Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Durham, to Robert Southey, 1801 July 22 : autograph manuscript signed.

Saying that yesterday he met "a boy on an ass, winding down as picturish a glen, as eye ever looked at [...] I had taken a liking to the little Blackguard at a distance, & I could have downright hugged him when he gave me a letter with your hand-writing"; urging him to come visit and saying that, if that is impractical, he can try to travel to them, "tho' in simple truth travelling in chaises or coaches even for one day is sure to lay me up for a week"; writing of his excitement: "If you did but know what a flutter the Old Moveable at my left Breast has been in, since I read your letter -- I have not had such a Fillip for as many months"; exclaiming over Edith's delight at seeing Bristol again; writing of his health and saying that he is "again climbing up that rock of Convalescence, from which I have been so often so washed off"; writing jokingly about going to Constantinople and Egypt; exclaiming "for God's sake, make haste & come to me, and let us talk of the Sands of Arabia while we are floating in our lazy Boat on Keswick Lake, with our eyes on massy Skiddaw, so green & high"; saying that Humphry Davy might accompany Southey, though "his deepest & most recollectible Delights have been in Solitude"; mentioning Davy's role as a doctor; saying that he longs to read "Thalaba" and re-read "Madoc"; adding that he hasn't heard anything about a third edition of his poems and thinks Southey may have confused it with Lyrical Ballads: "Longman could not surely be so uncouthly ill-mannered, as not to write to me to know if I wished to make any corrections or additions"; discussing his plans for his tragedy; describing how his ill-health has given him "no heart for Poetry" and how illness makes a person selfish, "but long & sleepless Nights are a fine Antidote -- oh! how I have dreamt about you -- Times, that have been, & never can return, have been with me on my bed of pain, and how I yearned toward you in those moments, I myself can know only by feeling it over again!"; saying that he is hoping to read works by John Duns Scotus in the Durham Library: "I mean to set the poor old Gemman on his feet again, & in order to wake him out of his present Lethargy, I am burning Locke, Hume, & Hobbes under his Nose -- they stink worse than Feather or Assafetida"; decrying the fate of one "poor Joseph" (possibly Joseph Cottle) whose reach exceeds his poetic talents; describing the boil on his neck and how it makes him smell "exactly like a hot Loaf"; giving Southey the address in Durham to direct letters to and suggesting meeting in Liverpool; adding "O Edith! how happy Sara will be"; describing his sons: "little Hartley who uses the air & the Breezes as skipping Ropes -- & fat Derwent, so beautiful & so proud of his three Teeth, that there's no bearing of him"; asking in a postscript to be remembered to Charles Danvers and Mrs. Danvers.