| page |
| Preface | [v] |
| Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing | [1] |
| I. Ancient History. II. Letters in English—before1700. III. The Eighteenth Century. IV. NineteenthCentury Letters—Early. V. NineteenthCentury Letters—Later. VI. Some Special Kindsof Letter. VII. Conclusion. | |
| Appendix to Introduction: | |
| Greek Letters—Synesius | [100] |
| (i) To his Brother—Preparations to meet Raiders. | | |
| (ii) To Hypatia—Longing but unable to come to her. | | |
| Latin Letters—Pliny | [102] |
| Accepts a Brief for a Lady. | |
| Letters of the "Dark" Ages—Sidonius Apollinaris | [105] |
| The exploits of Ecdicius. | |
| Early Mediaeval (Twelfth Century) Letter | [108] |
| Duchess of Burgundy to King Louis VII.—Matchmaking. | |
| ENGLISH LETTERS |
| The "Paston" Letters | [111] |
| 1. A Channel Fight. | |
| 2. Margery is Willing. | |
| Roger Ascham | [116] |
| 3. "Up the Rhine." | |
| 4. Nostalgia for Cambridge. | |
| Lady Mary Sidney | [122] |
| 5. Have you no room at Court? | |
| George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland | [125] |
| 6. A Death-bed letter. | |
| John Donne | [129] |
| 7-10. Letters to Magdalen Lady Herbert. | |
| James Howell | [135] |
| 11. "Long Melford for Ever." | |
| 12. The White Bird. | |
| John Evelyn | [139] |
| 13. How to take care of ears, eyes and brains. | |
| Dorothy Osborne | [146] |
| 14. A discourse of Flying, and several other things. | |
| 15. Some testimonies of kindness. | |
| Jonathan Swift | [154] |
| 16. Letter-hunger. | |
| Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu | [159] |
| 17. Directions for running away with her. | |
| Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield | [164] |
| 18. Some manners that make a gentleman. | |
| George Ballard | [173] |
| 19. The wickedness of Reviewers. | |
| Thomas Gray | [180] |
| 20. Romanities and Plain English. | |
| 21. Kent, Rousseau, Lord Chatham, etc. | |
| Horace Walpole (and W. M. Thackeray) | [187] |
| 22. What Horace wrote. | |
| 23. What Horace might have written. | |
| Tobias George Smollett | [195] |
| 24. Of Johnson, and Johnson's Frank—To Wilkes. | |
| William Cowper | [197] |
| 25. About a Greenhouse. | |
| Sydney Smith | [201] |
| 26. Vegetation, stagnation, and assassination. | |
| 27. His "hotel." Hasty judgments deprecated. | |
| Sir Walter Scott | [206] |
| 28. Authors and Morals. | |
| Samuel Taylor Coleridge | [212] |
| 29. From Spinosa to Gobwin through things in general. | |
| Robert Southey | [217] |
| 30-33. The Lingo Grande. | |
| Charles Lamb | [221] |
| 34. A Sigh for Solitude. | |
| George Gordon, Lord Byron | [228] |
| 35. Of Pictures, and Sepulture, and his Daughters. | |
| Percy Bysshe Shelley | [233] |
| 36. Of Pictures only. | |
| John Keats | [239] |
| 37. A Voyage, and the Quarterly and Charmian. | |
| The Carlyles | [244] |
| 38. Thomas on Latrappism. | |
| 39. Jane Welsh on her Travels. | |
| 40. Jane Welsh on the blessings of Photography. | |
| Thomas Babington Macaulay | [253] |
| 41. Outfits, and Election Dinners. Miss Berry andLady Holland. | |
| Thomas Lovell Beddoes | [258] |
| 42. Stage-coach tricks, and stage-play ghosts. | |
| Elizabeth Barrett Browning | [263] |
| 43. An extended Honey-moon. | |
| Edward FitzGerald | [270] |
| 44. Of Bath, and Oxford, and some Immortals. | |
| Francis Anne Kemble | [275] |
| 45. A Ghost in Flannel. | |
| 46. Bakespearism. | |
| William Makepeace Thackeray | [279] |
| 47. As himself. | |
| 48. In character. | |
| Charles Dickens | [286] |
| 49. Straight dealing with the personages of NicholasNickleby. | |
| 50. Advice to an Innocent in London. | |
| 51. Mr. and Mrs. Harris. | |
| Charles Kingsley | [292] |
| 52. Tom Brown's Schooldays; Pike fishing; and apretty thing with Garth's. | |
| John Ruskin | [296] |
| 53. The Servant question. | |
| Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson | [303] |
| 54. John Gibson Lockhart, and an Umbrella. | |