247. To George Coleridge Address: Revd G. Coleridge | Ottery St Mary | Devon MS. Lady Cave. Pub. E.L.G. i. 104. Stamped: Bridgewater. May 14th, Monday. 1798 My dear Brother By an odd jumble of accidents I did not receive the parcel till within a few days -- / My wife was this morning delivered of a very fine boy -- she had a remarkably good time & both she and the child are as well as can be. May God be praised! -Believe me, I am truly anxious to hear concerning your little one; my little Hartley has had an ugly cough & feverish complaint which made me fear the whooping cough; but it was only the effect of teething, at least, so we hope. -- Yesterday I walked in to Taunton to perform the divine services for poor Dr Toulmin whose daughter in a melancholy derangement suffered herself to be swallowed up by the tide on the coast between Sidmouth & Bere. Good old Man! he bears it like one in whom Christianity is an habit of feeling in a still greater degree than a conviction of the understanding. He sanctifies his calamity; but it is plain, that it has cut deep into his heart. -- And then from a Mrs Stone I heard all at once the death of Mr William Lewis: remembering the man, & remembering the conversation we had concerning him in the churchyard walk, and considering as it were in a glance of the imagination his bulk & stature, & then the horrid manner of his death -- it so overpowered me that I felt as if I had been choked, and then burst into an agony of tears. I scarcely remember ever to have been so deeply affected. -I will write again in a few days, and send you the Tragedy, &c &c -- Sheridan has again promised to fit it for the stage & bring it on, which promise he will as certainly break as I am your affectionate & grateful | Brother S. T. Coleridge Present my duty to my Mother & my Wife's Duty -- My kindest love to Mrs G. Coleridge & a dear kiss for the little one. Mrs S. Coleridge's thanks & love to her & Mrs J. Coleridge. -- My kind love to Edward & the Major -- & the Major's Quintetto, 1 God bless their beautiful faces! -- I have written a poem lately which I think even the Major (who is no admirer of the art) would like. 2 -- ____________________ 1 The 'Major's Quintetto' were James, John Taylor, Bernard Frederick, Francis George, and Frances. 2 Probably Fears in Solitude, written in April 1798, during the alarm of an invasion, Poems, i. 256. -409- Pray let me hear from you; what was I to send beside the Tragedy & the Historical Grammar? There was something else: & I have forgotten it. --