235. To Joseph Cottle Address: Mr Cottle | Bookseller | Bristol MS. Mr. W. L. Léis. Pub. with omis. Letters, i. 238. Stamped: Bridgewater. Stowey, Wednesday Morning. [ 7 March 1798] My dear Cottle I have been confined to my bed for some days thro' a fever occasioned by the stump of a tooth which baffled chirurgical efforts to eject it; & which by affecting my eye affected my stomach, & thro' that my whole frame. I am better -- but still weak in consequence of such long sleeplessness & wearying pains -- weak, very weak. -- I thank you, my dear Friend! for your late kindness -- and in a few weeks will either repay you in money or by verses, as you like. -- With regard to Lloyd's verses, it is curious that I should be applied to -- to be 'PERSUADED to RESIGN,['] and in ho[pe] that I might 'CONSENT to GIVE up' a number of poem[s] which were published at the earnest request of the author[, who] assured me that the circumstance was 'of no trivial import to his happiness.' -- Times change, & people change; but let us keep our souls in quietness! -- I have no objection to any disposal of C. Lloyd's poems except that of their being republished with mine. 1 The motto, which I had prefixed 'Duplex &c' from Groscollius 2 has placed me in a ridiculous situation 3 -- but it was a foolish & presumptuous start of affectionateness, and I am not unwilling to incur punish- ____________________ 1 Southey certainly, and possibly Lamb took umbrage at the Nehemiah Higginbottom. sonnets, and it is difficult to suppose that Lloyd was not deeply wounded by Coleridge's ill-timed burlesque. When he learned of the plan to issue a new edition of the poems of Coleridge, Lamb, and Lloyd, he asked that his own poems be omitted; he and Lamb, too, planned a collaborative venture, which appeared during 1798 as Blank Verse, by Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd. This letter shows that Coleridge was hurt by Lloyd's action, probably more deeply than he cared to reveal to Cottle. 2 In the manuscript Cottle twice underlined the word 'Groscollius' and wrote '(fictitious)' above it. 3 The motto for the 1797 edition of the Poems of Coleridge, Lamb, and Lloyd was: 'Duplex nobis vinculum, et amicitiae et similium junctarumque Camoenarum; quod utinam neque mors solvat, neque temporis longinquitas! Groscoll. Epist. ad Car. Utenhov. et Ptol. Lux. Tast.' When Cottle asked concerning the meaning of the motto, Coleridge replied: 'It was all a hoax. Not meeting with a suitable motto, I invented one, and with references purposely obscure.' (Rem. 164.) Groscollius, Carolus Utenhovius, and Ptolomoeus Luxius Tastaeus were scholar friends of the Scottish poet and historian George Buchanan ( 1506-82). In the light of the separate publication in 1798 of Lamb's and Lloyd's poems Coleridge's motto indeed loses its significance: 'We have a double bond: that of friendship and of our linked and kindred Muses: may neither death nor length of time dissolve it.' -390- ments due to my folly. -- By past experiences we build up our moral being. -- How comes it that I have never heard from dear Mr Estlin, my fatherly & brotherly friend? This idea haunted me during my sleepless nights, till my sides were sore in turning from one to the other, as if I were hoping to turn away from the idea. -- The Giant Wordsworth -- God love him! -- even when I speak in the terms of admiration due to his intellect, I fear lest tho[se] terms should keep out of sight the amiableness of his manners -- he has written near 1200 lines of a blank verse, superior, I hesitate not to aver, to any thing in our language which any way resembles it. 1 Poole (whom I feel so consolidated with myself that I seem to have no occasion to speak of him out of myself) thinks of it as likely to benefit mankind much more than any thing, Wordsworth has yet written. -- With regard to my poems I shall prefix the Maid of Orleans, 1000 lines -- & three blank verse poems, making all three, about 200-- / and I shall utterly leave out perhaps a larger quantity of lines: & I should think, it would answer to you in a pecuniary way to print the third Edition humbly & cheaply. My alterations in the Religious Musings will be considerable, & will lengthen the poem. -- Oh I Poole desires you not to mention his house to any one unless you hear from him again; as since I have been writing a thought has struck us of letting it to an inhabitant of the village -which we should prefer, as we should be certain that his manners would be severe, inasmuch as he would be a Stow-ic. God bless you & S. T. C.