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Letters To Dead Authors - Preface
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 on the title-page, now engraved for the first time, is a red cornelian in the British Museum, probably Graeco-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."
Letters To Dead Authors - Letter To W. M. Thackeray
Letter To W. M. ThackeraySir,--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
Letters On Literature - APPENDIX II
APPENDIX IIPortraits of Virgil and Lucretius.In the Letter on Virgil some remarks are made on a bust of the poet. It is wholly fanciful. Our only vestiges of a portrait of Virgil are in two MSS.; the better of the two is in the Vatican. The design represents a youth, with dark hair and a pleasant face, seated reading. A desk is beside him, and a case for manuscript, in shape like a band-box. (See Visconti, "Icon. Rom." i. 179, plate 13.) Martial tells us that portraits of Virgil were illuminated on copies of his "AEneid." The Vatican MS. is of- Letters To Dead Authors - Letter To W. M. Thackeray
- Letters To Dead Authors - Letter To Charles Dickens
- Letters To Dead Authors - Letter To Pierre de Ronsard (Prince of Poets)
- Letters To Dead Authors - Letter To Herodotus
- Letters To Dead Authors - Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope
- Letters To Dead Authors - Letter To Lucian of Samosata
- Letters To Dead Authors - Letter To Maitre Francoys Rabelais
- Letters To Dead Authors - Letter To Jane Austen
- Letters To Dead Authors - Letter To Master Isaak Walton
- Letters To Dead Authors - Letter To M. Chapelain