Shakespeare evidently occupied an important place in Coleridge's mind even at this early date. His discovery of rivals to the prince of English dramatists in his friends Southey and Wordsworth only indicates how largely Shakespeare already bulked in his view of the dramatic art. The next letter to Cottle is of a milder type, and leads up to an interesting meeting, famous in the lives of Lamb, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. LETTER 62. TO COTTLE Stowey, June 29th, 1797. My very dear Cottle, ***Charles Lamb will probably be here in about a fortnight. Could you not contrive to put yourself in a Bridgwater coach, and T. Poole would fetch you in a one-horse chaise to Stowey. What delight would it not give us. *** Still more interesting is the often quoted letter describing Dorothy Wordsworth. LETTER 63. TO COTTLE Stowey (3-17 July), 1797. My dear Cottle, Wordsworth and his exquisite sister are with me. She is a woman indeed! in mind I mean, and heart; for her person is such, that if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would think her rather ordinary; if you expected to see an ordinary woman, you would think her pretty! but her manners are simple, ardent, impressive. In every motion, her most innocent soul outbeams so brightly, that who saw would say, Guilt was a thing impossible in her. Her information various. Her eye watchful in minutest observation of nature; and her taste, a perfect electrometer. It bends, protrudes, and draws in, at subtlest beauties, and most recondite faults. She and W. desire their kindest respects to you. Give my love to your brother Amos. I condole with him in the loss of the prize, but it is the fortune of war. The finest Greek Poem I ever wrote lost the prize, and that which gained it was contemptible. An Ode may sometimes be too bad for the prize, but very often too good. Your ever affectionate friend. S. T. C.[1] [Footnote 1: Letter LXXIV follows 63.] Dorothy Wordsworth's description of Coleridge whom she met now for the first time is as follows: "You had a great loss," she wrote to a friend, "in not seeing Coleridge. He is a wonderful man. His conversation teems with soul, mind, and spirit. Then he is so benevolent, so good tempered and cheerful, and, like William, interests himself so much about every little trifle. At first I thought him very plain, that is, for about three minutes. He is pale, thin, has a wide mouth, thick lips, and not very good teeth, longish, loose-growing, half curling, rough, black hair. But if you hear him speak for five minutes you think no more of them. His eye is large and full, and not very dark, but grey, such an eye as would receive from a heavy soul the dullest expression; but it speaks every emotion of his animated mind: it has more of 'the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling' than I ever witnessed. He has fine dark eyebrows, and an overhanging forehead.