49. Robert Bloomfield to George Bloomfield, [? January 1801]* 

Dear George

Confound the moonlight move, it cost me between six and seven pounds, we paid £5 8s. for our runaway landlord's rent, and three quarters landtax, besides expenses, about £9 6s. in all. I send the Journal.

Mr. Gedge has written to request that he may purchase a quarter of the ensuing publication, he offers fifty pounds, Hood offers no more for half, and less than half he will not engage for, Mr. G — I doubt will be distanced, I can't help it, I wish to God it was settled, it soon will, a paper is drawn up from Mr. L's letter, which will be a bargain as to the poem. We are to meet by appointment to sign that, and then I could wish to sign an agreement for the manuscript; the party will consist of Mr. Park, Mr. Hill, Mr. Swan, Mr. Hood, and myself.

Mr. L — is deafening me with solicitations to print 'Imagination', [1]  which I had rejected; he has set it to rights, and certainly made it Better by adding here and there a connective line as he calls them; he has written out the whole piece for me, and says I shall do an injury to him, to the public, to poetry, and to myself, if I do not publish it, there is a sufficient volume without it and I have not yet determined. I send his last letter, you can send it me another time; that you may judge how plain I spoke to him, I send extracts of my letter, to which his is an answer.

I am getting custom in abundance, but expect soon to move my residence — Hood proposes to settle in March for four editions, if so I have upwards of two hundred pounds to receive, and then our agreement says we are to settle yearly so that when he comes to have two publications going I think I shall get on a little. He says, he is sure of making Giles produce me a thousand pounds, why then should I haggle so close at a bargain?

Respects to my Mother, and all friends

R. Bloomfield