Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

412 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
Blackwood " the great scheme was alluded to, and its
necessity urged ; but' with a vagueness which could
affect no one, the writer plunging immediately into a
letter to a *' Junior Soph at Cambridge," upon many
abstruse subjects, and dropping the Magazine. Cole-
ridge was easily, it would seem, got down from this
very high horse, and became an occasional contributor
— indeed, for some time a tolerably frequent one.
The reader will remember that both Wilson and
Lockhart urge that his contributions should continue,
notwithstanding that they pronounce him " mad," yet
giving forth such jewels in his madness as no one else
could supply. The few letters that have been pre-
served from his hand are scattered over a long period
but in the belief that the public will gladly hail every
unpublished word from Coleridge, and as the letters
are sublimely superior to all questions of time or the
events of the moment, I feel justified, though there is
more than a dozen years between the probable dates,
to give the whole as they come :
S. T. Coleridge to W. Blackwood.
—
June 30, 1819.
I am just returned from a coaching tour in the aguish parts
of Essex, and find your letters and a note from Mr Davies, in
consequence of which I dine with him on Friday. At present
I can only express my thanks for the Editor's letter, and entreat
you to assure him that I find it most candid and satisfactory,
the proposal of the two sheets prohationary equally fair and
judicious. Of course I can feel no objection to a compliance
with it. A very slight personal acquaintance with me would
have enabled the Editor to take for granted that I should not
be offended with the droll Christabelliad. None of Mr
O'Doherty's readers will peruse it with less pain, few with
greater pleasure. I should indeed be wanting both to myself
;