TO MACVEY NAPIER, 25 JANUARY 1830

MS: British Museum. Address: Macvey Napier Esq / Edinburgh. Mostly published: Trevelyan, 1, 151–2.

50 Great Ormond Street London / January 25. 1830

My dear Sir,

I send off by the mail of to day an article on Southey – too long I fear to meet your wishes, but as short as I could make it. If it does not suit you for the present number, I shall not have the least objection to your keeping it for the next. If you will send me the proof-sheets, you shall have them again by return of post.

There were, by the bye, in my last article a few omissions made, of no great consequence in themselves, – the longest, I think, a paragraph of twelve or fourteen lines. I should scarcely have thought this worth mentioning, – as it certainly by no means exceeds the limits of that Editorial prerogative which I most willingly recognize, – but that the omissions seemed to me and to one or two persons who had seen the article in its original state, to be made on a principle which, however sound in itself, does not, I think, apply to compositions of this description. The passages omitted were the most pointed and ornamented sentences in the review. Now for high and grave works, a history for example or a system of political or moral philosophy, Doctor Johnson's rule – that every sentence which the writer thinks fine, ought to be struck out, – is excellent.