Mr. C. the following cheerful note.


"Dear Cottle,

By the thick smoke that precedes the volcanic eruptions of Etna,
Vesuvius, and Hecla, I feel an impulse to fumigate, at [now] 25,
College-Street, one pair of stairs room; yea, with our Oronoko, and if
thou wilt send me by the bearer, four pipes, I will write a panegyrical
epic poem upon thee, with as many books as there are letters in thy name.
Moreover, if thou wilt send me "the copy book" I hereby bind myself, by
to-morrow morning, to write out enough copy for a sheet and a half.

God bless you!

July 31st, 1795.

S. T. C."


This promising commencement was soon interrupted by successive and
long-continued delays. The permission I had given to anticipate payment
was remembered and complied with, before the work went to the press.
These delays I little heeded, but they were not quite so acceptable to
the printer, who grievously complained that his types, and his leads, and
his forms, were locked up, week after week, to his great detriment.

Being importuned by the printer, I stated these circumstances to Mr.
Coleridge in a note, expressed in what I thought the mildest possible
way, but which excited, it appeared, uncomfortable feelings in his mind,