CONTENTS
Preface.
LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS
I. To W. M. Thackeray.
II. To Charles Dickens.
III. To Pierre de Ronsard (Prince of Poets.)
IV. To Herodotus.
V. Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope.
VI. To Lucian of Samosata.
VII. To Maitre Francoys Rabelais.
VIII. To Jane Austen.
IX. To Master Isaak Walton.
XI. To Sir John Manndeville, Kt.
XII. To Alexandre Dumas.
XIII. To Theocritus
XIV. To Edgar Allan Poe.
XV. To Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
XVI. To Eusebius of Caesarea.
XVII. To Percy Bysshe Shelley.
XVIII. To Monsieur de Moliére, Valet de Chambre du Roi.
XIX. To Robert Burns.
XX. To Lord Byron.
XXI. To Omar Kha'yya'm.
XXII. To Q. Horatius Flaccus.
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.'