Reader's Guide to theHarvard Classics
¶HE following lists have been prepared in order to enable
¶Tthe reader more easily to choose and arrange for himself such courses of study as have been suggested in the Introduction. They fall into two classes, the first being selected with respect to subject-matter, as History, Philosophy, or Science; the second with respect to literary form, as the Drama or Essay. Within each group the arrangement is in general chronological, but this has been occasionally departed from when it seemed wise to introduce national or geographical cross-divisions. While most of the volumes can be most profitably read in some chronological or other sequence, many others, such as the collections of English Poetry and of Essays, are equally suited for more desultory browsing.
¶These lists are not intended to relieve the reader from the use of the General Index, which has purposely been made so ample that it is possible by its intelligent use to track almost any line of interest through the entire set of volumes.
Class IATheHistory of Civilization
¶THE following list is by no means confined to works regarded by their authors as history, but includes letters, dramas, novels, and the like, which, by virtue of their character, period, or scene, throw light upon social and intellectual conditions, enriching and making vivid the picture of human progress which is outlined in the more strictly historical narratives.
¶Professor Freeman's essay, which is suggested as a general introduction to this division, deals in a highly illuminating fashion with the much misunderstood term, "Race"; and by definition and illustration brings out the elements according to which the historian and the anthropologist determine the relationships among the families of mankind.
¶The oldest civilization with which the ordinary reader has any acquaintance is that of Egypt, and his knowledge of this is usually confined to the dealings of the Egyptians with the Israelites, as narrated in the first books of the Old Testament. The account of Egypt by Herodotus gives a picture of this people from the point of view of a Greek, and is made entertaining by the skill of one of the best story-tellers in the world. A glimpse of life in the days of the patriarchs, in the countries surrounding Palestine, is given in the narrative portions of "The Book of Job," where Job himself is concerned as a powerful and wealthy sheik.
¶With Homer we come to the civilization which, more than any other, has affected the culture of modern Europe. The wanderings of Odysseus in the "Odyssey" and the account of the fall of Troy in the "iEneid" contain, of course, a large mythical element; but [20]they leave, nevertheless, a vivid picture which must represent with much essential truth the way of life of the Greeks before the historic period. The two poems by Tennyson named here were suggested by the "Odyssey," and express with remarkable power and beauty the modern poet's conception of the Greek hero's character, and the mood of reaction from the life of effort and suffering. The pieces by Wordsworth and Landor are modern retellings of stories from the same treasure-house from which the Greek tragedians drew the plots of those great dramas which, with the dialogues of Plato, represent the height of intellectual achievement in the ancient world. The five Greek lives by Plutarch give portraits of a group of the most distinguished men of affairs in the same period.
¶Plutarch again, in his "Lives" of famous Romans, brings before us several of the greatest figures of Republican Rome. His main interest was in personality; but incidentally he gives much information as to the political history of this period. For the years immediately preceding the end of the Republic, the "Letters" of Cicero give a detailed picture of Roman politics from the inside. In spite of the frequent allusions to events and persons now known only to the scholar, the general reader may easily find interest in the similarities between the political methods of antiquity and those of our own day. Dryden's "All for Love" is a thorough making-over of Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra," which in turn is based on Plutarch's "Life of Antony." It is interesting, not only as an excellent example of Dryden's work as a dramatist, but as affording, along with Shakespeare's tragedy, a suggestive study of two of the most picturesque figures of ancient times. From the Alexandrian scenes one can gain an impression of the luxury that was beginning to sap the foundations of the old Roman virtue.
¶Pliny's "Letters" picture the life of a cultivated Roman under the Empire. Among them, special interest attaches to that giving a graphic account of the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii, and in which the elder Pliny perished, and to those in which Pliny as proconsul consults with the Emperor Trajan about the policy of persecuting the early Christians. The story of the "iEneid" does not deal with this period; but its patriotic purpose makes it important in judging the spirit of the times. Tennyson's tribute [21]to Virgil is a superb appreciation of the literary quality of the Roman writer, with whom the Englishman had many points of kinship. In the writings of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the slave Epictetus, the moral philosophy of paganism reaches its highest level.
