attempt to treat, in a popular manner, questions hitherto neglected in elementary books, but which the increased intelligence of the present age renders it no longer expedient to pass over without remark.
The work was written in the brief intervals of very active and laborious duties, and in a country where the author could have no access to an English library of reference: whatever errors and oversights it may contain on minor points will, therefore, he trusts, be excused. The only merits. to which it can have any claim are somewhat of novelty in its plan, and the attempt to render it as little dry—as readable, in short- as was consistent with accuracy and comprehensiveness.
It is proposed that this volume shall be followed by a second, nearly similar in bulk, and divided into the same number of chapters, containing a selection of choice passages from the writers treated of in these pages, and forming a Chrestomathia to be read with the biographical and critical account of each author. The student will, therefore, at once have before him a distinct view of the literary character and genius of each great writer, and striking extracts from that writer's works; he will thus be insensibly led, not only to form his taste and fill his memory with beautiful images and thoughts, but to acquire a clearer notion of the peculiar merits of each author than he could obtain from the meagre and unconnected fragments to be found in the existing collections of English prose and verse.