Robert Pultock, the almost unknown author of that graceful story, "Peter Wilkins," from whose flying women Southey drew his poetical notion of the Glendoveer, or flying spirit, in his wild poem of "The Curse of Kehama," lived in this Inn, paced on its terrace, and mused in its garden. "'Peter Wilkins' is to my mind," says Coleridge (in his "Table Talk"), "a work of uncommon beauty, and yet Stothard's illustrations have _added_ beauties to it. If it were not for a certain tendency to affectation, scarcely any praise could be too high for Stothard's designs. They give me great pleasure. I believe that 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Peter Wilkins' could only have been written by islanders. No continentalist could have conceived either tale. Davis's story is an imitation of 'Peter Wilkins,' but there are many beautiful things in it, especially his finding his wife crouching by the fireside, she having, in his absence, plucked out all her feathers, to be like him! It would require a very peculiar genius to add another tale, _ejusdem generis_, to 'Peter Wilkins' and 'Robinson Crusoe.' I once projected such a thing, but the difficulty of a pre-occupied ground stopped me. Perhaps La Motte Fouque might effect something; but I should fear that neither he nor any other German could entirely understand what may be called the '_desert island_' feeling. I would try the marvellous line of 'Peter Wilkins,' if I attempted it, rather than the _real_ fiction of 'Robinson Crusoe.'" The name of the author of "Peter Wilkins" was discovered only a few years ago. In the year 1835 Mr. Nicol, the printer, sold by auction a number of books and manuscripts in his possession, which had formerly belonged to the well-known publisher, Dodsley; and in arranging them for sale, the original agreement for the sale of the manuscript of "Peter Wilkins," by the author, "Robert Pultock, of Clifford's Inn," to Dodsley, was discovered. From this document it appears that Mr. Pultock received twenty pounds, twelve copies of the work, and "the cuts of the first impression"--_i.e._, a set of proof impressions of the fanciful engravings that professed to illustrate the first edition of the work--as the price of the entire copyright. This curious document had been sold afterwards to John Wilkes, Esq., M.P. Inns of Chancery, like Clifford's Inn, were originally law schools, to prepare students for the larger Inns of Court.