Autograph Letter Signed ('J. C. Hare') from Julius Charles Hare, Archdeacon of Lewes, to James Fraser, proprietor of 'Fraser's Magazine', complaining of Fraser's handling of his 'Vindication of Coleridge', with reference to Thomas De Quincey.

2pp., 4to. Bifolium. 21 lines of text. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with minor traces of mount adhering to corners of verso of second leaf. Addressed, with red wax seal and postmark, on reverse of second leaf, to 'Mr Frazer [sic] | 215 Regent Street | London'. A significant letter, which shows Hare in conflict with Fraser over the publication his 'Vindication of Coleridge' a full year before the article appeared in the British Magazine (January 1835). The letter begins: 'I am very much annoyed at finding that you have put off my article for another month. This delay will give me a good deal of trouble. The conclusion of Mr De Quincey's article will at all events compel me to make considerable changes and additions even if I am not obliged to alter the tone throughout'. He asks Fraser to send him, 'by the Hastings Mail', 'the new number of Tait's Magazine', so that he can 'see what is to be done'. If Fraser is to print his article he must 'insist on two things. In the first place it must stand by itself, and not be mixed up with all the other Coleridgiana. The vulgar slang prefixed to it must be left out. The extract from the Friend too must be inserted as I sent it you a fortnight ago.' He expresses surprise that, after his 'remonstrance', and that after his having 'pointed out how the omission makes utter nonsense of the conclusion', Fraser should have sent him the revise without it. He ends: 'If you are unwilling to agree to these conditions, I must send the Vindication of Coleridge to some other journal.' In his introduction to the 1867 edition of 'Guesses at Truth by Two Brothers' (1867) Edward Hayes Plumptre describes Hare's admiration for Coleridge, adding, 'An elaborate vindication of Coleridge against charges affecting his character as a thinker and a man, appeared in the British Magazine in January, 1835.'