¶The condition of our Teutonic ancestors during the period of Roman supremacy is admirably described by the historian Tacitus in his account of Germany. The description is external, but well-informed, and is the work of an acute and highly trained observer of society and politics. More intimate are the poems that have come down from the early period of Germanic culture, represented here by the Old English "Beowulf," and the Icelandic "Song of the Volsungs." These stories deal with incidents and personages whose historic bases belong to continental Europe, though the earliest extant literary poems of both happen to be insular. "Beowulf" is the more circumstantial as a picture of life and manners; the Volsung story in its various versions, through the "Nibelungenlied" down to Wagner's operas, has made a more profound appeal to the imagination. The splendid though grotesque specimen of Irish saga-writing given in "The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel" belongs to nearly the same period. In the case of all three, the material represents a stage of culture considerably earlier than the date of writing, and still essentially pagan.
¶The books from the New Testament are selected to give the story of the founding of Christianity; St. Augustine's "Confessions" exhibit the development, after a few centuries, of Christian doctrine, Christian standards of conduct, and Christian ways of thinking; while the Hymns of the Early Church, East and West, represent the lyrical expression of the devotional feeling of the young religion.
¶While Christianity was gradually overcoming the paganism of Europe, Mohammed appeared in Arabia; and from the chapters of the "Koran," which he claimed to have received by inspiration, we can form an idea of the teaching which, with the aid of the sword, so rapidly conquered the East. "The Arabian Nights" are Mohammedan in background, the multiplicity of angels and genii which [22]the Prophet admitted into his system playing a large part in the mechanism of the tales. The representation of the social life of the East is, however, more important than the religious element in these. Omar Khayyam is the free-thinking philosopher in a Mohammedan society, and his quatrains are given here in the free paraphrase of Fitzgerald, a work which ranks higher as ar. original poem than as an exact translation.
¶The Middle Ages denotes a period with somewhat vague boundaries; and some of the books already touched on might well be placed within it. Here it includes representative literary products of Western Europe from the time of Charlemagne to the middle of the fifteenth century. "The Song of Roland" begins, on a slight historical foundation, the great structure of French epic, and is itself a simple and vigorous celebration of heroic loyalty. In the passages from the Norse "Saga of Eric the Red" which describes the discovery of America by Icelanders about iooo A. D., we get a glimpse of the hardy life of the Vikings. In "The Divine Comedy" Dante summed up the essential characteristics of the spiritual and intellectual life of the Middle Ages, and by his emotional intensity and the extraordinary distinctness of his imaginative vision gave his result an artistic preeminence that makes it the supreme creation of the epoch.
¶The pageantry and pomp of the military and court life of this age are seen at their best in the pages of Froissart; and in Marlowe's "Edward the Second" a dramatic genius of the next period interprets a typical tragedy of the medieval contest between king and nobles. Drayton, Marlowe's contemporary, celebrates, in one of our greatest war-songs, the victory of Agincourt. In contrast with these pictures of the more exciting sides of medieval life is the exquisite series of portraits of typical English men and women which give Chaucer's "Prologue" its unique place among the works, literary and historical, of the time.
¶Malory, Tennyson, and Morris deal with parts of the great Arthurian legend, the most wide-spread and characteristic of the themes which entranced the imagination of the Middle Ages, and one which continues to attract the modern writer. Romantic in [23]tone, historical in incident, Rossetti's poem on the death of James I. of Scots is one of the most successful modern attempts to render a medieval theme in ballad form; yet its essential literary quality will be apparent at once when it is compared with the popular tone of the genuine traditional ballads.
¶Our list of the productions of the Renaissance naturally begins with Italy, the country in which the great revival of interest in pagan antiquity first showed itself, and from which came in large measure the impulse to throw off the traditional bonds that had fettered the human spirit in the Middle Ages, and to seek a fuller scope for individual development. Machiavelli and Cellini represent respectively the political and the artistic sides of the Italy of this period; and the impression to be derived from them may be made more distinct by Browning's pictures of the scholar, the painter, and the worldly ecclesiastic, and by Webster's and Shelley's dramas, with their lurid light on the passion and crime which reigned in much of the courtly life of the time. A pleasing contrast is afforded by Roper's Life of the saintly Sir Thomas More, and by More's own "Utopia," with its vision of a perfect society. Later in the sixteenth century came the struggle of Spain to subjugate the Netherlands, an incident of which forms the plot of Goethe's "Egmont." Sir Walter Raleigh, compiling in his prison his vast "History of the World," prefixed to it a long preface which gives us a most interesting conception of the attitude of an Englishman who had lived and thought not only upon the history of past times, but upon the whole problem of man's relation to God and the universe. About the same time, in Spain, the great novelist, Cervantes, was showing in his masterpiece how quickly the world was passing from under the domination of the chivalrous ideals of the previous age.
