the finest examples of a poem in the grand style, and not the less interesting because the only work of Portuguese genius whose fame has overpassed the limits of its country. Montesquieu's "Esprit des Lois" is indispensable. So is "Candide." In modern fiction, "Les Misérables" and "The Scarlet Letter" may well replace Kingsley and Bulwer; the modern poets Keats and Shelley surely rank above Southey and Longfellow. Whether you put anything in its place or not (for example, Kant's "Kritik der reinen Vernunft," or Hegel's "History of Philosophy"), Lewes's "History of Philosophy" should be struck out,
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND.
Lord Coleridge wrote to us from the Judge's lodgings, Carmarthen, as follows:—
It is impossible for me at the time now at my disposal to attempt an answer to your very interesting letter. Indeed, if I had abundance of time, my reading has been so desultory and superficial, and since I left the University its course has been so much guided by wayward and passing fancies, that I should be sorry to suggest to any one else the books which happen to have delighted me.
Generally speaking, I think Sir John Lubbock's list a very good one as far as I know the books which compose it. But I know nothing of Chinese and Sanscrit, and have no opinion whatever about the Chinese and Sanscrit works he refers to. To the classics I should add Catullus, Propertiues, Ovid (in selections), Pindar, and the pastoral writers, Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus
I should find a place among epic poets for Tasso, Ariosto, and I should suppose Camoens, though I know him only in translation. With the poem of Malory on the "Morte d'Arthur," I am quite unacquainted; Malory's prose romance under that title is familiar to many readers from Southey's reprint of (I think) Caxton's edition of it.
Among the Greek dramatists, I should give a more prominent place to Euripides—the friend of Socrates, the idol of Menander, the admiration of Milton and Charles Fox; and I should exclude Aristophanes, whose splendid genius does not seem to me to atone for the baseness and vulgarity of his mind. In history I shall exclude Hume as mere waste of time now to read, and include Tacitus and Livy and Lord Clarendon and Sismondi. I do not know enough about philosophy to offer any opinion.
In poetry and general literature, I should certainly include Dryden and some plays of Ben Jonson and Ford and Massinger and Shirley and Webster; Gray, Collins, Coleridge, Chatles Lamb, De Quincey, Bolingbroke, Sterne, and I should substitute Bryant for Longfellow, and most certainly I should add Cowper.
In fiction I should add Miss Austen, "Clarissa," "Tom Jones," "Humphrey Clinker;" and certainly exclude Kings!ey. But I am well away from all books and with no time for reflection, and, though courtesy leads me to reply to a very courteous letter, I have no wish that a hasty and imperfect note such as this should be taken as representing a deliberate opinion.
HIS EXCELLENCY THE AMERICAN MINISTER.
Sir,—I cannot decline to reply to your courteous note touching "The Best Hundred Books," though it is a subject upon which I am by no means an authority, being only a casual wanderer in the field of letters. It seems to me not easy to lay out a course of reading that shall be of universal application. So much depends upon the cast of the reader's mind, his taste (if he has any), and the line of study he wishes to follow, that "the best laid scheme" may still "gang aft a-gley."
Sir John Lubbock's list already published is excellent, and perhaps cannot be improved. It is difficult to take from it, and, in trying to add, one encounters the embarrassment of riches. Taking that as a foundation were I to put my own inclination in the place of his better judgment, I should venture to increase it in general literature by the essays of Bacon, Johnson, Sterne, John Wilson, Carlyle, and Washington Irving, and the greater speeches of Webster. In poetry, by Chaucer, Dryden, Goldsmith, Gray, Coleridge, Burns, Byron, and Bryant. In fiction, by Cervantes and Le Sage, and all of Thackeray and Dickens that Sir John omits. In history, by Clarendon, Hallam, Macaulay, and the Americans Motley and Prescott. In political science, by Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws," Guizot's "Civilization," and De Tocqueville's "Democracy." In the fine arts, by Lübke's "History of Art," Kugler's "Italian, Flemish, and Spanish Painters," Taylor's "Fine Art in Great Britain," and Fergusson's "History of Architecture."
If these additions carry the list beyond the limit, rather than lose my favourites, I would make room for them by cutting down somewhat the selections from translations of classical and Oriental literature, and from philosophy and theology, though retaining always in the latter John Bunyan and Jeremy Taylor. I cannot think the finis et fructus of liberal reading is reached by him who has not obtained in the best writings of our English tongue the generous acquaintance that ripens into affection. If he must stint himself, let him save elsewhere.
Even thus augmented, our list still excludes the whole range of living authors, all scientific, technical, and professional knowledge, and many charming books in literature, and enters but sparingly into the broad and fertile field of history. When these gaps are filled, the catalogue outruns us; and we find that as a book on one subject cannot be compared with that on another, no possible "hundred" can be exclusively "the best."
But after all power of choice has been exhausted, it still remains to be remembered that what good comes of it at last depends more upon digestion than upon acquisition. The reader who does not keep up a sound digestion will be apt to find good books disagree with him, and will only help to illustrate what is already sufficiently proved, that it is much easier to make a pedant, a prig, or a blatherskite than it is to make a scholar.—I am. Sir. your obedient servant,
