Afterwards De Quincey made enquiries of Cottle concerning the pecuniary affairs of Coleridge, and asked Cottle if he thought Coleridge would accept a gift of one or two hundred pounds (_Rem._, 340-341). Cottle informs us that he enquired personally of Coleridge regarding his monetary circumstances, and then told him that "a young man of fortune, who admired his talents," wished to present him with a hundred or two hundred pounds. The _De Quincey Memorials_ gives a somewhat different account of this transaction in which Cottle first divulged the generous purpose of De Quincey by letter (_De Quincey Memorials_, i, 127-130). Doubtless Cottle had forgotten his letter, and, writing thirty years after the event, recollected only the conversation with Coleridge intervening between the date of his letter and another to De Quincey, dated 7th October. In the P.S. of the letter to De Quincey Cottle says, "I have no doubt but that Coleridge has suffered exceedingly from straits. I am sure he is the greatest genius breathing; and that such a mind should be perplexed about mutton and pudding and waistcoats and hose for himself and children is piteous and afflicting. These things paralyse his efforts. Under favourable auspices, what gigantic effort would be too mighty for him? Oct. 7, 1807." Cottle further states that De Quincey ultimately wished to give £500; but that he urged De Quincey to make it only £300 in the meantime, to be afterwards increased, if need be, to £500. Coleridge, in answer to Cottle, wrote the following letter which must be of even date with his letter to De Quincey. LETTER 136. TO COTTLE (7 Oct. 1807.) My dear Cottle, Independent of letter-writing, and a dinner engagement with C. Danvers, I was the whole of yesterday till evening, in a most wretched restlessness of body and limbs, having imprudently discontinued some medicines, which are now my anchor of hope. This morning I dedicate to certain distant calls on Dr. Beddoes and Colston, at Clifton, not so much for the calls themselves, as for the necessity of taking brisk exercise. But no unforeseen accident intervening, I shall spend the evening with you from seven o'clock. I will now express my sentiments on the important subject communicated to you. I need not say it has been the cause of serious meditation. Undoubtedly, calamities have so thickened on me for the last two years, that the pecuniary pressures of the moment, are the only serious obstacles at present to my completion of those works, which, if completed, would make me easy. Besides these, I have reason for belief that a Tragedy of mine will be brought on the stage this season, the result of which is of course only one of the possibilities of life, on which I am not fool enough to calculate.