¶So far we have been enumerating documents representative of the secular Renaissance. But a religious revolution had also taken place, and in the works of Luther, of Calvin, and of Knox, we have a statement in the words of the leaders themselves of the fundamental principles of the Protestant Reformation.
¶In Science also a new beginning had been made. In the "Journeys" of Ambroise Pare we have, incidentally, a picture of the armies [24]of the sixteenth century in the field, and also, of more importance to posterity, the beginnings of a new and more humane surgery. Copernicus introduced his revolutionary theory by which the sun took the place of the earth as the center of our system, and Columbus, Vespucci, and the great English navigators opened up the Western world and circumnavigated the globe.
¶In England itself this exploration of the West brought on the conflict with Spain celebrated with fiery patriotism in the poems by Drayton, Macaulay, and Tennyson. How Englishmen lived at home is told in intimate detail in Harrison's "Description," and more dramatically represented by Dekker, Jonson, and Beaumont; while in Keats's lines we have a later poet harking back to those literary triumphs which are perhaps the most permanent of the achievements of the "spacious times of great Elizabeth."
¶In the seventeenth century we find ourselves in what may be regarded as modern times, though the picture of the plague in Manzoni's great novel still suggests a period far remote from modern science. In the "Areopagitica," however, Milton is arguing for that freedom of the press which is a very living question in many modern states; and in the poems of Marvell and Scott we have echoes of the struggle for constitutional liberty through which modern Britain came into existence. Voltaire's "Letters" reflect not only the impressions derived by an acute Frenchman from a visit to England, but describe many important phases of the life and thought of the eighteenth century. Burke's "Reflections" recall the excesses through which some of the things which Voltaire envied the English were achieved by France; and Goethe in his exquisite idyl, "Hermann and Dorothea," lets us hear the echoes of the great Revolution in the quiet life of a German village. In Byron's famous lyric we have a lament over the spirit of liberty not yet reawakened in Greece. Throughout all these later pieces there appear, more or less distinctly, evidences of the gradual spread over the world of the struggle for freedom and equality.
¶Of this struggle in America the records collected in the "American Historical Documents" and the other works here enumerated need no interpretation.
Subject and Author
Race and Language:
Ancient Egypt:
The East in Patriarchal Times:
¶ANCIENT GREECE: Legendary
¶ANCIENT GREECE: Historic
¶ANCIENT ROME: Republican
¶ANCIENT ROME: Imperial
¶2$
Vol. Page
¶28 227 33 7 44 71 22 9 8 7 8 209 8 303 13 100 42 977 42 993 41 902 41 903 41 662 2 5
¶12 35 . 1 2 5 12 78 12 106 12 191 12 147 12 218 9 9 12 264 12 322 18 23 9 187 13 73 42 1014
¶2 193
Subject and Author Vol. PageGermanic Peoples in Primitive Times:
¶Tacitus, Germany 33 93 Song of the Volsungs 49 257 Beowulf 49 5
Ireland in Primitive Times:
¶Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel . . . . . . 49 199
The Early Christian Church:
¶The Gospel according to Luke 44 353 The Acts of the Apostles 44 423 The Epistles to the Corinthians 45 491 St. Augustine, Confessions 7 5 Hymns of the Greek Church 45 541 Hymns of the Latin Church 45 546
The Mahommedan East:
¶Koran 45 879 The Arabian Nights 16 15 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 41 943
The Middle Ages:
¶The Song of Roland 49 95 Voyages to Vinland 43 5 Dante, The Divine Comedy 20 5 Marlowe, Edward the Second 46 7 Froissart, Chronicles 35 7 Chaucer, Prologue to Canterbury Tales . . . . 40 11 Drayton, Agincourt 40 222 Malory, The Holy Grail 35 105 Tennyson, Morte d'Arthur 42 986
¶Galahad 42 1002 William Morris, Defence of Guenevere 42 1183 Rossetti, The King's Tragedy 42 1153 A Gest of Robyn Hode 40 128 Traditional Ballads, especially 40 51 The Battle of Otterburn 40 88 Chevy Chase 40 93 Johnie Armstrong 40 101 Kinmont Willie 40 108
