22. _Les Miserables_, by Victor Hugo. {270c}
23. _Cranford_, by Mrs. Gaskell. {270d}
24. _Consuelo_, by George Sand. {270e}
25. _Charles O'Malley_, by Charles Lever. {270f}
MISCELLANEOUS.
HISTORY, ESSAYS, ETC.
1. Macaulay, _History of England_. {271a}
2. Carlyle, _Past and Present_. {271b}
3. Motley, _Dutch Republic_. {271c}
4. Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. {271d}
5. Plutarch's _Lives_. {272a}
6. Montaigne's _Essays_. {272b}
7. Richard Steele, _Essays_. {272c}
8. Lamb, _Essays of Elia_. {272d}
9. De Quincey, _Opium Eater_. {272e}
10. Hazlitt, _Essays_. {273a}
11. Borrow, _Lavengro_. {273b}
12. Emerson, _Representative Men_. {273c}
13. Landor, _Imaginary Conversations_. {273d}
14. Arnold, _Essays in Criticism_. {273e}
15. Herodotus, _Macaulay's Translation_. {273f}
16. Howell's _Familiar Letters_. {274a}
17. Buckle's _History of Civilization_. {274b}
18. Tacitus, Church and Brodribb's Translation. {274c}
19. Mitford's _Our Village_. {274d}
20. Green's _Short History of the English People_. {274e}
21. Taine, _Ancient Regime_. {275a}
22. Bourrienne, _Napoleon_. {275b}
23. Tocqueville, _Democracy in America_. {275c}
24. Walton, _Compleat Angler_. {275d}
25 White, _Natural History of Selbourne_. {276a}
BIOGRAPHICAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL.
1. Boswell's Johnson. {276b}
2. Lockhart's Scott. {276c}
3. Pepys's Diary. {276d}
4. Walpole's Letters. {277a}
5. The Memoirs of Count de Gramont. {277b}
6. Gray's Letters. {277c}
7. Southey's Nelson. {277d}
8. Moore's Byron. {277e}
9. Hogg's Shelley. {278a}
10. Rousseau's Confessions. {278b}
11. Froude's Carlyle. {278c}
12. Rogers's Table Talk. {279a}
13. Confessions of St. Augustine. {279b}
14. Amiel's Journal. {279c}
15. Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. {279d}
16. Lewes's Life of Goethe. {279e}
17. Sime's Life of Lessing. {280a}
18. Franklin's Autobiography. {280b}
19. Greville's Memoirs. {280c}
20. Forster's Life of Dickens. {280d}
21. Madame D'Arblay's Diary. {280e}
22. Newman's Apologia. {281a}
23. The Paston Letters. {281b}
24. Cellini's Autobiography. {281c}
25. Browne's Religio Medici. {281d}
My readers for the most part have read every one of these books. I throw
out this list as a tentative effort in the direction of suggesting a
hundred books with which to start a library. The young student will find
much to amuse, and certainly nothing here to bore him. These books will
not make him a prig, as Mr. James Payn said that Lord Avebury's list
would make him a prig. They will make the dull man less dull, the bright
man brighter. Here is good, cheerful, robust reading for boy and girl,
for man and woman. There are many sins of omission, but none of
commission. Our young friend will add to this list fast enough, but
there is nothing in it that he may not read with profit. These books, I
repeat, make an universal appeal. The learned man may enjoy them, the
unlearned may enjoy them also. They are, as _Hamlet_ is, of universal
interest. Devotion to science will not impair a taste for them, nor will
zest for abstract speculations. Not even those who are "better skilled
in grammar than in poetry" can fail to appreciate. These hundred books
will in the main be the hundred best books of many of my readers who are
quite capable of selecting for themselves. One last word of advice. Let
not the young reader buy large quantities of books at once or be beguiled
into subscribing for some cheap series which will save him the trouble of
selecting. He may buy many books from such cheap series afterwards, but
not his first hundred, I think. These should be acquired through much
saving, and purchased with great thought and deliberation. The purchase
of a book should become to the young book-lover a most solemn function.
