and vexation,
that he was perfectly recovered and intended to give lectures this very
day!!! Verily, I swear that six of his duteous pupils - myself as their
general - sallied forth to the apothecary's house with a fixed
determination to thrash him for having performed so speedy a cure, but,
luckily for himself, the rascal was not at home. But here comes my
fiddling master, for (but this is a secret) I am learning to play on
the violin. Twit, twat, twat, twit! "Pray, M. de la Penche, do you
think I shall ever make anything of this violin? Do you think I have an
ear for music?" "Un magnifique! Un superbe! Par honneur, sir, you be a
ver great genius in de music. Good morning, monsieur!" This M. de la
Penche is a better judge than I thought for.
This new whim of mine is partly a scheme of self-defence. Three
neighbours have run music-mad lately - two of them fiddle-scrapers, the
third a flute-tooter - and are perpetually annoying me with their vile
performances, compared with which the gruntings of a whole herd of sows
would be seraphic melody. Now I hope, by frequently playing myself, to
render my ear callous. Besides, the evils of life are crowding upon me,
and music is "the sweetest assuager of cares." It helps to relieve and
soothe the mind, and is a sort of refuge from calamity, from slights
and neglects and censures and insults and disappointments; from the
warmth of real enemies and the coldness of pretended friends; from your
well wishers (as they are
justly called, in opposition, I suppose, to well doers),
men whose inclinations to serve you always decrease in a most
mathematical proportion as their opportunities to do it increase; from
the
"Proud man's
contumely, and the spurns
Which patient merit of th' unworthy takes;"
from grievances that are the growth of all
times and places and not peculiar to this
age, which authors call this critical
age, and divines this sinful age,
and politicians this age of
revolutions. An acquaintance of mine calls it this learned age
in due reverence to his own abilities, and like Monsieur
Whatd'yecallhim, who used to pull off his hat when he spoke of himself.
The poet laureate calls it "this
golden age," and with good reason, -
For him the fountains with Canary flow,
And, best of fruit, spontaneous guineas grow.
Pope, in
his "Dunciad," makes it this leaden
age, but I choose to call it without an epithet, this
age. Many things we must expect to meet with which it would be hard to
bear, if a compensation were not found in honest endeavours to do well,
in virtuous affections and connections, and in harmless and reasonable
amusements. And why should not
a man amuse himself sometimes? Vive
la bagatelle!
I received a letter this morning from my friend Allen. He is up
to his ears in business, and I sincerely congratulate him upon it -
occupation, I am convinced, being the great secret of happiness.
"Nothing makes the temper so fretful as indolence," said a young lady
who, beneath the soft surface of feminine delicacy, possesses a mind
acute by nature, and strengthened by habits of reflection. 'Pon my
word, Miss Evans, I beg your pardon a thousand times for bepraising you
to your face, but, really, I have written so long that I had forgot to
whom I was writing.
Have you read Mr Fox's letter to the Westminster electors? It is
quite the political go at
Cambridge, and has converted many souls to the Foxite faith.
Have you seen the Siddons this season? or the Jordan? An
acquaintance of mine has a tragedy coming out early in the next season,
the principal character of which Mrs. Siddons will act. He has
importuned me to write the prologue and epilogue, but, conscious of my
inability, I have excused myself with a jest, and told him I was too
good a Christian to be accessory to the damnation of anything.
There is an old proverb of a river of words and a spoonful of
sense, and I think this letter has been a pretty good proof of it. But
as nonsense is better than blank paper, I will fill this side with a
song I wrote lately. My friend, Charles Hague, the composer, will set
it to wild music. I shall sing it, and accompany myself on the violin. Ça ira!
Cathloma, who reigned in the Highlands of Scotland about two
hundred years after the birth of our Saviour, was defeated and killed
in a war with a neighbouring prince, and Nina Thoma his daughter
(according to the custom of those times and that country) was
imprisoned in a cave by the seaside. This is supposed to be her
complaint:-
How long
will ye round me be swelling,
O ye
blue-tumbling waves of the sea?
Not always in caves was my dwelling,
Nor
beneath the cold blast of the Tree;
Thro' the high sounding Hall of
Cathloma
In the steps of my beauty I strayed,
The warriors beheld Nina
Thoma,
And they blessed the dark-tressed Maid!
By my Friends, by my Lovers
discarded,
Like the Flower of the Rock now I waste,
That lifts its fair
head unregarded,
And scatters its leaves on the blast.
A Ghost! by my
cavern it darted!
In moonbeams the spirit was drest -
For lovely appear
the Departed,
When they visit the dreams of my rest!
But dispersed by the
tempest's commotion,
Fleet the shadowy forms of Delight;
Ah! cease, thou
shrill blast of the Ocean!
To howl thro' my Cavern by night.
Are you asleep, my dear Mary? I have administered rather a
strong dose of opium; however, if in the course of your nap you should
chance to dream that I am, with ardor of eternal friendship, your
affectionate
S.T. COLERIDGE,
you will never have dreamt a truer
dream in all your days.
The next preserved letter from Samuel Coleridge concerning Mary is one
he wrote to his friend Robert Southey from Wrexham on 15 July 1794,
describing his feelings on seeing Mary by chance in the town where she
was visiting her grandmother.
