graphy. {281c}

25. Browne's Religio Medici. {281d}

My readers for the most part have read every one of these books. I throw
out this list as a tentative effort in the direction of suggesting a
hundred books with which to start a library. The young student will find
much to amuse, and certainly nothing here to bore him. These books will
not make him a prig, as Mr. James Payn said that Lord Avebury's list
would make him a prig. They will make the dull man less dull, the bright
man brighter. Here is good, cheerful, robust reading for boy and girl,
for man and woman. There are many sins of omission, but none of
commission. Our young friend will add to this list fast enough, but
there is nothing in it that he may not read with profit. These books, I
repeat, make an universal appeal. The learned man may enjoy them, the
unlearned may enjoy them also. They are, as _Hamlet_ is, of universal
interest. Devotion to science will not impair a taste for them, nor will
zest for abstract speculations. Not even those who are "better skilled
in grammar than in poetry" can fail to appreciate. These hundred books
will in the main be the hundred best books of many of my readers who are
quite capable of selecting for themselves. One last word of advice. Let
not the young reader buy large quantities of books at once or be beguiled
into subscribing for some cheap series which will save him the trouble of
selecting. He may buy many books from such cheap series afterwards, but
not his first hundred, I think. These should be acquired through much
saving, and purchased with great thought and deliberation. The purchase
of a book should become to the young book-lover a most solemn function.

_Butler and Tanner_, _The Selwood Printing Works_, _Frome_, _and London_

Footnotes:

{3} Richard Garnett (1835-1906) was son of the philologist of the same
name who was for a time priest-vicar of Lichfield Cathedral. He attended
the Johnson Celebration on Sept. 18, 1905, and proposed "the Immortal
Memory of Dr. Johnson." He died on the following Good Friday, April 13,
and was buried in Highgate Cemetery April 17, 1906.

{6} Anna Seward (1747-1809). Her works were published after her
death:--_The Poetical Works of Anna Seward_. _With Extracts from her
Literary Correspondence_. Edited by Walter Scott, Esq. In three
volumes--_John Ballantyne & Co._, 1810. _Letters of Anna Seward written
between the Years_ 1784 _and_ 1807.