HOLIDAY BOOKS.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—On holiday I find it useful to have one or two of those "books about books," such as Health's Lectures on the English Poets, or Thackeray's English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century. They give edge to the appetite, and I then turn to, say, Pope himself (who out of a fine intellect fashioned so much for our delight) ; or Addison. For the same purpose also I take care -that' the Spectator shall reach me every week. With Frederick Locker's Lyra Elegantiarung with Mr. J. C. Squire's Selections from Modern Poets, added to Casaubon s translation of Marcus Aurelius, and finally, Isaac Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, I should feel enabled to resist the severest attacks of " summer " weather and holiday ennui. If I may slightly exaggerate, and be slightly unjust, one specimen of current fiction would be enough. That I should snatch from the railway bookstall before starting on the holiday, trusting to exhaust its charms and excitements very soon, and then fall back deliciously on the peace of my elder writers.—I am, Sir, &c., PIIILIP STEVENSON. Redcote, Pixham Lane, Dorking.
Previous page
