Lewis the XVth, 2 vols.
History of the Life and Reign of the Czar Peter the Great.
Campaigns of Marshal Turenne.
Locke on the Human Understanding.
Robertson's History of America, 2 vols.
Robertson's History of Charles V.
Voltaire's Letters.
Life of Gustavus Adolphus.
Sully's Memoirs.
Goldsmith's Natural History.
Mildman on Trees.
Vertot's Revolution of Rome, 3 vols.
Vertot's Revolution of Portugal, 3 vols.
{The Vertot's if they are in estimation.}
If there is a good Bookseller's shop in the City, I would thank
you for sending me a catalogue of the Books and their prices that
I may choose such as I want."
His tastes ran to history and to works treating of war or agriculture,
as is indicated both by this list and some earlier ones. It is not
probable that he gave so much attention to lighter literature,
although he wrote verses in his youth, and by an occasional allusion
in his letters he seems to have been familiar with some of the great
works of the imagination, like "Don Quixote."[1]
[Footnote 1: At his death the appraisers of the estate found 863
volumes in his library, besides a great number of pamphlets,
magazines, and maps. This was a large collection of books for those
days, and showed that the possessor, although purely a man of affairs,
loved reading and had literary tastes.]
He never freed himself from the self-distrust caused by his profound
sense of his own deficiencies in education, on the one hand, and
his deep reverence for learning, on the other.
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