The following addresses were delivered at the request of various literary societies and commemorative committees. They amused me to write, and they apparently interested the audiences for which they were primarily intended. Perhaps they do not bear an appearance in print. But they are not for my brother-journalists to read nor for the judicious men of letters. I prefer to think that they are intended solely for those whom Hazlitt styled “sensible people.” Hazlitt said that “the most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world.” I am hoping that these will buy my book and that some of them will like it.

It is recorded by Sir Henry Taylor of Samuel Rogers that when he wrote that very indifferent poem, Italy, he said, “I will make people buy. Turner shall illustrate my verse.” It is of no importance that the biographer of Rogers tells us that the poet first made the artist known to the world by these illustrations. Taylor’s story is a good one, and the moral worth taking to heart. The late Lord Acton, most learned and most accomplished of men, wrote out a list of the hundred best books as he considered them to be. They were printed in a popular magazine. They naturally excited much interest. I have rescued them from the pages of the Pall Mall Magazine. Those who will not buy my book for its seven other essays may do so on account of Lord Acton’s list of books being here first preserved “between boards.” I shall be equally well pleased.

CLEMENT SHORTER.

Great Missenden,
Bucks.