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp77-78:
I saw a face in Wrexham Church this
morning, which recalled "Thoughts full of bitterness and images" too
dearly loved! now past and but "Remembered like sweet sounds of
yesterday!" ...
Monday, 11 o'clock. Well, praised be God! here I am. Videlicet,
Ruthin, sixteen miles from Wrexham. At Wrexham Church I glanced upon
the face of a Miss E. Evans, a young lady with [whom] I had been in
habits of fraternal correspondence. She turned excessively pale; she
thought it my ghost, I suppose. I retreated with all possible speed to
our inn. There, as I was standing at the window, passed by Eliza Evans,
and with her to my utter surprise her sister, Mary Evans, quam efflictim et perdite amabam.
I apprehend she is come from London on a visit to her grandmother, with
whom Eliza lives. I turned sick, and all but fainted away! The two
sisters, as H. informs me, passed by the window anxiously several times
afterwards; but I had retired.
Vivit, sed mihi non vivit - nova forte marita,
Ah dolor! alterius
carâ a cervice pependit.
Vos, malefida valete accensœ insomnia mentis,
Littora amata valete! Vale, ah! formosa Maria!
My fortitude would not have
supported me, had I recognized
her - I mean appeared to do
it! I neither
ate nor slept yesterday. But love is a local anguish; I am sixteen
miles
distant, and am not half so miserable. I must endeavour to forget it
amid
the terrible graces of the wild wood scenery that surround me. I never
durst even in a whisper avow my passion, though I knew she loved me.
Where were my fortunes? and why should I make her miserable! Almighty
God
bless her! Her image is in the sanctuary of my heart, and never can it
be
torn away but with the strings that grapple it to life.
The Latin lines above are translated in Poetical Works p122 (ed J.C.C. Mays,
2001) as:
She lives, but
for me lives not; perchance, newly wed,
Ah woe! she hangs upon the dear neck of another.
Farewell deceptive dreams of an inflamed mind.
Farewell, beloved shores! Farewell, ah! beautiful Mary!
At this time, Coleridge and Robert Southey had planned a strange scheme
of emigrating to America to
establish a society on the lines of a utopian society they had devised
- the pantisocracy. Mary wrote to Samuel to counsel him against the
idea and Coleridge quotes part
of Mary's letter in a letter to Southey in October 1794:
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp87-89:
October 21,
1794.
To you alone, Southey, I write the
first part of this letter. To yourself confine it.
"Is this handwriting altogether erased from your memory? To whom
am I addressing myself? For whom am I now violating the rules of female
delicacy? Is it for the same Coleridge, whom I once regarded as a
sister her best-beloved Brother? Or for one who will ridicule that advice from me, which
he has rejected as offered by
his family? I will hazard the attempt. I have no right, nor do I feel
myself inclined to reproach you for the Past. God forbid! You have
already suffered too much from self-accusation. But I conjure you,
Coleridge, earnestly and solemnly conjure you to consider long and
deeply, before you enter into any rash schemes. There is an Eagerness
in your Nature, which is ever hurrying you in the sad Extreme. I have
heard that you mean to leave England, and on a Plan so absurd and
extravagant that were I for a moment to imagine it true, I should be obliged to listen
with a more patient Ear to suggestions, which I have rejected a
thousand times with scorn and anger. Yes! whatever Pain I might suffer,
I should be forced to exclaim, 'O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown, Blasted with ecstacy.'
You have a country, does it demand nothing of you? You have doting
Friends! Will you break their Hearts! There is a God - Coleridge!
Though I have been told (indeed
I do not believe it) that you doubt of his existence and disbelieve a
hereafter. No! you have too much sensibility to be an Infidel. You know
I never was rigid in my opinions concerning Religion - and have always
thought Faith to be only
Reason applied to a particular subject. In short, I am the same Being
as when you used to say, 'We thought in all things alike.' I often
reflect on the happy hours we spent together and regret the Loss of
your Society. I cannot easily forget those whom I once loved - nor can
I easily form new Friendships. I find women in general vain - all of
the same Trifle, and therefore little and envious, and (I am afraid)
without sincerity; and of the other sex those who are offered and held
up to my esteem are very prudent, and very worldly. If you value my
peace of mind, you must on no account
answer this letter, or take the least notice of it. I would not for the world any part of my Family should
suspect that I have written to you. My mind is sadly tempered by being
perpetually obliged to resist the solicitations of those whom I love. I
need not explain myself. Farewell, Coleridge! I shall always feel that
I have been your Sister."
No name was signed,- it was from Mary Evans. I received it about
three weeks ago. I loved her, Southey, almost to madness. Her image was
never absent from me for three years, for more than three years.
In this letter in December 1794, Samuel, having heard of Mary's
engagement to Fryer Todd, finally reveals to Mary his long hidden love.
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp122-4:
December,
1794.
Too long has my heart been the torture house
of suspense. After infinite struggles of irresolution, I will at last
dare to request of you, Mary, that you will communicate to me whether
or no you are engaged to Mr. ---. I conjure you not to consider this
request as presumptuous indelicacy. Upon mine honour, I have made it
with no other design or expectation than that of arming my fortitude by
total hopelessness. Read this letter with benevolence - and consign it
to oblivion.
