ADVERTISEMENT. ART of the substance of this book has appeared in a popular magazine; but very much has been added, and some has been taken away. The Essays are intended as a guide for self-helpers, which points out what to read, and how it should be read; and incidentally a view-presumably a new and fresh one-of the origin and antagonistic elements in English literature, is given. Without dogmatism, as the author hopes, these pages are not without opinion freely expressed; nor has their mission, that of carrying into thousands of homes a knowledge and love of English literature been without results, for letters, not only from England, but from Australia, Canada, and even California, speak of classes formed to carry on the studies indicated, and of young men and women won from the too often silly b XXII. The British Novelists (continued) XXIII. The British Novelists (continued) XXIV. English Periodical Essayists XXV. Poets of the Present Century.—Introductory XXVI. Poets of the Present Century.-Lord Byron XXVII. Poets of the Present Century.-Sir Walter Scott, XXVIII. Poets of the Present Century.-Shelley, Keats, Landor, Barry Cornwall, Crabbe, and Thomas LL eminent men are, in a great measure, self-made. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Robert Lowe and Mr. John Stuart Mill, must each have had many tens of schoolfellows; nay, to point to an earlier and more wonderful example, in that Stratford Grammar School, where Shakespeare-he who had wrenched the key of Learning, and forcibly entered and made himself master of the house of Wisdom-first learnt Hic, hæc, hoc, genitive Hujus, which he has duly reproduced, there were many hundred boys nationally educated by the wise and beneficent Elizabeth-and but one Shakespeare, one Gladstone, one Mill, one Lowe. It follows that the difference lies in the boy or the man, and not in the school. All first-rate men, again, are to a great extent selfeducated; so said Dr. Johnson, who, by the way, added that he, and all like him, had done their chief reading before they were eighteen; for it is indeed certain that, if there is no royal road to learning, there are still a great many bye and private paths which are principally laid down by men themselves. Hence those who feel that they are deficiently educated should not despair on account of their want of schooling. It is true that a want of early training is a sad want, difficult to make up; but it can be made up, and there are now existing means of remedying that deficiency such as were never before obtainable. The faults of late and self-education are these: that he who wins learning by himself, with difficulty and with a great struggle, generally becomes, in some degree, arrogant and conceited. And it is from this, and only from this point of view, that Pope's often-quoted line-chiefly quoted to be misused-is true "A little learning is a dangerous thing." But it is by no means true as a whole. A little learning is insufficient; one must "drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;" because a little learning, like a little bread, or a little meat, makes us feel the want of more. "So a little philosophy," says Bacon, "inclineth a man to atheism;" but much philosophy and much learning both make a man more open to conviction and more reverent towards the All-knower. The first promptings towards self-improvement, or the desire to know more, arise from a sensible deficiency in all of us. An uneducated man feels at a disadvantage amongst those who express themselves clearly, and debate upon what is interesting to all in an interesting way. The two principal subjects of human talk may be divided roughly into Politics and Religion; the concern about the things of this world, and the concern about those of the next. Morals or man ners are the domestic politics of us all, and no less so the domestic religion. But how are we to understand either of these without some tuition, some learning? If we understand neither, it is plain we are at the mercy of any rabid writer, or eloquent and plausible speaker, who may be in the right, but who more likely is simply like Belial, able "to make the worse appear the better reason." Hence the vulgar-meaning the common people, and so called from a Latin phrase, mobile vulgus -the moveable, easily excited, common people are peculiarly the prey of the eloquent demagogue, who, in every age, is and has been opposed to education. Hence it is that Shakespeare, a self-educated and truly wise man, makes Jack Cade hang the clerk of Chatham, with his pen and inkhorn round his neck, because he had been found teaching little boys to read. Hence the Pharisees were opposed to the Saviour, who not only opened portions of the Scriptures to the doctors, but also proclaimed it as one of the peculiar objects of His mission, and proof of His Divine calling, that the poor should have the gospel preached to them. Hence, too, many who would be only satisfied by having their own views disseminated, are against any scheme of national education: for instance, a Roman Catholic priest threatened an Irish landlord to have his schools shut up-schools in which Roman Catholic children were instructed by their own teachers in their own faith-unless those schools were put under his immediate direction. Hence, also, on the other side of the question, Mr. John Bright objects to newspapers having leading articles written in them, because these articles undoubtedly influence opinion. Now, the only cure for all this and such like tyranny, the only guard |