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Among the many unpublished things he has on hand, are parts of a continuation of Faust, which Riemer had seen, in which the Devil brings Faust to court and makes him a great man; and some poems in the Persian style and taste which he wrote during the last war, to give a relief to his imagination and feelings by employing himself on something that had no connection with Europe.
He lives now, in his old age, in unconsoled solitude; sees almost nobody, and rarely goes out. His enjoyment of life seems gone, his inclination for exertion gone, and nothing remains to him, that I can see, but a very few years of cold and unsatisfied retirement.
To Elisha Ticknor.
Gottingen, November 9, 1816.
Once more, dear father and mother, I date to you from Gottingen, but from Gottingen how changed!
Five days ago we arrived here, after an absence of eight weeks. As I entered the city, I felt in some sort as if I were returning home, for I knew that I was returning to that quiet occupation which in Europe is my only happiness; but I did not dream of what awaited me. I sprang from the carriage to go to my room, but was stopped by an Irishman of the name of Orr, who studies here, with the question, ‘Do you know two of your countrymen are here?’
‘Is it Cogswell?’
said I, involuntarily; not because I trusted myself to hope it, but because it was what I desired beyond anything else in the compass of possibility.
In a moment I was with him, at ‘The Crown’; and though I had not been in bed for thirty-six hours, I did not get to my room till midnight . . . . And yet, when I have been alone, I have had enough to think of1. . . . . I have thought seriously and thoroughly, and the state of the case is such that the final decision must rest with you, for the three difficult points are more your affair, my dear father, than mine.
The first is, the amount of compensation offered to me. This is a salary of $1,000 and fees, which, from the present state of literature among us, cannot in twenty years exceed from $300 to $500 more; so that from the professorship I cannot expect above $1,300, or at most $1,500 a year.
This is enough for me, as long as I continue unmarried, and I could live upon it as contentedly as upon $10,000 a year; but I am now making an arrangement for life; and, though I 