The Renaissance:
¶Machiavelli, The Prince 36 7
Subject and Author Vol. PageThe Renaissance:
¶Macaulay, Machiavelli 27 363 Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography 31 5 Browning, A Grammarian's Funeral 42 1083 Andrea del Sarto 42 1087
¶The Bishop Orders his Tomb . . . . 42 1075 Webster, The Duchess of Malfi 47 755 Shelley, The Cenci 18 281 Sir Thomas More, Utopia 36 135 Roper, Life of Sir T. More 36 89 Goethe, Egmont 19 253 Raleigh, Preface to History of the World . . . . 39 66 Cervantes, Don Quixote 14 17 Luther, Ninety-five Theses 36 251 Address to the German Nobility . . . . 36 263
¶Concerning Christian Liberty 36 336 Calvin, Dedication of the Institutes 39 27 Knox, Preface to History of the Reformation in
¶Scotland 39 58 Pare, Journeys in Diverse Places 38 9 Copernicus, Dedication of Revolutions of Heavenly
¶Bodies 39 52 Columbus, Letter Announcing Discovery of America . 43 21 Amerigo Vespucci, Account of his First Voyage . 43 28 Cabot, Discovery of North America 43 45 Sir H. Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland . . . . 33 263 Sir Francis Drake Revived 33 129 Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World . 33 199 Drake's Great Armada 33 229 Raleigh, Discovery of Guiana 33 311 Drayton, To the Virginian Voyage 40 226 Macaulay, The Armada 41 915 Tennyson, The Revenge 42 1007 Harrison, Elizabethan England . 35 217 Dekker, The Shoemaker's Holiday 47 469 Jonson, The Alchemist 47 543 Beaumont, Letter to Ben Jonson . . . . . . . 40 319 Keats, The Mermaid Tavern 41 874
Modern Europe:
¶Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi 21 7 Milton, Areopagitica 3 189 Marvell, Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return . . 40 372
Subject and Author Vol. PageModern Europe:
¶Scott, Here's a Health to King Charles 41 754
¶Bonny Dundee 41 752 Voltaire, Letters on the English 34 65 Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution . . . 24 143 Goethe, Hermann and Dorothea 19 337
¶Byron, The Isles of Greece 41 812
¶(For the history of recent European thought, see under headings, "Science," "Religion and Philosophy," "Politics," "Education," and the various literary types.)
America:
¶First Charter of Virginia 43 49 And the later items in volume of American Historical
¶Documents 43 5 Franklin, Autobiography 1 5 John Woolman, Journal 1 169 Dana, Two Years before the Mast 23 7 Bryant, The Death of Lincoln 42 1223 Emerson, Concord Hymn 42 1245
¶Boston Hymn 42 1261 Longfellow, Evangeline 42 1300
¶Paul Revere's Ride 42 1295 Whittier, Randolph of Roanoke 42 1341 Massachusetts to Virginia 42 1344
¶Barbara Frietchie 42 1362 Holmes, Old Ironsides 42 1366 Lowell, The Present Crisis 42 1370 Ode Recited at Harvard Commemoration . 42 1379
¶Abraham Lincoln 28 429 Whitman, War Poems 42 1402 Pioneers 42 1404 Poems on Death of Lincoln 42 1412
BReligion and Philosophy
¶IN THIS division are represented the sacred writings of the chief religions of the world, and characteristic works of the most important philosophers, so far as these can be expected to be intelligible to readers without technical training in philosophy. Here, as elsewhere in The Harvard Classics, the interest and profit of the reader have been preferred to formal completeness; yet it has been possible to bring together a selection of the attempts of thinkers to solve the problems of life for twenty-five centuries, with surprisingly few important omissions.
¶In Class I, A, of the Reader's Guide we noted the historical interest of the narrative setting of "The Book of Job." The speeches themselves show the Hebrew mind wrestling with the problem of reconciling the justice of God with the misfortunes of the righteous. "Ecclesiastes" consists mainly of a collection of pungent and, for the most part, pessimistic comments on life, interspersed with passages of a more inspiring nature, which may be due to a different author. Both books are marvels of literary beauty. "The Psalms" gave utterance to the religious emotions of the people of Israel through many generations, and have appealed to the devout of races and periods far beyond the limits of their origin.
