Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches
The following addresses were delivered at the request of various literary societies and commemorative committees. They amused me to write, and they apparently interested the audiences for which they were primarily intended. Perhaps they do not bear an appearance in print. But...
Mr. Reade also calls in question another statement of Boswell's, that Michael Johnson was really apprenticed at Leek in Staffordshire; our only authority for this also is the ex...
2. Chapter 2But I doubt whether in the whole history of literature in England it can be found that any other purely literary man has received in his lifetime so substantial a mark of esteem...
10. Chapter 10Duhring speaks of Lassalle's "inconceivable stupidity," and there is a great temptation at this date, with all the circumstances before us, to look at the matter with Duhring's...
5. Chapter 5I have been asked to say something in praise of George Crabbe. The task would be an easier one were it not for the presence of the distinguished critic from the University of Na...
4. Chapter 4From that time--in 1881--until 1899, a period of eighteen years, Borrow had but little biographical recognition. A few introductions to his books, sundry encyclopaedia articles,...
1. Chapter 1The following addresses were delivered at the request of various literary societies and commemorative committees. They amused me to write, and they apparently interested the aud...
9. Chapter 9Ferdinand Lassalle was born at Breslau on April 11, 1825. His parents were of Jewish race, his father a successful silk merchant. From boyhood he was now the tyrant, now the sla...
3. Chapter 3We may note in all this the almost entire lack of indebtedness in Cowper to his predecessors. One of his most famous phrases, indeed, that on "the cup that cheers, but not inebr...
7. Chapter 7Well, I am not prepared to question the suggestion that East Anglia is the hub of the universe, only to question Mr. Watts-Dunton's position. There is virtue in that qualificati...
6. Chapter 6In the glorious tradition of English Literature, then, Crabbe comes after Cowper and before Wordsworth. There is a lineal descent as clear and well-defined as any set forth in t...
14. Chapter 14{262b} I contend that while most of the poets are self-contained in a single volume, Shakspere's plays are best enjoyed as separate entities. Certainly each of them has a librar...
12. Chapter 12Two omens seem propitious to my fame, Your spouse embalms my verse, and you my name; A name, which, all self-flattery far apart Belongs to one who venerates in his heart The wis...
13. Chapter 13{241b} Lange, Friedrich Albert (1828-1875). Philosopher and economic writer, born at Wald bei Solingen, died at Marburg. Held a professorial chair at Zurich and later at Marburg...
11. Chapter 11But my readers will, I imagine, for the most part, agree with me that there are others besides untutored savages and illiterate peasant women to whom such a list is entirely imp...
15. Chapter 15{279a} Samuel Rogers' _Table Talk_ has been given us in two forms, first as _Recollections of the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers_, edited by Alexander Dyce, 1856, and second as _Re...