After my death, I earnestly entreat, that a full and unqualified narration of my wretchedness, and of its guilty cause, may be made public, that at least, some little good may be effected by the direful example. May God Almighty bless you, and have mercy on your still affectionate, and in his heart, grateful-- S. T. COLERIDGE.[88] Meantime, during all this strange transaction with Cottle and Wade, Coleridge during the year 1814, was never more brilliant in his intellectual output, whether as lecturer, letter-writer, or political writer. His letters at this date to Charles Mathews (_Letters_, 621), to Sir George Beaumont (_Col. Mem._) of 9th June; to John Murray (_Letters_, 624), about a projected translation of Faust; to Daniel Stuart, of 12th September and 30th October; and to John Kenyon, of 3rd November 1814 (_Letters_, 627-64), his _Essays on the Fine Arts_ to Felix Fairley's _Bristol Journal_ (August, 1814, see _Bohn Lib. Misc. Works_, 4-52), and his six political letters to the Editor of _The Courier_ from 20th September to 10th December 1814, show no diminution of intellectual power, but rather sustained mental vigour. C. R. Leslie's account of Coleridge at this date, too, leaves us to imagine a very different Coleridge from the one depicted in the _Reminiscences_ of this period. Leslie was accompanying the Allstons from London to Bristol. Mr. Allston fell ill at Salt Hill, and Coleridge was sent for from town. Coleridge came to Salt Hill the same afternoon, accompanied by his friend, Dr. Tathill. He stayed and nursed Allston. "We were kept up late," says Leslie, "in consequence of the critical condition of Allston, and when he retired, Coleridge, seeing a copy of _Knickerbocker's History of New York_ lying on the table, took it up and began reading. I went to bed, and I think he must have been up the greater part of the night, for the next day I found he had nearly got through _Knickerbocker_. He was delighted with it." Leslie adds: "At Salt Hill, and on some other occasions, I witnessed his performance of the duties of friendship in a manner which few men of his constitutional indolence could have roused themselves to equal" (_Autobiography_, i, pp. 33-35). Coleridge was a chameleon[89] character; and altered his tone to suit every kind of individual with whom he came into contact. We have seen how he changed his attitude to Godwin between his letter in _The Watchman_ in 1796, and his letters to the author of _Political Justice_ in 1811. It was the same in many cases, and Southey reproved him for it. Hence it was that, in the presence of Cottle and Wade, of an evangelical tone of mind, Coleridge humiliated himself and wrote penitential letters, while at the same time towards Sir George Beaumont, Stuart, and others, he was the Coleridge of vast intellectual pretensions to whom no task was impossible.