S. T. COLERIDGE.[1]
[Footnote 1: Letter CIV follows 86.]
This was followed on 10th January 1800 by the political verses
'Talleyrand to Lord Grenville', heralded by a letter as good as, if
not better than, the verses.
LETTER 87. TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'MORNING POST'.
WITH 'TALLEYRAND TO LORD GRENVILLE', A METRICAL
EPISTLE.
10 January, 1800.
Mr. Editor,
An unmetrical letter from Talleyrand to Lord Grenville has already
appeared, and from an authority too high to be questioned: otherwise I
could adduce some arguments for the exclusive authenticity of the
following metrical epistle. The very epithet which the wise ancients
used, "'aurea carmina'" might have been supposed likely to have
determined the choice of the French minister in favour of verse; and the
rather when we recollect that this phrase of "golden verses" is applied
emphatically to the works of that philosopher who imposed 'silence'
on all with whom he had to deal. Besides, is it not somewhat improbable
that Talleyrand should have preferred prose to rhyme, when the latter
alone 'has got the chink'? Is it not likewise curious that in our
official answer no notice whatever is taken of the Chief Consul,
Bonaparte, as if there had been no such person existing; notwithstanding
that his existence is pretty generally admitted, nay that some have been
so rash as to believe that he has created as great a sensation in the
world as Lord Grenville, or even the Duke of Portland? But the Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Talleyrand, 'is' acknowledged, which, in our
opinion, could not have happened had he written only that insignificant
prose letter, which seems to precede Bonaparte's, as in old romances a
dwarf always ran before to proclaim the advent or arrival of knight or
giant.
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