Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Keswick, to William Godwin, 1801 September 22 : autograph manuscript signed.

Saying that he has been sick and short of money, and this has made him reluctant to write: "altogether I have, I confess, felt little inclination to write to you, who have not known me long enough, nor associated enough of that esteem, which you entertain for the qualities, you attribute to me, with me myself me, to be much interested about the carcase, Coleridge. - So of Carcase Coleridge no more;" mentioning that he has read Godwin's pamphlet and praising it highly, with some caveats: "On the most deliberate reflection I do think the introduction clumsily worded - and (what is of more importance) I do think your retractations always imprudent, & not always just. - But it is painful to me to say this to you - I know not what effect it may have on your mind - for I have found, that I can not judge of other men by myself. I myself am dead indifferent to censures of any kind - / Praise even from Fools has sometimes given me a momentary pleasure, & what I could not but despise as opinion I have taken up with some satisfaction, as sympathy. But the censure or dislike of my dearest Friend, even of him, whom I think the wisest man, I know, does not give me the slightest pain / it is ten to one but I agree with him - & if I do, then I am glad. If I differ from him, the pleasure I receive in developing the sources of our disagreement entirely swallows up all consideration of the disagreement itself. But then I confess, I have written nothing that I value myself at all - & that this constitutes a prodigious difference between us - & still more than this, that no man's opinion merely as opinion operates on me in any other way, than to make me review my own side of the Question. All this looks very much like self-panegyric - I cannot help it - it is the truth;" saying that he prefers to critique a manuscript with the author of it in person, "because my voice, my look, my whole manner, must convince any good man, that all I said was accompanied with sincere good-will & genuine kindness;" discussing his efforts to go abroad and saying that if they are not successful, he may move to London and write for the Morning Post: "If I come, I come alone. - Here it will be imprudent for me to stay, from the wet & cold - even if every thing within doors were as well suited to my head & heart, as my head & heart would, I trust, be to every thing that was wise & suitable;" mentioning that Hartley has had an attack of fever and that he thinks of Godwin's children often; adding "Wordsworth is not at home. He has been in the Scotch [Lakes] with [Basil] Montague & his new Father, S[ir] William Rush."