ENGLISH Illustrated. CLASSICS. EDITED BY WM. J. ROLFE, Litt. D. 16mo, Cloth, 56 cents per volume; Paper, 40 cents per volume. GOLDSMITH'S SELECT POEMS. MINOR POEMS OF JOHN MILTON. Richard III. King Lear. The Taming of the Shrew. The Comedy of Errors. Antony and Cleopatra. Measure for Measure. Merry Wives of Windsor. Troilus and Cressida. Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The Two Noble Kinsmen. Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, etc. Titus Andronicus. BROWNING'S SELECT POEMS. BROWNING'S SELECT DRAMAS. MACAULAY'S LAYS OF ANCIENT ROMB WORDSWORTH'S SELECT POEMS. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or they will be sent by HARPER & BROTHERS to any address on receipt of price as quoted. if ordered sent by mail, 10 per cent. should be added to the price to cover cost of postage. Copyright, 1883, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 1-23-43 PREFAC E. AT the request of the publishers, the first name on the title-page of this book is that of the editor of the "English Classics" series in which it is included; but the better part of the work has been done by his son, John C. Rolfe, Assistant Professor of Latin in the Michigan State University. The senior editor has arranged the introduction, compared the text with the English editions and revised its punctuation, and helped in seeing the book through the press. The Notes are almost entirely the junior editor's, having received only occasional revision in minor points at the hands of his senior. The editors are fully agreed in the opinion that parallel reading in English should accompany the study of Latin in our high schools and academies, where, especially in the preparatory course for college, so little time can be given to purely literary training. For such reading Macaulay's Lays are particularly well-adapted, both on account of their subjects and their many allusions to Roman customs and habits, and also, to our thinking, for their poetical merit. Certain critics, of whom the late Matthew Arnold is perhaps the most noteworthy, tell us that the Lays are not poetry; but in this instance we are content to be wrong with John Stuart Mill and Henry Morley and "Christopher North" (see pages 140, 143 below) and Edmund Clarence Stedman, if they are wrong, rather than to be right with Matthew Arnold, if he is right. Every teacher who has used the Lays with his classes can testify that boys enjoy them heartily. They have long been a part of the curriculum in the Boston Latin School and other of our best preparatory schools, and are included in the English reading required for admission to Harvard and other colleges. No doubt they would have been more generally introduced into schools but for the lack of an annotated edition. As Macaulay says (page 29 below), the learned reader does not need notes on the Lays, and for the unlearned they would have little interest; but the schoolboy needs them, and the average teacher is not "learned" enough to dispense with them in all cases. In preparing the present volume the editors have 171075 |