Of the Essays in this volume "Adventures among Books," and "Rab's
Friend," appeared in _Scribner's Magazine_; and "Recollections of Robert
Louis Stevenson" (to the best of the author's memory) in _The North
American Review_. The Essay on "Smollett" was in the _Anglo-Saxon_,
which has ceased to appear; and the shorter papers, such as "The
Confessions of Saint Augustine," in a periodical styled _Wit and Wisdom_.
For "The Poems of William Morris" the author has to thank the Editor of
_Longman's Magazine_; for "The Boy," and "Mrs. Radcliffe's Novels," the
Proprietors of _The Cornhill Magazine_; for "Enchanted Cigarettes," and
possibly for "The Supernatural in Fiction," the Proprietors of _The
Idler_. The portrait, after Sir William Richmond, R.A., was done about
the time when most of the Essays were written--and that was not
yesterday.




CHAPTER I: ADVENTURES AMONG BOOKS


I


In an age of reminiscences, is there room for the confessions of a
veteran, who remembers a great deal about books and very little about
people? I have often wondered that a _Biographia Literaria_ has so
seldom been attempted--a biography or autobiography of a man in his
relations with other minds. Coleridge, to be sure, gave this name to a
work of his, but he wandered from his apparent purpose into a world of