11th April, 1796.

My dear, very dear Friend,

I have sent the 5th, 6th, and part of the 7th Number—all as yet printed. Your censures are all right: I wish your praises were equally so. The Essay on Fasts I am ashamed of. It was conceived in the spirit, and clothed in the harsh scoffing, of an Infidel. You wish to have one long essay;—so should I wish; but so do not my subscribers wish. I feel the perplexities of my undertaking increase daily. In London and Bristol "The Watchman" is read for its original matter,—the news and debates barely tolerated. The people of Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, etc., take it as a newspaper, and regard the essays and poems as intruders unwished for and unwelcome. In short, each subscriber, instead of regarding himself as a point in the circumference entitled to some one diverging ray, considers me as the circumference, and himself as the centre to which all the rays ought to converge. To tell you the truth, I do not think "The Watchman" will succeed. Hitherto I have scarcely sold enough to pay the expenses;—no wonder, when I tell you that on the 200 which Parsons in Paternoster Row sells weekly, he gains eight shillings more than I do. Nay, I am convinced that at the end of the half year he will have cleared considerably more by his 200 than I by the proprietorship of the whole work.

Colson has been indefatigable in my service, and writes with such zeal for my interests, and such warmth of sorrow for my sufferings, as if he wrote with fire and tears. God bless him! I wish above all things to realize a school. I could be well content to plod from morning to night, if only I could secure a secure competence; but to toil incessantly for uncertain bread weighs me down to earth.

Your Night-dream has been greatly admired. Dr. Beddoes spoke in high commendation of it. Your thoughts on Elections I will insert whenever Parliament is dissolved. I will insert them as the opinions of a sensible correspondent, entering my individual protest against giving a vote in any way or for any person. If you had an estate in the swamps of Essex, you could not prudently send an aguish man there to be your manager,—he would be unfit for it;—you could not honestly send a hale hearty man there, for the situation would to a moral certainty give him the ague. So with the Parliament:—I will not send a rogue there; and I would not send an honest man, for it is twenty to one that he will become a rogue.

Count Rumford's "Essays" you shall have by the next parcel. I thank you for your kind permission with respect to books. I have sent down to you "Elegiac Stanzas" by Bowles; they were given to me, but are altogether unworthy of Bowles. I have sent you Beddoes's Essay on the merits of William Pitt; you may either keep it, and I will get another for myself on your account, or if you see nothing in it to library-ize it, send it me back next Thursday, or whenever you have read it. My own "Poems" you will welcome. I pin all my poetical credit on the "Religious Musings". In the poem you so much admired in "The Watchman", for "Now life and joy," read "New life and joy." (From "The Hour when we shall meet again".) "Chatterton" shall appear modernized. Dr. Beddoes intends, I believe, to give a course of Chemistry in a most "elementary" manner,—the price, two guineas. I wish, ardently wish, you could possibly attend them, and live with me. My house is most beautifully situated; an excellent room and bed are at your service. If you had any scruple about putting me to additional expense, you should pay me seven shillings a week, and I should gain by you.

Mrs. Coleridge is remarkably well, and sends her kind love. Pray, my dear, dear Poole, do not neglect to write to me every week. Your critique on "Joan of Arc" and the "Religious Musings" I expect. Your dear mother I long to see. Tell her I love her with filial respectfulness. Excellent woman! Farewell; God bless you and your grateful and affectionate

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Mr. C.'s first volume of poems was published by Mr. Cottle in the beginning of April, 1796, and his sense of the kind conduct of the latter to him throughout the whole affair was expressed in the following manner on a blank leaf in a copy of the work: