disparagingly of Burns' actual achievement as a poet, regrets that his father's circumstances did not permit him to reach the university, and conjectures that he might then have come forth, not as a rustic wonder, but as a regular, well-trained intellectual workman, and changed the whole course of English literature.' But after all, as it was, Burns did something like this. I do not myself believe in the possibility of revolutionary changes in literature; the history of literature is the history of a gradual development, advancing often, no doubt, by leaps and bounds, but always by natural transition from one stage to another. I doubt, therefore, whether Burns would have changed the whole course of English literature' if he had gone to a university; but, as it was, he exercised an important influence on that literature, and it is at least probable that he would rather have been hindered with than helped in that mission if his education had been different from what it was. He might have been a happier man otherwise, but it may be doubted whether he would have been a greater poet.1 1 William Minto, The Historical Relationships of Burns. Literature of the Georgian Era, pp. 295–311. By permission of William Blackwood and Sons, and of Harper and Brothers. III. BYRON'S EARLY READING [Byron was born January 22, 1788; the list was made November 30, 1807. As Ruskin says: 'Byron's early power was founded on a course of general reading of the masters in every walk of literature, such as is, I think, utterly unparalleled in any other young life, whether of student or author.'1] LIST OF HISTORICAL WRITERS WHOSE WORKS I HAVE History of England.— Hume, Rapin, Henry, Smollet,2 Scotland. - Buchanan, Hector Boethius, both in the Latin. Rome. Hooke, Decline and Fall by Gibbon, Ancient History by Rollin (including an account of the Carthaginians, etc.), besides Livy, Tacitus, Eutropius, Cornelius Nepos, Julius Caesar, Arrian, Sallust. Greece. Mitford's Greece, Leland's Philip, Plutarch, Potter's Antiquities, Xenophon, Thucydides, Herodotus. France. - Mezeray, Voltaire. Spain. I chiefly derived my knowledge of old Spanish History from a book called the Atlas, now obsolete. The modern history, from the intrigues of Alberoni down to the Prince of Peace, I learned from its connection with European politics. Portugal. From Vertot; as also his account of the Siege of Rhodes- though the last is his own invention, 1 Praeterita 1.8. 2 Byron's spelling, etc. (or are they Moore's?) have been retained. the real facts being totally different. So much for his Knights of Malta. Turkey. I have read Knolles, Sir Paul Rycaut, and Prince Cantemir, besides a more modern history, anonymous. Of the Ottoman History I know every event, from Tangralopi, and afterwards Othman I, to the peace of Passarowitz, in 1718, the battle of Cutzka, in 1739, and the treaty between Russia and Turkey in 1790. Russia. Tooke's Life of Catherine II, Voltaire's Czar Peter. Sweden. Voltaire's Charles XII, also Norberg's Charles XI-in my opinion the best of the two. -A translation of Schiller's Thirty Years' War, which contains the exploits of Gustavus Adolphus, besides Harte's Life of the same Prince. I have somewhere, too, read an account of Gustavus Vasa, the deliverer of Sweden, but do not remember the author's name. Prussia. I have seen, at least, twenty Lives of Frederick II, the only prince worth recording in Prussian annals. Gillies, his own Works, and Thiebault - none very amusing. The last is paltry, but circumstantial. Denmark. I know little of. Of Norway I understand the natural history, but not the chronological. Germany. I have read long histories of the house. of Suabia, Wenceslaus, and, at length, Rodolph of Hapsburgh and his thick-lipped Austrian descendants. Switzerland. Ah! William Tell, and the battle of Morgarten, where Burgundy was slain. Italy. - Davila, Guicciardini, the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the battle of Pavia, Massaniello, the revolutions of Naples, etc., etc. Hindostan. - Orme and Cambridge. America. Robertson, Andrews' American War. Africa. — Merely from travels, as Mungo Park, Bruce. BIOGRAPHY Robertson's Charles V.- Caesar, Sallust (Catiline and Jugurtha), Lives of Marlborough and Eugene, Tekeli, Bonnard, Buonaparte, all the British Poets, both by Johnson and Anderson, Rousseau's Confessions, Life of Cromwell, British Plutarch, British Nepos, Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, Charles XII, Czar Peter, Catherine II, Henry Lord Kaimes, Marmontel, Teignmouth's Sir William Jones, Life of Newton, Belisaire, with thousands not to be detailed. LAW Blackstone, Montesquieu. PHILOSOPHY Paley, Locke, Bacon, Hume, Berkeley, Drummond, Beattie, and Bolingbroke. Hobbes I detest. GEOGRAPHY Strabo, Cellarius, Adams, Pinkerton, and Guthrie. POETRY All the British Classics as before detailed, with most of the living poets, Scott, Southey, etc.- Some French in the original, of which the Cid is my favorite. — Little Italian. Greek and Latin without number;- these last I shall give up in future. I have translated a good deal from both languages, verse as well as prose. ELOQUENCE Demosthenes, Cicero, Quintilian, Sheridan, Austin's Chironomia, and Parliamentary Debates from the Revolution to the year 1742. DIVINITY Blair, Porteus, Tillotson, Hooker—all very tiresome. I abhor books of religion, though I reverence and love my God, without the blasphemous notions of sectaries, or belief in their absurd and damnable heresies, mysteries, and Thirty-nine Articles. MISCELLANIES Spectator, Rambler, World, etc., etc.- Novels by the thousand. All the books here enumerated I have taken down from memory. I recollect reading them, and can quote passages from any mentioned. I have, of course, omitted several in my catalogue; but the greater part of the above I perused before the age of fifteen.1 IV. SPENSER'S USE OF BOOKS From the essay on Ireland we discover how Spenser went about the writing of prose, and while perhaps such information scarcely reveals his methods of preparation for poetical writing, it is safe to assume that he did not take less pains for his chosen type of literature than for this type which was of secondary importance to him. It was only after careful preliminary work and planning, and 1 Moore, The Works of Lord Byron, with his Letters and Journals, and his Life (London, 1832) 1. 140-144, |