"To Erskine" or "To the Hon Mr Erskine" was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...

 in November 1794. The subject of the poem is Thomas Erskine

Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine

Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine KT PC KC was a British lawyer and politician. He served as Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom between 1806 and 1807 in the Ministry of All the Talents.-Background and childhood:...

, a lawyer and member of the Whig party that successfully served in the defense of three political radicals

Radicalism (historical)

The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...

 during the 1794 Treason Trials

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 initially arrested; three were tried for high treason: Thomas Hardy, John Horne Tooke and John Thelwall...

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

Morning Chronicle

The Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London, England, and published under various owners until 1862. It was most notable for having been the first employer of Charles Dickens, and for publishing the articles by Henry Mayhew which were collected and published in book format in...

as part of the Sonnets on Eminent Characters

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...

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." 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

High treason in the United Kingdom

Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; having sexual intercourse with the sovereign's consort, with his eldest unmarried daughter, or with the wife of the heir to the...

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

Thomas Hardy (political reformer)

Thomas Hardy was an early Radical, the founder and also the first Secretary of the London Corresponding Society....

, John Thelwall

John Thelwall

John Thelwall , was a radical British orator, writer, and elocutionist.-Life:Thelwall was born in Covent Garden, London, but was descended from a Welsh family which had its seat at Plas y Ward, Denbighshire...

, and John Horne Tooke

John Horne Tooke

John Horne Tooke was an English politician and philologist.-Early life and work:He was born in Newport Street, Long Acre, Westminster, the third son of John Horne, a poulterer in Newport Market. As a youth at Eton College, Tooke described his father to friends as a "turkey merchant"...

, 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

When British Freedom for a happier land

Spread her broad wings, that flutter'd with affright,

ERSKINE! thy voice she heard, and paus'd her flight

Sublime of hope! For dreadless thou didst stand

(Thy censer glowing with the hallow'd flame)

An hireless Priest before th' insulted shrine,

And at her altar pourd'st the stream divine

Of unmatch'd eloquence. There thy name

Her sons shall venerate, and cheer thy breast

With blessings heaven-ward breath'd. And when the doom

Of Nature bids thee die, beyond the tomb

Thy light shall shine: as sunk beneath the West

Tho' the great Summer Sun eludes our gaze,

Still burns wide Heaven with his distended blaze. (Lines 1–14)

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.