Let your
plan be as diffuse as the "Spectator," and I 'll answer for it the work
prospers. If I am vain enough to think I can be a contributor, rely on
my inclinations. Coleridge, in reading your "Religious Musings," I felt
a transient superiority over you. I _have_ seen Priestley. I love to see
his name repeated in your writings. I love and honor him almost
profanely. You would be charmed with his _Sermons_, if you never read
'em. You have doubtless read his books illustrative of the doctrine of
Necessity. Prefixed to a late work of his in answer to Paine, there is a
preface giving an account of the man and his services to men, written by
Lindsey, his dearest friend, well worth your reading.
_Tuesday Eve_.--Forgive my prolixity, which is yet too brief for all I
could wish to say. God give you comfort, and all that are of your
household! Our loves and best good-wishes to Mrs. C.
C. LAMB.
[1] Coleridge contributed some four hundred lines to the second book of
Southey's epic.
III.
TO COLERIDGE.
_June_ 10, 1796.
With "Joan of Arc" I have been delighted, amazed, I had not presumed to
expect anything of such excellence from Southey. Why, the poem is alone
sufficient to redeem the character of the age we live in from the
imputation of degenerating in poetry, were there no such beings extant
as Burns, and Bowles, Cowper, and ----, ---- fill up the blank how you
please; I say nothing.
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