¶Plato is at once a philosopher and a great man of letters; and the three dialogues given here not only present some of the main ideas about conduct and the future world which he received from Socrates or developed himself, but also draw a distinct and attractive portrait of his master during the closing scenes of his life. The plays of the Greek tragedians, though ostensibly dramatic entertainments, deal profoundly and impressively with some of the vital questions of religion, as these presented themselves to the Greek mind.
¶In Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus we have the loftiest [30]expression of the Stoic doctrine in its application to the conduct of life; and in the treatises of Cicero the working philosophy of a great lawyer and politician.
¶The "Sayings" of Confucius, like these Roman writings, are ethical rather than religious; and while to the Western mind they appear curiously concerned with ceremonial, they still appeal to us through their note of aspiration toward a lofty and disinterested scheme of life. Equally remote in their religious and philosophical background are the examples of Hindu and Buddhist teaching, but here again there is much that is inspiring in the moral ideals.
¶In the previous section, "The Gospel of Luke," "The Acts of the Apostles," and "The Epistles to the Corinthians" were regarded as giving the history of the founding of the Christian Church. Here they should be read as giving a statement of its principles as laid down by its Founder and His immediate followers. Its development after four centuries is shown in the "Confessions" of one of the greatest of the Fathers; and the height of medieval devoutness is beautifully exhibited in "The Imitation of Christ," ascribed to Thomas a Kempis, one of the most widely circulated books in the history of literature. The Hymns of the- Early Churches bring out those features of Christian belief which obtained prominence in public worship.
¶Mohammedanism, with its curious borrowings from Hebrew and Christian scripture and tradition, is more interesting as the religion of many millions of people than as a source of spiritual inspiration. An interesting comparison may be made between Omar Khayyam in his relation to Mohammedanism and the author of "Ecclesiastes" in his relation to Judaism.
¶With the Reformation opens a new chapter in the history of religion, and the figures of Luther, Calvin, and Knox appropriately represent militant Protestantism in Germany, Switzerland, and Scotland. Raleigh is a Protestant layman, a man of action rather than a theologian or philosopher, yet his "Preface" is a remarkably enlightening presentation of the attitude of a detached thinker at the beginning of the seventeenth century. His poems, with those of Southwell, Habington, Rowlands, Herbert, Donne, Quarles, Vaughan, Crashaw, Drummond, Wotton, Watts, Addison, and [31]Christopher Smart, and the collection of modern hymns, still further express, with varieties of emphasis and shade of opinion, the more popular aspects of modern Christianity. In Walton's "Lives" of George Herbert and John Donne, Christian ideals are exhibited in the history of two men of strongly marked character and lofty spirituality. Sir Thomas Browne was a member of the Church of England and a physician, and the splendid prose of his "Religio Medici" conveys a quaint mixture of orthodoxy and independent thought. "The Pilgrim's Progress" is the great popular presentation of Puritan theology in imaginative form; and this theology is again the background of the great religious lyrics and epics of John Milton.
¶Roman Catholic thought on religion and life is brilliantly represented in the writings of Pascal, one of the most acute minds and most intensely religious spirits of his age. The "Thoughts," collected and arranged after his death, suffer from lack of sequence; but their fragmentary nature cannot disguise from the careful reader the astounding keenness of the intellect behind them.
¶In the "Fruits of Solitude" of William Penn, and in John Woolman's "Journal," we have a representation of the views and ideals of the Quakers, who contributed so important a stream of spiritual influence to the Colonial life of America.
¶Modern philosophy is often said to begin with Bacon, and, though the fresh attack upon the problems of the universe made in the seventeenth century can not be credited to any one person, Bacon as much as any has a right to be regarded as the herald of the new era. The prefatory documents listed here indicate not only the nature and scope of his intellectual ambitions, but present in considerable detail his program for the conquest of nature and his "new instrument" for the advancement of science. The "Essays" deal with a thousand points of practical philosophy; and "The New Atlantis" oudines his view of a model state and foreshadows the modern research university.
¶For philosophy in its more technical sense Descartes is more important than Bacon, and his influence on succeeding thought is more clearly traceable. Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume carried on the quest for philosophical truth in England, and were able to express their views in language that is still intelligible to the [32]ordinary man. Pope, in his "Essay on Man," put into polished and elegant verse, the more obvious principles of a group of thinkers of his day; but the ideas are more memorable on account of their quotable form than their profundity or subtlety.
