sources and sees things from many sides. The world being full of books, it is pedagogic high treason to act as if the text-book contained the whole canon of knowledge.

In culling the Addisonian specimens included in this volume I have had distinctly in view a juvenile public. To compile a good book for pupils to read either in public or in private, was the first consideration. Secondarily, I have endeavored to represent fairly the wonderful diversity of Addison's themes, illustrating with careful selection each of the more conspicuous classes into which the essays may be grouped.

The De Coverley papers I have placed together in the order of their appearance; and that this series may lack no important member, I have included in it the contributions of Steele and Budgell. The pupil will take pleasure in comparing these papers with Addison's to see if he can detect any difference in the styles of the three writers.

The remaining essays in this collection have been selected from Addison's work in the Spectator, the Tatler, the Guardian, and the Freeholder. Following the example of Arnold and other editors, I have given to these selections a slight grouping, though without making such grouping conspicuous to the eye. It appears sufficiently in the table of contents. Under the rubrics, Editorial, The Stage, Manners, Politics, Tales, Varia, Morals and Religion, Hymns, I have brought together forty-five of the more famous papers. The only distinct class of essays of which I have admitted no representative is that of formal criticism. Writing

of this kind is but little apt to prove stimulating to youth.

An ideal selection from Addison's prose writings would of course be a perfect miniature, omitting no feature of the original. Some features of the original should, however, be omitted from an edition intended to be read and worked over in school. Generally, I may say, I have allowed my selection to give an impression of more gravity and seriousness than one brings from the reading of any undivided portion of Addison's papers. The whims, fashions, frivolities of the day, that were duly discussed in the Addisonian periodicals, remain to us still amusing and historically important. That which was light in its day is light still; but it inevitably comes to pass that whatever is undertaken in the class-room has to be dwelt upon more or less, and a clear congruity between the content of a passage and the labor given to the mastery of its meaning recommends the work to the juvenile sense of propriety and proportion.

It has not seemed to me important to give all the chosen papers absolutely entire. In no sense are these essays artistic wholes, possessing a structure that is ruined by the excision of the least portion. I wished to compress into a small compass a considerable variety of specimens. Lightness, readableness, cleanness, I deemed to be the true principles to govern my editing.

Macaulay's essay on the Life and Writings of Addison I have also shortened, without, however, mutilating it as a biography. For school use Macaulay's essay is rather long and rather overloaded with historical erudition. Young readers can work out most of it with the

teacher's help, but parts of it require more collateral reading than such readers can profitably undertake. I have shortened this essay, therefore, by about a fifth. Only persons familiar with Macaulay will miss this fifth. To the pupil the essay will not be found to lack consecutiveness and clearness.

While working at this limited selection from Addison's writings, the class will have frequent occasion to consult the writer's complete works. A complete Addison and a complete Spectator and Tatler should lie on the table for easy reference during the time devoted to this period of literature. Two good editions of Addison's works are accessible, the edition of Bishop Hurd, enlarged by Henry G. Bohn, published, in six volumes, in the Bohn Standard Library; and the edition, also in six volumes, of Professor George Washington Greene, published by J. B. Lippincott and Co.

The Spectator can be had in numerous shapes. Chiefly to be recommended is the edition of Professor Henry Morley, published, in three volumes, by George Routledge and Sons. This edition has notes and an index. The Spectator, Tatler, and Guardian are included in the series of British Essayists, edited by A. Chalmers.

Books and articles bearing directly on Addison and Steele and their writings will be found in endless profusion. Macaulay's essay is here presented. The Life of Addison by Miss Aikin, which Macaulay criticises, is republished in this country and may easily be looked up in the libraries. Still more accessible is Mr. Courthope's Addison, in the English Men of Letters series. In 1889 appeared the Life of Richard Steele by George A. Ait

ken. This handsome book, in two octavo volumes, will be found extremely valuable for frequent reference. It contains interesting portraits. Much smaller is Austin Dobson's Steele, in the English Worthies series. A book not yet quite superseded by all the literary researches of nearly three generations is Nathan Drake's Essays, biographical, critical, and historical, illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, London, 1805. The book entitled Addisoniana, published in two small volumes in 1803, will be found worth looking up. It contains a curious portrait of "Mr. Addison at Button's." With a little enterprise pupils will hunt up many portraits of Addison.

On the manners and customs of the eighteenth century, the student will find useful and interesting, either for consultation or for continuous reading, England and the English in the Eighteenth Century, by William Connor Sydney, Macmillan and Co., 1891. Still more interesting, by reason of its numerous illustrations, is Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, by John Ashton, Chatto and Windus, 1882.

On the general history of Addison's times the reader will naturally refer to Macaulay, so far as Macaulay's History extends, and should learn to refer to the index to the Essays even for eighteenth century matters not reached by the History. Charles Knight's Popular History of England is a book that every high school should possess. Its pictures and its frequent reference to social and literary matters make it a work of supreme interest to youth. Works so large as Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, Burton's History of the Reign of Queen Anne, Wyon's History of Great

Britain during the Reign of Queen Anne, and Lord Mahon's three works on eighteenth century periods, while too formidable for high school pupils to think of reading as wholes, are not too large for consultation in the investigation of special subjects. The War of the Spanish Succession is treated on a scale suitable for high school digestion in G. W. Kitchin's History of France. A most excellent book, both for reading and for handy reference on all topics of English history, is Samuel Rawson Gardiner's Student's History of England. Every high school should have this work. The notes in this volume refer to it constantly.

Merely verbal difficulties in texts no older than Addison's writings are usually explained by the larger dictionaries. When all the common dictionaries fail, then the Century should be tried. It is a great blessing to a school to possess the Century. The possibilities of profit from a course of English study are doubled when such a book lies accessible for easy reference.

S. T.

APRIL 4, 1892.