P.S. If, in the course of a few days, you could send me the same, or another copy of, the sheets I now send you, they would be useful to me in composing my lecture on the subject. Sir G. and Lady Beaumont are very desirous to see and consult you about a school at Dunmow. Be assured, while I have life and power, I shall find a deep consolation in being your zealous apostle. I write in a great hurry, scarce knowing what I write; but before a future edition, I will play the minute critic with you, and regard your book as a literary work for posterity.
About this time Coleridge met his old sweetheart, Mary Evans; and, in answer to an invitation to call upon her and her husband, Mr. Todd, he wrote: "Undoubtedly the first moment of the feeling was an awful one to me, the _second_ of time previous to my full recognition of you, the Mary Evans of 14 years ago, flashed across my eyes with a truth and vividness as great as its rapidity." The full letter, which is undated, but must be of 1804-8, was communicated to the _Athenæum_ of 18 May 1895, by her granddaughter, Mrs. Linde, of Wiesbaden.]
[13] [Letter CLXIV is our 137. Letters CLXV-CLXVII follow.]
[During the Spring of 1808, Coleridge, while delivering his lectures, had some correspondence with Matilda Betham between March and July. Matilda Betham was a portrait painter, and Coleridge had consented to sit for her. The letters to Matilda Betham are probably dated thus: I, (March) 1808; II, 4th April 1808; III, (April 1808); IV, 7th May 1808; V, (---- 1808). _Fraser's Magazine_, 1878.
After paying a visit to the Clarkson's, at Bury St. Edmunds, Coleridge went back to Grasmere and lived with the Wordsworths, now at Allan Bank. Coleridge felt that lecturing was not a permanent form of employment, and now projected a journal to disseminate what he called the Permanent Principles of Politics, Morality, and Religion. In a letter written about this time to his old friend Josiah Wade, he repudiates the accusation that he had lived to little purpose.
Tuesday night, _i.e._, Wednesday morning. (1807-8).
I have barely time to scribble a few lines, so as not to miss the post, for here as every where, there are charitable people, who, taking for granted that you have no business of your own, would save from the pain of vacancy, by employing you in theirs.