I have this evening received your letter of July 24^th & the little volume which accompanied it.

The copy of the first edition of this book,

which you had the goodness to intend for me, never reached my hands, – I should otherwise most certainly have written without delay to thank you for it, & also have sought an opportunity of expressing my thanks in person when I past thro Leeds in November last.

With your name I have long been acquainted, – tho not with your poems. But one piece which I saw in a provincial newspaper

– (Ten years ago) convinced me that you had not been praise [MS missing]ing it, – & in merely cutting open the leaves of this little volume, I see much to admire.

The Memoirs of my private history which have been published in Magazines &c

– are as incorrect & fallacious as they might be expected to be by all who know nothin any thing of such publications. I was born in Wine Street Bristol, Aug 12 1774. In 1788 I was placed at Westminster school, & in 1792 entered as a Commoner at Balliol College, Oxford. I left the University in 1794 without taking a degree, married in 1795, came to this place in 1803 to visit my brother-in-law Coleridge, – & have remained here ever since.