I thank you for your letter, and am happy to be the means of obliging you. Immediately on the receipt of yours, I wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, who I verily believe is one of the most excellent and useful men of this country, requesting a small quantity of Bang, and saying it was for the use of Mr. T. Wedgwood. I yesterday received the parcel which I now send, accompanied with a very kind letter, and as part of it will be interesting to you and your friend, I will transcribe it. "The Bang you ask for is the powder of the leaves of a kind of hemp that grows in the hot climates. It is prepared, and I believe used, in all parts of the east, from Morocco to China. In Europe it is found to act very differently on different constitutions. Some it elevates in the extreme; others it renders torpid, and scarcely observant of any evil that may befal them. In Barbary it is always taken, if it can be procured, by criminals condemned to suffer amputation, and it is said, to enable those miserables to bear the rough operations of an unfeeling executioner, more than we Europeans can the keen knife of our most skilful chirurgeons. This it may be necessary to have said to my friend Mr. T. Wedgwood, whom I respect much, as his virtues deserve, and I know them well. I send a small quantity only as I possess but little. If however, it is found to agree, I will instantly forward the whole of my stock, and write without delay to Barbary, from whence it came, for more." Sir Joseph adds, in a postscript: "It seems almost beyond a doubt, that the Nepenthe was a preparation of the Bang, known to the Ancients." Now I had better take the small parcel with me to Gunville; if I send it by the post, besides the heavy expense, I cannot rely on the Stowey carriers, who are a brace of as careless and dishonest rogues as ever had claims on that article of the hemp and timber trade, called the gallows. Indeed I verily believe that if all Stowey, Ward excepted, does not go to hell, it will be by the supererogation of Poole's sense of honesty.--Charitable! We will have a fair trial of Bang. Do bring down some of the Hyoscyamine pills, and I will give a fair trial of Opium, Henbane, and Nepenthe. By-the-bye I always considered Homer's account of the Nepenthe as a 'Banging' lie. God bless you, my dear friend, and S.T. COLERIDGE. [1] [Footnote 1: Letter CXXXVI follows 118.] The last four letters were written from Stowey, whither Coleridge had gone on a visit to Poole.