"To A Cat" by Hartley Coleridge (poetry reading)

Hartley Coleridge was the eldest son of the more famous Samuel T., who wrote The Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. He is said to have inherited most of his father's vices and only a few of his virtues. However some of his poems are memorable and have a different charm from anything that his Dad wrote, being much less ambitious. His Dad's vices were booze and laudanum, which is alcoholic tincture of opium, causing him agonies with constipation which he saw as punishment for his sins. Hartley's liking for alcohol cost him an important scholarship.

The Primitive American painter is unknown, and I chose it because the cat looks affronted by the idea of an exchange of identities.

Portrait of George I (cat) was by William Huggins a Victorian artist, perhaps 30 years later than the poem.

The grainy picture of Hartley was the only one I could find.

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• Cat
• Hartley
• Coleridge