For four years I have endeavoured
to smother a very ardent attachment; in what degree I have succeeded
you must know better than I can. With quick perceptions of moral
beauty, it was impossible for me not to admire in you your sensibility
regulated by judgment, your gaiety proceeding from a cheerful heart
acting on the stores of a strong understanding. At first I voluntarily
invited the recollection of these qualities into my mind. I made them
the perpetual object of my reveries, yet I entertained no one sentiment
beyond that of the immediate pleasure annexed to the thinking of you.
At length it became a habit. I awoke from the delusion, and found that
I had unwittingly harboured a passion which I felt neither the power
nor the courage to subdue. My associations were irrevocably formed, and
your image was blended with every idea. I thought of you incessantly;
yet that spirit (if spirit there be that condescends to record the
lonely beatings of my heart), that spirit knows that I thought of you
with the purity of a brother. Happy were I, had it been with no more
than a brother's ardour!
The man of dependent fortunes, while he fosters an attachment,
commits an act of suicide on his happiness. I possessed no
establishment. My views were very distant; I saw that you regarded me
merely with the kindness of a sister. What expectations could I form? I
formed no expectations. I was ever resolving to subdue the disquieting
passion; still some inexplicable suggestion palsied my efforts, and I
clung with desperate fondness to this phantom of love, its mysterious
attractions and hopeless prospects. It was a faint and rayless hope!
Yet it soothed my solitude with many a delightful day-dream. It was a
faint and rayless hope! Yet I nursed it in my bosom with an agony of
affection, even as a mother her sickly infant. But these are the
poisoned luxuries of a diseased fancy. Indulge, Mary, this my first, my
last request, and restore me to reality,
however gloomy. Sad and full of heaviness will the intelligence be; my
heart will die within me. I shall, however, receive it with steadier
resignation from yourself, than were it announced to me (haply on your
marriage day!) by a stranger. Indulge my request; I will not disturb
your peace by even a look of
discontent, still less will I offend your ear by the whine of selfish
sensibility. In a few months I shall enter at the Temple and there seek
forgetful calmness, where only it can be found, in incessant and useful
activity.
Were you not possessed of a mind and of a heart above the usual
lot of women, I should not have written you sentiments that would be
unintelligible to three fourths of your sex. But our feelings are
congenial, though our attachment is doomed not to be reciprocal. You
will not deem so meanly of me as to believe that I shall regard Mr. ---
with the jaundiced eye of disappointed passion. God forbid! He whom you
honour with your affections becomes sacred to me. I shall love him for your sake; the time may perhaps
come when I shall be philosopher enough not to envy him for his own.
S.T. COLERIDGE.
I return to Cambridge to-morrow morning.
MISS EVANS No. 17 Sackville Street,
Piccadilly
Coleridge's feelings for Mary at this time undoubtably formed the base
of his sonnet "On a Discovery Made too Late", in which he repeats many
of the phrases and themes from the letter.
The poetical and dramatic works of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge pp30-1 (1836)
ON A DISCOVERY MADE TOO LATE
THOU bleedest, my poor Heart! and thy distress
Reas'ning I ponder with a scornful smile
And probe thy sore wound sternly, tho' the while
Swoln be mine eye and dim with heaviness.
Why didst thou listen to Hope's whisper bland?
Or list'ning why forget the healing tale,
When Jealousy with fev'rish fancies pale
Jarr'd thy fine fibres with a maniac's hand?
Faint was that Hope, and rayless!- Yet twas fair
And sooth'd with many a dream the hour of rest;
Thou should'st have loved it most, when most oppress'd.
And nurs'd it with an agony of Care,
Ev'n as a Mother her sweet infant heir,
That wan and sickly droops upon her breast!
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp124-5:
December 24,
1794.
I have this moment received your
letter, Mary Evans. Its firmness does honour to your understanding, its
gentleness to your humanity. You condescend to accuse yourself - most
unjustly! You have been altogether blameless. In my wildest day-dream
of vanity, I never supposed that you entertained for me any other than
a common friendship.
To love you habit has made unalterable. This passion, however,
divested as it now is of all shadow of hope, will lose its disquieting
power. Far distant from you I shall journey through the vale of men in
calmness. He cannot long be wretched, who dares be actively virtuous.
I have burnt your letters - forget mine; and that I have pained
you, forgive me!
May God infinitely love you!
S.T. COLERIDGE.
and shortly thereafter, Coleridge writes to Southey describing his
feelings at receiving Mary's rejection.
Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp125-6:
December,
1794.
I am calm, dear Southey! as an
autumnal day, when the sky is covered with gray moveless clouds. To love her,
habit has made unalterable. I had placed her in the sanctuary of my
heart, nor can she be torn from thence but with the strings that
grapple it to life. This passion, however, divested as it now is of all
shadow of hope, seems to lose its disquieting power. Far distant, and
never more to behold or hear of her, I shall sojourn in the vale of
men, sad and in loneliness, yet not unhappy. He cannot be long wretched
who dares be actively virtuous. I am well assured that she loves me as
a favourite brother. When she was present, she was to me only as a very
dear sister; it was in absence that I felt those gnawings of suspense,
and that dreaminess of mind, which evidence an affection more restless,
yet scarcely less pure than the fraternal. The struggle has been well
nigh too much for me; but, praised be the All-Merciful! the feebleness
of exhausted feelings has produced a calm, and my heart stagnates into
peace.
