Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Nether Stowey, to William Godwin, 1800 May 21 : autograph manuscript signed.

Saying that he received his letter that morning; adding that his work on the translation of Wallenstein had previously prevented him from writing, "not that it so engrossed my time, but that it wasted and depressed my spirits, & left a sense of wearisomeness & disgust which unfitted me for any thing but sleeping or immediate society;" saying that he ought to have written earlier and describing his affection for Godwin: "you recur to my thoughts frequently, & never without pleasure, never without my making out of the past a little day dream for the future;" mentioning that he left Wordsworth on May 4th and discussing his plans for the future: "if I cannot procure a suitable house at Stowey, I return to Cumberland & settle at Keswick - in a house of such prospect, that if, according to you & [David] Hume, impressions & ideas constitute our Being, I shall have a tendency to become a God - so sublime & beautiful will be the series of my visual existence. But whether I continue here, or migrate thither, I shall be in a beautiful country - & have house-room and heart-room for you / and you must come & write your next work at my house. - My dear Godwin! I remember you with so much pleasure & our conversations so distinctly, that, I doubt not, we have been mutually benefited - but as to your poetic & physiopathic feelings, I more than suspect, that dear little Fanny & Mary [Fanny Imlay Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley] have had more to do in that business than I;" saying that Hartley sends his love to Mary and that he often talks of them; writing of Charles Lamb: "My poor Lamb! - how cruelly afflictions crowd upon him! I am glad, that you think of him as I think - he has an affectionate heart, a mind sui generis, his taste acts so as to appear like the unmechanic simplicity of an Instinct - in brief, he is worth an hundred men of mere Talents. Conversation with the latter tribe is like the use of leaden Bells - one warms by exercise - Lamb every now & then eradiates, & the beam, tho' single & fine as a hair, yet is rich with colours, & I both see & feel it;" mentioning that when he was in Bristol he spent almost every day with Humphry Davy: "He always talks of you with great affection / & defends you with a friend's zeal against the Animalcula, who live on the dung of the great Dung-fly [James] Mackintosh. - If I settle at Keswick, he will be with me in the fall of the year - & so must you - and let me tell you, Godwin! four such men as you, I, Davy, & Wordsworth, do not meet together in one house every day in the year - I mean, four men so distinct with so many sympathies;" saying that he received a letter yesterday from Southey, who has just arrived in Lisbon, and is "gird[ing] up his loins for a great History of Portugal;" asking whether Godwin has seen Mary Robinson lately and asking to be remembered to her; adding that he wishes he knew more about her complaint and mentioning that Davy has discovered "a perfectly new Acid, by which he has restored the use of limbs to persons who had lost them for many years, (one woman 9 years) in cases of supposed Rheumatism;" saying that Davy will make up a parcel of it for her, if she would like to try it; asking Godwin to tell her that Davy was delighted with the poems of hers that appeared in the Annual Anthology and adding "N.B. Did you get my Attempt at a Tragedy from Mrs Robinson?"; saying that he is about to send a book and letter to Charlotte Smith and asking for her address; writing of Elizabeth Inchbald: "Mrs Inchbald I do not like at all - every time, I recollect her, I like her less. That segment of a look at the corner of her eye - O God in heaven! it is so cold & cunning - ! thro' worlds of wildernesses I would run away from that look, that heart-picking look. 'Tis marvellous to me, that you can like that Woman;" saying that he will remain in Nether Stowey for ten days and that he will inform Godwin about where he goes next; adding in a postscript that his wife Sara desires to be remembered to Godwin and sends "a kiss to Fanny & 'dear meek little Mary.'"