July 5, 1801 to Robert Southey | The Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

My dear Southey

I do loathe cities — that’s certain. I am in Durham at an Inn -& that too I do not like — & have dined with a large parcel of Priests all belonging to the Cathedral — thoroughly ignorant & hard-hearted. I have had no small trouble in gaining permission to have a few books sent to me 8 miles from the place, which nobody has ever read in the memory of man.

I asked a stupid haughty fool, who is the Librarian of the Dean & Chapter’s Library in this city, if he had Leibnitz.

Now you will think what follows a Lie — & it is not. I asked a stupid haughty fool, who is the Librarian of the Dean & Chapter’s Library in this city, if he had Leibnitz. He answered — ‘We have no Museum in this Library for natural curiosities; but there is a mathematical Instrument seller in the town, who shews such [an]imalcula thro’ a glass of great magnifying powers.’

Heaven & Earth! — he understood the word ‘live Nits.’

Henry Baker, author of the first microscopy manual *The Microscope Made Easy,* protested that Adams had plagiarized his work. “He wrote to his friends warning them of the *notorious robbery* by *an ignorant but impudent fellow* and urging them not to buy the book.”

Well, I return early tomorrow to Middleham, to a quiet good family, that love me dearly — a young farmer, & his Sister — & he makes very droll verses in the northern dialect & in the metre of Burns, & is a great Humourist; & the woman is so very good a woman, that I have seldom indeed seen the like of her.

…

My love to Edith — & remember me kindly to Mary & Martha & Eliza, & Mrs Fricker. — My kind respects to Charles & Mrs Danvers. Is Davy with you? — If he is, I am sure, he speaks affectionately of me. — God bless you! Write.