"November 4. 1815.
"When you have been enabled to form an opinion on Mr. Coleridge's
MS.[88] you will oblige me by returning it, as, in fact, I have no
authority to let it out of my hands. I think most highly of it, and
feel anxious that you should be the publisher; but if you are not,
I do not despair of finding those who will.
"I have written to Mr. Leigh Hunt, stating your willingness to
treat with him, which, when I saw you, I understood you to be.
Terms and time, I leave to his pleasure and your discernment; but
this I will say, that I think it the _safest_ thing you ever
engaged in. I speak to you as a man of business; were I to talk to
you as a reader or a critic, I should say it was a very wonderful
and beautiful performance, with just enough of fault to make its
beauties more remarked and remarkable.
"And now to the last--my own, which I feel ashamed of after the
others:--publish or not as you like, I don't care _one damn_. If
_you_ don't, no one else shall, and I never thought or dreamed of
it, except as one in the collection. If it is worth being in the
fourth volume, put it there and nowhere else; and if not, put it in
the fire. Yours, N."
[Footnote 88: A tragedy entitled, I think, Zopolia.]
* * * * *
Those embarrassments which, from a review of his affairs previous to the
marriage, he had clearly foreseen would, before long, overtake him, were
not slow in realising his worst omens. The increased expenses induced by
his new mode of life, with but very little increase of means to meet
them,--the long arrears of early pecuniary obligations, as well as the
claims which had been, gradually, since then, accumulating, all pressed
upon him now with collected force, and reduced him to some of the worst
humiliations of poverty. He had been even driven, by the necessity of
encountering such demands, to the trying expedient of parting with his
books,--which circumstance coming to Mr. Murray's ears, that gentleman
instantly forwarded to him 1500_l._, with an assurance that another sum
of the same amount should be at his service in a few weeks, and that if
such assistance should not be sufficient, Mr. Murray was most ready to
dispose of the copyrights of all his past works for his use.
This very liberal offer Lord Byron acknowledged in the following
letter:--