_Butler and Tanner_, _The Selwood Printing Works_, _Frome_, _and London_
Footnotes:
{3} Richard Garnett (1835-1906) was son of the philologist of the same
name who was for a time priest-vicar of Lichfield Cathedral. He attended
the Johnson Celebration on Sept. 18, 1905, and proposed "the Immortal
Memory of Dr. Johnson." He died on the following Good Friday, April 13,
and was buried in Highgate Cemetery April 17, 1906.
{6} Anna Seward (1747-1809). Her works were published after her
death:--_The Poetical Works of Anna Seward_. _With Extracts from her
Literary Correspondence_. Edited by Walter Scott, Esq. In three
volumes--_John Ballantyne & Co._, 1810. _Letters of Anna Seward written
between the Years_ 1784 _and_ 1807. In six volumes. Archibald Constable
& Co., 1811. "Longwinded and florid" one biographer calls her letters,
but by the aid of what Scott calls 'the laudable practice of skipping'
they are quite entertaining.
{8} Sir Robert Thomas White-Thomson, K.C.B., wrote to me in reference to
this estimate of Miss Seward from Broomford Manor, Exbourne, North Devon,
and his letter seemed of sufficient importance from a genealogical
standpoint for me to ask his permission to make an extract from the
letter: "I have read your address in a Lichfield newspaper. Apart from
the wider and more important bearings of your words, those which had
reference to the Seward family were especially welcome to me. You will
understand this when I tell you that, with the exception of the Romney
portrait of Anna, and a few other objects left 'away' by her will, my
grandfather, Thomas White, of Lichfield Close, her cousin and residuary
legatee, became possessed of all the contents of her house. Some of the
books and engravings were sold by auction, but the remainder were taken
good care of, and passed to me on my mother's death in 1860. As thus,
'in a way' the representative of the 'Swan of Lichfield,' you can easily
see what such an appreciation of her as was yours means to me. Of course
I know her weak points, and how the pot of clay must suffer in trying to
'bump' the pot of iron in midstream, but I also know that she was no
ordinary personage in her day, when the standard of feminine culture was
low, and I have resented some things that have been written of her. Mrs.
Oliphant treats her kindly in her _Literary History of England_, and now
I have your 'appreciation' of her, for which I beg to thank you."
{15} Once certainly in the lines "On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet":--
Well try'd through many a varying year,
See Levet to the grave descend,
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of ev'ry friendless name the friend.
{18} _Prayers and Meditations_: composed by Samuel Johnson, LL.D., and
published from his Manuscripts by George Straham, D.D., Prebendary of
Rochester and Vicar of Islington in Middlesex, 1785. Dr. Birkbeck Hill
suggests that Johnson could not have contemplated the publication of the
work in its entirety, but the world is the better for the self
revelation, notwithstanding Cowper's remark in a letter to Newton (August
27, 1785), that "the publisher of it is neither much a friend to the
cause of religion nor to the author's memory; for by the specimen of it
that has reached us, it seems to contain only such stuff as has a direct
tendency to expose both to ridicule."
{19} There is an edition with a brief Introduction by Augustine Birrell,
published by Elliot Stock in 1904, and another, with an Introduction by
"H. C.," was issued by H. R. Allenson in 1906.
{31} The Rev. Angus Mackay, author of _The Brontes In Fact and Fiction_.
He was Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Dean Bridge, Edinburgh, when he
died, aged 54, on New Year's Day, 1907. Earlier in life he had been a
Curate at Olney.
{34} John Newton (1725-1807) had been the captain of a slave ship before
his 'conversion.' He became Curate of Olney in 1764 and published the
famous Olney Hymns with Cowper in 1779. In 1780 Newton became the
popular Incumbent of St. Mary Woolnoth, London.
{35} See the Globe _Cowper_, with an Introduction by the Rev. William
Benham, the Rector of St. Edmund's, Lombard Street. Canon Benham has
written many books, but he has done no better piece of work than this
fine Introduction which first appeared in 1870.
