Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Maldon, to Mrs. Gillman, 1818 June 17 : autograph manuscript signed.

Describing, at length, the gardens, the country-side and the villagers where he is staying, reporting on his health and relating the logistics of his return to Highgate; saying "The Country round is very beautiful - about a quarter of a mile from the garden, all the way thro' bean-fields in blossom, we come to a wood, full of Birds, & not uncharmed by the Nightingales, & which the old Workman to please his Mistress has romanticized with, I dare say, fifty Seats, Honey-suckle Bowers, and green Arches made by twisting the Branches of the trees across the Paths. The view from the hilly field above the wood commanding the Arm of the Sea, ending in the open sea, reminded me very much of the Prospects from Stowey and Alfoxden in Somersetshire. - The Cottagers seem to be, and are, in possession of plenty & comfort - Poverty I have seen no marks of - not of the least servility tho' they are courteous and respectful...There is no society hereabouts - I like it the better therefore - the Clergyman, a young man, is lost in a gloomy vulgar Calvinism - will read no book but the Bible - converse on nothing but the state of the soul or rather he will not converse at all - but visits each house once in two months, when he prays and admonishes - & gives a lecture every evening at his own rooms. On being invited to dine with us, the sad and modest Youth returned for answer, that if Mr. Green and I should be here when he visited the house, he should have no objection to enter into the state of our souls with us, and if in the mean time we desired any instruction from him, we might attend at his daily evening Lecture! Election, Reprobation, children of the Devil, and all such Flowers of Rhetoric, and Flour of Brimstone, form his discourses both in Church and Parlours - but my folly in not filling the Snuff Cannister is a subject of far more serious and aweful Regret with me, than the not being in the way of being thus led by the Nose by this Pseudo-evangelist;" relating details of his health including constipation from his journey, the medication he has taken for it and his gnat bites; saying "...but ludicrous as it may seem, yet it is no joke for me, that from the marshiness of these Sea Marshes, and the number of unnecessary Fish Ponds & other Stagnancies immediately around the house, the Gnats are a very plague of Egypt - and suspicious with good reason of an erisypelatous tendency I am anxious concerning the effects of the irritation produced by these canorous Visitants. While awake (and two thirds of last night I was kept awake by their Bites & Trumpetings) I can so far command myself as to check the intolerable itching by a weak mixture of Goulard with Rose Water; but in my sleep I scratch myself, as if old Scratch had lent me his best set of Claws.- This is the only drawback from my Comforts here - for nothing can be kinder or more cordial than my treatment - I like Mrs. J. Green better and better; but feel that in 20 years it would never be above or beyond liking. - She is good-natured, lively, innocent - but wants a soothingness, a something I do not know what, that is tender;" discussing the logistics of his return to London and sending his love to the household.