I offered Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Wordsworth, thirty guineas each, as
proposed, for their two tragedies; but which, after some hesitation, was
declined, from the hope of introducing one, or both, on the stage. The
volume of Poems was left for some future arrangement.
"My dear Cottle,
I never involved you in the bickering, and never suspected you, in any
one action of your life, of practising guile against any human being,
except yourself.
Your letter supplied only one in a link of circumstances, that informed
me of some things, and perhaps deceived me in others. I shall write
to-day to Lloyd. I do not think I shall come to Bristol for these
lectures of which you speak.[47] I ardently wish for the knowledge, but
Mrs. Coleridge is within a month of her confinement, and I cannot, I
ought not to leave her; especially as her surgeon is not a John Hunter,
nor my house likely to perish from a plethora of comforts. Besides, there
are other things that might disturb that evenness of benevolent feeling,
which I wish to cultivate.
I am much better, and at present at Allfoxden, and my new and tender
health is all over me like a voluptuous feeling. God bless you,