{36} Thomas Scott (1747-1821). His commentaries first appeared in
weekly parts between 1788 and 1792, and were first issued in ten volumes,
1823-25. He was Rector of Astin Sandford in Buckinghamshire from 1801
until his death. His _Life_ was published by his son, the Rev. John
Scott, in 1822.
{37} Thomas Percy (1729-1811) became Vicar of Easton Maudit,
Northamptonshire, in 1753. Johnson visited him here in 1764. In 1765
Percy published his _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_. He became
Bishop of Dromere in 1782.
{38a} William Hayley (1745-1820) was counted a great poet in his day and
placed in the same rank with Dryden and Pope. He wrote _Triumphs of
Temper_ 1781, _Triumphs of Music_ 1804, and many other works; but he is
of interest here by virtue of his _Life and Letters of William Cowper_,
_Esq._, _with Remarks on Epistolary Writers_, published in 1803.
{38b} Robert Southey (1774-1843), whose _Life and Works of Cowper_ is in
fifteen volumes, which were published by Baldwin & Cradock between the
years 1835 and 1837. The attractive form in which the works are
presented, the many fine steel engravings, and the excellent type make
this still the only way for book lovers to approach Cowper. Southey had
to suffer the competition of the Rev. T. S. Grimshawe, who produced,
through Saunders & Otley, about the same time a reprint of Hayley's
biography with much of Cowper's correspondence that is not in Southey's
volumes. The whole correspondence was collected by Mr. Thomas Wright,
and published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1904.
{38c} Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) in his _Literary Studies_. James
Russell Lowell (1819-1891) in his _Essays_. Mrs. Oliphant (1828-1897) in
her _Literary History of England_; and George Eliot (1819-1880) in her
_Essays_ (Worldliness and Other Worldliness).
{44} It has no bearing upon the subject that the horrors of the Bastille
at the time of its fall were greatly exaggerated.
{47} _Theology in the English Poets_, by Stopford A. Brooke.
{56} Mr. Leslie Stephen, who became Sir Leslie Stephen, K.C.B., in 1902,
was born in 1832 and died in 1904. In addition to the article in the
_D.N.B._, this great critic has one on "Cowper and Rousseau" in his
_Hours in a Library_.
{62} Sir John Fenn (1739-1794), the antiquary, obtained the originals of
the _Paston Letters_ from Thomas Worth, a chemist of Diss. The following
lines were first printed in Cowper's Collected Poems, by Mr. J. C. Bailey
in his admirable edition of 1906, published by the Methuens:--
Two omens seem propitious to my fame,
Your spouse embalms my verse, and you my name;
A name, which, all self-flattery far apart
Belongs to one who venerates in his heart
The wise and good, and therefore of the few
Known by these titles, sir, both yours and you.
They were written to please his cousin John Johnson who was to oblige
Fenn by giving him an autograph of Cowper's.
{66} Edward Stanley (1779-1849), the father of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
(1815-1881), Dean of Westminster, was Bishop of Norwich from 1837 to
1849.
{80} Borrow's step-daughter, Henrietta Clarke, married James McOubrey,
an Irish doctor. She outlived Borrow for many years, dying at Great
Yarmouth in 1904. All her literary effects, including many interesting
manuscripts, have been passed on to me by her executor, Mr. Hubert Smith,
and these will be used in my forthcoming biography of Borrow.
{84} I ventured to ask my friend Mr. Birrell for a line to read to my
Norwich audience and he sent me the following characteristic letter dated
December 8, 1903:--
". . . For my part I should leave George Borrow alone, to take his own
part even as Isopel Berners learnt to take hers in the great house at
Long Melford. He has an appealing voice which no sooner falls on the ear
of the born Borrovian, than up the lucky fellow must get and follow his
master to the end of the chapter.
