On the work itself I meant to lay all the stress, as a
work really in request, and non-existent, either well or ill-done, and
to put the work in the "same class" with "Guthrie" and books of
practical instruction--for the universities, classes of scholars,
lawyers, etc. etc. Its profitable sale will greatly depend on the
pushing of the booksellers, and on its being considered as a "practical"
book, "Organum vere Organum", a book by which the reader is to acquire
not only knowledge, but likewise "power". I fear that it may extend to
seven hundred pages; and would it be better to publish the Introduction
of History separately, either after or before? God bless you, and all
belonging to you, and your Chaucer. All happiness to you and your wife.
Ever yours, S. T. C.
P.S. If you read to Phillips any part of my letter respecting my own
work, or rather detailed it to him, you would lay all the stress on the
"practical".
[Footnote 1: Godwin exerted himself actively in the matter, as appears
by the correspondence of Charles Lamb.]
The ambitious scheme of the letters to Godwin did not exhaust
Coleridge's projects at this season. To Southey he wrote:
LETTER 121. To SOUTHEY [1]
Keswick, July, 1803.
My dear Southey,
... I write now to propose a scheme, or rather a rude outline of a
scheme, of your grand work.
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