other parts of this book.

[7] Yet others, as to authenticity, have, I believe, been rejected by
all competent scholarship.

[8] Benjamin Constant and Madame de Charriere.

[9] Some of us think Blake a great poet; but this is scarcely a general
opinion, and he does not appear till the century was three parts over.
Burns (whose own letters by the way do him little justice) hardly comes
in.

[10] Especially the most popular and voluminous if not the most
important of all--the periodical and the novel.

[11] The danger being of many sorts--usually in the direction of various
kinds of _excess_. A _quietly_ tragic letter may be a masterpiece:
perhaps there is no finer example than one to be again referred to, of
Mrs. Carlyle's.

[12] Mr. Paul thinks that "the baby language" is terribly out of
character, and that there is "too much of it"; that Swift "would try to
make love though he did not know what love meant"; and that the whole
rings hollow and insincere. Others, women as well as men, have held that
the "little language" is only less pathetic than it is charming; that
Swift was one of the greatest, if one of the unhappiest lovers of the
world; and that the thing is as sincere as if it had been written in the
Palace of Truth and only hollow as is the space between Heaven and Hell.

[13] It should never be, but perhaps sometimes is, forgotten that
"Stella" was a lady of unusual wits, and of what Swift's greatest
decrier called in his own protegee Mrs. Williams "universal curiosity,"
that is to say not "inquisitiveness" but "intelligent interest." The
politics etc. are not mere selfish attention to what interests the
writer only.

[14] It must not be forgotten that she was Fielding's cousin. And after
the remark above on Swift it is pleasant and may be fair to say that Mr.
Paul is a hearty "Marian."

[15] Johnson is again the chief and by no means trustworthy witness for
this "insolence." But in the same breath he admitted that Chesterfield
was "dignified." Now dignity is almost as doubtfully compatible with
insolence as with impudence.

[16] It is difficult to think of anyone who has combined statesmanship
(Chesterfield's accomplishments in which are constantly forgotten),
social gifts and literary skill in an equal degree.

[17] Excluding of course purely historical and public things like the
trials of the '45 and the riots of '80.

[18] They were travelling together (always rather a test of friendship)
i