"However, if you will insist upon going out into the highways and hedges
and compelling the wayfaring man--though a fool--to come in and take a
seat at the _Lavengro_ feast, nobody can stop you.
"The great thing is to get people to read the Borrow books: there is
nothing else to be done. If, after having read them, some enthusiasts go
on to learn _Romany_ and seek to trace authorities on Gypsies and Gypsy
lore--why, let them. They may soon know more about Gypsies than Borrow
ever did--but they will never write about them as he did.
"The essence of the matter is to enjoy Borrow's books for themselves
alone. As for Borrow's biography, it appears to me either that he has
already written it, or it is not worth writing. Anyhow, place the books
in the forefront, reprint things as often as you dare without _note or
comment_ or even _prefatory appreciation_, and you cannot but earn the
gratitude of every true Borrovian who in consequence of your efforts come
upon the Borrow books for the first time."
{97} M. Rene Huchon, who addressed the visitors at the Crabbe
Celebration, published his _George Crabbe and his Times_: _A Critical and
Biographical Study_, through Mr. John Murray, early in the present year,
1907.
{98} This reproach has since been removed by the appearance of the
_Complete Works of George Crabbe_ in three volumes of the Cambridge
English Classics Series, published by the Cambridge University Press, and
edited by Dr. A. W. Ward, the Master of Peterhouse.
{100} The original letter is in the possession of Mr. A. M. Broadley, of
Bridport. It is reprinted from the Hanmer Correspondence in an appendix
to M. Huchon's biography.
{106} But M. Huchon makes it clear in _George Crabbe and his Times_ that
Crabbe declined at the last moment to marry Miss Charlotte Ridout, who
seems to have been really in love with him.
{138} This monument, a fine statue facing the house which replaces the
one in which Sir Thomas Browne lived, was unveiled in October, 1905.
{144} For every student Cunningham's nine volumes have been superseded
since this Address was delivered by the sixteen volumes of the Letters of
Horace Walpole, edited by Mrs. Paget Toynbee for the Clarendon Press.
{145} The other side of the picture may, however, be presented. Horace,
says Cunningham (Walpole's _Letters_, vol. i.), hated Norfolk, the native
country of his father, and delighted in Kent, the native country of his
mother. "He did not care for Norfolk ale, Norfolk turnips, Norfolk
dumplings and Norfolk turkeys. Its flat, sandy aguish scenery was not to
his taste." He dearly liked what he calls most happily, "the rich, blue
prospects of Kent."
{153} Goldsmith doubtless had more than one experience in his mind when
he wrote of:--
Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain.
Lissoy, near Ballymahon, Ireland, served to provide many concrete
features of the picture, but that the author drew upon his experiences of
Houghton is believed by his principal biographer, John Forster, by
Professor Masson and others, and on no other assumption than that of an
English village can the lines be explained:--
A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintained its man.
{185} Originally written to serve as an Introduction to an edition of
Mr. George Meredith's _Tragic Comedians_, of which book Lassalle is the
hero. That edition was published by Messrs. Ward Lock & Bowden, who
afterwards transferred all rights in it to Messrs. Archibald Constable &
Co., by whose courtesy the paper is included here.
{186} Lassalle's _Tagebuch_, edited by Paul Lindau, 1891.
{187} _Henrich Heine's sammtliche Werke_, vol. xxii., pp. 84-99.
