The first two essays in this volume were composed as lectures, and are now printed for the first time; the others have endured that indignity before. The papers on 'The Letters of Charles Lamb' and 'Authors in Court' originally appeared in Macmillan's Magazine; and the short essays entitled 'William Cowper' and 'George Borrow' in the Reflector, a lively sheet which owed its existence to and derived its inspiration from the energy and genius of the late Mr. J. K. Stephen, whose too early death has not only eclipsed the gaiety of many gatherings, but has robbed the country of the service of a noble and truth-loving man.

The other papers appeared either in Scribner's Magazine or in the columns of the Speaker newspaper.

Although, by the kindness of my present publishers, I have always been practically a 'protected article' in the States, I cannot help expressing my pleasure in finding myself in the enjoyment of the same modest rights as an author in the new home of my people as in the old.

A. B.
Lincoln's Inn, London.

CONTENTS

Page
I. [SAMUEL RICHARDSON]1
II.[EDWARD GIBBON]39
III. [WILLIAM COWPER]84
IV. [GEORGE BORROW]115
V. [CARDINAL NEWMAN]140
VI. [MATTHEW ARNOLD]181
VII. [WILLIAM HAZLITT]224
VIII. [THE LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB] 232
IX. [AUTHORS IN COURT]253
X. [NATIONALITY]274
XI. [THE REFORMATION]284
XII. [SAINTE-BEUVE]298

SAMUEL RICHARDSON

A LECTURE

It is difficult to describe mankind either in a book or in a breath, and none but the most determined of philosophers or the most desperate of cynics have attempted to do so, either in one way or the other. Neither the philosophers nor the cynics can be said to have succeeded. The descriptions of the former are not recognisable and therefore as descriptions at all events, whatever may be their other merits, must be pronounced failures; whilst those of the cynics describe something which bears to ordinary human nature only the same sort of resemblance that chemically polluted waters bear to the stream as it flows higher up than the source of contamination, which in this case is the cynic himself.