505. W. W. to EDWARD QUILLINAN

• Endorsed: 1830 Mr Wordsworth.
• MS. British Library.
• LY i. 450.

• Rydal Mount
• 18^th Feb^ry, [1830]

My dear Friend,

I have just written to Strickland Cookson, 6 Lincoln's Inn, my Sol^r. The sum I have named is £3500 or £2500 as may best suit the Borrower, if the security is found undeniable. Col^nl Barrett will therefore be so kind as to communicate with Mr Cookson at his earliest convenience.—

This Letter might have been sent you yesterday—through a Frank—Dora tells me that it shall—I am glad of it, being ashamed to put you to the expense of mere letters of business—which I cannot make interesting by any sort of embroidery. Our life here is utterly unvaried, even in the Valentine season, when Miss H. complained of being forgotten by you.—Dora says you are a pretty Man of your Word, having sent Rotha to Langholm place—those pg 206daft vanity fair people of Derbyshire,¹ she thinks, have turned your head, they have had more weight and influence than our Philosopher and all his Ladies.—As to Longman's people I, for my own part, am very glad they have not written; being decidedly of opinion that the publication² would not be prudent unless the present Edition were nearly exhausted, which it is not.

Enclosed you will find an Education advertisement, words surely to my taste—I really am serious, but promise and performance are very different things. Dont suppose by this, that I presume to recommend the School to you, but I am told that without such open profession, the Hendon School³ did aim at and succeed in something of the kind.

I have called upon and seen Mr De Quincey—looking very well, and busy (he says) in writing a series of Canterbury Tales,⁴ for money—which he is in great need of, and his wife, of something still more pretious,—health. She has been suffering long in the jaundice. He named your call, and said that he should have been happy to return it—but it would have looked so ill, to appear at my House, upon a call not meant for me; and he had resolved not to be seen among his neighbours, till the foresaid Tales were concluded.

Did I name poor Hartley C. to you? he is wandering about like a vagabond, sleeping in Barns, without the dignity of Gipsy-life, and picking up a meal where he can—in and about Ambleside. Barber is in a very low key, both as to health and spirits—and poor Man the latter evil and his treacherous friends are in a great measure accountable for. They keep him low in pocket—he names no one—but we suspect that Mr S.⁵ of Field head near Hawkshead has taken him in. B. said to me lately with a look at once wild and sour, that he was eating his own heart and very bad diet he found it. Duplicity and treachery are damnable things in life; and the image of a Man who has been guilty of this is odious in one's memory. As an author, I have been, I hope, singularly unfortunate, in falling in with persons of that stamp, but the last case⁶ is far far the worst, inasmuch as it was utterly unprovoked. I wish I could pg 207see Dora looking well.¹ Make my kind remembrances to your Brother and say to Col. Barrett that he is one of the few whom I always think of with entire pleasure.

• most faithfully yours    
• W. Wordsworth