{188} The most concise account of the affair is contained in the story
of Sophie Solutzeff, entitled, _Eine Liebes-episode aus dem Leben
Ferdinand Lassalle's_. This booklet, which is published in German,
French, and Russian, professes to be an account of Lassalle's love for a
young Russian lady, Sophie Solutzeff, some two years before he met Helene
von Donniges. He is represented as being himself in a frenzy of passion;
the lady, however, rejecting as a lover the man she had been prepared to
worship as a teacher. There can be little doubt that the whole story is
a fabrication, in which the Countess von Hatzfeldt had a considerable
part. The Countess was rightly judged by popular opinion to have played
a discreditable role in the love passages between Lassalle and Helene;
and Helene's own account of the matter in her _Reminiscences_ was an
additional blow at the pseudo-friend who might have helped the lovers so
much. What more natural than that the Countess should be anxious to
break the force of Helene's indictment, by endorsing the popular, and
indeed accurate judgment, that Lassalle was very inflammable where women
were concerned. This she could do by depicting him, a little earlier, in
precisely similar bondage to that which he had professed to Helene. That
the Countess wrote, or assisted to write, the compilation of letters and
diaries, does not, however, destroy its value as a record of Lassalle's
struggle on her behalf. That account, if not written by Lassalle, was
written or inspired by the other great actor in the Hatzfeldt drama, and
may therefore be considered a fairly safe guide in recounting the story.
Mr. Israel Zangwill, since the above was written, has published an
article on Lassalle in his _Dreamers of the Ghetto_. He accepts Sophie
Solutzeff's story as genuine, but that is merely the credulity of an
accomplished romancer.
{198} Debate in the German Reichstag, April 2, 1881. Quoted by W. H.
Dawson.
{213} Becker's _Enthullungen_, 1868.
{218} Briefe an Hans von Bulow, 1885.
{225} Reprinted with alterations from the _Pall Mall Magazine_ of July,
1905, by kind permission of the proprietor and editor; and of Miss Mary
Gladstone (Mrs. Drew) to whom the list of books was sent in a letter.
{230a} Plato (B.C. 427-347). Dr. Jowett has translated the _Laws_. See
_The Dialogues_ of Plato With Analysis and Introductions by Benjamin
Jowett. In Five Volumes. Vol. V. The Clarendon Press.
{230b} Aristotle (B.C. 384-322). Dr. Jowett has translated the
_Politics_ into English. Two volumes. The Clarendon Press.
{230c} Epictetus (born A.D. 50, died in Rome, but date unknown). His
_Encheiridion_, a collection of Maxims, was made by his pupil Arrian. The
best translation into English is that by George Long, first published in
1877. (George Bell.)
{230d} St. Augustine (A.D. 353-430). See a translation of his _Letters_
edited by Mary Allies, published in 1890.
{231a} St. Vincent of Lerins--Vincentius Lirinensis. Native of Gaul.
Monk in monastery of Lerinat, opposite Cannes. Died about 450. In 434
wrote _Commonitorium adversus profanus omnium heretiecrum novitates_. It
contains the famous threefold text of orthodoxy--"quod ubique, quod
semper, quod ad omnibus creditum est." Printed at Paris, 1663 and later.
Also in Mignes, Patrologia Latina, Vol. 50. Hallam calls the text "the
celebrated rule." It is all now remembered of St. V. by most educated
men. It is shown to be of no practical value in an able criticism by Sir
G. C. Lewis, _Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion_, 2nd ed.,
1875, p. 57. Mr Gladstone reviewed this work of Lewis, _Nineteenth
Century_ March, 1877.
{231b} Hugo of St. Victor (1097-1141), a celebrated Mystic born at Ypres
in Flanders. His collected works first appeared at Rouen in 1648.
{231c} St. Bonaventura (A.D. 1221-1274). Born at Bagnarea, near
Orvieto, in Tuscany, became a Franciscan monk and afterwards a Professor
of Theology at Paris, where he gained the title of the "Seraphic Doctor."
Made a Cardinal by Pope Gregory X, who sent him as his Legate to the
Council at Lyons, where he died. In 1482 he was canonized. His writings
appeared at Rome in 1588-96.
{231d} St. Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225-1274). The Angelic Doctor was born
at the castle of Rocca-Secca near Aquino, between Rome and Naples.
Entered the Dominican Order in 1243. Went to Paris in 1252 and attained
great distinction as a theologian. His _Summa Theologiae_ was followed
by his _Summa contra Gentiles_. His works were first collected in 17
volumes in 1570. Aquinas was canonized in 1323.
