io8 MORE POT-POURRI 



satisfaction. I mean Jeremy Taylor, South, Bacon, and 

 Milton. I send them to you, not only as samples which 

 will, I think, please you, but in the hope that they will 

 induce you to look further into the works from which 

 they are taken. I had inserted some loose pages con- 

 taining parallel passages and observations upon the text, 

 but think upon the whole it would be to expose you to 

 observation were I to send the book with them in and 

 anybody but yourself happened to look into it. I only 

 send you with it some verses of Southey's which struck 

 me as very pretty, and which I have but lately met with. 

 You can take them out. Taylor is a writer of the greatest 

 eloquence and the most exuberant imagination I am 

 acquainted with in any language. He had at the same 

 time an humble mind, and was thoroughly imbued with a 

 true spirit of Christian charity. South is distinguished 

 for y e vigour and nervous energy of his style and 

 thoughts. He had a thoroughly strong mind too con- 

 fident, however, and uncompromising to admit of his being 

 really tolerant of the opinions of others. His conception 

 of the state of man before the Fall, though it savours 

 of course of y e ideal, is a very remarkable performance. 

 Bacon had a practical mind, and no man perhaps ever so 

 thoroughly mastered the subject of human nature as he 

 did. If you can get his Essays, which are sold almost 

 everywhere, pray read them or rather, I should say, 

 study them, for they are models of conciseness. Every 

 sentence admits of development. They force one to think 

 for oneself, which is the best service an author can render 

 one. Justice has not been done to Milton's prose works 

 in this little book, but, as they are mostly confined to 

 political subjects, they might not perhaps interest you so 

 much. Milton's mind was not wholly free from bigotry. 

 But I love him for his hatred of tyranny and persecu- 

 tion under every shape, for his unquenchable ardour for 



