Autograph letter signed : Grasmere, to Lady Beaumont, 1809 December 28.

Telling Lady Beaumont that she returned home with the whole family from "the house of the very person whom you inquire after with so much anxiety" and received her letter on Christmas Day, but wasn't able to answer it until she was home; saying that he must have spoken to her at some point about Mr. Wilson, who is a young man of some fortune who has built a house in a nice area not far from Bowness; adding how Miss Hutchinson, Johnny and her spent a few days there last summer with his mother and sister, but nonetheless, he is the author of the letter signed "Mathetes"; giving insight into Mr. Wilson's background; expressing how his mother and sister are currently in Edinburgh, which they like so much that for the past two years they spend more than half of their time up there, and that De Quincey, Coleridge, and all of them have been up there for a Christmas visit; detailing how interesting Mr. Wilson is and going into more of his background and interests; stating that it took him a year since moving into the neighborhood to contact William for fear of intruding, but since then they have seen him frequently; describing how Mr. Wilson has the utmost reverence for William and has no delight superior to that of talking with him and has often said that he is indebted to him "for preserving the best part of his nature, and the most valuable knowledge he possesses"; adding that Lady Beaumont should receive the 19th number of "The Friend" before this letter reaches her, which contains the continuation of her brother's reply to Mathetes' letter; telling her that Mr. Wilson sent the letter to Coleridge and Coleridge requested that William reply to it since he wasn't as busy and was disposed to write something for "The Friend"; addressing that William will soon be finished the poem of "The White Doe" and wants to publish it once he is satisfied; acknowledging that she shouldn't have been so slow to thank her for the "most interesting narrative of the life" of "An English Hermit"; discussing how her sister was at Kendal, so in her absence, she was employed in arranging the books and putting the house in order; talking about how she had to let the workmen go based on the history of the chimneys and Mr. Crump, and how they put the books in heaps in the rooms; mentioning how well Coleridge has been lately and busy with publishing a series of essays in The Courier on the Spanish affairs; telling her to read them from the beginning, but she cannot remember the exact date of the first one, so recommending that Lady Beaumont ask a friend who takes them in since Coleridge signed his name and they were recently published, so they will be easily collected together; saying how in the nineteenth or sixteenth number of "The Friend" Coleridge has desired that the purchasers of that journal will pay their money to Mr. Ward, bookseller in Skinner Street; adding that she has received the books from Coleorton and was much affected by her account of the good old Lady Beaumont and showing her admiration towards to woman; hoping Sir George is well, due to the lack of correspondence about him; (postscript) exclaiming how she should have expressed more pleasure from reading the "Hermit" but ran out of room in the letter; expressing Coleridge's wishes for it to be published in "The Friend" but is uncertain if this is allowed; stating that she was mistaken regarding the next answer to Mathetes' letter, it will not be in the next "Friend" but the one after that.