201. To Joseph Cottle

Pub. Early Rec. i. 253. This letter is particularly baffling. The reference to Cottle's ill health, also mentioned by Wordsworth on 16 Aug. 1797 (Early Letters, 172), and the paragraph concerning Thelwall's trunk suggest that the letter was written in August 1797. Herbert Croft, however, was imprisoned for debt in 1795 and in 1797 was living abroad. Cottle, therefore, has again combined passages from different letters.

Stowey, [Early August 1797]

My very dear Cottle,

Your illness afflicts me, and unless I receive a full account of you by Milton, I shall be very uneasy, so do not fail to write.

Herbert Croft is in Exeter goal! This is unlucky. Poor devil! He must now be unpeppered. We are all well. W[ordsworth] 1 is well. Hartley sends a grin to you! He has another tooth!

In the waggon, there was brought, from Bath, a trunk, in order to be forwarded to Stowey, directed, 'S. T. Coleridge, Stowey, near Bridgewater.' This, we suppose, arrived in Bristol on Tuesday or Wednesday, last week. It belonged to Thelwall. If it be not forwarded to Stowey, let it be stopped, and not sent.

Give my kind love to your brother Robert, and ax him to put on his hat, and run without delay to the inn, or place, by whatever bird, beast, fish, or man distinguished, where Parsons's Bath waggon sets up.

From your truly affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge