Letters to Dead Authors by Andrew Lang. A New Edition (Paperback)

1892 - PREFACE THESE essays were originally written for the St. Janzess Gazette, at the suggestion of Mr. F. W. Greenwood, who then edited the paper. They have now for some time been out of print, and in revising them the author has made a few slight corrections. He must admit that the form in which they are cast, comments on authors work addressed to themselves, has never been greatly to his mind. It is plain that one could not write about themselves to contemporaries, although Politics, since Juniuss time, have not disdained this mode of criticism. Letters to and from the Dead have not infrequently been ventured in literature, but to attempt letters from Dead Authors would demand a confidence which the present writer does not possess. Except in the single instance of Chapelain, he has approached no author whom he does not admire, and this perhaps has made his task less difficult, if there be degrees in impossibility. Yet he feels that he has been especially unsuccessful in the case where his admiration and sympathy are deepest and most sincere. CONTENTS I . I1 . I11 . 1v . v . v1 . VII . v111 . IX . X . XI . XI1 . XI11 . XIV . xv . XVI . PAGE i X CONTENTS . PAGE XVII . To PERCYB YSSHES HELLEY . . . . 45 XIX . To ROBERTB URNS . . . . . . . . 1 64 XXII . To Q . IORATIFULSA CCUS . . . . . . 185 LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS. -- 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 actionof contemporary genius. Such and such men of letters are passing their summer holidays in the Val dAosta, or the Mountains of the Moon, or the Suliman Range, as it may happen. So reports our literary Court Circular, and all our Prdcieuses 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...