A third edition (1803) of the
Early Poems was issued under the superintendence of Lamb ('Ainger', i,
199-206). He had made a second tour in Wales in company with Tom
Wedgwood in November and December 1802 ('Letters', 410-417) returning to
find that Sara had been born on 23rd December 1802. In August 1803
Coleridge went on tour to Scotland with the Wordsworths ('Letters', 451,
and Dorothy Wordsworth's 'Journal'). It is impossible for us to give all
the correspondence of this busy, mental period, but on 4th June 1803,
Coleridge writes to Godwin.
LETTER 119. To GODWIN
Saturday Night, June 4, 1803.
Greta Hall, Keswick.
My dear Godwin,
I trust that my dear friend, C. Lamb, will have informed you how
seriously ill I have been. I arrived at Keswick on Good Friday, caught
the influenza, have struggled on in a series of convalescence and
relapse, the disease still assuming new shapes and symptoms; and, though
I am certainly better than at any former period of the disease, and more
steadily convalescent, yet it is not mere 'low spirits' that makes me
doubt whether I shall ever wholly surmount the effects of it. I owe,
then, explanation to you, for I quitted town, with strong feelings of
affectionate esteem towards you, and a firm resolution to write to you
within a short time after my arrival at my home. During my illness I was
exceedingly affected by the thought that month had glided away after
month, and year after year, and still had found and left me only
'preparing' for the experiments which are to ascertain whether the hopes
of those who have hoped proudly of me have been auspicious omens or mere
delusions; and the anxiety to realize something, and finish something,
has, no doubt, in some measure retarded my recovery.
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