When you write, and do write soon, tell me how I can get your essay on the nitrous oxide. If you desired Johnson to have one sent to Lackington's, to be placed in Mr. Crosthwaite's monthly parcel for Keswick, I should receive it. Are your galvanic discoveries important? What do they lead to? All this is "ultra crepidation", but would to heaven I had as much knowledge as I have sympathy! My wife and children are well; the baby was dying some weeks ago, so the good people would have it baptized; his name is Derwent Coleridge, so called from the river, for fronting our house the Greta runs into the Derwent. Had it been a girl, the name should have been Greta. By the by, Greta, or rather Grieta, is exactly the Cocytus of the Greeks; the word, literally rendered in modern English, is, "The loud Lamenter;" to griet, in the Cambrian dialect, signifying to roar aloud for grief or pain, and it does "roar" with a vengeance! I will say nothing about Spring--a thirsty man tries to think of anything but the stream when he knows it to be ten miles off! God bless you! Your most affectionate S. T. COLERIDGE.[5] Another letter to Godwin at this time indicates that Coleridge was still expecting to be able to finish "Christabel", which as a completed poem, Coleridge, as we have already seen, calculated would run up to 1,300 lines. [Footnote 1: No doubt the leaving of the Pneumatic for the Royal Institution.] [Footnote 2: That entitled, "Written after Recovery from a Dangerous Illness." It is to be found in the "Memoirs of his Life", vol. i, p. 390. Coleridge's critical remarks apply to it as it was first written; the words objected to are not to be found in it in its corrected printed state.] [Footnote 1: A name changed to "The Excursion".] [Footnote 2: "Three years she grew in sun and shower."] [Footnote 5: Letter CXI is our 96.] LETTER 97. TO GODWIN Monday, Oct. 13, 1800. Dear Godwin, I have been myself too frequently a grievous delinquent in the article of letter-writing to feel any inclination to reproach my friends when, peradventure, they have been long silent. But, this out of the question, I did not expect a speedier answer; for I had anticipated the circumstances which you assign as the causes of your delay.