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 _Reminiscences of Samuel Rogers_, 1859. The _Recollections_ were reprinted in handsome form by H. A. Rogers, of New Southgate, in 1887, and the material was combined in a single volume in 1903 by G. H. Powell (R. Brimley Johnson). I have the four books, and delight in the many good stories they contain.

{279b} _The Confessions of St. Augustine_ may be commended in many small and handy editions. One, with an Introduction by Alice Meynell, was published in 1900. The most beautifully printed modern edition is that issued by Arthur Humphreys in his Classical Series.

{279c} Amiel's _Journal_ is a fine piece of introspection. A translation by Mrs. Humphry Ward is published in 2 volumes by the Macmillans. De Senancour's _Obermann_, translated by A. E. Waite (Wellby), should be read in this connexion.

{279d} _The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius_, translated by George Long, appears as a volume of Bohn's Library, and more beautifully printed in the Library of Arthur Humphreys. There are many other good translations--one by John Jackson, issued in 1906 by the Clarendon Press, has great merit.

{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 Trubners.

{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 Sua_ 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."