LIFE OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. CHAPTER XIX. WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE. THE Lyrical Ballads were first published, as we have seen, in the year 1798, and a second edition, with a supplementary volume, in 1800. The following letter, from Wordsworth to his friend Cottle, in reference to the first edition, was written during his residence at Sockburn. In the postscript he gives expression to what he had often felt. It is curious that, in Wordsworth's case, the early motive to publication should have been a "pecuniary" one. SOCKBURN, 27th July [Postmark 1799]. MY DEAR COTTLE,-I thank you for your draft, which I received on Friday evening. I am not poor enough yet to make me think it right that I should take interest. for a debt from a friend, paid eleven months after it is due. If I were in want, I should make no scruple in applying to you for twice that sum. I should be very glad to hear so good an account of the sale of the Lyrical Ballads, if I were not afraid that your wish to give pleasure, and your proneness to self-deception, had made you judge too favourably. I am told they have been reviewed in The Monthly Review, but I have not heard in what style. .. God bless you, my dear Cottle.-Believe me, your very affectionate friend, W. WORDSWORTH. P.S.-. My aversion from publication increases every day, so much so, that no motives whatever, nothing but pecuniary necessity, will, I think, ever prevail upon me to commit myself to the press again. Another letter, written long before Wordsworth and Southey became intimate, and during the days in which the former felt the pinch of poverty, and published his poems mainly as a means of obtaining a frugal livelihood,—may follow the above. It was also written at Sockburn in 1799. "MY DEAR COTTLE, Southey's review I have seen. He knew that I published those poems for money and money alone. He knew that money was of importance to me. If he could not conscientiously have spoken differently of the volume, he ought to have declined the task of reviewing it. The bulk of the poems he has described as destitute of merit. Am I recompensed for this by vague praises of my talents? I care little for the praise of any other professional critic, but as it may help me to pudding. .-Believe me, dear Cottle, your affectionate friend, W. WORDSWORTH." Southey's appreciation of Wordsworth was afterwards so profound and enthusiastic, that the publication of this early letter is harmless to both men; and, being a true reflection of what Wordsworth called "moods of my own mind," it has a certain value of its own. The new poems, included in the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads, were all by Wordsworth; but, from one of Coleridge's letters to Godwin, it is clear that Wordsworth On had asked Coleridge to contribute to the new edition. October 13, 1800, he wrote: "An attempt to finish a poem of mine for insertion in the second volume of the Lyrical Ballads has thrown me fearfully back in my bread-andbeef-occupations," &c. This second edition, in two volumes, appeared at the close of the year 1800; the new volume containing the "Preface," in which Wordsworth's theory of poetry was explicitly unfolded. On its publication, the following letter was sent to Cottle. It is somewhat curious that he had not a copy of the second edition to send to the generous publisher of the first. MY DEAR COTTLE, youngest child are now with us. wick. "December 1800. Mrs Coleridge and her .. Coleridge is at KesI wish much that I could have presented you with a copy of the Lyrical Ballads, but I foolishly did not. stipulate with Longman for any copies for myself, so that I must depend upon his liberality, and must present the few copies which I shall have to a few persons who would be offended if they did not receive this mark of attention from me. . . .—I am, my dear Cottle, yours affectionately, W. WORDSWORTH." A month later Wordsworth wrote a letter to the Right Hon. Charles James Fox (to whom he had sent a copy of the Ballads), in which he explains what had led him to select the subjects of several of these ballads. The letter is a key to his theory of poetic work: the second volume-the one entitled The Brothers, and the |