Unable to proceed with this work, I turned my thoughts again to the Poem on my own Life, and you will be glad to hear that I have added 300 lines to it in the course of last week.  Two books more will conclude it.  It will be not much less than 9000 lines,—­not hundred but thousand lines long,—­an alarming length! and a thing unprecedented in literary history that a man should talk so much about himself.  It is not self-conceit, as you will know well, that has induced me to do this, but real humility.  I began the work because I was unprepared to treat any more arduous subject, and diffident of my own powers.  Here, at least, I hoped that to a certain degree I should be sure of succeeding, as I had nothing to do but describe what I had felt and thought; therefore could not easily be bewildered.  This might certainly have been done in narrower compass by a man of more address; but I have done my best.  If, when the work shall be finished, it appears to the judicious to have redundancies, they shall be lopped off, if possible; but this is very difficult to do, when a man has written with thought; and this defect, whenever I have suspected it or found it to exist in any writings of mine, I have always found incurable.  The fault lies too deep, and is in the first conception.  If you see Coleridge before I do, do not speak of this to him, as I should like to have his judgment unpreoccupied by such an apprehension.  I wish much to have your further opinion of the young Roscius, above all of his ‘Hamlet.’  It is certainly impossible that he should understand the character, that is, the composition of the character.  But many of the sentiments which are put into Hamlet’s mouth he may be supposed to be capable of feeling, and to a certain degree of entering into the spirit of some of the situations.  I never saw ‘Hamlet’ acted myself, nor do I know what kind of a play they make of it.  I think I have heard that some parts which I consider among the finest are omitted:  in particular, Hamlet’s wild language after the ghost has disappeared.  The players have taken intolerable liberties with Shakspeare’s Plays, especially with ‘Richard the Third,’ which, though a character admirably conceived and drawn, is in some scenes bad enough in Shakspeare himself; but the play, as it is now acted, has always appeared to me a disgrace to the English stage.  ‘Hamlet,’ I suppose, is treated by them with more reverence.  They are both characters far, far above the abilities of any actor whom I have ever seen.  Henderson was before my time, and, of course, Garrick.

We are looking anxiously for Coleridge:  perhaps he may be with you now.  We were afraid that he might have had to hear other bad news of our family, as Lady Beaumont’s little god-daughter has lately had that dangerous complaint, the croup, particularly dangerous here, where we are thirteen miles from any medical advice on which we can have the least reliance.  Her case has been a mild one, but sufficient to alarm us much, and Mrs. Wordsworth and her aunt have undergone much fatigue in sitting up, as for nearly a fortnight she had very bad nights.  She yet requires much care and attention.