To descend now to humbler things.
There are persons who will be interested in learning how the bard and his
bookseller managed their great pecuniary affairs. A second edition of Mr.
Coleridge's poems being demanded, I was under no obligation, the
copy-right being mine, in publishing a second edition, to make Mr.
Coleridge any payment, alterations or additions being optional with him:
but in his circumstances, and to show that my desire was to consider Mr.
C. even more than myself, I promised him, on the sale of the second
edition of 500, twenty guineas. The following was his reply: (not viewing
the subject quite in the right light; but this was of little
consequence.)
"Stowey, Oct. 18th, 1796.
My dear Cottle,
I have no mercenary feelings, I verily believe; but I hate bartering at
any time, and with any person; with you it is absolutely intolerable. I
clearly perceive that by giving me twenty guineas, on the sale of the
second edition, you will get little or nothing by the additional poems,
unless they should be sufficiently popular to reach a third edition,
which soars above our wildest expectations. The only advantage you can
derive therefore from the purchase of them on such terms, is, simply,
that my poetry is more likely to sell when the whole may be had in one
volume, price 5s., than when it is scattered in two volumes; the one 4s.,
the other possibly 3s. In short, you will get nothing directly, but only
indirectly, from the probable circumstance, that these additional poems
added to the former, will give a more rapid sale to the second edition
than could otherwise be expected, and cause it possibly to be reviewed at
large. Add to this, that by omitting every thing political, I widen the
sphere of my readers. So much for you. Now for myself. You must see,
Cottle, that whatever money I should receive from you, would result from
the circumstances that would give me the same, or more--if I published
them on my own account. I mean the sale of the poems. I can therefore
have no motive to make such conditions with you, except the wish to omit
poems unworthy of me, and the circumstance that our separate properties
would aid each other by the union; and whatever advantage this might be
to me, it would, of course, be equally so to you. The only difference
between my publishing the poems on my own account, and yielding them up
to you; the only difference I say, independent of the above stated
differences, is, that, in one case, I retain the property for ever, in
the other case, I lose it after two editions.
However, I am not solicitous to have any thing omitted, except the sonnet
to Lord Stanhope and the ludicrous poem; I should like to publish the
best pieces together, and those of secondary splendour, at the end of the
volume, and think this is the best quietus of the whole affair.
Yours affectionately,