[Letter from Byron to Annabella Milbanke, Aug 25th 1814]. 'You can hardly have a better modern work than Sismondi's, but he has since published another on the Literature of Italy, Spain &c., which I would willingly recommend... on my return to London I would gladly forward it... Gibbon is well worth a hundred perusals. Watson's Philip of Spain, and Coxe's Spain and Austria are dry enough; but there is some advantage to be extracted even from them. Vertot's Revolutions (but writes not history but romance). The best thing of that kind I met by accident at Athens in a Convent Library in old and not "very choice Italian". I forget the title - but it was a history in some thirty tomes of all Conjurazioni whatsoever from Catiline's down to Count Fiesco of Lavagna's in Genoa and Braganza's in Lisbon. I read it through (having nothing else to read) & having nothing to compare it withal, thought it perfection'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gordon, Lord Byron Print: Book
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 31 May 1768:]
'This day I finish Pharamond: is Mrs Sutton still in town, that I may return it to her? if not, when you write, pray return my thanks for the amusement it has afforded me. This day I also begin Mrs Montagu's [copy of] "Chevaliers de Malthe." I rejoice to hear so good an account of her.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
