LXXIX. TO JOSEPH COTTLE.
Stowey, March 8, 1798.
My dear Cottle,—I have been confined to my bed for some days through a fever occasioned by the stump of a tooth.... I thank you, my dear friend, for your late kindness, and in a few weeks will either repay you in money or by verses, as you like. With regard to Lloyd’s verses, it is curious that I should be applied to to be “persuaded to resign, and in hope that I might” consent to give up a number of poems which were published at the earnest request of the author, who assured me that the circumstance was “of no trivial import to his happiness.” Times change and people change; but let us keep our souls in quietness! I have no objection to any disposal of C. Lloyd’s poems, except that of their being republished with mine. The motto which I had prefixed, “Duplex,” etc.,[179] from Groscollius, has placed me in a ridiculous situation; but it was a foolish and presumptuous start of affectionateness, and I am not unwilling to incur punishments due to my folly. By past experiences we build up our moral being. How comes it that I have never heard from dear Mr. Estlin, my fatherly and brotherly friend? This idea haunted me through my sleepless nights, till my sides were sore in turning from one to the other, as if I were hoping to turn from the idea. The Giant Wordsworth—God love him! Even when I speak in the terms of admiration due to his intellect, I fear lest those terms should keep out of sight the amiableness of his manners.... He has written more than 1,200 lines of a blank verse, superior, I hesitate not to aver, to anything in our language which any way resembles it. Poole (whom I feel so consolidated with myself that I seem to have no occasion to speak of him out of myself) thinks of it as likely to benefit mankind much more than anything Wordsworth has yet written. With regard to my poems, I shall prefix the “Maid of Orleans,” 1,000 lines, and three blank verse poems, making all three about 200, and I shall utterly leave out perhaps a larger quantity of lines; and I should think it would answer to you in a pecuniary way to print the third edition humbly and cheaply. My alterations in the “Religious Musings” will be considerable, and will lengthen the poem. Oh, Poole desires you not to mention his house to any one unless you hear from him again, as since I have been writing a thought has struck us of letting it to an inhabitant of the village, which we should prefer, as we should be certain that his manners would be severe, inasmuch as he would be a Stow-ic.
God bless you and
S. T. C.