Southey! my ideal standard of female excellence rises not above
that woman. But all things work together for good. Had I been united to
her, the excess of my affection would have effeminated my intellect. I
should have fed on her looks as she entered into the room, I should
have gazed on her footsteps when she went out from me.
To lose her! I can rise above that selfish pang. But to marry
another. O Southey! bear with my weakness. Love makes all things pure
and heavenly like itself,- but to marry a woman whom I do not
love, to degrade her whom I call my wife by making her the instrument
of low desire, and on the removal of a desultory appetite to be perhaps
not displeased with her absence! Enough! These refinements are the
wildering fires that lead me into vice. Mark you, Southey! I will do my duty.
It seems that Mary and samuel did not see each other or communicate for
more than 13 years, until Mary saw and met Coleridge, then a
successfuly poet, at The Royal Institute and the following exchange of
plaesant notes occurred. They were orinally published in the Athenæum, 18 May 1895 p643, and reprinted
in Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
1807-1814 pp690-1 (ed. Earl Leslie Griggs, 2002)
April 6th,
1808.
No 31 - Bury Street, St. James's -
My dear Sir,
On hearing your name announced at the Royal Institution I felt
so great a desire to once more behold an old and esteemed friend that I
could not resist the opportunity that presented itself - The pleasure
however that I experienced was greatly diminished by seeing you in so
indifferent a state of health - making myself known to you at such a
moment was perhaps ill-timed and i now write to offer an apology - In
truth it was the effect of a momentary impulse and not a premideditated
act - If i erred I can only say it was an error of judgement - but not
intended to give pain - I hope I shall be able to explain myself better
when I have the pleasure of seeing you here which I shall expect in the
course of a day or two -
In the meantime | Believe me | still your sincere friend
Mary Todd.
Thursday. [7
April 1808]
Dear Madam,
Undoubtedly the first moment of the feeling was an awful one to
me. The second
of time previous to my full recognition of you, the Mary Evans of 14
years ago, flashed across my eyes with a truth and vividness as great
as its rapidity. But the confusion of mind occasioned by this sort of double
presence was amply and more than balanced by the after pleasure
and satisfaction. Truly happy does it make me to have seen you once
more, and seen you well, prosperous, and cheerful - all that your
goodness gives you a title to.
I shall, as soon as I am at liberty, call on you and Mr. Todd,
and believe me to be with most sincere regard and never extinguished
esteem
Your friend
S. T. Coleridge
Coleridge evidently called on the Todds. He presented Mary with a
signed copy of his poetical works which is now in the Lawrence Special
Collection of the University of Kansas, but he was shocked at the
circumstances of Mary Todd. The next day he
wrote to Daniel Stuart that
Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
1807-1814 pp695 (ed. Earl Leslie Griggs, 2002)
I saw yesterday, which I will explain when I see you, such a
counterpart of the very worst parts of my own Fate, in an exaggerated
Form, in the Fate of the Being, who was my first attachment, and who
with her family gave me the first Idea of an Home, & inspired my best and
most permanent Feelings
The last known letter between Mary and Samuel was in 1820. Coleridge
replies to a letter from Mary evidently requesting help in a plan she
had of establishing a school. Samuel offers some advice, but declines
to assist her financially, an ironic end to a relationship that never
got off the ground because Coleridge felt he could not declare his love
for her becasue he lacked a fortune.
Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
1820-1825 pp101-2
Highgate-
Tuesday 26th Septr. 1820.
Dear Mrs. Todd
I inclose Lady C.
L. 's letter together with the Answer, which I have this
morning received from Mrs. Cootes. I would I could accompany it with
some 'compensating counterbalance'! But I have done my best - and at a
time when I know not which way to turn, first in encountering
perplexities & embarrassments that are pressing in on me, partly on
my own account, & yet more, or more urgently at least, on account
of my sons - one of whom will leave me for Cambridge in a few days,
while I am going to Oxford on behalf of the other - I had a note from
Mrs. Prickett, acquainting me with the terms of the house in Hornsey
Lane - the rent 60£, the premium for the Lease 200£.
They are considered here as very reasonable, the House being an
excellent one. You blame me for not having written a plan. How can I,
when you are yourself wholly undecided? Advertisements of any kind,
merely to satisfy yourself whether you are likely to succeed, will but
exhaust your interest, and convey the impression that you are trifling
with the Applicants who answer them. A plan for a school will not
answer for a scheme of a family Home for ladies, or for single
gentlemen. I am incompentant to advise; but of this I am sure that what
is begun in haste ends in disappointment. Were you fixed on a School
and felt yourself adequate to the undertaking, the wisest way, as it
appears to me, would be to settle on a house first, the rent of which
should commence a month or so afterwards, so that you would announce
the day on which you would be prepared to receive the Scholars & then to circulate the plan, and
send the advertisements, i.e. the plan in its most abridged form. I
said the wisest way, meaning
of course to imply, if
practicable. How very little the chance is of your procuring any sum
from uninterested persons by subscription, for the purpose of enabling
you to commence the attempt, any sum at all proportionate either to
your object, or to your own toil & solicitation, but you have had,
I fear, more than sufficient grounds of presuming - But I feel that my
own horizon is too thicj with clouds for me to be a fair judge - and
better be sanguine to no purpose, than despondent to no purpose: and if
my present mood incline to the latter, I can most sincerely assure you
that my own inability to befriend you, combined with the earnest wish
that I could supercede the necessity of your applying to any other
friend, has no small share in the depression of
My dear Mrs.
