Sir Richard Steele(1672-1729)and Joseph Addison(1672-1719)Recollections of Childhood 1
The Spectator Introduces Himself 5
The Spectator Club 10
Sir Roger de Coverley at Home 17
The Vision of Mirzah 21
Jonathan Swift(1667-1745) 28
A Modest Proposal 28
Lord Chesterfield(1697-1773) 40
Letters to His Son 40
Oliver Goldsmith(1730-1774) 50
The English Character 50
Westminster Abbey 54
Beau Tibbs at Home 60
James Boswell(1740-1795) 66
Johnson and Lord Chesterfield 66
Boswell's Introduction toJohnson 70
Oliver Goldsmith 73
Charles Lamb(1775-1834) 77
Dream-Children;A Reverie 77
A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People 82
Old China 91
William Hazlitt(1778-1830) 100
My First Acquaintance with Poets 100
On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth 112
Thomas de Quincey(1785-1859) 121
My Early Life 121
The Daughter of Lebanon 126
Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881) 134
Marie Antoinette 134
Shakespeare 137
John Ruskin(1819-1900) 145
The Earth-Vei 145
Alpine Skies:Sunrise to Sunset 151
A Child's May-Day Party 154
Robert Louis Stevenson(1850-1894) 157
Walking Tours 157
Notes 167