surmounted their difficulties by honourable exertion, would have referred
to past seasons of perplexity, and have desired--that occurrences "might
be seen hereafter," which little minds would sedulously have concealed,
as discredit, rather than as conferring conspicuous honour.

Ten years after the incidents had occurred to which the following letter
refers, in writing to Mr. Southey, among other subjects, I casually
expressed a regret, that when I quitted the business of a bookseller, I
had not returned him the copy-rights of his "Joan of Arc;" of his two
volumes of Poems; and of his letters from Spain and Portugal. The
following was his reply.

"Wednesday evening, Greta Hall, April 28, 1808.

My dear Cottle,

... What you say of my copy-rights affects me very much. Dear Cottle,
set your heart at rest on that subject. It ought to be at rest. They
were yours; fairly bought, and fairly sold. You bought them on the
chance of their success, what no London bookseller would have done;
and had they not been bought, they could not have been published at
all. Nay, if you had not published 'Joan of Arc,' the poem never
would have existed, nor should I, in all probability, ever have
obtained that reputation which is the capital on which I subsist, nor
that power which enables me to support it.

But this is not all. Do you suppose, Cottle, that I have forgotten
those true and most essential acts of friendship which you showed me
when I stood most in need of them? Your house was my house when I had
no other. The very money with which I bought my wedding ring, and