333. To William Godwin Address: Mr Godwin | Polygon | Sonuners' Town | Londonsingle MS. Lord Abinger. Pub. with omis. E. L. G. i. 137. Postmark: May 28, 1800. Mr T. Poole's N. Stowey Bridgewater. Wednesday, May 21 1800 Dear Godwin I received your letter this morning, & had I not, still I am almost confident, that I should have written to you before the end of the week. Hitherto the Translation of the Wallenstein has prevented me; not that it so engrossed my time, but that it wasted and depressed my spirits, & left a sense of wearisomeness & disgust which unfitted me for any thing but sleeping or immediate society. ____________________ 1 See Letters 335 and 341. -587- I say this, because I ought to have written to you first; & as I am not behind you in affectionate esteem, so I would not be thought to lag in those outward & visible signs, that both shew & vivify the inward & spiritual grace. -- Believe me, you recur to my thoughts frequently, & never without pleasure, never without my making out of the past a little day dream for the future. I left Wordsworth on the 4th of this month -- if I cannot procure a suitable house at Stowey, I return to Cumberland & settle at Keswick -in a house of such prospect, that if, according to you & Hume, impressions & ideas constitute our Being, I shall have a tendency to become a God -- so sublime & beautiful will be the series of my visual existence. But whether I continue here, or migrate thither, I shall be in a beautiful country -- & have house-room and heartroom for you / and you must come & write your next work at my house. -- My dear Godwin! I remember you with so much pleasure & our conversations so distinctly, that, I doubt not, we have been mutually benefited -- but as to your poetic & physiopathic feelings, I more than suspect, that dear little Fanny & Mary 1 have had more to do in that business than I. Hartley sends his Love to Mary. 'What? & not to Fanny?' Yes -- & to Fanny -- but I'll have Mary. -- He often talks about them. My poor Lamb! -- how cruelly affliceions crowd upon him! 2 I am glad, that you think of him as I think -- he has an affectionate heart, a mind sui generis, his taste acts so as to appear like the unmechanic simplicity of an Instinct -- in brief, he is worth an hundred men of mere Talents. Conversation with the latter tribe is like the use of leaden Bells -- one warms by exercise -- Lamb every now & then eradiates, & the beam, tho' single & fine as a hair, yet is rich with colours, & I both see & feel it.----In Bristol I was much with Davy -- almost all day. He always talks of you with great affection / & defends you with a friend's zeal against the Animalcula, who live on the dung of the great Dung-fly Mackintosh. -If I settle at Keswick, he will be with me in the fall of the year -& so must you----and let me tell you, Godwin! four such men as you, I, Davy, & Wordsworth, do not meet together in one house every day in the year -- I mean, four men so distinct with so many sympathies. -- I received yesterday a letter from Southey -- he arrived at Lisbon after a prosperous Voyage on the last day of April. His letter to me is dated May day. He girds up his loins for a great ____________________ 1 Fanny Imlay, natural daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin ( 1797-1851), Shelley's second wife. 2 Hetty, the Lambs' aged servant, had died, and Mary Lamb suffered her first serious mental attack since her father's death in Apr. 1799. -588- History of Portugal -- which will be translated into the Portuguese, in the first year of the Lusitanian Republic. Have you seen Mrs Robinson lately? How is she? -- Remember me in the kindest & most respectful phrases to her. -- I wish, I knew the particulars of her complaint. For Davy'has discovered a perfectly new Acid, by which he has restored the use of limbs to persons who had lost them for many years, (one woman 9 years) in cases of supposed Rheumatism. At all events, Davy says, it can do no harm, in Mrs Robinson's case -- & if she will try it, he will make up a little parcel & write her a letter of instructions &c.---Tell her, & it is the truth, that Davy is exceedingly delighted with the two Poems in the Anthology. -- N.B. Did you get my Attempt at a Tragedy from Mrs Robinson? -- To Mrs Smith I am about to write a letter, with a book -- be so kind as to inform me of her direction. Mrs Inchbald 1 I do not like at all -- every time, I recollect her, I like her less. That segment of a look at the corner of her eye -- O God in heaven! it is so cold & cunning --! thro' worlds of wildernesses I would run away from that look, that heart-picking look. 'Tis marvellous to me, that you can like that Woman. -- I shall remain here about ten days for certain. If you have leisure & inclination in that time, write -- if not, I will write to you where I am going or at all events whither I am gone. God bless you | & | Your sincerely affectionate S. T. Coleridge Sara desires to be remembered kindly to you -- and sends a kiss to Fanny & 'dear meek little Mary.'