INTRODUCTION. THE general principles which should govern the compilation of a literary reading-book have been sufficiently set forth in the introduction to the first of these little volumes, and it only remains to add that its successor preserves the same general character, while appealing to pupils of somewhat more advanced development, and presumably less in need of the attraction of fictitious narrative. The prime necessity, nevertheless, remains that every extract should be interesting, not merely to the brilliant, but to the average boy or girl. The main difficulty is that if these extracts are to fulfil their further purpose of providing the pupil with a miniature view of English literature, a certain proportion, however simple in style, must be comparatively uninteresting to the scholars, as lying outside the range of their actual thoughts and experience. Here the teacher's task assumes its especial importance. It is impossible to overestimate the service which may be rendered by a teacher who will not be content with a mere perfunctory reading, but will interest himself warmly in ascertaining how far a lesson is understood, and removing the impediments, whether of deficient intelligence or of unfamiliarity with the theme, which hinder full comprehension. By following this course persistently a discerning teacher will discover which of his charges belong to the elect, who, in Pater's words, "find out, almost for themselves, the beauty and power of good literature, even in the literature they must read perforce." Such need only to be made aware of the infinite extent and variety of the region into which the humble reading-book has served to admit them, and they will experience "the intellectual awaking with a leap," which, Pater adds, "has something of the stir and unction of the coming of love.' Some attempt to afford such a glimpse of an ampler world is made in the brief literary notices by which this volume, like its predecessor, is accompanied. From a merely critical standpoint these may be censured as too eulogistic. This warmth of encomium, however, is intentional. Whatever the necessity for negative criticism at a maturer period of life, its place in the training of the young should be most subordinate. Nothing should be encouraged which can tend to chill admiration, even when carried to enthusiasm, or impair the sense of grateful obligation to intellectual benefactors. Time and the world can be but too surely trusted to correct any harmful excess of such feeling; but negative criticism can only be invoked for this end at the risk of destroying what can never be replaced. A great poet, who was also a great critic-Shelley—has said :— "I do not think much of not admiring Metastasio; the nil admirari, however justly applied, seems to me a bad sign in a young person. I had rather a pupil of mine had conceived a frantic passion for Marini himself, than that she had found out the critical defects of the most deficient author. When she becomes of her own accord full of genuine admiration for some neglected piece of excellence, hope great things." "Neglected pieces of excellence" will rarely be found in these little books, for little has been inserted that does not bear the stamp of general approval. But if acquaintance with these, aided by the comments of a judicious teacher, should aid the scholar to recognize such excellence when he afterwards encounters it, one of the chief ends of this publiIcation will have been attained. R. GARNETT. |