Part 4 (2/2)

Archbishop Seeker's Lectures on the Catechisularly judicious and useful They are full of good sense and accurate information The style, perhaps, is rather involved, and not very engaging; but you see a mind in full possession of its subject, anxious to put you in full possession of it also, without o of importance

Gilpin's Lectures on the Catechisood and a very pleasing book, written with a particular view to young persons engaged in reading the Greek and Latin Classics

Ogden's Sermons, on Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Co of a clear and powerful intellect, expressed in language reant

_After_ these books, take so the Ser the Preface This is not a book to be read in a room full of brothers and sisters It deive some exercise to all your intellectual powers; but it richly merits to have such attention and pains bestowed upon it It deserves, indeed requires,After Butler's Sery”

You will do well, at any odd intervals, or _snatches_ of time, to make yourself familiar with Addison and Johnson False delicacy shall not prevent s of Addison which Isuch selection are given in the Preface The same reasons now induceYou can hardly read a paper in the Rambler or Idler, and, I will add, the Adventurer, without deriving from it some improvement, either moral or intellectual, or both The structure and cadence of Johnson's sentences is certainlystruck by the depth of his thought, the accuracy andextent of his

In order to enter with more discrimination into the style of our different authors, read often ”Blair's Lectures” They are, I believe, so; I, however, as an unlearned in of Language, indeed, the absurdity of which has been exposed with so ht well have been oer vacations, to acquire, or to keep up, soe of modern history Russell's ”Modern Europe” is, upon the whole, a useful book It is, perhaps, too coiven in the form of letters

Robertson's ”Charles the Fifth” you have probably read already; if not, read it carefully when, in Russell, you arrive at the period at which it commences Pay particular attention to the First Book Perhaps Robertson was not sufficiently impressed with the importance and the effects of the Reformation in Germany; and he formed, I think, an unfair estimate of the character and motives of Luther This ht in the Life of Luther about to be given to the public by one of the ablest and most learned men of the present day[147:1]

With respect to the history of our own country, I hardly knohat advice to give you Hu, but he cannot be iion and the ion are concerned

Henry's ”History of Great Britain” is a very good and accurate book; but the continuity of the narrative is broken by the , arts, commerce, manners, &c &c), and by the transitions to the history of Scotland

Lingard I have not read; I aood, and his information extensive It was natural that, as a zealous Romanist, he should seek to extenuate the faults of s, and place in an unfavourable point of view the motives and actions of the assailants of Popery; but he has, I think, been fully convicted of carrying misrepresentation beyond all reasonable bounds There was but too otry and persecution on both sides

Turner's History is, I believe, strictly honest and iious labour and research

But in our attention to prose writers, we et the classical poets of our own country Make yourself familiarly acquainted with Shakspeare, Milton, and Pope Theis soood deal of bad taste; but he abounds in real poetry, and in strong truths most forcibly expressed

Cowper so prosaic; but he is generally graceful, often pathetic, and sometimes approaches to sublimity Of both, it was the coenuine Christianity; of both, the perusal has a direct tendency to iouspoets--Sir Walter Scott and Southey--have seen their poetry cast into shade by the popularity of their own prose The poems of both will live, and have justice done theo recommended toauthors I read it with h and wild poetry; and ”Roderick, the last of the Goths” gives a noble picture of deep penitence and of devoted patriotiser poe beauty of expression or of sentilish poets, both those of forreatOxonians, by Lord Byron In alraduate's room that I happen to enter, _he_ seems to have taken possession Lord Byron, as a poet, has certainly many transcendantmen The interest which I,--which _every one_,--naturally must feel in the moral and intellectual habits and pursuits of such an important portion of the community, makesyou I a renation of some men, and, possibly, to the contempt of others: but I feel that rounds; and I _must say my say_

The publication of Lord Byron's life and correspondence has contributed, a good deal, to divest hi about hiht him down rather more to the level of ordinary mortals They show him to us as a man possessed of splendid talents, of extensive and various attainenerous qualities; but as aopinion of his own superiority to all other mortals _Self_, whether intellectual or sensual, seems to have been the idol that he worshi+pped _His own_ antient family, _his own_ talents, _his own_ attainments, _his ohims, _his own_ passions, _his own_ excesses, seem all to have furnished food for his vanity, because they were _his own_

I acknowledge that, in all the circuularly unfortunate His early destitution, the character and habits of his lect of his noble relations, the venal praises of his parasites and dependents, all acted upon his character with pernicious influence

”Untaught in youth his heart to tas of life were poison'd”

He was sensitively alive to all the beauties and the subliht into the cos of the human heart, with all its passions and affections; consequently, he abounds in passages of great beauty, and of singular strength and power The gratification derived froes, however, to a man at least who really believes hi, is but a poor compensation for the moral effects of many of his poems, his _later_ poems more especially[155:1] They too often appear to breathe a spirit of engrossing selfishness; a spirit of captious and gloo, not only to revelation, but to the priion, and even the ation The tendency of his writings is to , and every body in this world, and at the same time to unfit you for the world to come; indeed, to make you doubt, whether the idea of a world to coether a mere delusion

Lord Byron particularly excels in describing female loveliness, and the effect which such loveliness produces upon the ardent te within thereat cause of the popularity of Lord Byron a people The sensations to which I allude, however, are of themselves but too iive thelowing descriptions of this poet of the passions

I had heard much of Don Juan, and felt some curiosity to read it; but I are of the manner in which bold and flippant ribaldry sometimes takes hold of the mind, even when shocked at it I kneell, that human nature has in itself but tooany additional sti ”to soil myto see the most destructive vices treated as ion introduced in connexion with ludicrous ie of s, yet the ludicrous passages and ies are too apt to stick by us, even e most wish to shake them off