391. To Thomas N. Longman Address: Messrs. Longman and Rees | Paternoster Row | London MS. Professor C. B. Tinker. Hitherto unpublished. This letter is written on a sheet the first page of which contains a letter from Wordsworth to Longman. Early Letters, 265. Postmark: 30 March 1801. Stamped: Keswick. Friday Night, March 26 [27], 1801 Dear Sir Mr Wordsworth was so good as to send me your Letter to him with his own unsealed, that I might write without putting you to the expence of two Letters. -- Had not my dear friend, Mr Wordsworth, taken my Debt to you on his Shoulders, & thereby liquidated it, 2 I should have been made seriously unhappy by the Delays of my long & tedious Illness -more unhappy, I may truly say, than ever before a pecuniary transaction had rendered me / and this because your behaviour to me has been marked by such uniform delicacy, & liberality. -- My Sickness has left me in a state of mind, which it is scarcely possible for me to explain to you -- one feature of it is an extreme Disgust hich I feel at every perusal of my own Productions, & which makes it exceedingly painful to me not only to revise them, but I may truly add, even to look on the Paper, on which they are written. -- This has been produced in part no doubt by Disease; but in part too by the very important Researches & Studies, in which I have been lately immersed, & which have made all subjects of ordinary Interest appear to me trifling beyond measure. -Conscious however, that this is truly Disease, I shall very soon remit you the manuscript of my 'Information collected during a ____________________ 1 Two lines heavily inked out in manuscript. 2 I consider the 302 which you advanced to Mr Coleridge as advanced on my account.' Wordsworth to Longman and Rees, 27 Mar. 1801. By 5 July Coleridge had repaid part of this indebtedness to Wordsworth. See Letter 403. -715- residence of 10 months in North Germany'/ -- considering however my previous Agreement as in no wise binding on you. You will look the work over, & then if you like to renew your former offer, well and good! -- If not, I shall be equally well-satisfied. -- In the mean time, I should rather wish to send forth a Poem first, which I have reason to believe, from the concurring testimony of all the Persons to whom I have submitted it, is more likely to be popular than any thing which I have hitherto written -- . It is in length about the size of the Farmer's Boy, and I shall annex to it two Discourses, Concerning Metre, & Concerning the Marvellous in Poetry -- / For this poem a friend of mine is now drawing for me under my own direction some head-and tail-pieces, representing the particular Scenes & Places, which are mentioned in the course of the Tale, all of which he takes on the spot -- and they are from the wildest & most romantic parts of this County. -- I wish to know whether you are disposed to publish this poem in the manner in which the FABLIAUX edited by Mr Ellis 1 are published / whether you would venture on the expence of having the little Drawings engraved or cut in wood /? The title of the Poem is CHRISTABEL, a Legend, in five Books. -- As to Terms, I wish them to be such as would diminish the Risk as much as possible -- that is to say, I would leave the Terms to yourself, undetermined till the first Edition was sold -- and the trifle, I should request leave to draw on you for, I would have put to my personal Account -- to be liquidated by my after labors, if the success of this Poem should not answer my wishes: for hopes & expectations I do not waste on things of such utter uncertainty. -- Your's [ver]y truly, S. T. Coleridge