publication. Deeply sensible of "the anti-climax, the abysmal bathos"
of the answer, Coleridge replied, "Only fourpence, each number to be
published every eighth day," upon which the tallow-chandler observed
doubtfully that that came to "a deal of money at the end of the year."
What determined him, however, to withhold his patronage was not the
price of the article but its quantity, and not the deficiency of that
quantity but its excess. Thirty-two pages, he pointed out, was more
than he ever read all the year round, and though "as great a one as any
man in Brummagem for liberty and truth, and them sort of things, he
begged to be excused." Had it been possible to arrange for supplying
him with sixteen pages of the paper for twopence, a bargain might no
doubt have been struck; but he evidently had a business-like repugnance
to anything in the nature of "over-trading." Equally unsuccessful was a
second application made at Manchester to a "stately and opulent
wholesale dealer in cottons," who thrust the prospectus into his pocket
and turned his back upon the projector, muttering that he was "overrun
with these articles." This, however, was Coleridge's last attempt at
canvassing. His friends at Birmingham persuaded him to leave that work
to others, their advice being no doubt prompted, in part at least, by
the ludicrous experience of his qualifications as a canvasser which the
following incident furnished them. The same tradesman who had
introduced him to the patriotic tallow-chandler entertained him at
dinner, and, after the meal, invited his guest to smoke a pipe with him
and "two or three other _illuminati_ of the same rank." The
invitation was at first declined on the plea of an engagement to spend
the evening with a minister and his friends, and also because, writes
Coleridge, "I had never smoked except once or twice in my lifetime, and
then it was herb-tobacco mixed with Oronooko." His host, however,
assured him that the tobacco was equally mild, and "seeing, too, that
it was of a yellow colour," he took half a pipe of it, "filling the