Letters to Dead Authors (idea)

Contents

1. To W. M. Thackeray
2. To Charles Dickens
3. To Pierre De Ronsard
4. To Herodotus
5. An Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope
6. To Lucian of Samosata
7. To Maitre Francoys Rabelais
8. To Jane Austen
9. To Master Isaak Walton
10. To M. Chapelain
11. To Sir John Manndeville, Kt
12. To Alexandre Dumas
13. To Theocritus
14. To Edgar Allan Poe
15. To Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
16. To Eusebius of Caesarea
17. To Percy Bysshe Shelley
18. To Monsieur De Molière, Valet De Chambre du Roi
19. To Robert Burns
20. To Lord Byron
21. To Omar Khayyám
22. 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.'