General Books

CHAUCER March 17, 1894. Professor Skeat's Chaucer. After twenty-five years of close toil, Professor Skeat has completed his great edition of Chaucer. It is obviously easier to be dithyrambic than critical in chronicling this event; to which indeed dithyrambs are more appropriate than criticism. For when a man writes Opus vitæ meæ at the conclusion of such a task as this, and so lays down his... more...

The proceedings which have now been brought satisfactorily to an end are of a kind which nobody who has sensibility as well as sense can take a part in without some emotion. An illustrious French philosopher who happened to be an examiner of candidates for admission to the Polytechnic School, once confessed that, when a youth came before him eager to do his best, competently taught, and of an apt... more...

CHAPTER I BROWNING AND TENNYSON Parnassus, Apollo's mount, has two peaks, and on these, for sixty years, from 1830 to 1890, two poets sat, till their right to these lofty peaks became unchallenged. Beneath them, during these years, on the lower knolls of the mount of song, many new poets sang; with diverse instruments, on various subjects, and in manifold ways. They had their listeners; the Muses... more...

SAINT AUGUSTINE The Confessions of St. Augustine are the first autobiography, and they have this to distinguish them from all other autobiographies, that they are addressed directly to God. Rousseau's unburdening of himself is the last, most effectual manifestation of that nervous, defiant consciousness of other people which haunted him all his life. He felt that all the men and women whom he... more...

The question of a final criterion for the appreciation of art is one that perpetually recurs to those interested in any sort of aesthetic endeavor. Mr. John Addington Symonds, in a chapter of 'The Renaissance in Italy' treating of the Bolognese school of painting, which once had so great cry, and was vaunted the supreme exemplar of the grand style, but which he now believes fallen into... more...

Introduction What little is known of the life of Samuel Cobb (1675-1713) may be found in the brief article in the Dictionary of National Biography by W.P. Courtney. He was born in London, and educated at Christ's Hospital and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained the degrees of B.A., 1698, and M.A., 1702. He was appointed "under grammar master" at Christ's Hospital in 1702... more...

I. LD King Cole Was a merry old soul, And a merry old soul was he; He called for his pipe, And he called for his bowl, And he called for his fiddlers three. Every fiddler, he had a fiddle, And a very fine fiddle had he; Twee tweedle dee, tweedle dee, went the fiddlers. Oh, there's none so rare, As can compare With King Cole and his fiddlers three! [The traditional Nursery Rhymes of England... more...

INTRODUCTORY: OF MODERN ENGLISH POETRY To Mr. Arthur Wincott, Topeka, Kansas. Dear Wincott,—You write to me, from your “bright home in the setting sun,” with the flattering information that you have read my poor “Letters to Dead Authors.”  You are kind enough to say that you wish I would write some “Letters to Living Authors;” but that, I fear, is out of the question,—for me. A... more...

ALMAYER'S FOLLY I am informed that in criticizing that literature which preys on strange people and prowls in far-off countries, under the shade of palms, in the unsheltered glare of sunbeaten beaches, amongst honest cannibals and the more sophisticated pioneers of our glorious virtues, a lady—distinguished in the world of letters—summed up her disapproval of it by saying that the tales it... more...

INTRODUCTION The following essay forms the introduction to a famous anthology of the seventeenth century, the Epigrammatum delectus, a Port-Royal textbook published at Paris in 1659. The essay was twice translated into French in the same century, but the use of the text in France did not survive, apparently, the downfall of the Port-Royal movement. It was, however, later adopted by Eton College, where... more...