AND ESSAYS BY ALFRED AINGER IN TWO VOLS.-VOL. II London MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY All rights reserved THE LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB THE published letters of distinguished men make, as you are aware, an important branch of English literature. To mention a few only, and those distinctively literary men, how much poorer should we be if we had not inherited the letters of Pope and Swift, of Walpole, Cowper, Gray, and Byron, and, in our own day, of Dickens and Carlyle. The letters of these, and others you will recall, form indeed a limited literature, and for that reason perhaps, like the Sibylline Books, will be ever more and more treasured. For letter-writing (of the kind that survives) began late, and I think we may safely predict will (to use the famous apology made by Charles Lamb at the India House) make up for coming late by going away early. Letters of the kind we have in viewthose written to relations, and friends and associates in the writer's work or other of his interests-began to be regularly preserved only about the beginning of last century. There were doubtless interesting and charming letters VOL. II B |