{232a} Dante (A.D. 1265-1321). The _Divina Commedia_ has been
translated into English by many scholars. The best known version is the
poetical renderings of H. F. Cary (1772-1844) and W. W. Longfellow (1807-
1882) and the prose translations (the "Inferno" only) of John Carlyle
(1801-79) and A. J. Butler in whose three volumes of the "Purgatory,"
"Paradise" and "Inferno" the original Italian may be studied side by side
with the translation.
{232b} Raymund of Sabunde, a physician of Toulouse of the fifteenth
century. He published his _Theologia naturalis_ at Strassburg in 1496.
"I found the concerts of the author to be excellent, the contexture of
his works well followed, and his project full of pietie" writes Montaigne
in telling us of his father's request that he should translate Sabunde's
_Theologia naturalis_. Florio's Translation. Book II, Ch. XII.
{232c} Nicholas of Cusa (A.D. 1401-1464) was born at Kues on the
Moselle. His _De Concordantia Catholica_ was a treatise in favour of the
Councils of the Church and against the authority of the Pope. He was
made a Cardinal by Pope Nicholas V.
{232d} Edward Reuss (1804-1891), a professor of Theology, who was born
at Strassburg. Published his _History of the New Testament_ in 1842 and
his _History of the Old Testament_ in 1881. _The Bible_, _a new
translation with Introduction and Commentaries_, appeared in 19 volumes
between 1874 and 1881.
{233a} Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662). Born at Clermont-Ferrand in
Auvergne. His _Letters to a Provincial_, written in 1656-7, made his
fame by their attack on the Jesuists. His _Pensees_ appeared after his
death, in 1669, and they have reappeared in many forms, "edited" by many
schools of thought. The edition edited by Ernest Havet (1813-1889) was
published in 1852.
{233b} Malebranche, Nicolas (1638-1715). Born in Paris. The works of
Descartes drew him to philosophy. The famous dictum, "Malebranche saw
all things in God," had reference to his treatise, _De la Recherche de la
Verite_, first published in 1674.
{233c} Baader, Franz (1765-1841). A speculative philosopher and
theologian, born at Munich, who endeavoured to reconcile the tenets of
the Church of Rome with philosophy. Of his many works his _Vorlesungen
uber Spekulative Dogmatik_ is here selected. It appeared between 1828
and 1838 in five parts.
{233d} Molitor, Franz Joseph (1779-1860). A philosophical writer, born
near Frankfurt. His _Philosophie der Geschichte_, _oder uber Tradition_
was published in 4 volumes between 1827 and 1853.
{233e} Astie, Jean Frederic (1822-1894). A French Protestant
theologian, who held a Chair of Theology in New York from 1848 to 1853.
In 1856 became a Professor in Switzerland. He published his _Esprit
d'Alexandre Vinet_ at Paris in 1861. In 1882 appeared his _Le Vinet de la
legende et celui de l'histoire_.
{234a} Punjer, Bernard (1850-1884). A theologian whose _Geschichte der
Religions-philosophie_ was much the vogue with theological students at
the time of its publication in 1880. It was reissued in 1887 in an
English translation by W. Hastie, under the title, _History of the
Christian Philosophy of Religion from the Reformation to Kant_. Punjer
also wrote _Die Religionslehre Kant's_, published at Jena in 1874.
{234b} Rothe, Richard (1799-1867). A Protestant theologian. Was for a
time preacher to the Prussian Embassy in Rome, and afterwards in
succession Professor of Theology at Wittenberg, at Heidelberg, and at
Bonn. His _Theologische Ethik_ appeared at Wittenberg in 3 volumes
between 1845 and 1848.
{234c} Martensen, Hans Lassen (1808-1884). A Danish theologian, born at
Fleusburg and died at Copenhagen, where he was long a Professor of
Theology. He became Bishop of Zeeland. _Die Christliche Ethik_ was one
of many works by him. He also wrote _Die Christliche Dogmatik_, _Die
Christliche Taufe_, and a _Life of Jakob Bohme_.