argue the very contrary. In the train of these, methinks, object and subject, with the derivatives, look tame, and claim a place in the last, or, at most, in the humbler seats of the second species, in the far-noised classification-the long-tailed pigs, and the short-tailed pigs, and the pigs without a tail. Aye, but not on such dry topics!—I submit. You have touched the vulnerable heel-" Iis, quibus siccum lumen abest," they must needs be dry. We have Lord Bacon's word for it. A topic that requires stedfast intuitions, clear conceptions, and ideas, as the source and substance of both, and that will admit of no substitute for these, in images, fictions, or factitious facts, must be dry as the broad-awake of sight and day-light, and desperately barren of all that interest which a busy yet sensual age requires and finds in the "uda somnia," and moist moonshine of an epicurean philosophy. For you, however, and for those who, like you, are not so satisfied with the present doctrines, but that you would fain try "another and an elder lore," (and such there are, I know, and that the number is on the increase,) I hazard this assurance, -That let what will come of the terms, yet without the truths conveyed in these terms, there can be no self-knowledge; and without THIS, no knowledge, of any kind. For the fragmentary recollections and recognitions of empiricism,* usurping the

Let y express the conditions under which E, (that is, a

name of experience, can amount to opinion only, and that alone is knowledge which is at once real and systematic-or, in one word, organic. Let monk and pietist pervert the precept into sickly, brooding, and morbid introversions of consciousness -you have learnt, that, even under the wisest regulations, THINKING can go but half way toward this knowledge. To know the whole truth, we must likewise ACT: and he alone acts, who makes -and this can no man do, estranged from Nature. Learn to know thyself in Nature, that thou mayest understand Nature in thyself.

But I forget myself. My pledge and purpose was to help you over the threshold into the outer court; and here I stand, spelling the dim characters inwoven in the veil of Isis, in the recesses of the temple.

I must conclude, therefore, if only to begin again without too abrupt a drop, lest I should remind you of Mr in his Survey of Middlesex, who having digressed, for some half a score of pages, into the heights of cosmogony, the old planet between Jupiter and Mars, that went off, and split into the four new ones, besides the smaller rubbish for stone showers, the formation of the galaxy, and the other

series of forms, facts, circumstances, &c. presented to the senses of an individual,) will become Experience—and we inight, not unaptly, define the two words thus: E+y=Experience; E-y= Empiricism.

world-worlds, on the same principles, and by similar accidents, superseding the hypothesis of a Creator, and demonstrating the superfluity of church tithes and country parsons, takes up the stitch again with-But to return to the subject of dung. God bless you and your

Affectionate Friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

LETTER III. To Mr. Blackwood.

Dhole long-lagging, muzzy, mizly morning,

EAR SIR,-Here have I been sitting, this

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 the 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 realize 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 kind, is required in the latter. On the other hand, however, I am persuaded that a sufficient success, and less liable to draw-backs 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 abhor; for what but false