Nineteenth century English prose; critical essays

Front matter

Class ^P^AMl Book JD_5_„

GopghtN".

COPVRIGHT DEPOSrC

Preface

In preparing the present work the editors have restricted themselves to a single type of Hterary expression, — the critical essay. They have endeavored to trace, in a series of ten selected essays, the development of EngHsh criticism in the nineteenth century. In choosing the material they have been influenced by something more than mere style. An underlying coherence in content, typical of the thought of the era in question, may be traced throughout.

The book is designed to furnish a series of essays covering a definite period and exhibiting the individuality in each author's method of criticism. The subject-matter in these selections provides interesting material for intensive study and class-room discussion, and each essay is an example of excellent, though varying, English style. It has not been the intention of the editors to place the different authors represented on the same level, either as critics or as stylists. Nor do they claim to have, necessarily, selected the best essay of each writer; they have sought, rather, to choose that one which appears to them to be most typical of the author's critical principles, and, at the same time, representative of the critical tendency of his age.

A volume compiled to serve the ends outlined above 3

4 PREFACE

needs few accessories. The introductions, mainly biographical, are brief; the notes treat only those matters upon which investigation by the student would be difficult or unprofitable.

With the exception of certain omitted passages from the poetry of Arnold and Browning in the Bagehot essay, the selections are given in their entirety.

Acknowledgments should be made to the Macmillan Company for permission to use the revised form of Walter Pater's essay on Leonardo da Vinci, and to the Travelers' Insurance Company for permission to print Walter Bagehot 's essay on Wordsworth ^ Tennyson, and Browning.

T. H. D.

F. W. R.

Madison, Wisconsin.