[813:5] likewise . . . assured] not only asserted MS. R.
[813:6] but finally (and it is this last fact alone, which was malice for which no excuse of indolence self-made is adduced which determined me to refer to what I had already forgiven and almost forgotten) in the year 1806 MS. R.
[813:7] the] this MS. R.
[813:8] (Private.) Had the Piece been really silly (and I have proof positive that Sheridan did not think it so) yet 10 years afterwards to have committed a breach of confidence in order to injure the otherwise . . . that on the ground of an indiscretion into which he had himself seduced the writer, and the writer, too, a man whose reputation was his Bread—a man who had devoted the firstlings of his talents to the celebration of Sheridan's genius—and who after he met treatment not only never spoke unkindly or resentfully of it, but actually was zealous and frequent in defending and praising his public principles of conduct in the Morning Post—and all this in the presence of men of Rank previously disposed to think highly . . . I am sure you will not be surprised that this did provoke me, and that it justifies to my heart the detail here printed.
S. T. Coleridge.
P.S.—I never spoke severely of R. B. S. but once and then I confess, I did say that Sheridan was Sheridan. MS. R.
[813:9] The fourth act of the play in its original shape, and, presumably, as sent to Sheridan, opened with the following lines:—
'Drip! drip! drip! drip!—in such a place as this
It has nothing else to do but drip! drip! drip!
I wish it had not dripp'd upon my torch.'
In MS. III the opening lines are erased and the fourth Act opens thus:—
| This ceaseless dreary sound of |
| dropping water | |
| I would they had not fallen upon my Torch! | |||