371. To Francis Wrangham Address: Revd F. Wrangham | Hunmanby | near | Burlington [Bridlington] MS. New York Public Lib. Pub.E. L. G. i. 165. Stamped: Keswick. Greta Hall Keswick. Dec. 19, 1800 My dear Wrangham Rather than not answer your kind letter immediately, I have made up my mind to write but half a dozen Lines, as a sort of promissory Note. Wordsworth received your letter, & meant to have answered it immediately. I'll write to him to day, quoth he. For you must understand, that W. has innovated very vilely the good old Common-Law of Procrastination -- instead of Tomorrow, ____________________ 1 John Harris, Navigantium, atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, 2 vols., 1705. -657- & To Morrow, & To Morrow, it is To Day, To Day, and To Day, which I the more disapprove of, as it appears to me a tame Plagiarism from the Lie of the Taverns & Coffee Houses -- 'Coming this instant, your Honor!' -- But seriously, he is a hardened offender in these sins of Omission -- & has so many claims of an elder Date to satisfy, that verily I believe he had a scruple of conscience against writing to you, lest he should give that to Pleasure which he had in so many instances refused to Duty ----- Wordsworth & I have never resided together -- he lives at Grasmere, a place worthy of him, & of which he is worthy -- and neither to Man nor Place can higher praise be given. His address is, Grasmere, near Ambleside, | Westmoreland. As to our literary occupations they are still more distant than our residences -- He is a great, a true Poet -- I am only a kind of a Metaphysician. -- He has even now sent off the last sheet of a second Volume of his Lyrical Ballads --. I have ample House-room for you, and you shall have whenever you come a good bed, a good dinner, a kind welcome, & as Alcaeus say[s] ὴδὺν οἰ + ̑νον ἡδυτέρας τε Mώσας-- to which I may add, diviner Prospects than his Lesbos could boast. In truth, my Glass being opposite to the Window, I seldom shave without cutting myself. Some Mountain or Peak is rising out of the Mist, or some slanting Column of misty Sunlight is sailing cross me / so that I offer up soap & blood daily, as an Eye-servant of the Goddess Nature. -- I shall be glad to see a Poem from you on so interesting a subject -- Poor Godwin! -- I am told, it was a dull Tragedy damn'd -- from whence you may conclude that it was a damn'd dull Tragedy -- yet I liked it in it's unfinished state when I saw it in Manuscript ----- I have two fine little boys -- God bless you, & S. T. Coleridge P.S. My House stands on the River Grieta, which is a literal Translation of the Word Cocytus -- Nam'd from lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream. 1 To griet is to lament aloud, and a is the masculine termination of the substantive -- ____________________ 1 Paradise Lost, ii. 579-80. -658-