P. S. Give my kind love to Molly.
VII. TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE.
Undated, from Christ’s Hospital, before 1790.
Dear Brother,—You will excuse me for reminding you that, as our holidays commence next week, and I shall go out a good deal, a good pair of breeches will be no inconsiderable accession to my appearance. For though my present pair are excellent for the purposes of drawing mathematical figures on them, and though a walking thought, sonnet, or epigram would appear on them in very splendid type, yet they are not altogether so well adapted for a female eye—not to mention that I should have the charge of vanity brought against me for wearing a looking-glass. I hope you have got rid of your cold—and I am your affectionate brother,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
P. S. Can you let me have them time enough for re-adaptation before Whitsunday? I mean that they may be made up for me before that time.
VIII. TO THE SAME.
October 16, 1791.
Dear Brother,—Here I am, videlicet, Jesus College. I had a tolerable journey, went by a night coach packed up with five more, one of whom had a long, broad, red-hot face, four feet by three. I very luckily found Middleton at Pembroke College, who (after breakfast, etc.) conducted me to Jesus. Dr. Pearce is in Cornwall and not expected to return to Cambridge till the summer, and what is still more extraordinary (and, n. b., rather shameful) neither of the tutors are here. I keep (as the phrase is) in an absent member’s rooms till one of the aforesaid duetto return to appoint me my own. Neither Lectures, Chapel, or anything is begun. The College is very thin, and Middleton has not the least acquaintance with any of Jesus except a very blackguardly fellow whose physiog. I did not like. So I sit down to dinner in the Hall in silence, except the noise of suction which accompanies my eating, and rise up ditto. I then walk to Pembroke and sit with my friend Middleton. Pray let me hear from you. Le Grice will send a parcel in two or three days.
Believe me, with sincere affection and gratitude, yours ever,