357. To Thomas Poole

Address: Mr T. Poole | Stowey | Bridgewater | Somerset

MS. British Museum. Pub. E. L. G. i. 156.

Postmark: 14 October 1800. Stamped: Keswick.

[Circa 11 October 1800]

For this last fortnight, my dear Poole, I have been about to write you -- but jolts & ruts, and flings have constantly unhorsed my Resolves. The truth is, the endeavor to finish Christabel, (which has swelled into a Poem of 1400 lines 1 ) for the second Volume of the Lyrical Ballads threw my business terribly back -- & now I am sweating for it -- / Dunning Letters &c &c -- all the hell of an Author. I wish, I had been a Tanner. -- However to come to business -- The Essays have been published in the Morning Post / and have (to use the cant phrase) made great sensation. In one place only I ventured to make a slight alteration / and I prefixed one Essay, chiefly of my own Writing, & made two or three additions in the enumeration of the effects of War -- Now I wish all to be republished in a small pamphlet; but should like to have one more Essay, of considerable length, detailing the effect & operations of paper currency on the price of the articles of Life. 2 You have Sir Frederic Eden's Book 3 which would furnish important Documents --. In the meantime, I wish you could contrive between you & Chester or Macky to take in the Morning Post ----- You will see therein all I am able to say & reason, and your arguments will come up in the Rear like the Roman Triarii, on whom alone, you know, depended the Stress of the Battle, and the Hope of the Victory. -Those hitherto published I shall cut out, & inclose in a letter (paying the postage, that you may not lose your temper.) I shall write for Stuart till Christmas; and intend to carry on a periodical Work, in numbers, to be afterwards republished in a Volume. Mrs Coleridge & Child are well -- I am tolerable, only my eyes are bad -Indeed this complaint in my poor eyes & eye lids recurs with alarm-
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1 	See Letter 856, p. 631, note 1.
2 	For Poole's reply of 14 Nov. 1800, see Thomas Poole, ii. 17-20. No such 'small pamphlet' as Coleridge mentions was issued.
3 	Frederick Eden, The State of the Poor, 3 vols., 1797. The work has taken a permanent place in economic literature.

-634-
	
ing frequency. Wordsworth's Health is very indifferent -- I see him upon an average about once a month, or perhaps three weeks. Love to Ward & your Mother --

God love you, & your affectionate

S. T. Coleridge