PREFACE. THE papers contained in this volume have grown out of a lecture which was written several years ago, and has been often repeated. The lecture was originally designed to meet the wants of younger and older persons who might be in a condition to be profited by a few practical suggestions, enforced by illustrations from well-known authors. The papers have been expanded with a similar intent. The didactic form and manner of the lecture has been designedly retained as allowing greater condensation and directness, and as more appropriate to the position of a teacher and counsellor. Useful suggestions have not been omitted even though to many they might seem common-place. The illustrations have usually been derived from authors who might be supposed to be familiar to the reader. The wants of those beginning to read have been especially considered, while those who are more or less fami liar with books and practised in reading have not been wholly overlooked. A sufficiently extended account of the aims of the author and of the plan of this series of papers is given in the First Chapter. In executing the plan proposed, the author has been led to discuss somewhat more at length than he had intended, the prominent characteristics of different classes of books and the conditions of success in different descriptions of Reading. He hopes that the effect of these discussions may lead to more comprehensive and elevated estimates of authors and of literature on the part of those who read themselves or who direct the reading of others, and that in this and other ways, the volume may stimulate to a wise selection of Books and to enlightened and successful methods of Reading. YALE COLLEGE, October, 1870, BOOKS AND READING: OR, WHAT BOOKS SHALL I READ, AND HOW SHALL I READ THEM? CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. WERE a South-sea Islander to be suddenly taken up from his savage home and set down in one of the great cities of Europe,-among the many strange objects which he would see, one of the most incomprehensible would be a public library. A cathedral he would at once understand. Its vast area would suggest a counterpart in the inclosure which from his childhood onward he had known and feared as a place of worship. Its clustered pillars and lofty arches would bring to mind a well-remembered grove of old and stately trees, "with sounding walks between;" the dreaded dwelling of some cruel deity, or the fit arena for some “abhorred rite." The altar, the priests, the reverent worshipers, would speak to his mind their own meaning. A military parade he might comprehend without an interpreter's aid. The measured tread of gathered legions, would, indeed, differ not a little from the wild rush of his own barbarous clan; the inspiring call of trumpet and horn, |