To Scott
he addressed a series of questions--"Surely you must own that this is
bad?" "Surely you cannot call this anything but poor?" At length
Coleridge quietly broke in, "For Heaven's sake, leave Mr. Scott alone!
I wrote the poem." This cruel blow put an end to mutual admiration in
that quarter for some time.
Byron, Southey, Wordsworth, Jeffrey--all in their several
fashions--regarded literature as a serious pursuit, and they were
followed by the "illustrious obscure" ones whose names are now sunk in
the night. How the whirligig of time sweeps us through change after
change! Any of us can buy for shillings books which would have cost
our predecessors pounds; we can have access to all the wit, poetry,
and learning of our generation at a cost of three guineas a year. For
little more than a shilling per week any reader who lives far away in
the country can have relays of books sent him at the rate of fifteen
volumes per relay. Very satisfactory. Most satisfactory too are the
Board-school libraries, from which a million children obtain the best
and noblest of literature without money and without price. Still there
remains the fact that any man who sat down and wrote long letters on
literary subjects would be looked upon as light-headed.
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