We arrived safe. Our house is set to rights. We are all—wife, bratling, and self, remarkably well. Mrs. Coleridge likes Stowey, and loves Thomas Poole and his mother, who love her. A communication has been made from our orchard into T. Poole's garden, and from thence to Cruikshank's, a friend of mine, and a young married man, whose wife is very amiable, and she and Sara are already on the most cordial terms; from all this you will conclude we are happy. By-the-bye, what a delightful poem, is Southey's "Musings on a Landscape of Caspar Poussin". I love it almost better than his "Hymn to the Penates". In his volume of poems, the following, namely,
"The Six Sonnets on the Slave Trade.—The Ode to the Genius of
Africa.—To my own Miniature Picture.—The Eight Inscriptions.—Elinor,
Botany-bay Eclogue.—Frederick", ditto.—"The Ten Sonnets". (pp.
107-116.) "On the death of an Old Spaniel.—The Soldier's Wife,
Dactylics,—The Widow, Sapphics.—The Chapel Bell.—The Race of
Banco.—"Rudiger".
All these Poems are worthy the Author of "Joan of Arc". And
"The Musings on a Landscape", etc. and "The Hymn to the Penates",
deserve to have been published after "Joan of Arc", as proofs of progressive genius.
God bless you,
S. T. C.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Wordsworth lived at Racedown, before he removed to Allfoxden. (Cottle.)] [The dates of Letters 49 and 50 are determined by that of a letter from Lamb to Coleridge of 5th January 1797 ("Ainger", i, 57). Letter 49 implies that Coleridge was now acquainted with Wordsworth. A letter from Mrs. Wordsworth to Sara Coleridge of 7th Nov. 1845 (Knight's "Life of Wordsworth", i, iii) gives the date of the first meeting of the poets as "about the year 1795." Professor Knight thinks this should be 1796. In the letter of Wordsworth to Wrangham, referred to in Note to Letter 13, Wordsworth does not say that he knew Coleridge personally. Letter 49 is the only trustworthy "contemporary" evidence on the subject.]
After receiving Lamb's answer of 5th January, in which Lamb criticises unfavourably the "Joan of Arc" lines ("Ainger", i, 57), Coleridge writes: