Essays Author:Henry Rogers Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 104 Luther's Correspondence; And Character. The familiar letters of a great man, if they are sufficiently copious, written on a variety of themes, and rea... more »lly unpremeditated, probably furnish us with more accurate data for estimating his character, than either the most voluminous deliberate compositions, or the largest traditional collections of his conversation. The former will always conceal much which letters will disclose; — will give not only an imperfect, but perhaps false idea of many points of character; and will certainly suggest an exaggerated estimate of all the ordinary habitudes of thought and expression. The latter will often fall as much below the true mean of such a man's merits; and, what is of more consequence, must depend — except in the rare case in which some faithful Boswell continually dogs the heels of genius—on the doubtful authority and leaky memory of those who report it. Letters, on the other hand, if they be copious, unpremeditated, and not inLuther's Correspondence And Character. 105 ' Edinburgh Review,' July, 1845. Dr. Martin Luther's Briefe, Sendschreiben wnd Bedenken, vollstdndig aits den verschiedenen Ausgaben seiner Werke und Briefe, aus andern Biichern und noch unbenutzten Handschriften gesammelt. Kritisch und historisch bearbeitet von Dr. Wil- Helm Martin Leberecht De Wette. 5 vols. 8vo. Berlin. (Dr. Martin Luther's Entire Correspondence, carefully compiled from the various Editions of his Works and Letters, from other Boohs, and from Manuscripts as yet private. Edited, with Critical and Historical Notes, by Dr, Wilhelm Martin Lebe- Recht De Wette.) tended for the eye of the world, will exhibit the character in all its moods and phases, and by its own utterances. While some will disclose to us the habitual states of thought a...« less