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University of Kentucky Library. Not previously published.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
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By this you must have received the letter which I wrote in the very depth of our distress. Indeed I have suffered
sorely & sorely am suffering – by day I can exert myself – I can read – & write & talk, but Nature gets the better at night
& my dreams xxxx what has been suppressed by effort breaks out in dreams. We reached Keswick yester-evening. the sight of little Sara
Enough of this. you shall find me with little outward alteration. – now to transcribe your letters.
from Stuart.
___
I have the pleasure to inform you that on Saturday last I sold the M Post for 15,000£. seven eighths of which was paid
down, the rest remains in a share for the Editor Mr Byrne,r Flemingths
of as fully as I should have done.
______
____
As far as I can conjecture your gout is willing to become gout if it could – the Gout medicine may help it on to this. I suppose you should try it in two ways. first by drinking 4 5 or 6 glasses at the interval of 1 2 or 3 hours each day. I suppose if in 4 5 or 6 days your stomach do not feel a different creature, it will be hardly worth while holding on.
But shd you not be careful that there be no vinegar brewed all this time? suppose the medicine by changing the stomach, changes all the sensations, a stomach-full of wind & sourness will change them all back again. I do not know if I can propose any means of prevention you have not already practised. But food not acescent in general, with super carbonated In ale (or calcined magnesia in case of costiveness) with ginger to check any commencement of acid fermentation seem to me to promise.
The second method must be confined to the time of appearance of gouty inflammation about the feet. Then I would urge the medicine, taking a glass (2oz) every 4 5 or 6 minutes till I glowed red hot. I have more expectation from this cutting & spurring than the other gentle lashing. Most medical men would recommend the Bath waters, supposing them to connect the letters g o u t with the other sufferings
I should have been glad of your remarks on my Essays,
I possibly may be able to send you in a few weeks 48 pages worth all the good & tolerable of all Hygeia.juxta-position of time, I shall
feel some gratification. for I am anxious <curious> to know whether I have anticipated your
opinion of its demerits. So far you may proceed on recollection. particular doctrines may require reference.
So wishing (if you wish it) that you may writhe & write
I am &c –
How is the Liver? I think nothing of the paralytic feelings. they may be paralytic, but the palsy of hysteria & hypochondriasis goes off always: & there may be very different states of nerve producing impotence of will over muscles.
______
from Dr Anti-podagra.
Sir
It is seldom that I feel more satisfaction in any action than I do in the one I am now engaged in. A letter from Dr Beddoes yesterday informed me you were gouty – he need not have added that you
wished to be cured – for I shd have supposed it. I have in my possession a kind of nectar (for it removes pain, & of course
promotes pleasure, & may in the end immortalize – me) – [MS torn] I freely offer to you. I will farther add the prediction founded
on experience, that you may be relieved from the gout & your general health improved into the bargain. for confirmation of this you
may consult Sir Wilfred Lawson Bartyour near you, & Thomas Wyndham Esqr M P
&c
A Welles.
18 London Vale London.
<After Michaelmas my address will be 44 Upper Titchfield Street.>
______
Now do not damn the second Solomon
Moses is the same unique. he makes me wonder.
God bless you Coleridge. why will you play such fools-tricks with yourself!
Longmans fears have delayed the Bibliotheca
See Elmsley if you go to Edinburgh. he lives in St Andrews Square. I wrote to him in so happy a mood upon his marriage
[start of Sara Coleridge’s hand]
My poor dear, your letters from Fort-william gave me the heartache I little thought your journey would have ended in
so short a time when will the Wordsworth’swalk will knock you up, without Shoes,
without money, good luck! good luck! – I got £5 pounds of Southey, and five of Mr
Jackson, as he had not setled with me I think he must have said as much as that or more, and I think ten-pounds will not be
too much for you as you are situated. – Poor Hartley’s other eye is
now closed up with a sting – he does not mind it – Sara is
inoculated and her Arm in good fashion; a child is dead at Buttermere in the small pox – More
I shall be glad when you are safe at home – this is Thursday night, I fear you will wait long at Perth for this letter. Derwent is quite well – I have had another kind letter from Lady Beaumont. – There was a letter for Mrs Wordsworth from Inverness. – I suppose you will write to Southey. yours,
Sara C– .