Alas! for the poor Prospectus! "Speculative gloom" and "year-long absence" had been sacrificed to Jeffrey, and now "Architecture, Dress, Dancing, Gardening, Music, Poetry, and Painting" were erased in obedience to Wilkinson. Most of these articles, however, "Architecture, Dress," etc., reappeared in a second edition of the Prospectus, attached to the second number of _The Friend_, but Dancing, "Greek statuesque dancing," on which Coleridge might have discoursed at some length, was gone forever. Wordsworth's _Works_, p. 211 (Fenwick Note); _The Friend's Quarterly Examiner_, July, 1893; _Records of a Quaker Family_, by Anne Ogden Boyce, London, 1889, pp. 30, 31, 55.
[52] The original draft of the prospectus of _The Friend_, which was issued in the late autumn of 1808, was printed at Kendal by W. Pennington. Certain alterations were suggested by Jeffrey and others (Southey in a letter to Rickman dated January 18, 1809, complains that Coleridge had "carried a prospectus wet from the pen to the publisher, without consulting anybody"), and a fresh batch of prospectuses was printed in London. A third variant attached to the first number of the weekly issue, June 1, 1809, was printed by Brown, a bookseller and stationer at Penrith, who, on Mr. Pennington's refusal, undertook to print and publish _The Friend_. Some curious letters which passed between Coleridge and his printer, together with the MS. of _The Friend_, in the handwriting of Miss Sarah Hutchinson, are preserved in the Forster Library at the South Kensington Museum. _Letters from the Lake Poets_, pp. 85-188; _Selections from the Letters of R. Southey_, ii. 120.
[53] Compare letters to Stuart (December), 1808. "You will long ere this have received Wordsworth's second Essay, etc., rewritten by me, and in some parts recomposed." _Letters from the Lake Poets_, p. 101.
[54] Colonel Wardle, who led the attack in the House of Commons against the Duke of York, with regard to the undue influence in military appointments of the notorious Mrs. Clarke.
[55] Coleridge's friendship with Dr. Beddoes dated from 1795-96, and was associated with his happier days. It is possible that the recent amendment in health and spirits was due to advice and sympathy which he had met with in response to a confession made in writing to his old Bristol friend. His death, which took place on the 24th of December, 1808, would rob Coleridge of a newly-found support, and would "take out of his life" the hope of self-conquest. The letter implies that he had recently heard from or conversed with Beddoes.