"POETRY.

"All the British Classics as before detailed, with most of
the living poets, Scott, Southey, &c.--Some French, in the
original, of which the Cid is my favourite.--Little
Italian.--Greek and Latin without number;--these last I
shall give up in future.--I have translated a good deal from
both languages, verse as well as prose.

"ELOQUENCE.

"Demosthenes, Cicero, Quintilian, Sheridan, Austin's
Chironomia, and Parliamentary Debates from the Revolution to
the year 1742.

"DIVINITY.

"Blair, Porteus, Tillotson, Hooker,--all very tiresome. I
abhor books of religion, though I reverence and love my God,
without the blasphemous notions of sectaries, or belief in
their absurd and damnable heresies, mysteries, and
Thirty-nine Articles.

"MISCELLANIES.

"Spectator, Rambler, World, &c. &c.--Novels by the thousand.

"All the books here enumerated I have taken down from
memory. I recollect reading them, and can quote passages
from any mentioned. I have, of course, omitted several in my
catalogue; but the greater part of the above I perused
before the age of fifteen. Since I left Harrow, I have
become idle and conceited, from scribbling rhyme and making
love to women. B.--Nov. 30. 1807.

"I have also read (to my regret at present) above four thousand
novels, including the works of Cervantes, Fielding, Smollet,
Richardson, Mackenzie, Sterne, Rabelais, and Rousseau, &c. &c. 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."

To this early and extensive study of English writers may be attributed
that mastery over the resources of his own language with which Lord
Byron came furnished into the field of literature, and which enabled
him, as fast as his youthful fancies sprung up, to clothe them with a
diction worthy of their strength and beauty. In general, the
difficulty of young writers