[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
John Wilson Croker to his wife, 20 July 1815:
'[General] Becker showed us a copy of Buonaparte's letter to the Prince Regent, in which he
says that driven out of home by internal factions and foreign enemies, he came, like
Themistocles, to sit on the British hearth, and to claim the protection of our laws [...] In
reading this, when I came to "[italics]Themistocle[end italics]" who certainly was the last
person I expected to meet there, I could not help bursting out into a loud laugh, which
astonished the French, who thought all beautiful, but "[italics]Themistocle[end italics]" sublime
and pathetic. I called the whole letter a base flattery, and said Buonaparte should have died
rather than have written such a one; the only proper answer would have been to have
enclosed him a copy of one of his Moniteurs, in which he accused England of assassination and
every other horror.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Manuscript: Unknown, Copied.
