I have sent a curious letter to George Catcott. He has altogether made me pay five shillings! for postage, by his letters sent all the way to Stowey, requiring me to return books to the Bristol Library.... "Mr. Catcott, I beg your acceptance of all the enclosed letters. You must not think lightly of the present, as they cost me, who am a very poor man, five shillings. With respect to the 'Bruck. Hist. Crit,' although by accident they were registered on the 23d of March, yet they were not removed from the Library for a fortnight after; and when I received your first letter, I had had the books just three weeks. Our learned and ingenious Committee may read through two quartos, that is, one thousand and four hundred pages of close printed Latin and Greek, in three weeks, for aught I know to the contrary. I pretend to no such intenseness of application, or rapidity of genius. I must beg you to inform me, by Mr. Cottle, what length of time is allowed by the rules and customs of our institution for each book. Whether their contents, as well as their size, are consulted, in apportioning the time; or whether, customarily, any time at all is apportioned, except when the Committee, in individual cases, choose to deem it proper. I subscribe to your library, Mr. Catcott, not to read novels, or books of quick reading and easy digestion, but to get books which I cannot get elsewhere,--books of massy knowledge; and as I have few books of my own, I read with a common-place book, so that if I be not allowed a longer period of time for the perusal of such books, I must contrive to get rid of my subscription, which would be a thing perfectly useless, except so far as it gives me an opportunity of reading your little expensive notes and letters. Yours in Christian fellowship, S. T. Coleridge." Mr. C. was now preparing for a second edition of his Poems, and had sent the order in which they were to be printed, with the following letter, accompanying two new Poems. "Stowey, Friday Morning. My dear Cottle. ... If you do not like the following verses, or if you do not think them worthy of an edition in which I profess to give nothing but my choicest fish, picked, gutted, and cleaned, please to get some one to write them out and send them, with my compliments, to the editor of the New Monthly Magazine. But if you think of them as I do (most probably from parental dotage for my last born) let them immediately follow 'The Kiss.' God love you, S. T. C." TO AN UNFORTUNATE YOUNG WOMAN. WHOM I HAD KNOWN IN THE DAYS OF HER INNOCENCE. Maiden! that with sullen brow, Sitt'st behind those virgins gay; Like a scorched, and mildew'd bough, Leafless mid the blooms of May. Inly gnawing, thy distresses Mock those starts of wanton glee; And thy inmost soul confesses Chaste Affection's majesty. Loathing thy polluted lot, Hie thee, Maiden! hie thee hence! Seek thy weeping mother's cot, With a wiser innocence!