Henry's "History of Great Britain" is a very good and accurate book; but the continuity of the narrative is broken by the multiplicity of divisions in each period, (learning, arts, commerce, manners, &c. &c.), and by the transitions to the history of Scotland. Lingard I have not read; I am told that his style is good, and his information extensive. It was natural that, as a zealous Romanist, he should seek to extenuate the faults of men of his own persuasion, and to exaggerate the failings, and place in an unfavourable point of view the motives and actions of the assailants of Popery; but he has, I think, been fully convicted of carrying misrepresentation beyond all reasonable bounds. There was but too much of bigotry and persecution on both sides. Turner's History is, I believe, strictly honest and impartial, and a work of prodigious labour and research. But in our attention to prose writers, we must not forget the classical poets of our own country. Make yourself familiarly acquainted with Shakspeare, Milton, and Pope. The more you read of Young and Cowper, the better. Young is sometimes turgid, with a good deal of bad taste; but he abounds in real poetry, and in strong truths most forcibly expressed. Cowper sometimes carries simplicity to the verge of being prosaic; but he is generally graceful, often pathetic, and sometimes approaches to sublimity. Of both, it was the common object to increase the influence of genuine Christianity; of both, the perusal has a direct tendency to make you a better and a more religious man. Two of our most distinguished living poets--Sir Walter Scott and Southey--have seen their poetry cast into shade by the popularity of their own prose. The poems of both will live, and have justice done them by posterity. "Madoc" was many years ago recommended to me by one of the most able, and most candid, of our living authors. I read it with much interest. "The Curse of Kehama" is full of high and wild poetry; and "Roderick, the last of the Goths" gives a noble picture of deep penitence and of devoted patriotism. You will hardly read any ten lines of the longer poems of Sir Walter Scott, without meeting with some striking beauty of expression or of sentiment.