MS location unknown. Printed in Coleridge, Life, 306.
My dear Lizzie-
. . . Yes, I saw the Spectator on Chantry House, but indeed I did not put in the ghost for the sake of variety or sensation, but to work out my own belief and theory. I could tell you things I quite believe that chime with it. One I must tell, not that it is a ghost probably, it is so curious. The poor people in the Torquay outskirts think a thing walks in the few remaining woods of the Abbey which they call a Widdrington.1 Now Miss Roberts has hunted up that the last Abbot was accused before Henry VIII. of having murdered a monk named Widdrington, whom however he produced safe and sound. Don’t you think the live man must have been seen after he was thought dead and so left his name? –
Your most affectionate
C. M. YONGE.