Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

CHAPTER IX.
COLERIDGE DE QUINCEY.
A MAaNANIMOUS POET— "THE SCHEME UPON WHICH A MAGAZINE SHOULD
BE CONDUCTED "—THE EDITOR'S DIPLOMATIC REPLY—THE CHRISTABEL-
LIAD— MAGNIFICENT SCHEMES OP WORK— AN ALARMING SEIZURE—
COLERIDGE'S PRAISE OP DE QUINCEY's STYLE—A TRIBUTE TO 'MAGA'
—AN ELEGIAC PLUSQUAM SESQUI SONNET TO MY TIN SHAVING-POT
THE MISERIES OP DE QUINCEY'S LIFE— DE QUINCEY'S INTRODUCTION
BY CHRISTOPHER NORTH—AN UNPUNCTUAL CONTRIBUTOR—AN UNFOR-
TUNATE PIECE OF HUMOUR AND ITS RESULT—A PLAUSIBLE APOLOGIST
—PROJECTS FOR ARTICLES—THE 'QUARTERLY' V. 'MAGA'—DOMESTIC
DIFFICULTIES—SYSTEMATIC PROMISES NEVER KEPT—THE PUBLISHER'S
RESPECT FOR LITERATURE—A EULOGY OF MICHAEL SCOTT.
I HAVE no information how it was that Blackwood
made acquaintance with Coleridge, or conceived the
idea of turning him into a prop of the Magazine.
Coleridge, one would have thought, had little reason,
in the review of himself^ and his works with which
the existence of that periodical had begun, to think
very well of Blackwood ; but whether the poet was
so magnanimous as to have forgiven or—which was
^ This article, however, was followed, a few numbers later, by a defence
of Coleridge, in which the principle, professed from the beginning, of
receiving every reply sent by friends of the aggrieved author was most
fully carried out ; though no doubt in this case the reply was written by
one of the brotherhood, if not by the original culprit himself.
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