Mr.
Gillman records that Canning, calling on business at the editor's,
inquired, as others had done, who was the reporter of the speech for
the _Morning Post_, and, on being told, remarked drily that the
report "did more credit to his head than to his memory."
On the whole one can well understand Mr. Stuart's anxiety to secure
Coleridge's permanent collaboration with him in the business of
journalism; and it would be possible to maintain, with less of paradox
than may at first sight appear, that it would have been better not only
for Coleridge himself but for the world at large if the editor's efforts
had been successful. It would indeed have been bowing the neck to the
yoke; but there are some natures upon which constraint of that sort
exercises not a depressing but a steadying influence. What, after all,
would the loss in hours devoted to a comparatively inferior class of
literary labour have amounted to when compared with the gain in much-
needed habits of method and regularity, and--more valuable than all to
an intellect like Coleridge's,--in the constant reminder that human
life is finite and the materials of human speculation infinite, and
that even a world-embracing mind must apportion its labour to its day?
There is, however, the great question of health to be considered--
_the_ question, as every one knows, of Coleridge's whole career and
life.
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