"To Erskine" or "To the Hon Mr Erskine" was written by

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...

in November 1794. The subject of the poem is Thomas Erskine, a lawyer and member of the Whig party, who successfully served in the defense of three political radicals during the

1794 Treason Trials The 1794 Treason Trials, arranged by the administration of William Pitt, were intended to cripple the British radical movement of the 1790s. Over thirty radicals were arrested; three were tried for high treason: Thomas Hardy, John Horne Tooke a ...

. Coleridge admired Erskine's defense and praised his refusal to accept money for his service. The poem was published in the 1 December 1794 ''

Morning Chronicle ''The Morning Chronicle'' was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London. It was notable for having been the first steady employer of essayist William Hazlitt as a political reporter and the first steady employer of Charles Dickens as a journalist. It ...

'' as part of the ''

Sonnets on Eminent Characters ''Sonnets on Eminent Characters'' or ''Sonnets on Eminent Contemporaries'' is an 11-part sonnet series created by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and printed in the ''Morning Chronicle'' between 1 December 1794 and 31 January 1795. Although Coleridge prom ...

'' series. It was later included in various collections of Coleridge's poetry published later.

Background

"To Erskine" was first published in the 1 December 1794 ''Morning Chronicle''. The sonnet was prefaced with a note addressed to the editor reading: "If, Sir, the following Poems will not disgrace your poetical department, I will transmit you a series of ''Sonnets'' (as it is the fashion to call them), addressed, like these, to eminent Contemporaries."Mays 2001 qtd p. 155 Following the poem was a note by the editor that read, "Our elegant Correspondent will highly gratify every reader of taste by the continuance of his exquisitely beautiful productions. No. II. shall appear on an early day." Coleridge did not particularly like "To Erskine", but did rework the poem for his 1796 collection of poems and the poem was included in the 1803 edition and three others that followed. Erskine, a member of the Whig party, was a lawyer that served as a defender during the 1794 Treason Trials, a series of trials in which those of liberal/radical political beliefs were charged with

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

for their published views. As a defender for those tried, notably

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

John Thelwall John Thelwall (27 July 1764 – 17 February 1834) was a radical British orator, writer, political reformer, journalist, poet, elocutionist and speech therapist.

, and

John Horne Tooke John Horne Tooke (25 June 1736 – 18 March 1812), known as John Horne until 1782 when he added the surname of his friend William Tooke to his own, was an England, English clergyman, politician, and Philology, philologist. Associated with radica ...

, he gave speeches that Coleridge admired. The trials were viewed by newspapers as a spectacle that attracted a lot of public attention. Those who were paid to serve for either side were ridiculed and mocked as if they were performers. Even the ''Morning Chronicle'' put forth a story that described an individual being paid to join a particular side: a group of people were paid to burn an effigy of one side and then paid to burn an effigy of the other side. Erskine, unlike others, did not accept money to defend those put on trial for treason. His reason for waiving his attorney fee was: "The situation of the unfortunate prisoners entitles them to every degree of tenderness and attention, and their inability to render me any professional compensation, does not remove them at a greater distance from one."

Poem

Themes

Like many of the ''Sonnets on Eminent Characters'', "To Erskine" is addressed to one of Coleridge's heroes. Erskine attained that position through defending the idea of "British Freedom" during the trials of Hardy, Thelwall, and Tooke for treason. The poem was written after Erskine was triumphant in his defense of those individuals which allowed them to continue on promoting their politically liberal ideas. Coleridge's line about Erskine being a "hireless priest" refers to the trial directly and how Erskine fought for the defense pro bono. This emphasis on Erskine being free from a monetary taint is similar to the praise of Erskine published in 1823 following his death. Within the poem, Coleridge returns to the Miltonic use of sonnet as a polemical tool. In particular, "To Erskine" would be connected to Milton's 16th sonnet to Cromwell or to his 17th dedicated to Henry Vane. Besides being one of the ''Sonnets on Eminent Characters'', Coleridge would later connect to the poem within his own works. In particular, he evokes his praise for Erskine in the sonnet within the final issue of his political newspaper ''The Watchman''. Within the work, Coleridge describes Thelwall as successor to Erskine.Colmer 1959 p. 50

Notes

References

* Ashton, Rosemary. ''The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge''. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. * * Colmer, John. ''Coleridge: Critic of Society''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959. * Curran, Stuart. ''Poetic Form and British Romanticism''. New York : Oxford University Press, 1986. * Mays, J. C. C. (editor). ''The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetical Works I Vol I.I''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. * Pascoe, Judith. ''Romantic Theatricality''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. * Patterson, Annabel. ''Nobody's Perfect. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. * Sisman, Adam. ''The Friendship''. New York: Viking, 2006. {{Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1794 poems Erskine Works originally published in the Morning Chronicle