325. To William Godwin

Address: Mr Godwin | Polygon | Sommers Town MS. Lord Abinger. Pub. with omis. William Godwin, ii. 2. Postmark: 3 March 1800.

Mr Lamb's No / 36 Chapel Street Pentonville -8, Monday Morning [ 8 March 1800]

Dear Godwin

The Punch after the Wine made me tipsy last night -- this I
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1 	After Mrs. Coleridge's departure Coleridge stayed with Charles Lamb.

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mention, not that my head aches, or that I felt after I quitted you, any unpleasantness, or titubancy --; but because tipsiness has, and has always, one unpleasant effect -- that of making me talk very extravagantly / & as when sober, I talk extravagantly enough for any common Tipsiness, it becomes a matter of nicety in discrimination to know when I am or am not affected. -- An idea starts up in my hand [head?] -- away I follow it thro' thick & thin, Wood & Marsh, Brake and Briar -- with all the apparent Interest of a man who was defending one of his old and long-established Principles -- Exactly of this kind was the Conversation, with which I quitted you / I do not believe it possible for a human Being to have a greater horror of the Feelings that usually accompany such principles as I then supported, or a deeper Conviction of their irrationality than myself -- but the whole Thinking of my Life will not bear me up against the accidental Press & Crowd of my mind, when it is elevated beyond it's natural Pitch / . --

We shall talk wiselier with the Ladies on Tuesday -- God bless you, & give your dear little ones a kiss a piece for me --

The Agnus Dei & the Virgin Mary desire their kind respects to you, you sad Atheist --!

Your's with affectionate | Esteem S. T. Coleridge