Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Grasmere, to Lady Beaumont, 1810 January 21 : autograph manuscript signed.

Concerning difficulties related to his periodical "The Friend"; apologizing for not acknowledging her "kind remembrances of me, in your various Letters to Miss Wordsworth" and saying it was not due to a lack of Time but rather to "...the want of Tranquillity" For since the re-commencement of The Friend at the 3rd No., scarcely a fortnight has passed, in which I have not been compelled to struggle with some fresh and unforeseen difficulty : and more than once what I had taken for an Island plunged away downward from under my feet, and left me to providence and my efforts to swim or sink. - My Subscribers drop in so slowly with their payments, that at this moment I am as unable to determine whether the Work can be continued, as I was at the publication of the 20th Number. I will, if it please God to permit me, carry it on with increased zeal and spirit, as long as it pays it's own expences : and enable myself to do this by working over-hours for the Newspapers - which and Reviewing are the only modes of literary Labor, the pecuniary results of which can be relied upon;" relating, in detail, his frustrations in keeping subscribers, relating a complaint he received about the high cost of a subscription, comparing "The Friend" to Cobbet's journal yet affirming his belief that he has done his best and has "...done some good;" discussing his motivation in publishing "The Friend" as it relates to his reputation and the concepts of fame; adding that he will publish a supplement to the first volume of "The Friend" titled The Mysteries of Religion grounded in or relative to the Mysteries of Human Nature: or the foundations of morality laid in the primary Faculties of Man; discussing Jacob Behmen's work and saying that in a future issue he may compare the character of Behmen with George Fox and then compare both of them to Giordano Bruno; commenting on a suggestion "concerning the plan & style of the Friend" made by Lord Beaumont concerning Addison and explaining his plan for "The Friend"; saying "Many can write popularly far better than I can...These are aweful times! and tho' there is some good done by every additional source of innocent pleasure, yet at present any knowledge, which leaves men ignorant of their Ignorance, tends to increase that Ignorance."