In 1796, Samuel Taylor Coleridge launched a periodical called "The Watchman" -- a collection of prose and verse with the motto: "That all might know the truth, and that the truth might make us free."

The venture proved an unmitigated failure and was discontinued after the ninth issue, leaving many unsold copies lying about the Coleridge home.

One morning, Coleridge expressed concern over the amount of paper his servant-girl was using to stoke a fire. "Don't worry, sir," she replied, "it's only 'Watchmen'!"

[As a young man Coleridge -- ever the idealist -- dreamed about forming (with Robert Southey) an ideal communistic society in America. Their term for this would-be utopia? "Pantisocracy".]