_Question of copyrights_
Greta Hall, 20 _April_, 1808.
My dear Cottle,...
What you say of my copyrights affected me very much. Dear Cottle, set
your heart at rest on that subject. It ought to be at rest. These were
yours, fairly bought, and fairly sold. You bought them on the chance
of their success, which no London bookseller would have done; and had
they not been bought, they could not have been published at all. Nay,
if you had not purchased _Joan of Arc_, the poem never would have
existed, nor should I, in all probability, ever have obtained that
reputation which is the capital on which I subsist, nor that power
which enables me to support it.
But this is not all. Do you suppose, Cottle, that I have forgotten
those true and most essential acts of friendship which you showed me
when I stood most in need of them? Your house was my house when I had
no other. The very money with which I bought my wedding-ring, and paid
my marriage fees, was supplied by you. It was with your sisters I left
Edith during my six months' absence, and for the six months after my
return it was from you that I received, week by week, the little on
which we lived, till I was enabled to live by other means. It is not
the settling of a cash account that can cancel obligations like these.
You are in the habit of preserving your letters, and if you were
not, I would entreat you to preserve _this_, that it might be seen
hereafter. Sure I am, there never was a more generous or a kinder
heart than yours; and you will believe me when I add, that there does
not live that man upon earth, whom I remember with more gratitude
and more affection. My heart throbs and my eyes burn with these
recollections. Good night! my dear old friend and benefactor.