Coleridge and Thomasina Dennis
- Coleridge and Thomasina Dennis
Lecturer in English, King’s College, University of Durham
notes
1. My own introduction to Miss Dennis came about from a B.B.C. discussion of her role as governess by Dr. A. C. Todd (Listener, May 15, 1958); for the opportunity of reading her letters and the replies of Davies Giddy, I must thank, besides Dr. Todd, Major and Mrs. Davies Gilbert, in whose family the letters have been preserved, and by whose permission I quote from them here. (Quotations arc reproduced exactly, except for superscriptions and variation in the length of dashes.) Giddy later took the name of Davies Gilbert and is best known as Humphry Davy’s earliest patron. He is discussed by A. C. Todd in two articles: “Anna Maria, the Mother of Thomas Lovell Beddoes,” Studio Neophilologica, XXIX (1957), 136–144; “Davies Gilbert— Patron of Engineers (1767–1839) and Jonathan Hornblower (1753–1815),” Transactions of the Newcomen Society, XXXII (1959–60), 1–13. This paper has also benefited from my reading in the Wedgwood Museum and my thanks for many kindnesses are due to Sir John Wedgwood and to the curator, Mr. W. Billington.
What we know of Thomasina’s earlier history comes largely from Davies Giddy’s diary (now in the Cornwall County Record Office, Truro). Giddy first saw Thomasina at her father’s farm, Trembath, near Penzance, January 14, 1794. She was twenty-two and Giddy almost twenty-seven. He met her again on March 23, 1795, and three days later he records: “I dined at St. Hilary to meet Miss Dennis. Recd, from her a copy of Complimentary Verses.” Thomasina’s admiration for Giddy, so much in evidence in her surviving letters (1798 onwards), is thus of long standing; if her admiration turned to love, social proprieties (and Giddy’s cool temperament) prevented any open declaration. In 1796 Giddy and Thomasina met three times: “Called in the morn, on Miss Dennis” (January 16); “dined on sour milk with Miss Dennis” (September 1); “called on Miss Dennis” (November 14). In 1797 their first meeting (February 16) reveals that Thomasina’s talent was no longer unknown: “I at Penzance called on Miss Dennis, dined there. Gave Sir Ch. Hawkins’ present.” Hawkins was a man of wealth and power in Cornwall, and his interest brought Thomasina, as we shall sec, to John Wolcot’s notice. Giddy called on her on March 9 and April 20, and on May 18 “spent greater part of day with Miss Dennis.” On July 6 he “spent the morning with Miss Dennis, received from her some complimentary verses addressed to myself.” He called on September 18, and on October 28 he records: “drank Tea with Miss Dennis, my sisters first visit there.” The social gap between the Giddys (their father was Rev. Edward Giddy whose money had come from Cornish investments) and Thomasina was not easily bridged. There were calls on November 14 and December 7, followed by one on February 11, 1798, when for the first time Giddy indicates what their meetings involved: “Spent the whole day with Miss Dennis, heard her construe 5 ch. in the Greek Testat.” It was as poetess and scholar that Giddy was able to introduce her to the Wedgwoods. Thomasina came to tea with the Giddys on March 9, 1798, and on March 12 “Mr. & Mrs. Wedgwood, Mr. Watt, and Miss Dennis for the first time, dine here.” A letter of John Leslie to Tom Wedgwood of July 19, 1797, now at the Wedgwood Museum, Barlaston (reference: 1/258), shows that the Wedgwoods had been seeking a governess for their children from that summer. Indeed Tom Wedgwood’s philosophical speculations were becoming centred on education, and he had visited Wordsworth and Coleridge at Alfoxden in September 1797 to see if they were the right men to help in his investigation into its principles. (See D. V. Erdman, “Coleridge, Wordsworth, and the Wedgwood Fund,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library, Vol. 60 (1956), 425–43, 487–507). The poets’ speculations could bear no early fruit, and the Wedgwoods at a less ambitious level needed a governess who could take an intelligent part...
