Letters to Dead Authors
by Andrew Lang
- Pages
- about 126
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2.3 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
Transcribed from the 1886 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
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 on the title-page, now engraved for the first time, is a red
cornelian in the British Museum, probably Græco-Roman, and treated in an
archaistic style. It represents Hermes Psychagogos, 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.”
SIR,—There are many things that stand in the way of the critic when he
has a mind to praise the living. He may dread the charge of writing
rather to vex a rival than to exalt the subject of his applause. He
shuns the appearance of seeking the favour of the famous, and would not
willingly be regarded as one of the many parasites who now advertise each
movement and action of contemporary genius. “Such and such men of
letters are passing their summer holidays in the Val d’Aosta,” or the
Mountains of the Moon, or the Suliman Range, as it may happen. So
reports our literary “Court Circular,” and all our Précieuses read the
tidings with enthusiasm. Lastly, if the critic be quite new to the world
of letters, he may superfluously fear to vex a poet or a novelist by the
abundance of his eulogy.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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