T. | Your faithful friend
S.T. Coleridge
1794: 17 Sackville Street, Picadilly, London (Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge vol 1
pp122-4)
1808: 31 Bury Street, St James, London (Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
1807-1814 pp690-1)
1817: Curzon Street, Mayfair, Westminster, Middlesex (Old
Bailey Proceedings 9 April 1823 p239)
Maurice Evans
of West Cheap, Cheapside, London
1730/1
Charlotte Lloyd on 2 November
1767, in Wrexham, Denbighshire, Wales
24 November 1781 at St
Mary-le-Bow, City of London, London, England, aged 50
Maurice Evans
18 June 1770, in St Mary-le-Bow, City of London, London, England
Maurice
Evans
Charlotte (Lloyd) Evans
Maurice Evans
18 September 1778
13 October 1778, in St
Mary-le-Bow, City of London, London, England
Maurice
Evans
Charlotte (Lloyd) Evans
Maria Benedicta Massie on 8 September
1813, in Wrexham, Denbighshire, Wales
Army and Navy Agent, with
premises in the Strand, London.
In 1815, Maurice was involved in the lawsuit Smith vs. Mercer,
a complex financial case involving the level of care required by banks
to detect fraud. The document in question was one in which Maurice's
signature had been forged. The case gives some insight into the navy
agent world of Maurice Evans.
Maurice was the author of The Ægis of England or the Triumphs of the Late War
(1817), a collection of the thanks of Parliament to officers of the
navy and army, with biographical and miltary notes.
5 February 1827, in Emsworth, Hampshire, England, aged 49
The Gentleman's Magazine February 1827 p188
OBITUARY.
HANTS.- Feb.
5. At Emsworth, aged 49, Maurice Evans, esq. Navy Agent
10 February 1827, in
Warblington, Hampshire, England
1817: Bryn y ffynnon Lodge, Wrexham, Denbighshire (A History of the Town and Parish of Wrexham
vol 4 p144)
Maurice Evans
1818/9, in London, England
9 March 1819, in St Clement
Danes, Westminster, Middlesex, England
Maurice
Evans
Maria
Benedicta (Massie) Evans
Jane Baker Sweetten
on 29 April 1857, in St James, Paddington, Middlesex, England. Maurice
is recorded as the son of Maurice Evans. Jane is recorded as the
daughter of John Baker Sweetten.
Wine Merchant. Maurice was
also, at times, a Beer Exporter, Soap Manufacturer and Commission
Merchant.
Maurice had complex financial arrangements, not all of them very stable
and was involved in many partnerships and also bankruptcy proceedings
against him and his partners. As part of his marriage settlement, dated
28 April 1857, Maurice transferred a number of shares to J. W. Hoare,
D. H. Young and H. G. Hoare. This transfer was faultily recorded
leading to a lawsuit (The English Reports vol 70 p1041).
Earlier that year, Edward Duke Moore, a "Merchant and Dealer in
Concentrated Milkand Cocoa, trading in copartnership with Maurice Evans
and William John Hoare, under the firm of E. D. Moore and Co." was
declared bankrupt (London Gazette 7 April 1857 p1281).
This was followed by bankruptcy proceedings against Maurice and William
Hoare, "Export Wine and Bottled Beer Merchants", on 9 July 1857. (London Gazette 10 July 1857 p2428).
Their business address is listed as 29 Great Saint Helens in the city
of London and Trinity wharf in Rotherhithe, Surrey. This did not seem
to deter Maurice. We read that on 4 August 1860 that a partnership
between Maurice and Horatio Thomas Wibrow, soap manufacturers in
Southerhampton street, Camberwell, Surrey doing business as Wibrow and
Company, was dissolved and all debts would be paid and received by
Maurice Evans "by whom the business will in future be carried on"
(London Gazette 14 August 1860 p3027).
Maurice then partnered with a Walter Strickland as Wine Merchants at 31
Throgmorton Street in the city of London doing busienss as Evans and
Strickland and the Gladstone Wine Company. This partnership was
dissolved in 1867 (London Gazette 27 August 1867 p4838).
The bankruptcy proceedings dragged on and in 1868 we read that
Maurice executed a deed assigning all his "estate and effects" to a
trustee for the benefit of his creditors "and release by them to him" (London Gazette 21 January 1868 p311).
This seems to have resolved his own bankruptcy and Maurice then went on
the offensive. On 14 January 1869 he petitioned for the winding up of
the London Cooperative Commissariat Limited, of which he was a creditor
(London Gazette 15 January 1869 p247).
On 5 March 1877, the partnership between Maurice and Henry Hart, named
the Foreign Wine Association at 17 Philpot Lane in the city of London,
was dissolved (London Gazette 9 March 1877 p1991).