¶Voltaire, writing on many aspects of English life, includes in his "Letters" a condensed account of the philosophy of Locke and the investigations of Newton. Rousseau in his "Discourse," one of the earliest of his writings, expounds the fundamentals of that social philosophy which he expanded later in the "Social Contract" and elsewhere, and which had so important a place among the influences leading up to the French Revolution. Lessing, clinging much closer to essential Christianity than Voltaire or Rousseau, elaborates in his "Education of the Human Race" the views he upheld in opposition to the less liberal theologians of Protestant Germany.
¶With Kant and his successors philosophy becomes more a professional subject, and with an increase in depth and subtlety it loses in breadth of appeal to the world at large. Yet the treatises mentioned in this list will yield to the reader who cares to apply his mind an idea of a view of ethics of immense possibilities of influence over his thought and conduct.
¶A large part of the remaining titles are of poems whose philosophical bearing it is scarcely necessary to point out. More and more during the last hundred years poetry has been made the medium of serious thought on the problems of life; and if one wishes to learn what earnest and cultivated people have thought on such matters in our day and that of our fathers, as much is to be gained from the poets as from the professional metaphysicians or moralists. In Carlyle and Emerson we have two writers who can not be regarded as systematic philosophers, and who yet have been among the most influential of modern thinkers. Mill has a more definite place in the history of philosophy; but in his fascinating account of his own development, and in his essay "On Liberty," we need have no fear of technical jargon, and may find a clear picture of a mind finely representative of English thought in the middle of the nineteenth century, and an abundance of ideas capable of application to the problems of our own day.
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶HEBREW: The Book of Job 44 7 1
¶Ecclesiastes 44 335
¶The Psalms 44 145 GREEK: Plato, Apology of Socrates 2 5 Phsedo 2 45
¶Crito 2 31
¶The Greek Drama: ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides . 8 7 ROMAN: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2 193 Epictetus, Golden Thoughts 2 117 Cicero, On Friendship 9 9
¶On Old Age 9 45 CHINESE: Confucius, Analects or Sayings 44 5 HINDU: Bhagavad-Gita, or Song Celestial 45 785
¶Buddhist Writings 45 577 CHRISTIAN: Primitive and Medieval
¶The Gospel of Luke 44 353 The Acts of the Apostles . . . . . . . . . 44 423 The Epistles to the Corinthians 45 491 St. Augustine, Confessions 7 5 The Imitation of Christ 7 205 Hymns of the Early Churches 45 535
¶MOHAMMEDAN: The Koran 45 879
¶Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 41 943
¶CHRISTIAN: Modern
¶Luther, Ninety-five Theses 36 251 Address to the German Nobility . . . . 36 263
¶Concerning Christian Liberty 36 336 Calvin, Dedication of the Institutes of the Christian
¶Religion ; . . . . 39 27 Knox, Preface to History of the Reformation in
¶Scotland 39 58 Raleigh, Preface to History of the World . . . . 39 66
¶Poems 40 203 Southwell, The Burning Babe 40 218 Habington, Nox Nocti 40 252
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶CHRISTIAN: Modern
¶Rowlands, Our Blessed Lady's Lullaby 40 256 Walton, Life of George Herbert 15 373 Herbert, Poems 40 341 Walton, Life of John Donne 15 323 Donne, Hymn to God the Father 40 304 Quarles, Poems 40 341 Vaughan, Poems 40 346 Crashaw, Saint Teresa 40 363 Drummond, St. John Baptist 40 326 Wotton, Character of a Happy Life 40 288 Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici 3 253 Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress 15 13 Milton, Ode on the Nativity 4 7 Ode on the Passion 4 23 Paradise Lost 4 87
¶Paradise Regained 4 359 Pascal, Thoughts 48 9
¶Minor Works 48 365 Penn, Fruits of Solitude 1 321 Watts, True Greatness 40 398 Addison, Hymn 40 400 Smart, Song to David 41 484 Woolman, Journal 1 169 Hymns of the Modern Churches 45 557
Modern Philosophers:
¶Bacon, Procemium, Epistle Dedicatory, Preface and
¶Plan of the Instauratio Magna . . . . 39 116 Preface to the Novum Organum . . . . 39 143 Essays 3 7
