Literary Character of Men of Genius / Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions

E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, John R. Bilderback, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Editorial note: Due to limitations in rendering some print characters, the following abbreviations are used in this text to represent the original printer's symbols: 4^to for quarto 12^o for duodecimo f^o for folio
Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions
A New Edition Edited by His Son THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.
London: Frederick Warne and Co., Bedford Street, Strand. London: Bradbury, Agnew, & Co., Printers, Whitefriars.
1850
The following Preface is of interest for the expression of the author's own view of these works.
This volume comprises my writings on subjects chiefly of our vernacular literature. Now collected together, they offer an unity of design, and afford to the general reader and to the student of classical antiquity some initiation into our national Literature. It is presumed also, that they present materials for thinking not solely on literary topics; authors and books are not alone here treated of,—a comprehensive view of human nature necessarily enters into the subject from the diversity of the characters portrayed, through the gradations of their faculties, the influence of their tastes, and those incidents of their lives prompted by their fortunes or their passions. This present volume, with its brother CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE, now constitute a body of reading which may awaken knowledge in minds only seeking amusement, and refresh the deeper studies of the learned by matters not unworthy of their curiosity.
The LITERARY CHARACTER has been an old favourite with many of my contemporaries departed or now living, who have found it respond to their own emotions.
THE MISCELLANIES are literary amenities, should they be found to deserve the title, constructed on that principle early adopted by me, of interspersing facts with speculation.
THE INQUIRY INTO THE LITERARY AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST has surely corrected some general misconceptions, and thrown light on some obscure points in the history of that anomalous personage. It is a satisfaction to me to observe, since the publication of this tract, that while some competent judges have considered the evidence irresistible, a material change has occurred in the tone of most writers. The subject presented an occasion to exhibit a minute picture of that age of transition in our national history.