1891, in Fulham
district, London, England, aged 73
1857: 13 Victoria Terrace, Westbourne Grove, Middlesex (London Gazette 25 December 1857 p1281)
1868: 19 Garway Road, Bayswater, Middlesex (London Gazette 21 January 1868 p311)
1869: 2 Old Swan Lane, City of London (London Gazette 15 January 1869 p247)
1881:
6 Melrose Gardens, London, Middlesex
Thomas Evans
11 October 1776
6 November 1776, in St
Mary-le-Bow, City of London, London, England
Maurice
Evans
Charlotte (Lloyd) Evans
Christ's
Hospital school. Thomas entered Christ's Hospital on 7 May 1784.
While at the
school he befriended Samuel
Coleridge. Samuel's father had died and his mother lived in Devon,
and Samuel spent a lot of time at the Evans's London home from about
1788 where he fell deeply in love with Tom's sister, Mary.
1814
Thomas Lloyd Money Evans
Maurice
Evans
Maria
Benedicta (Massie) Evans
William Evans
27 January 1781
1 March 1781, in St Mary-le-Bow, City of London, London, England
Maurice
Evans
Charlotte (Lloyd) Evans
Ana Johanna Pellet on 19
February 1807, in the Abbey, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England
The gentleman's magazine (1807) p178
MARRIAGES.
Feb 19. Mr. William Evans, of
the East India-house, to the daughter of Dr. Pallet, of St. Alban's,
Herts.
Ana was the daughter of Dr. Stephen Pellett. He evidently provided her
an education at home, as described below. It is not certain that the
daughter referred to is Ana, but in Sussex Archælogical Collections p92
(1894), Stephen is shown as having only one daughter.
The countess and Gertrude; or, Modes of discipline pp182-3
(Lætitia Matilda Hawkins, 1811):
Our erudite friend, Dr. Pellet, of St. Albans, to whose hiinted wish
this work owes its existence, also in the midst of the complex cares of
a medical profession, and in a track 6f it that might have excused
neglect, took into his own charge the mind and intellect of a daughter.
- For the sake of our readers, we have tried to learn his system; but system he had none,
save that of acting as occasion made fit. We will give what we got from
him: he will forgive being made useful.
'I followed no system,' said he: 'I led nature, but it was by a
silken thread; and I never lost my temper. I did not wish to make her a
prodigy. I never pushed her faculties beyond their powers; but I gave
them fair encouragement. I found it, for a long while, indeed till she
was near twenty years of age, not at all agreeable to her to read books
of mere amusement; but when once prevailed on to read a few of the
best, she relished them extremely. I happened to have Jortin's life of
Erasmus on my table: she took to it of herself, and hunted out in Bayle
all the references; she has read few books; but I have taken care they
should be good. I made her read Prideaux's Connection, to accustom her
organs to difficult pronunciation. She has turned out all I could wish:
she is a nice little notable wife, knows all that is necessary to be
done in a family, sets out her table well, and does the honors
elegantly; she is expert in all feminine works, and not deficient in
any female attainment or accomplishment.'
In 1811, William and Ana took in his three year old nephew, Elliot
D'Arcy Todd, whose home had been broken up in financial distress.
The Dictionary of national biography (1909)
p906
TODD, ELLIOTT D'ARCY (1808-1845),
...His mother was Mary Evans, the 'Mary' of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
[q.v.] His father lost his fortune by speculation, the home was broken
up, and Elliott D'Arcy Todd, when three years old, was consigned to the
care of his maternal uncle, William Evans, of the East India Company's
home establishment. He was educated at Ware and in London, and entered
the military college of the East India Company at Addiscombe in 1822.
Addresses:
1838: Baker Street, Marylebone, Middlesex (The gentleman's magazine (1838) p106)
Baggage agent and
baggage warehouse keeper for the East India Company.
William joined the company at East India House in May 1796. He was a
baggage agent in 1804 and became assistant baggage warehouse keeper in
1808, and baggage warehouse keeper in 1812, a post he still
held in 1819. William was also a proprietor of The Pamphleteer.
22 May 1826, in Bayswater,
Middlesex, England
The gentleman's magazine (1826) p646
DEATHS.
LONDON AND ITS ENVIRONS.
June 22. At Bayswater, in his
46th year, W. Evans, esq. of Baker-street, Portman-square, and
Superintendant of the Baggags Department, East India-house
(Presumably the June 22 is an error for May 22, since the burial
occured on May 27)
27 May 1826, in St
Mary-le-Bow, City of London, London, England, aged 45. The ceremony was
performed by A. W. Trollope, curate.
William was a "particular friend" of Charles Lamb, a noted poet and
essayist of the time. Both men worked at the East India Company, and
Charles had attended Christ's Hospital school with William's elder
brother, Tom. Another classmate, and friend of both Charles and Tom,
was Samuel Coleridge who fell deeply and famously in love with Mary
Evans, Willam and Tom's elder sister. Charles Lamb wrote to Samuel
Coleridge on 10 June 1796:
The complete works of Charles Lamb: Containing his
letters, essays, poems, etc pp107-8
Young Evans (W. Evans, a branch of a family
you were once so intimate with) is come into our office, and sends his
love to you!
