Studies of Some Famous _Letters. By J. C. Bailey. (Thomas
Burleigh.)—This little work consists of a series of maga- zine essays on certain famous letter-writers, ranging from the poet Cowper to that other remarkable recluse of our own times, Edward FitzGerald. It has been objected that Mr. Bailey might just as well have included Tennyson as Gray, and Stevenson as Lamb. This is true enough if he intended to produce an epistolary cyclopfedia ; but surely, like any other writer, Mr. Bailey is justified in restricting his specimens to those authors with whom he is most familiar. So long as he deals out even-handed justice to the merits of the letter-writers he himself announces as his subjects, we can have no fault to find. Of course, the letters of Gray, Cowper, and Lady Mary Montagu are familiar to triteness to all who take any interest in "famous letters." Gib- bon and Swift, too, are subjects on which little can be added by the most industrious of book-makers. But whether it is the undying interest in all that concerns Dr. Johnson, or his profound spiritual nature, we confess to have found the little essay on his letters to Mrs. Thrale and others, familiar as they are, full of fresh sug- gestiveness. No true Jolmsonian will quarrel with Mr. Bailey for his first incidental comments on Johnson, while the contrast between Johnson's innate, profoundly moving pessimism and Gibbon's easy, unruffled optimism is strikingly stated. Mr. Bailey is perhaps hardly fair to Lamb, but does full justice to FitzGerald. Altogether this little sheaf of essays is worth glancing over, and will be sure to send the receptive reader to the original sources whence Mr. Bailey has drawn his material.
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