Longman and
Rees respecting 'the management of a "Bibliotheca Britannica" upon a
very extensive scale, to be arranged chronologically, and made a
readable book by biography, criticism, and connecting chapters, to be
published like the Cyclopaedia in parts.'"]
SOUTHEY TO S. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ.
Bristol, Aug. 3, 1803.
Dear Coleridge,
I meant to have written sooner; but those little units of interruption
and preventions, which sum up to as ugly an aggregate as the items in a
lawyer's bill, have come in the way. ...
Your plan is too good, too gigantic, quite beyond my powers. If you had
my tolerable state of health, and that love of steady and productive
employment which is now grown into a necessary habit with me, if you
were to execute and would execute it, it would be, beyond all doubt, the
most valuable work of any age or any country; but I cannot fill up such
an outline. No man can better feel where he fails than I do; and to rely
upon you for whole quartos! Dear Coleridge, the smile that comes with
that thought is a very melancholy one; and if Edith saw me now, she
would think my eyes were weak again, when, in truth, the humour that
covers them springs from another cause.
For my own comfort, and credit, and peace of mind, I must have a plan
which I know myself strong enough to execute. I can take author by
author as they come in their series, and give his life and an account of
his works quite as well as ever it has yet been done.
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