My dear Friend,—I have been severely indisposed, knocked up indeed, with a complaint of a contagious nature called the Mumps;[56] preceded by most distressing low spirits, or rather absence of all spirits; and accompanied with deafness and stupefying perpetual echo in the ear. But it is going off. Little John Wordsworth was attacked with it last year when I was in London, and from the stupor with which it suffuses the eyes and look, it was cruelly mistaken for water on the brain. It has been brought here a second time by some miners, and is a disease with little danger and no remedy.
I attributed your silence to its right cause, and I assure you when I was at Penrith and Kendal it was very pleasant to me to hear how universally the conduct of the “Courier” was extolled; indeed, you have behaved most nobly, and it is impossible but that you must have had a great weight in the displacing of that prime grievance of grievances. Among many reflections that kept crowding on my mind during the trial,[57] this was perhaps the chief—What if, after a long, long reign, some titled sycophant should whisper to Majesty, “By what means do your Ministers manage the Legislature?” “By the distribution of patronage, according to the influence of individuals who claim it.” “Do this yourself, or by your own family, and you become independent of parties, and your Ministers are your servants. The Army under a favourite son, the Church with a wife, etc., etc.” Good heavens! the very essence of the Constitution is unmoulded, and the venerable motto of our liberty, “The king can do no wrong,” becomes nonsense and blasphemy. As soon as ever my mind is a little at ease, I will put together the fragments I have written on this subject, and if Wordsworth have not anticipated me, add to it some thoughts on the effect of the military principle. We owe something to Whitbread for his quenching at the first smell a possible fire. How is it possible that a man apparently so honest can talk and think as he does respecting France, peace, and Buonaparte?...
On Thursday Wordsworth, Southey, and myself, with the printer and publisher, go to Appleby to sign and seal, which paper, etc., will of course be immediately dispatched to London. I doubt not but that the £60 will be now paid at the “Courier” office in a few days; and as soon as you will let me know whether the stamped paper is to be paid for necessarily in ready money, or with what credit, I shall instantly write to some of my friends to advance me what is absolutely necessary. I can only say I am ready and eager to commence, and that I earnestly hope to see “The Friend” advertised shortly for the first of May. As to the Paper, how and from whom, and what and in what quantity, I must again leave to your judgment, and recommend to your affection for me. I have reason to believe that I shall commence with 500 names.
I write from Keswick. Mrs. Southey was delivered yester-morning of a girl.[58] I forgot to say, that I have been obliged to purchase, and have paid for, a font of types of small pica, the same with the London Prospectus, from Wilsons of Glasgow. I was assured they would cost only from £25 to £28, instead of which, £38 odd.
God bless you and
S. T. Coleridge.
CLXXV. TO THE SAME.
Grasmere, Kendal, June 13, 1809.
Dear Stuart,—I left Penrith Monday noon, and, prevented by the heavy rain from crossing Grisedale Tarn (near the summit of Helvellyn, and our most perilous and difficult Alpine Pass), the same day I slept at Luff’s, and crossed it yester-morning, and arrived here by breakfast time. I was sadly grieved at Wordsworth’s account of your late sorrows and troubles....
I cannot adequately express how much I am concerned lest anything I wrote in my last letter (though God knows under the influence of no one feeling which you would not wish me to have) should chance to have given you any additional unpleasantness, however small. Would that I had worthier means than words and professions of proving to you what my heart is....