Wednesday morning, 10 o'clock.

(January, 1797.)

My dearest Cottle,

* * * "Ill besped" is indeed a sad blotch; but after having tried at least a hundred ways, before I sent the Poem to you, and often since, I find it incurable. This first Poem is but a so so composition. I wonder I could have been so blinded by the ardour of recent composition, as to see anything in it.

Your remarks are "perfectly just" on the "Allegorical lines", except that, in this district, corn is as often cut with a scythe, as with a hook. However, for ""Scythes-man"" read "Rustic". For ""poor fond thing"," read "foolish thing", and for ""flung to fade, and rot, and die"," read "flung to wither and to die".

* * * * *

Milton (the carrier) waits impatiently.

S. T. C. [1]

[Footnote 1: Letters LXXI-LXXII follow Letter 53.]

Only the second poem was included in the second edition. The next letter, which contains an unrealized prophecy regarding Southey, speaks of the joint partnership of the volume of 1797.