OF ENGLISH LITERATURE BEING TYPICAL SELECTIONS OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN TO THE PRESENT TIME TOGETHER WITH DEFINITIONS, NOTES, ANALYSES, AND GLOSSARY AS AN AID TO SYSTEMATIC LITERARY STUDY FOR USE IN HIGH AND NORMAL SCHOOLS, ACADEMIES BY WILLIAM SWINTON AUTHOR OF "HARPER'S LANGUAGE SERIES" AND GOLD MEDALLIST WITH PORTRAITS NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. The IN the prescribed curricula of most high-schools, English literature and rhetoric find an important place. Yet, perhaps, no subjects are less satisfactorily taught. study of English literature is, for the most part, confined to a cram on the personal biography of authors; at the best, it is a reading about literature rather than a reading in literature. The study of rhetoric is, for the most part, confined to the learning of abstract definitions and principles. This is an acquisition certainly not to be undervalued; for there is only a half-truth in Butler's famous aphorism, that All a rhetorician's rules Teach nothing but to name his tools." Yet assuredly it is a barren knowledge, that of the "rhetorician's rules," unless these are seen and felt as they find spontaneous embodiment in the great creations of the masters of literary art. This volume of "Masterpieces" is designed to occupy a place at the meeting-point of literature and rhetoricto restore the twain to their natural and fruitful relationship. On the side of literature it is intended as the ac A |