"Blair, Porteus, Tillotson, Hooker,--all very tiresome. I
abhor books of religion, though I reverence and love my God,
without the blasphemous notions of sectaries, or belief in
their absurd and damnable heresies, mysteries, and
Thirty-nine Articles.
"MISCELLANIES.
"Spectator, Rambler, World, &c. &c.--Novels by the thousand.
"All the books here enumerated I have taken down from
memory. I recollect reading them, and can quote passages
from any mentioned. I have, of course, omitted several in my
catalogue; but the greater part of the above I perused
before the age of fifteen. Since I left Harrow, I have
become idle and conceited, from scribbling rhyme and making
love to women. B.--Nov. 30. 1807.
"I have also read (to my regret at present) above four thousand
novels, including the works of Cervantes, Fielding, Smollet,
Richardson, Mackenzie, Sterne, Rabelais, and Rousseau, &c. &c. The
book, in my opinion, most useful to a man who wishes to acquire the
reputation of being well read, with the least trouble, is "Burton's
Anatomy of Melancholy," the most amusing and instructive medley of
quotations and classical anecdotes I ever perused. But a superficial
reader must take care, or his intricacies will bewilder him. If,
however, he has patience to go through his volumes, he will be more
improved for literary conversation than by the perusal of any twenty
other works with which I am acquainted,--at least, in the English
language.
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