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THE PROSE

AND

PROSE WRITERS OF BRITAIN

FROM

CHAUCER TO RUSKIN,

WITH

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, EXPLANATORY NOTES, AND INTRODUCTORY

SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.

BY ROBERT DEMAUS, M. A.,

FELLOW OF THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SCOTLAND.

EDINBURGH:

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, NORTH BRIDGE,

BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS TO HER MAJESTY.

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PREFACE.

THE unexampled fertility of the press in our day naturally tends to throw into obscurity the literary productions of former generations. The few and brief intervals of leisure which can be rescued from the busy avocations of life for the study of literature, scarcely suffice for the acquisition of such an acquaintance with the works of contemporary authors as every intelligent man is expected to possess. The scholar and the professed man of letters must indeed aspire to something more from them we demand that knowledge of the whole field of English literature, without which it is impossible to form any wellgrounded estimate of the literary progress of our country, or of the value of the contributions which the present era has made to the literary wealth of the nation. But to the great majority of the reading public, the study of our older literature has now become an almost impracticable pursuit. Not that there is any want of appreciation of those literary masterpieces which so many ages have agreed to admire. Never were the merits of the great writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries more

freely admitted than they are by all the critical authorities of the present day; but when the time available for reading is so inadequate to meet all the demands upon it, it is only a natural result that our attention should be wholly engrossed with the literature of our own day, and that works of an older date, however worthy of perusal, should in general remain unread.

Such a work as the present seems to offer the best means of extricating ourselves from the embarrassment in which the very superabundance of our literary treasures has involved us. A series of well-selected extracts, from the writings of the most important authors in every form of prose composition-from the earliest period when the language is intelligible to an ordinary reader, down to the present time-seems, beyond any doubt, the best substitute for that actual perusal of the great body of our literature, from which, in our present circumstances, the majority of readers are precluded. To furnish such a series of extracts has been the Editor's aim in his present work. Where the field is so extensive, the labour of selection is in a corresponding degree difficult; the extracts, however, have been selected with the greatest care; and while it would be presumption to assert that no better could be procured, it is hoped they will be found sufficient to give the reader a just and comprehensive idea of the characteristic peculiarities of our prose literature at every period of our history. To disinter the works of forgotten authors, little esteemed by their contemporaries, and long consigned to oblivion, was no part of the Editor's intention. His

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