"Hart-leap Well" is the tale for me; in matter as good as this, in
manner infinitely before it, in my poor judgment. Why did you not add
"The Wagoner"? Have I thanked you, though, yet for "Peter Bell"? I would
not _not have it_ for a good deal of money. Coleridge is very foolish to
scribble about books.
Neither his tongue nor fingers are very retentive. But I shall not say
anything to him about it. He would only begin a very long story with a
very long face, and I see him far too seldom to tease him with affairs
of business or conscience when I do see him. He never comes near our
house, and when we go to see him he is generally writing or thinking; he
is writing in his study till the dinner comes, and that is scarce over
before the stage summons us away. The mock "P.B." had only this effect
on me, that after twice reading it over in hopes to find something
diverting in it, I reached your two books off the shelf, and set into a
steady reading of them, till I had nearly finished both before I went to
bed,--the two of your last edition, of course, I mean, And in the
morning I awoke determined to take down the "Excursion." I wish the
scoundrel imitator could know this. But why waste a wish on him? I do
not believe that paddling about with a stick in a pond, and fishing up
a dead author, whom _his_ intolerable wrongs had driven to that deed of
desperation, would turn the heart of one of these obtuse literary BELLS.
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