In 1806, Charles Lamb again wrote of William Evans, this time in a
letter to William Wordsworth, describing an amusing incident in which
William mixed up poets:
The works of Charles and Mary Lamb, vol 6
pp334-5 (ed. E.V. Lucas, 1905)
A propos of Spencer (you will find him
mentioned a page or two before, near enough for an a propos), I was
discoursing on Poetry (as one's apt to deceive onesself, and when a
person is willing to talk of
what one likes, to believe that he also likes the same: as Lovers do)
with a Young Gentleman of my office who is deep read in Anacreon Moore,
Lord Strangford, and the principal Modern Poets, and I happen'd to
mention Epithalamiums and that I could shew him a very fine one of
Spencer's. At the mention of this, my Gentleman who is a very fine
Gentleman, and is brother to the Miss Evans who Coleridge so narrowly
escaped marrying, pricked up his ears and exprest great pleasure, and
begged that I would give him leave to copy it: he did not care how long
it was (for I objected the length), he should be very happy to see any thing by him. Then pausing, and
looking sad, he ejaculated POOR SPENCER!
I begged to know the reason of his ejaculation, thinking that Time had
by this time softened down any calamities which the Bard might have
endured - "Why, poor fellow!" said he "he has lost his Wife!" "Lost his
Wife?" said I, "Who are you talking of?" "Why, Spencer," said he. "I've
read the Monody he wrote on the occasion, and a very pretty thing it is." This
led to an explanation (it could be delay'd no longer) that the sound
Spencer, which when Poetry is talk'd of generally excites an image of
an old Bard in a Ruff, and sometimes with it dim notions of Sir P.
Sydney and perhaps Lord Burleigh, had raised in my Gentleman a quite
contrary image of The Honourable William Spencer, who has translated
some things from the German very prettily, which are publish'd with
Lady Di. Beauclerk's Designs.
Nothing like defining of Terms when we talk. What blunders might
I have fallen into of quite inapplicable Criticism, but for this timely
explanation.
William introduced Charles and Thomas Noon Talfourd, who was to become
Charles's biographer and published a complete collection of his work,
at a dinner at William's house in Weymouth Street, in 1815. Talfourd
writes, in
The complete works of Charles Lamb: Containing his
letters, essays, poems, etc pp107-8
(Talfourd, 1879)
I was invited to meet Lamb at dinner, at the house of Mr. William
Evans, a gentleman holding an office in the India House, who then lived
in Weymouth-street, and who was a proprietor of the "Pamphleteer," to
which I had contributed some idle scribblings. My duties at the office
did not allow me to avail myself of this invitation to dinner, but I
went up at ten o'clock, through a deep snow, palpably congealing into
ice, and was amply repaid when I reached the hospitable abode of my
friend. There was Lamb, preparing to depart, but he staid half an hour
in kindness to me, and then accompanied me to our common home - the
Temple.
In 1819 William embarked on a project
that was to eventually land up in the British Museum. Lord Byron had
recently published a satire entitled English bards, and Scotch reviewers and
William created a version of the satire illustrated with engravings and
drawings of the literary characters in the satire. His friend Charles
Lamb was one of the poets satirised and Charles contributed an original
protrait of himself to the project as well as writing to Joseph Cottle
to request a portrait of him. The letter refers obliquley to the
project of "a particular friend" and an "illustrated volume" and only
much later Lamb's biographer, Alfred Ainger, uncovered the full story,
related in The Athenæum 9 October 1886:
CHARLES LAMB AND JOSEPH COTTLE.
October 4 1886
A VOLUME of much interest, for more reasons than
one, to lovers of "Elia" has just come to light, and I venture to think
that some account of it is worth preserving.
Joseph Cottle, the Bristol publisher and poet, tells us in his
'Recollections of S.T. Coleridge' that in the year 1819 he resumed a
correspondence with Charles Lamb that had been interrupted for some
years. In that year, he says, he received from him the following
letter:-
DEAR SIR,- It is so long since I have seen or
heard from you, that I fear you will consider a request I have to make
as impertinent. About three years since, when I was one day at Bristol,
I made an effort to see you, but you were from home. The request I have
to make is, that you would very much oblige me, if you have any small
portrait of yourself, by allowing me to have it copied to accompany a
selection of 'Likenesses of Living Bards,' which a most particular
friend of mine is making. If you have no objections, and could oblige
me by transmitting such portrait to me at No. 20, Russell Street,
Covent Garden, I will answer for taking the greatest care of it, and
returning it safely the instant the copier has done with it. I hope you
will pardon the liberty, from an old friend and well wisher.
CHAS. LAMB.
In answer to this request Cottle forwarded to Lamb a portrait of
himself by Branwhite, the Bristol miniature painter. In another part of
his book Cottle gives a list of original portraits in his possession,
and includes this one of himself, dating it as having been painted in
this very year, so it looks as if he might have had it taken on purpose
to appear worthily in the gallery thus being formed by Lamb's friend.
However that may have been, Lamb received the portrait, and duly
acknowledged it in the following terms:-
DEAR SIR,- My friend whom you have obliged by the
loan of your picture, having had it very exactly copied (and a very
spirited drawing it is, as every one thinks that has seen it - the copy
is not much inferior, done by a daughter of Joseph, R.A.) - he purposes
sending you back the original, which I must accompany with my warm
thanks, both for that and for your better favour the 'Messiah' which I
assure you I have read through with great pleasure; the verses have
great sweetness, and a New Testament plainness about them which
affected me very much.
