My poems are finished. I will send you two copies the moment they are published. In No. III of "The Watchman" there are a few lines entitled, "The Hour when we shall meet again" ("Dim Hour! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar"), which I think you will like. I have received two or three letters from different "Anonymi", requesting me to give more poetry. One of them writes thus:—
"Sir, I detest your principles; your prose I think very so so; but your poetry is so beautiful that I take in your "Watchman" solely on account of it. In justice therefore to me and some others of my stamp, I entreat you to give us more verse, and less democratic scurrility. Your Admirer,—not Esteemer."
Have you read over Dr. Lardner on the Logos? It is I think, scarcely possible to read it, and not be convinced. I find that "The Watchman" comes more easy to me, so that I shall begin about my Christian Lectures (meaning a publication of the course given in the preceding year). I will immediately order for you, unless you immediately countermand it, Count Rumford's Essays; in No. V of "The Watchman" you will see why. (That number contained a critique on the Essays.) I have enclosed Dr. Beddoes's late pamphlets; neither of them as yet published. The Doctor sent them to me…. My dutiful love to your excellent Mother, whom, believe me, I think of frequently and with a pang of affection. God bless you. I'll try and contrive to scribble a line and half every time the man goes with "The Watchman" to you.
N.B. The Essay on Fasting I am ashamed of—(in No. II of "The Watchman");—but it is one of my misfortunes that I am obliged to publish ex tempore as well as compose. God bless you.
S. T. COLERIDGE.[1]
[Footnote 1: Letter LV is our 26.]
Two days afterwards Mr. Coleridge wrote to Mr. B. Flower, then the editor of the "Cambridge Intelligencer", with whom he had been acquainted at the University:
LETTER 27
April 1, 1796.
Dear Sir,