DEAR Wordsworth—Thanks for the books you have given me and for all
the Books you mean to give me. I will bind up the Political Sonnets and Ode
according to your Suggestion. I have not bound the poems yet. I wait till People have
done borrowing them. I think I shall get a chain, and chain them to my shelves
More Bodleiano, and People may come and read them at chain’s length. For
of those who borrow, some read slow, some mean to read but don’t read,
and some neither read nor meant to read, but borrow to leave you an opinion of
their sagacity. I must do my money-borrowing friends the justice to say that
there is nothing of this caprice or wantonness of alienation in them. When they
borrow my money, they never fail to make use of it. Coleridge has been here about a fortnight. His health is
tolerable at present, though beset with temptations. In the first place, the
Cov. Gard. Manager has declined accepting his Tragedy, tho’ (having read it) I see
no reason upon earth why it might not have run a very fair chance, tho’
it certainly wants a prominent part for a Miss O
Neil or a Mr. Kean.
However he is going to day to write to Lord
| 1816 | COLERIDGE IN TEMPTATION | 485 |
Tell Miss H. my Sister is every day wishing to be quietly sitting down to answer her very kind Letter, but while C. stays she can hardly find a quiet time, God bless him.
Tell Mrs. W. her Postscripts are always agreeable. They are so legible too. Your manual graphy is terrible, dark as Lycophron. “Likelihood “for instance is thus typified [here Lamb makes an illegible scribble].
I should not wonder if the constant making out of such Paragraphs is the cause of that weakness in Mrs. W.’s Eyes as she is tenderly pleased to express it. Dorothy I hear has mounted spectacles; so you have deoculated two of your dearest relations in life. Well, God bless you and continue to give you power to write with a finger of power upon our hearts what you fail to impress in corresponding lucidness upon our outward eyesight.
Mary’s Love to all, She is quite well.
I am call’d off to do the deposits on Cotton Wool—but why do I relate this to you who want faculties to comprehend the great mystery of Deposits, of Interest, of Warehouse rent, and Contingent Fund—Adieu.
A longer Letter when C. is gone back into the Country, relating his success, &c.—my judgment of your new Books &c. &c.—I am scarce quiet enough while he stays.
