Chapter LXXXII: Letter 194: To William Blackwood

October, 1821.

Dear Sir,

Here have I been sitting, this whole long-lagging, _muzzy_, mizly morning, struggling without success against the insuperable disgust I feel to the task of explaining the abrupt chasm at the outset of our correspondence, and disposed to let your verdict take its course, rather than suffer over again by detailing the causes of the stoppage; though sure by so doing to acquit _my will_ of all share in the result. Instead of myself, and of _you_, my dear sir, in relation to myself, I have been thinking, first, of the _Edinburgh Magazine_; then of magazines generally and comparatively; then of a magazine in the abstract; and lastly, of the immense importance and yet strange neglect of that prime dictate of prudence and common sense--Distinct Means to Distinct Ends. But here I must put in one proviso, not in any relation though to the aphorism itself, which is of universal validity, but relatively to my intended application of it. I must assume--I mean, that the individuals disposed to grant me free access and fair audience for my remarks, have _a conscience_--such a portion at least, as being eked out with superstition and sense of character, will suffice to prevent them from seeking to realise the _ultimate_ end, (_i.e._ the maxim of profit) by base or disreputable means. This, therefore, may be left out of the present argument, an extensive sale being the common object of all publishers, of whatever kind the publications may be, morally considered. Nor do the means appropriate to this end differ. Be the work good or evil in its tendency, in both cases alike there is one question to be predetermined, viz. what class or classes of the reading-world the work is intended for? I made the proviso, however, because I would not mislead any man even for an honest cause, and my experience will not allow me to promise an equal immediate circulation from a work addressed to the higher interests and blameless predilections of men, as from one constructed on the plan of flattering the envy and vanity of sciolism, and gratifying the cravings of vulgar curiosity. Such may be, and in some instances, I doubt not, has been, the result. But I dare not answer for it beforehand, even though both works should be equally well suited to their several purposes, which will not be thought a probable case, when it is considered how much less talent, and of how much commoner a kind, is required in the latter.

On the other hand, however, I am persuaded that a sufficient success, and less liable to drawbacks from competition, would not fail to attend a work on the former plan, if the scheme and execution of the contents were as appropriate to the object which the purchasers must be supposed to have in view as the means adopted for its outward attraction, and its general circulation were to the interest of its proprietors.

During a long literary life, I have been no inattentive observer of periodical publications; and I can remember no failure in any work deserving success that might not have been anticipated from some error or deficiency in the means, either in regard to the mode of circulating the work (as, for instance, by the vain attempt to unite the characters of author, editor, and publisher), or to the typographical appearance; or else from its want of suitableness to the class of readers on whom, it should have been foreseen, the remunerating sale must principally depend. It would be misanthropy to suppose that the seekers after truth, information, and innocent amusement, are not sufficiently numerous to support a work in which these attractions are prominent, without the dishonest aid of personality, literary faction, or treacherous invasions of the sacred recesses of private life, without slanders which both reason and duty command us to _disbelieve_ as well as to abhor; for what but falsehood, or that half truth, which is falsehood in its most malignant form, can or ought to be expected from a self-convicted traitor and ingrate?

If these remarks are well founded, we may narrow the problem to the few following terms--it being understood that the work now in question is a monthly publication, not devoted to any _one_ branch of knowledge or literature, but a magazine of whatever may be supposed to interest readers in general, not excluding the discoveries or even the speculations of science, that are generally intelligible or interesting, so that the portion devoted to any one subject or department shall be kept proportionate to the number of readers for whom it may be supposed to have a _particular_ interest. Here, however, we must not forget, that however few the actual dilettanti, or men of the fancy may be, yet, as long as the articles remain generally intelligible (in _pugilism_, for instance) Variety and Novelty communicate an attraction that interests all. _Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum._ If to this we add the exclusion of theological controversy, which is endless, I shall have pretty accurately described the present _Edinburgh Magazine_, as to its characteristic plan and purposes; which may, I think, be comprised in three terms, as Philosophical. Philological, and Aesthetic Miscellany. The word miscellany, however, must be taken as involving a predicate in itself, in addition to the three preceding epithets, comprehending, namely, all the ephemeral births of intellectual life which add to the gaiety and variety of the work, without interfering with its express and regular objects.

