Love-Letters of Famous Men and Women of the Past and
Present Century. Edited by J. T. Merydew. 2 vols. (Remington and Co.)—This is a compilation which has not always the merit of doing what it pretends to do. Among these so-called. "love- letters," are some from Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, and the editor writes of "amatory incidents" associated with his friend- ship for that lady. Under the name of "David Garrick," Mr. Merydew inserts three songs, but has not a letter to transcribe ; and he is in the same position in his account of Sheridan. "If he wrote prose letters," says Mr. Merydew, "the lady was sensible enough to destroy them." From Cowper the editor is also content to quote verses which include the poet's well-known sonnet to Mary lJnwin. He adds that Cowper addressed "various sonnets" to that lady. Of this we were not aware, and assuredly they are not to be found in his works. Then, again, although Southey did ultimately marry Caroline Bowles, there is no ground whatever for calling the correspondence between them "love-letters." It is needless to say, however, that the bulk of these two large volumes does consist of genuine love-letters, among which we cannot include, as Mr. Merydew does, the gross epistles of Farquhar, the meaningless protestations of Bean Brummell, or the three letters addressed by Sir Joshua Reynolds to Miss Weston, which are loveless, businesslike epistles. Had the lady written to the artist, the case might have been different. The most prominent defect of these volumes is that the editor does not distinguish between the passion of libertines and the love of pure-hearted men and women. There are twenty-eight portraits in the volumes, but the greater number of them may be more correctly described as caricatures.
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