end of the year
1835. It includes December 1834; for I came into my house and unpacked
my books at the end of November 1834. During the last thirteen months
I have read Aeschylus twice; Sophocles twice; Euripides once; Pindar
twice; Callimachus; Apollonius Rhodius; Quintus Calaber; Theocritus
twice; Herodotus; Thucydides; almost all Xenophon's works; almost all
Plato; Aristotle's Politics, and a good deal of his Organon, besides
dipping elsewhere in him; the whole of Plutarch's Lives; about half of
Lucian; two or three books of Athenaeus; Plautus twice; Terence twice;
Lucretius twice; Catullus; Tibullus; Propertius; Lucan; Statius; Silius
Italicus; Livy; Velleius Paterculus; Sallust; Caesar; and, lastly,
Cicero. I have, indeed, still a little of Cicero left; but I shall
finish him in a few days. I am now deep in Aristophanes and Lucian.
Of Aristophanes I think as I always thought; but Lucian has agreeably
surprised me. At school I read some of his Dialogues of the Dead when I
was thirteen; and, to my shame, I never, to the best of my belief, read
a line of him since. I am charmed with him. His style seems to me to be
superior to that of any extant writer who lived later than the age of
Demosthenes and Theophrastus. He has a most peculiar and delicious
vein of humour. It is not the humour of Aristophanes; it is not that of
Plato; and yet it is akin to both; not quite equal, I admit, to either,
but still exceedingly charming. I hardly know where to find an instance
of a writer, in the decline of a literature, who has shown an invention
so rich, and a taste so pure. But, if I get on these matters, I shall
fill sheet after sheet. They must wait till we take another long walk,
or another tavern dinner, together; that is, till the summer of 1838.

I had a long story to tell you about a classical examination here; but I
have not time. I can only say that some of the competitors tried to read
the Greek with the papers upside down; and that the great man of the
examination, the Thirlwall of Calcutta, a graduate of Trinity College,
Dublin, translated the words of Theophrastus, osas leitourgias
leleitroupgeke "how many times he has performed divine service." ["How
many public services he had discharged at his own expense." Macaulay
used to say that a lady who dips into Mr. Grote's history, and learns
that Alcibiades won the heart of his fellow-citizens by the novelty of
his theories and the splendour of his liturgies, may get a ve