Having thus a sufficiently definite notion of what your Magazine is, and is intended to be, I propose to myself, as a problem to find out, _in detail_, what the _means_ would be to the most perfect attainment of this end. In other words, what the _scheme_, and of what nature, and in what order and proportion, the _contents_ should be of a monthly publication; in order for it to verify the title of a Philosophical, Philological, and Aesthetic Miscellany and Magazine. The result of my lucubrations I hope to forward in my next, under the title of _The Ideal of a Magazine_; and to mark those departments, in the filling up of which, I flatter myself with the prospect of being a fellow labourer. But since I began this scrawl, a friend reminded me of a letter I wrote him many years ago, on the improvement of the mind by the habit of commencing our inquiries with the attempt to construct the most absolute or perfect form of the object desiderated, leaving its practicability, in the first instance, undetermined. An essay, in short, _de emendatione intellectûs per ideas_--the beneficial influence of which on his mind he spoke of with warmth. The main contents of the letter, the effect of which my friend appreciated so highly, were derived from conversation with a great man now no more. And as I have reason to regard that conversation as an epoch in the history of my own mind, I feel myself encouraged to hope that its publication may not prove useless to some of your numerous readers, to whom Nature has given the stream, and nothing is wanting but to be led into the right channel. There is one other motive to which I must plead conscious, not only in the following, but in all these, my preliminary contributions; viz.--That by the reader's agreement with the principles and sympathy with the general feelings which they are meant to impress, the interest of my future contributions, and still more, their permanent effect, will be heightened; and most so in those in which, as narrative and imaginative compositions, there is the least show of reflection, on my part, and the least necessity for it,--though I flatter myself not the least opportunity on the part of my readers.

It will be better, too, if I mistake not, both for your purposes and mine, to have it said hereafter that he dragged slow and stiff-kneed up the first hill, but sprang forward as soon as the road was full before him, and _got in_ fresh; than that he set off in grand style--broke up midway, and came in broken-winded. _Finis coronat opus._

Yours, etc.,
S. T. COLERIDGE.

P.S. I wish I could find a more familiar word than aesthetic for works of taste and criticism. It is, however, in all respects better, and of more reputable origin, than belletristic. To be sure, there is _tasty_; but that has been long ago emasculated for all unworthy uses by milliners, tailors, and the androgynous correlatives of both, formerly called _'its_, and now yclept dandies. As our language, therefore, contains no other _useable_ adjective, to express that coincidence of form, feeling, and intellect, that something, which, confirming the inner and the outward senses, becomes a new sense in itself, to be tried by laws of its own, and acknowledging the laws of the understanding so far only as not to contradict them; that faculty which, when possessed in a high degree, the Greeks termed φῖλοκᾶλία, but when spoken of generally, or in kind only, το αἰσθητικόν; and for which even our substantive, Taste, is a--not inappropriate--but very inadequate metaphor; there is reason to hope, that the term _aesthetic_, will be brought into common use as soon as distinct thoughts and definite expressions shall once more become the requisite accomplishment of a gentleman. So it was in the energetic days, and in the starry court of our _English_-hearted Eliza; when trade, the nurse of freedom, was the enlivening counterpoise of agriculture, not its alien and usurping spirit; when commerce had all the enterprise, and more than the romance of war; when the precise yet pregnant terminology of the schools gave bone and muscle to the diction of poetry and eloquence, and received from them in return passion and harmony; but, above all, when from the self-evident truth, that what _in kind_ constitutes the superiority of man to animals, the same _in degree_ must constitute the superiority of men to each other, the practical inference was drawn that every proof of these distinctive faculties, being in a _tense_ and _active_ state, that even the sparks and crackling of mental electricity, in the sportive approaches and collisions of ordinary intercourse, (such as we have in the wit-combats of Benedict and Beatrice, of Mercutio, and in the dialogues assigned to courtiers and gentlemen, by all the dramatic writers of that reign,) are stronger indications of natural superiority, and, therefore, more becoming signs and accompaniments of _artificial_ rank, than apathy, studied mediocrity, and the ostentation of wealth. When I think of the vigour and felicity of style characteristic of the age from Edward VI to the restoration of Charles, and observable in the letters and family memoirs of noble families--take, for instance, the _Life of Colonel Hutchinson_, written by his widow--I cannot suppress the wish--O that the _habits_ of those days could return, even though they should bring pedantry and Euphuism in their train![121]

* * * * *

Coleridge and the Gillmans had gone to Ramsgate for a holiday while Allsop had gone to Derbyshire. The next letter is from Ramsgate.