social strictures of Thackeray, with the sermon on "Our Best Society" by Curtis, and can consider the opinions on life and culture of Emerson, Arnold, and Helps. He will find associated together counsels as to good work from two such capable and idiosyncratic workers as Kingsley and Morley, while he can study the different points of view, concerning race sympathies, of Freeman and Gladstone. The series closes with an eloquent argument by Newman, in vigorous prose, on the source of true authority, and a characteristically incisive and forcible paper by Stephen, in behalf of the right and duty of the individual to think and to speak for himself. The collection has the advantage over the well-edited and popular series of Charles Knight -"Half Hours with the Best Authors "-in that, instead of being made up of fragments, (which are of necessity tantalizing in proportion to their interest) it consists solely of complete essays, in which the thoughts and arguments of the writers on the several subjects considered find their full expression. The editor is ready to believe that a better selection might have been made; and in preparing from the literature of a century such a brief list of the authors and essays as the compass of this series permitted, there must, in any case, be room for wide differences of judgment and taste. It is safe, however, to assure the readers of these volumes, that the papers they contain all belong to the best literature, and there will not be many, probably, who would contest the claim that they are to be ranked as prose masterpieces. The editor takes this opportunity of expressing his obligations to the several authors and publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, through whose courtesy he has been enabled to include in the set the essays still protected by copyright. G. H. P. |