contemporaries. A study of the table will give not a little information in regard to the development of English and American literature during the nineteenth century.

Instruction in English in the secondary schools is now so well organized, and good methods are so well understood, that it is unnecessary to describe here the customary treatment in the classroom of such a volume as the "Sketch-Book." It may be well, however, to suggest that, particularly with young pupils, it may not prove advisable to read all the sketches, or to read them in the order in which the author arranged them. Some will prove more difficult, or less interesting, than others, and the grouping is not of especial importance.

The main value of the book for our purposes is that it serves as an admirable introduction both to composition and to literature. With so excellent a model before his eyes, the pupil can scarcely fail to improve his own style; and he will as certainly learn to appreciate that revelation of individuality in which lies the charm of genuine literature. Moreover, the "Sketch-Book" will open the way for the "Tales of a Traveller," and that for Irving's other volumes of description and narrative, until the pupil will find himself with a well formed habit for good reading. A better author for boys and girls of fourteen to sixteen could scarcely be found. Like Macaulay, he is full of allusions, and herein lies not only part of his charm but much of his educative value, for these very allusions, unlike those of Macaulay, are rarely such as send one to the dictionary and the encyclopædia; they explain themselves, for the most part,-at least, in the long run-and build up for the young reader a mass of information that is really worth having. One has only to read Irvingto keep reading Irving-and he will rapidly become familiar with that somewhat desultory store of traditional fact and fancy that is so large an ingredient in the making of a cultivated man or woman.

THE

SKETCH-BOOK

OF

GEOFFREY CRAYON,

GENT.

"I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for. A mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they play their parts; which, methinks, are diversely presented unto me, as from a common theatre or scene."-BURTON.