tion>Andrew Lang
Letters to Dead Authors
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4057664580467
Table of Contents
III. To Pierre de Ronsard (Prince of Poets.)
V. Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope.
VII. To Maitre Francoys Rabelais.
Of the Coming of the Coqcigrues.
XI. To Sir John Manndeville, Kt.
XV. To Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
(Concerning the Gods of the Heathen.)
XVII. To Percy Bysshe Shelley.
XVIII. To Monsieur de Moliére, Valet de Chambre du Roi.
Preface.
Sixteen of these Letters, which were written at the suggestion of the editor of the 'St. James's Gazette,' appeared in that journal, from which they are now reprinted, by the editor's kind permission. They have been somewhat emended, and a few additions have been made. The Letters to Horace, Byron, Isaak Walton, Chapelain, Ronsard, and Theocritus have not been published before.
The gem published for the first time on the title-page is a red cornelian in the British Museum, probably Graeco-Roman, and treated in an archaistic style. It represents Hermes Psychogogos, with a Soul, and has some likeness to the Baptism of Our Lord, as usually shown in art. Perhaps it may be post-Christian. The gem was selected by Mr. A. S. Murray.
It is, perhaps, superfluous to add that some of the Letters are written rather to suit the Correspondent than to express the writer's own taste or opinions. The Epistle to Lord Byron, especially, is 'writ in a manner which is my aversion.'
LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS
I. To W. M. Thackeray.
Sir,—There are many things that stand in the way of the critic when he has a mind to praise the living. He may dread the charge of writing rather to vex a rival than to exalt the subject of his applause. He shuns the appearance of seeking the favour of the famous, and would not willingly be regarded as one of the many parasites who now advertise each movement and action of contemporary genius. 'Such and such men of letters are passing their summer holidays in the Val d'Aosta,' or the Mountains of the Moon, or the Suliman Range, as it may happen. So reports our literary 'Court Circular,' and all our Précieuses read the tidings with enthusiasm. Lastly, if the critic be quite new to the world of letters, he may superfluously fear to vex a poet or a novelist by the abundance of his eulogy. No such doubts perplex us when, with all our hearts, we would commend the departed; for they have passed almost beyond the reach even of envy; and to those pale cheeks of theirs no commendation can bring the red.
You, above all others, were and remain without a rival in your many-sided excellence, and praise of you strikes at none of those who have survived your day. The increase of time only mellows your renown, and each year that passes and brings you no successor does but sharpen the keenness of our sense of loss. In what other novelist, since Scott was worn down by the burden
