'What are you reading? I am waiting for an account of "Waverl[e]y" from you. - The principal part of my reading in addition to Mathematics &c has been "the Exiles of Siberia", "Hoole's Tasso['s] Jerusalem", "Oberon" translated from the German by Southeby, "Beatties Minstrel", Savage's poems, Fenelons "lives of ancient Philosophers" and "the Miseries of Human life" 2 vols. If there is any of these that you have not seen - and want my sentiments about - you shall have them in my next'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Unknown
'Next morning at breakfast, [10th June 1784] he pointed out a passage in Savage's "Wanderer", saying, "These are fine verses". "If (said he) I had written with hostility of Warburton in my "Shakspeare", I should have quoted this couplet:--
'Here Learning, blinded first and then beguil'd,
Looks dark as Ignorance, as Fancy wild'.
You see they'd have fitted him to a T" (smiling.)'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
'What a strange Book is Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy"! & how it has been plunder'd! Milton took his Allegro and Penseroso from the Verses at the beginning, Savage his Speech of Suicide in the Wanderer from Page 216. Swift his Tale of the Woman that held water in her Mouth to regain her Husband's Love by Silence - 'tis printed in the Tatler; Johnson got his Story of the Magnet that detects unchaste Wives from the same Farrago, & even Shakespear I believe the Trick put on the Tinker Christopher Sly in the taming of the Shrew. See page 277 of Burton.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