While arranging Lamb's letters with a view to my forthcoming
edition, I was naturally curious to ascertain something more about this
illustrated volume, or gallery of portraits. But no trace of it seemed
discoverable until about a month ago, when the very volume came by
purchase into the hands of my friend Mr. Bain, of the Haymarket. It
proves to be a very handsome "grangerized" copy of Byron's 'English
Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' the pages mounted on large paper, and
profusely interspersed with water-colour drawings or engraved portraits
of the poets and others mentioned by Byron in the famous satire. On a
specially printed title page appears the name of the compiler "William
Evans," and the date, 1819. Among the water-colour drawings is a copy
of Branwhite's miniature of Cottle, and - what is, of course, a far
more valuable and important treasure - an original portrait of Lamb by
Jospeh - not, as Lamb calls him, the R.A., but an Associate of the
Academy. The name of Mr. Joseph's daughter is appended to several of
the drawings in the volume, though by some inadvertance, not to the
head of Joseph Cottle.
The Mr. William Evans who put this interesting volume was a
colleague of Lamb in the India House, and a man who cultivated
literature and literary persons in various ways. He was the editor of
the Pamphleteer, and was the means
of first introducing Lamb to Talfourd. After Evans's death his widow
parted with it to another friend of Lamb's, the late Mr. Samuel Ball,
who died only a few years ago at a very advanced age. He, too, had been
in the India House, but left it to reside for many years in China, in
connexion with the tea trade. "My friend in Canton is Inspector of
Teas," Lamb writes in a well known letter to Bernard Barton; "his name
is Ball."
The chief interest of the book lies, of course, in the portrait
of Charles Lamb, which is a most welcome addition to the limited and
not altogether satisfactory collection of likenesses by Hazlitt,
Hancock, Pulham, and others. It is a most interesting and pleasing
portrait. As to the expression one can form no opinion, but the hair
and the brow and the contour of the face are unmistakable.
But setting aside this most welcome discovery, there is
something exquisitely humorous in the first of these two letters to
Cottle. now read for the first time in the light supplied by Mr Evans's
volume. When Lamb informed his old bookseller friend that his portrait
was to "accompany a selection of Likenesses of Living Bards," we can
imagine the flutter of innocent vanity that the poet of 'Malvern Hills'
and the 'Messiah' must have experienced. He little suspected, and we
may be sure that he never came to know, that his portrait was to
illustrate the now too-familiar lines:-
Bœotian Cottle, rich Bristowa's boast,
Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast,
And sends his goods to market - all alive!
Lines forty thousand - Cantos twenty five.
Oh pen perverted! paper misapplied!
Had Cottle still adorned the counter's side,
Bent o'er the desk, or, born to useful toils,
Been taught to make the paper which he soils.
Ploughed, delved, or plied the oar with lusty limb,
He had not sung of Wales, nor I of him.
ALFRED AINGER
In The Life and Works of Charles Lamb p233
by Alfred Ainger (1900), he notes that "Since I made known these facts
in the columns of the Athenæum,
Mr. Evans's volume has passed into the keeping of the British Museum."
William's estate was the subject of legal proceedings in 1860, 34 years
after his death. It seems the proceedings concerned the sale of his two
houses, 34 Baker Street and 49 Weymouth Street, which seemed to be in a
trust established by William's will. Nonetheless, the notice in
the London Gazette provides a nice
list of William's siblings, nieces and nephews.
London Gazette 10 July 1860 p2600
Estate of WILLIAM EVANS, late of the East
India House, London, Deceased.
PURSUANT to an Order of the High
Court of Chancery, made on the 4th day of May, 1860, in the cause
Macbean v. Babington, and in the matter of the Trustee Act, 1850, all
persons having charges or incumbrances upon the interest of Frederick
William Todd; Mary Ann Timins, Widow; Catherine Helen Denny, Wife of
George Denny; William James Rind; Burnett Rind, Spinster; Charlotte
Rind, Spinster; George Smith; Mary Blair, Widow; Maurice Evans; Thomas
Lloyd Money Evans; Charlotte Massey Kensington, Widow; Elizabeth
Benedicta Evans, Spinster; Maria Benedicta Evans, Spinster; and Laura
Ferris, Wife of Edward Fiott Ferris; in the legacies and shares in the
residue of the estate of William Evans, who died in or about the month
of May, 1826, being nephews and nieces of the said William Evans, and
being respectively children of Mary Todd, Ann Rind, Maurice Evans, and
Elizabeth Smith, are, by their Solicitors, on or before the 12th day of
November, 1860, to come in and prove their claims at the chambers of
the Vice-Chancellor Sir Richard Torin Kindersley, No. 3,
Stone-buildings, Lincoln's-inn, Middlesex, or in default thereof they
will be peremptorily excluded from the benefit of the said Order.
Friday the 16th day of November, 1860, at one o'clock in the afternoon,
at the said chambers, is appointed for hearing and adjudicating upon
the claims.-
Dated this 30th day of June, 1860.
1815: Weymouth Street, London1826: 34 Baker Street, Marylebone, Middlesex (burial record)
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