The republication of this periodical, or rather selections
from it, which appeared in 1818, is hardly perhaps described
with justice in De Quincey's words as " altogether and ab-
Bolutely a new work." A reader can, at any rate, form a
pretty fair estimate from it of the style and probable pub-
lic attractions of the original issue; and a perusal of it,
considered in its character as a bid for the patronage of the
general reader, ia certainly calculated to excite an astonish-
ment too deep for words. We have, of course, to bear in
mind that the standard of the readable in onr grandfathers'
days was a more liberal and tolerant one than it is in our
own. In those days of leisurely communications and slow-
ly moving events there was relatively at least a far larger
public for a weekly issue of moral and philosophical essays,
under the name of a periodical, than it would be found easy
to secure at present, when even a monthly discourse upon
things in general requires Mr. Ruskiu's brilliancy of elo-
quence, vivacity of humour, and perpetual charm of unei-

eotedness to carry it off. Still the Spectator continued to

e read in Coleridge's day, and people therefore most have
had before them a perpetual example of what it was posaj-

e to do in the way of combining entertainment with in-
struction. Uow, then, it cnuld have entered into the mind
of the most sanguine projector to suppose that the loti-
gueuri and the diificulty of the Friend would be patiently
home with for the sake of the solid nutriment which it

mtained it is quite impossible to understand. Even sup-



COLERIDGE.
