[279e] George Henry Lewes’s Life of Goethe has gone through many editions and remains a fascinating book, although it may be supplemented by the translation of Duntzer’s Life of Goethe, 2 volumes, Macmillan, and Bielschowsky’s Life of Goethe, Vols. I and II (Putnams).
[280a] The Life of Lessing, by James Sime, is not a great biography, but it is an interesting and most profitable study of a noble man. Lessing will be an inspiration greater almost than any other of the moderns for those who are brought in contact with his fine personality. The book is in 2 volumes, published by the Trübners.
[280b] You can read Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography in 1 volume (Dent), or in his Collected Works—Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, edited by his grandson, William Temple Franklin, 6 volumes (Colburn), 1819. There have been at least two expensive reprints of his Works of late years.
[280c] The Greville Memoirs were published in large octavo form in the first place. Much scandal was omitted from the second edition. They are now obtainable in 8 volumes of Longmans’ Silver Library. They form an interesting glimpse into the Court life of the later Guelphs.
[280d] It has been complained of John Forster’s Life of Charles Dickens that there is too much Forster and not enough Dickens. Yet it is the only guide to the life-story of the greatest of the Victorian novelists. Is most pleasant to read in the 2 volumes of the Gadshill Edition, published by Chapman & Hall.
[280e] The Early Diary of Frances Burney, afterwards Madame D’Arblay, edited by Annie Raine Ellis, has just been reprinted in two volumes of Bohn’s Library (Bell). We owe also to Mr. Austen Dobson a fine reprint of the later and more important Diaries, which he has edited in 6 volumes for the Macmillans.
[281a] The Apologia pro Vita Suâ of John Henry Newman is one of the volumes of Cardinal Newman’s Collected Works issued by the Longmans. It is the most interesting, and is perhaps the most destined to survive, of all the books of theological controversy of the nineteenth century.
[281b] There is practically but one edition of the Paston Letters, that edited by James Gairdner, of the Public Record Office, and published by the firm of Archibald Constable. The luxurious Library Edition issued by Chatto & Windus in 6 volumes should be acquired if possible.
[281c] The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini is best known in the translation of Thomas Roscoe in Bohn’s Library. Mr. J. Addington Symonds, however, made a new translation, issued in two fine volumes by Nimmo.
[281d] The Religio Medici of Sir Thomas Browne can be obtained in many forms, although the well-to-do collector will be satisfied only with the edition edited by Simon Wilkin. The book is admirably edited by W. A. Greenhill for the “Golden Treasury Series.”