that my poetry is more likely to sell when the whole may be had in one
volume, price 5s., than when it is scattered in two volumes; the one 4s.,
the other possibly 3s. In short, you will get nothing directly, but only
indirectly, from the probable circumstance, that these additional poems
added to the former, will give a more rapid sale to the second edition
than could otherwise be expected, and cause it possibly to be reviewed at
large. Add to this, that by omitting every thing political, I widen the
sphere of my readers. So much for you. Now for myself. You must see,
Cottle, that whatever money I should receive from you, would result from
the circumstances that would give me the same, or more--if I published
them on my own account. I mean the sale of the poems. I can therefore
have no motive to make such conditions with you, except the wish to omit
poems unworthy of me, and the circumstance that our separate properties
would aid each other by the union; and whatever advantage this might be
to me, it would, of course, be equally so to you. The only difference
between my publishing the poems on my own account, and yielding them up
to you; the only difference I say, independent of the above stated
differences, is, that, in one case, I retain the property for ever, in
the other case, I lose it after two editions.

However, I am not solicitous to have any thing omitted, except the sonnet
to Lord Stanhope and the ludicrous poem; I should like to publish the
best pieces together, and those of secondary splendour, at the end of the
volume, and think this is the best quietus of the whole affair.

Yours affectionately,

S. T. Coleridge."