¶The New Atlantis 3 145 Descartes, Discourse on Method 34 5 Hobbes, On Man (Bk. I of the Leviathan) . . . . 3 4 311 Locke, Some Thoughts on Education 37 9 Berkeley, Three Dialogues 37 189 Pope, Essay on Man 40 406 Voltaire, Letters on the English 34 65 Rousseau, Discourse on the Causes of Inequality . 34 165 Lessing, Education of the Human Race . . . . 32 185 Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding . 37 289 Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of
¶Morals 32 305
Subject and Author Vol. PageModern Philosophers:
¶Kant, Transition from Popular Moral Philosophy to the
¶Metaphysic of Morals 32 318 Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations of Immortality . . 41 595 Ode to Duty 41 649 Lines Written above Tintern Abbey . 41 635
¶Character of the Happy Warrior . . 41 656 Shelley, Adonais 41 856
¶Written among the Euganean Hills . . . 41 835 Mill, Autobiography 25 7
¶On Liberty 25 195 Carlyle, Characteristics 25 319 Emerson, Essays 5 5
¶Poems 42 1241 Tennyson, The Higher Pantheism 42 1004 Flower in the Crannied Wall . . . . 42 1005 Wages 42 1005 Maud 42 1015
¶Crossing the Bar 42 1057 Thackeray, The End of the Play 42 1058 Browning, Prospice 42 1065 Abt Vogler 42 1100 Rabbi Ben Ezra 42 1103
¶Epilogue 42 1109 Emily Bronte^ Last Lines 42 n 10
¶The Old Stoic 42 m i Clough, Poems 42 n 19 Arnold, Rugby Chapel 42 1130 Dover Beach 42 1137 The Better Part 42 1138
¶The Last Word 42 1139 Henley, Invictus 42 1210 Stevenson, The Celestial Surgeon 42 1212 Bryant, Thanatopsis 42 1213 Whittier, The Eternal Goodness 42 1338 Holmes, The Chambered Nautilus 42 1365 Lanier, How Love Looked for Hell 42 1398 Whitman, One's-Self I Sing 42 1402
cEducation
¶THE earlier discussions on education differ from most modern writings on the subject in one important respect: the author had his eye on the single youth, the son of a family of birth and wealth, who was to be educated alone; while the educational theorist of to-day, even when he is not dealing with popular elementary education, is usually concerned with institutions for training pupils in large groups. This distinction has inevitably a profound effect upon the nature of the principles laid down.
¶Montaigne, Locke, and Milton are all examples of this earlier kind of discussion. It is assumed that all resources are at command, and the only questions to be settled are the comparative value of subjects and the best order and method of learning. On these points the opinions of these men are still valuable; and all three, but especially Locke, give incidentally much information on the manners and state of culture of their times.
¶The five "Essays" by Bacon named here do not form an attempt to construct a scheme of education, but deal suggestively with single points of importance in the training of children. "The New Atlantis" describes in "Solomon's House" an elaborate institution for advancing knowledge, which anticipates in many respects the departments for research in modern universities.
¶Swift's so called "Treatise" deals lightly with social rather than intellectual culture; and the chapter on the "Education of Women" by his contemporary, Defoe, shows how long it is since some views which we are apt to regard as entirely modern have been put forward.
¶Lessing's treatise is more philosophical than educational in the ordinary sense, being rather an interpretation of history as the record of the development of the race than a plan for the future. [37]The letters in which Schiller discussed the "^Esthetic Education of Man" contain the essence of his views on art.
¶It is characteristic of American democracy that the lectures by Channing should be on the elevation of the laboring classes, and should take up an educational problem at the end of the social scale most remote from that where Montaigne and Locke found their interest.
¶Mill's "Autobiography" is an account of great interest of the education of a remarkable son by a remarkable father; and though containing much that has no direct bearing upon the training of the average child, it is valuable as showing what extraordinary results can be achieved under exceptional conditions.
¶Newman's discussion of "The Idea of a University" deals with the ultimate aims of university education, and some of the more important considerations affecting the means of attaining them. Carlyle's address, delivered at Edinburgh while he was Lord Rector of his own University, is a sort of summary of an old man's wisdom on questions of a student's use of his time and the choice of his reading. Ruskin's well-known lectures, "Sesame and Lilies," deal in very different, but equally characteristic fashion with similar topics.
