50. There was, of course, no obligation to excuse a just debt, but the
three issues of "Christabel" had resulted in a net profit of a little
over L100 to the publisher.

_Mr. Coleridge to John Murray_.

HIGHGATE, _July_ 4, 1816.

I have often thought that there might be set on foot a review of old
books, _i.e.,_ of all works important or remarkable, the authors of
which are deceased, with a probability of a tolerable sale, if only the
original _plan_ were a good one, and if no articles were admitted but
from men who understood and recognized the Principles and Rules of
Criticism, which should form the first number. I would not take the
works chronologically, but according to the likeness or contrast of the
_kind_ of genius--_ex. gr_. Jeremy Taylor, Milton (his prose works), and
Burke--Dante and Milton--Scaliger and Dr. Johnson. Secondly, if
especial attention were paid to all men who had produced, or aided in
producing, any great revolution in the Taste or opinions of an age, as
Petrarch, Ulrich von Hutten, etc. (here I will dare risk the charge of
self-conceit by referring to my own parallel of Voltaire and Erasmus, of
Luther and Rousseau in the seventh number of "The Friend "). Lastly, if
proper care was taken that in every number of the _Review_ there should
be a fair proportion of positively _amusing_ matter, such as a review of
Paracelsus, Cardan, Old Fuller; a review of Jest Books, tracing the
various metempsychosis of the same joke through all ages and countries;
a History of Court Fools, for which a laborious German has furnished
ample and highly interesting materials; foreign writers, though alive,
not to be excluded, if only their works are of established character in
their own country, and scarcely heard of, much less translated, in
English literature. Jean Paul Richter would supply two or three
delightful articles.

Any works which should fall in your way respecting the Jews since the
destruction of the Temple, I should of course be glad to look through.
Above all, Mezeray's (no! that is not the name, I think) "History of the
Jews," that I _must_ have.

I shall be impatient for the rest of Mr. Frere's sheets. Most
unfeignedly can I declare that I am unable to decide whether the
_admiration_ which the _excellence_ inspires, or the wonder which the
knowledge of the countless _difficulties_ so happily overcome, never
ceases to excite in my mind during the re-perusal and collation of them
with the original