P. 26. _Burton._--Lord Byron is reported by Moore to have said: 'The book, in my opinion, most useful to a man who wishes to acquire the reputation of being well read, with the least trouble, is Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, the most amusing and instructive medley of quotations and classical anecdotes I ever perused. But a superficial reader must take care, or his intricacies will bewilder him. If, however, he has patience to go through his volumes, he will be more improved for literary conversation than by the perusal of any twenty other works with which I am acquainted, at least in the English language.' Dr. Johnson, while admitting that the _Anatomy_ is a valuable work, suggests that it is overloaded with quotation. But he adds, 'It is the only book that ever took me out of bed two hours sooner than I wished to rise.' P. 28. _Southey._--'Southey's appearance is _Epic_; and he is the only existing entire man of letters. All the others have some pursuit annexed to their authorship'.--LORD BYRON. Ye, loved books, no more Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore, To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown, Adding immortal labours of his own.--WORDSWORTH. (Inscription for a monument in Crosthwaite Church). P. 32. _Montaigne._--Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne, began to write his essays in his château at Montaigne in Périgord in 1572, at the age of thirty-nine. The essays were published in 1580, and five editions had appeared before his death in 1592. _The Essayes of Michael Lord of Montaigne_ translated by John Florio were first published in 1603. The translator was born in London about 1553, and he died in 1625. It is this translation from which my excerpts are given, and it is the only book known to have been in Shakespeare's library; the volume contains his autograph, and is now in the British Museum. Emerson classes Montaigne in his _Representative Men_ as the Sceptic. He calls to mind that Gibbon reckoned, in the bigoted times of the period, but two men of liberality in France--Henry IV and Montaigne--and adds, 'Though a Biblical plainness, coupled with a most uncanonical levity, may shut his pages to many sensitive readers, yet the offence is superficial.... I know not anywhere the book that seems less written. It is the language of conversation transferred to a book.' P. 33. _Denham._--Dominico Mancini wrote the _Libellus de quattuor Virtutibus_, published in Paris, 1484. P. 37. _Johnson._--The excerpts from Johnson and from Boswell's _Life_ are taken, where possible, from Dr. Birkbeck Hill's Oxford edition. P. 41. _Rabelais._--The translation is that of Peter Anthony Motteux (1660-1718) and of Sir Thomas Urquhart (1611-1660).