AUTHOR OF SOME FAMOUS WOMEN OF WIT AND BEAUTY' WITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA NEW YORK JAMES POTT & COMPANY LONDON ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO., LTD. PREFATORY NOTE THE word Eccentric is not to be taken in every case as a term of reproach; for, as John Stuart Mill long ago pointed out, eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded. Moreover, the eleven Literary Eccentrics here presented exhibit the quality in very varying degree; ranging from just that spice of singularity which raises a man above the commonplace, to an excess of morbidity which places him on the border-land of insanity. The first and second of the following studies originally appeared in The Independent Review; the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh in Temple Bar; the eighth and ninth in Macmillan's Magazine; and they are now reprinted by the courtesy of the editors of those periodicals. The third, tenth, and eleventh are here printed for the first time. 217165 J. F. |