a free gift, which we neither do, nor can deserve....

S. T. C."


To descend now to humbler things.

There are persons who will be interested in learning how the bard and his
bookseller managed their great pecuniary affairs. A second edition of Mr.
Coleridge's poems being demanded, I was under no obligation, the
copy-right being mine, in publishing a second edition, to make Mr.
Coleridge any payment, alterations or additions being optional with him:
but in his circumstances, and to show that my desire was to consider Mr.
C. even more than myself, I promised him, on the sale of the second
edition of 500, twenty guineas. The following was his reply: (not viewing
the subject quite in the right light; but this was of little
consequence.)


"Stowey, Oct. 18th, 1796.

My dear Cottle,

I have no mercenary feelings, I verily believe; but I hate bartering at
any time, and with any person; with you it is absolutely intolerable. I
clearly perceive that by giving me twenty guineas, on the sale of the
second edition, you will get little or nothing by the additional poems,
unless they should be sufficiently popular to reach a third edition,
which soars above our wildest expectations. The only advantage you can
derive therefore from the purchase of them on such terms, is, simply,