thing
is that he actually did this later!) Of course he never
executed the Life of Lessing.[115] "The Wedgwoods" had given
him an annuity. The assault on "Mr. Go_b_win" is one of poor
Hartley Coleridge's most delightful feats. Had he been a
little older, he might have pointed out to the author of
_Political Justice_ that lecturing his mother for his,
Hartley's, fault was quite unjustifiable: and indeed that
objecting to it at all was improper. The right way
(according to that great work itself) would have been to
discuss with Hartley whether the advantage in physical
exercise and animal spirits derived by him from wielding the
nine-pin, outweighed the pain experienced by Go_b_win, and
so was justifiable on the total scheme of things. ("Moshes,"
as indeed is obvious, was Hartley's pet-name).

29. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

Tuesday night, 12 o'clock
(December 24) 1799.

My dear Southey,

My Spinosism (if Spinosism it be, and i' faith 'tis very like it)
disposed me to consider this big city as that part of the supreme One
which the prophet Moses was allowed to see--I should be more disposed
to pull off my shoes, beholding Him in a _Bush_, than while I am forcing
my reason to believe that even in theatres _He_ is, yea! even in the
Opera House. Your "Thalaba" will beyond all doubt bring you two hundred
pounds, if you will sell it at once; but _do_ not print at a venture,
under the notion of selling the edition. I assure you that Longman
regretted the bargain he made with Cottle concerning the second edition
of the "Joan of Arc," and is indisposed to similar negotiations; but
most and very eager to have the property of your works at almost any
price. If you have not heard it from Cottle, why, you may hear it from
me, that is, the arrangement of Cottle's affairs in London. The whole
and total copyright of your "Joan," and the first volume of your poems
(exclusive of what Longman had before given), was taken by him at three
hundred and seventy pounds. You are a strong swimmer, and have borne up
poor Joey with all his leaden weights about him, his own and other
people's! Nothing has answered to him but your works. By me he has lost
somewhat--by Fox, Amos, and himself _very much_. I can sell your
"Thalaba" quite as well in your absence as in your presence. I am
employed from I-rise to I-set (that is, from nine in the morning to
twelve at night), a pure scribb