COLERIDGE AND THE ACT OF UNION. [To THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your correspondent's quotation last week about the Irish Question, from " The Table-Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge," is curious. May I supplement it by another extract on the same subject from the same book F- " December 17th, 1831.—UNION WITH IRELAND.—I am quite sure that no dangers are to be feared by England from the dis- annexing and independence of Ireland at all comparable with the evils which have been, and will yet be, caused to England by the Union. We have never received one particle of advantage from our association with Ireland, whilst we have in many most vital particulars violated the principles of the British Constitution solely for the purpose of conciliating the Irish agitators, and of endeavouring—a vain endeavour—to find room for them under the same Government. Mr. Pitt has received great credit for effecting the Union ; but I believe it will sooner or later be discovered that the manner in which, and the terms upon which, he effected it, made it the most fatal blow that ever was levelled against the peace and prosperity of England. From it came the Catholic Bill. From the Catholic Bill has come this Reform Bill ! And what next ? "
I notice that your correspondent, Unionist, does not use the quotation to extracts rather illustrate how wanting judgment.—I am, Sir, &c.,
though, I suspect, a point a moral. These poets are in political
Balliol College, July 17th.
C. RUSSELL.
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