It is my purpose, God willing! to leave this place on Friday, so as to take an afternoon coach, if any such there be, or the Oxford mail, as the dernier resource--and so to be in Oxford by Saturday morning, while my letter, which is unfortunately a very long one (and I could not make it otherwise), will reach Dr. Coplestone, if arrived, on Friday morning; thus giving him a day's preparation for the personal interview. How long my absence from Highgate may be, I cannot of course predetermine; certainly not an hour beyond what [Hartley]'s interest requires. God bless you, my dear friend, and your truly affectionate, and--if it did not look like a _retort_, how truly might I not add-- Your obliged and grateful friend, S. T. COLERIDGE. T. Allsop, Esq. P.S.--Sheriff Williams is apparently a very worthy, and assuredly a very entertaining man. He gave us accounts, on his own evidence, of wonderful things respecting Miss M'Evoy and a Mr. De Vains of Liverpool; so wonderful as to threaten the stoppage even of my Bank of Faith. I have just heard from Derwent, who is well; but I have not had time to decipher his villainous scrawl. LETTER 184. TO ALLSOP Oct. 20th, 1820. My dear Friend, Doubtless nothing can be more delightful to me, independent of Mrs. Gillman's kind but unnecessary anxieties, than to go to Oxford with you. Nay, though it will be but a flight to and fro, with a sojourn but of two days, if so much, yet I should even ask it of you if I were quite sure, absolutely sure, that it would not inconvenience you. But in the fear of this, I could not ask or receive your companionship without some selfishness which would completely baffle itself. I have not yet received an answer from Oxford respecting Dr. Coplestone's return to Oriel. God bless you, my ever dear friend, S. T. COLERIDGE. T. Allsop, Esq. * * * * * The visit to Oxford was undertaken to try to get the authorities to mitigate the sentence on Hartley. Queen Caroline and her misfortunes had been in his young days the subject of one of Coleridge's poems, _On a late Connubial Rupture in High Life_. She still engaged his attention, and he meditated writing on the matter, from which, however, Gillman dissuaded him. LETTER 185. TO ALLSOP Oct. 25th, 1820. My dearest Friend,