In the hope of drawing the gout, if gout it should be, into my feet, I walked previously to my getting into the coach at Perth, 263 miles, in eight days, with no unpleasant fatigue; and if I could do you any service by coming to town, and there were no coaches, I would undertake to be with you, on foot in seven days. I must have strength somewhere. My head is equally strong: my limbs too are strong: but acid or not acid, gout or not gout, something there is in my stomach.... To diversify this dusky letter, I will write an _Epitaph_, which I composed in my sleep for myself while dreaming that I was dying. To the best of my recollection I have not altered a word. 'Here sleeps at length poor Col. and without screaming Who died, as he had always lived, a dreaming: Shot dead, while sleeping, by the gout within, Alone, and all unknown, at E'nbro' in an Inn.' It was Tuesday night last, at the 'Black Bull,' Edinburgh. Yours, dear Wedgewood, gratefully, and Most affectionately, S. T. Coleridge. Thomas Wedgewood, Esq." "16, Abingdon Street, Westminster, Jan. 1804. My dear friend, Some divines hold, that with God to think, and to create, are one and the same act. If to think, and even to compose had been the same as to write with me, I should have written as much too much as I have written too little. The whole truth of the matter is, that I have been very, very ill. Your letter remained four days unread, I was so ill. What effect it had upon me I cannot express by words. It lay under my pillow day after day. I should have written forty times, but as it often and often happens with me, my heart was too full, and I had so much to say that I said nothing. I never received a delight that lasted longer upon me--'Brooded on my mind and made it pregnant,' than (from) the six last sentences of your last letter,--which I cannot apologize for not having answered, for I should be casting calumnies against myself; for the last six or seven weeks, I have both thought and felt more concerning you, and relating to you, than of all other men put together.