Public--all is as it must be--but surely the Public (if there be such a
Person) has no right to quarrel with _me_ for not getting into jail by
publishing what they will not read!

The "Faust," you perhaps know, is only a _Fragment_. Whether Goethe ever
will finish it, or whether it is ever his object to do so, is quite
unknown. A large proportion of the work cannot be rendered in blank
verse, but must be given in wild _lyrical_ metres; and Mr. Lamb informs
me that the Baroness de Staël has given a very unfavourable account of
the work. Still, however, I will undertake it, and that instantly, so as
to let you have the last sheet by the middle of November, on the
following terms:

1. That on the delivery of the last MS. sheet you remit 100 guineas to
Mrs. Coleridge, or Mr. Robert Southey, at a bill of five weeks. 2. That
I, or my widow or family, may, any time after two years from the first
publication, have the privilege of reprinting it in any collection of
all my poetical writings, or of my works in general, which set off with
a Life of me, might perhaps be made profitable to my widow. And 3rd,
that if (as I long ago meditated) I should re-model the whole, give it a
finale, and be able to bring it, thus re-written and re-cast, on the
stage, it shall not be considered as a breach of the engagement between
us, I on my part promising that you shall, for an equitable
consideration, have the copy of this new work, either as a separate
work, or forming a part of the same volume or both, as circumstances may
dictate to you. When I say that I am confident that in this _possible_
and not probable case, I should not repeat or retain one fifth of the
original, you will perceive that I consult only my dread of appearing
to act amiss, as it would be even more easy to compose the whole anew.