W. S. Landor.
Encumbered dearly with old books,
Thou, by the pleasant chimney nooks,
Didst laugh, with merry-meaning looks,
Thy griefs away.—Lionel Johnson.
P. 18. Burton.—Compare the remark of the 'Hammock School' reviewers in Mr. G. K. Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill—'Next to authentic goodness in a book (and that, alas! we never find) we desire a rich badness.'
P. 19. Channing.—An address introductory to the Franklin lectures delivered at Boston, 1838. Channing's influence increased after his death, which occurred in 1842. In the seventies nearly 50,000 copies of his Complete Works were circulated in America and Europe.
P. 20. Hunt.—The novel Camilla is Madame D'Arblay's; the entire passage relating to the Oxford scholar's books is given on page 216. Petrarch is quoted on pages 1 and 369.
P. 21. Landor.—See 'Old-Fashioned Verse' on p. [186].
P. 26. Burton.—Lord Byron is reported by Moore to have said: 'The book, in my opinion, most useful to a man who wishes to acquire the reputation of being well read, with the least trouble, is Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, the most amusing and instructive medley of quotations and classical anecdotes I ever perused. But a superficial reader must take care, or his intricacies will bewilder him. If, however, he has patience to go through his volumes, he will be more improved for literary conversation than by the perusal of any twenty other works with which I am acquainted, at least in the English language.'
Dr. Johnson, while admitting that the Anatomy is a valuable work, suggests that it is overloaded with quotation. But he adds, 'It is the only book that ever took me out of bed two hours sooner than I wished to rise.'
P. 28. Southey.—'Southey's appearance is Epic; and he is the only existing entire man of letters. All the others have some pursuit annexed to their authorship'.—Lord Byron.