Contents.
I. To W. M. Thackeray
II. To Charles Dickens
III. To Pierre De Ronsard
IV. To Herodotus
V. Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope
VI. To Lucian of Samosata
VII. To Maitre Francoys Rabelais
VIII. To Jane Austen
IX. To Master Isaak Walton
X. To M. Chapelain
XI. To Sir John Manndeville, Kt
XII. To Alexandre Dumas
XIII. To Theocritus
XIV. To Edgar Allan Poe
XV. To Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
XVI. To Eusebius of Caesarea
XVII. To Percy Bysshe Shelley
XVIII. To Monsieur De Moliére, Valet De Chambre du Roi
XIX. To Robert Burns
XX. To Lord Byron
XXI. To Omar Khayya'm
XXII. To Q. Horatius Flaccus
Preface.
Sixteen of these Letters, which were written at the suggestion of the
editor of the 'St. James's Gazette,' appeared in that journal, from
which they are now reprinted, by the editor's kind permission. They have
been somewhat emended, and a few additions have been made. The Letters
to Horace, Byron, Isaak Walton, Chapelain, Ronsard, and Theocritus have
not been published before.
The gem published for the first time on the title-page is a red
cornelian in the British Museum, probably Graeco-Roman, and treated in
an archaistic style. It represents Hermes Psychogogos, with a Soul, and
has some likeness to the Baptism of Our Lord, as usually shown in art.
Perhaps it may be post-Christian. The gem was selected by Mr. A. S.
Murray.
It is, perhaps, superfluous to add that some of the Letters are written
rather to suit the Correspondent than to express the writer's own taste
or opinions. The Epistle to Lord Byron, especially, is 'writ in a manner
which is my aversion.'