¶In "Science and Culture," Huxley presents from the point of view of the scientist his side of the standing question of modern education: the comparative value of science and the classics as a means of culture.
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Montaigne, Of the Institution and Education of Children . 32 29 Bacon, Of Travel 3 46 Of Nature in Men 3 96 Of Custom and Education 3 98 Of Studies 3 122 Of Parents and Children . . . . . . . . 3 19
¶The New Atlantis 3 145 Milton, Tractate on Education 3 235 Locke, Some Thoughts on Education 37 9 Swift, Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding . 27 99 Defoe, Education of Women 27 148 Lessing, On the Education of the Human Race . . . . 32 185 Schiller, Letters upon the vEsthetic Education of Man . . 32 209
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Channing, On the Elevation of the Laboring Classes . . 28 311 Mill, Autobiography 25 7 Newman, The Idea of a University 28 31 Carlyle, Inaugural Address at Edinburgh University . . . 25 359 Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies 28 93 Huxley, Science and Culture 28 209
DScience
¶HE writings of ancient times on physical science are now
¶Tmainly of historical and curious interest; but from Greek times have come down these two interesting formulas to which the name of Hippocrates is attached, which show how loftly a conception the ancient physician held of his function, and which form the basis of the professional ethics of the modern doctor.
¶The army surgeon is a modern official. In the sixteenth century, even an officer who wished medical or surgical attendance had to take his personal doctor with him, or trust to the quacks who swindled the rank and file. Pare was such a personal surgeon to several distinguished generals through many campaigns; and the account of his improvements in the treatment of wounds vies in interest with his description of the battles themselves.
¶Few single scientific discoveries have influenced the world so profoundly as that which showed that the earth was not the center of the universe. The treatise in which Copernicus put forth the new theory is filled with arguments which are often preposterous, so that for the true explanation of the motions of the heavenly bodies the book is practically useless. But from his "Dedication" we gather something of the spirit of the man who led the way in this momentous reform. The "Principia" of Newton has immeasurably greater scientific value, but the reasoning is highly technical, so that the ordinary reader is glad to get the great physicist's own statement of the purpose and method of the work which first expounded the law of gravitation.
¶The papers by Harvey and Jenner are landmarks in the history of physiology and medicine, the one explaining for the first time the true theory of the circulation of the blood; the other putting forward the method of vaccination which has relieved the world of the scourge of smallpox.
p. 40¶Faraday was not only a great investigator but also a great teacher, and these two books by him are classical expositions of fundamental laws in physics and chemistry.
¶Dr. Holmes's paper is an interesting scientific argument, which proved of immense value in saving life; it is also an inspiring instance of the courage of a young scientist in risking professional disaster by attacking the practices and prejudices of his colleagues.
¶The theories which lie behind Lord Lister's application of the antiseptic principle in surgery are expounded in the fascinating papers in which Pasteur makes the original argument for the germ theory of disease, and founds the science of bacteriology.
¶In the chapters included in the following list from Sir Charles Lyell's "Principles of Geology," he combats the notion that to explain the present condition of the earth it is necessary to assume a series of great catastrophes. A more comprehensive view of a modern geologist's theory of how the physical world arrived at its present form is given in Geikie's essay on "Geographical Evolution."
¶The great German physicist, von Helmholtz, is here represented by a lecture on the fundamental principle of the conservation of energy, and one on the theory of glaciers, while his colleague in Britain, Sir William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, expounds the wave theory of light and the movement of the tides.
¶It was on the voyage of the "Beagle" that Darwin collected the material which suggested to him the great generalization later set forth in "The Origin of Species," and gave currency to a theory of development that has proved to be the most pervasive and influential force in the intellectual progress of modern times.
¶How enormously modern astronomical investigation has increased our notion of the universe, of which we form so minute a part, is expounded by Newcomb in his essay on "The Extent of the Universe."
¶Thus in the scientific section of these volumes the reader may gain from the pens of the leaders and discoverers themselves an idea of many of the most important conceptions in the sciences of Medicine, Surgery, Physiology, Biology, Bacteriology, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, and Astronomy.
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶The Oath of Hippocrates 38 3 The Law of Hippocrates 38 4 Pare, Journeys in Diverse Places 38 9 Copernicus, Dedication of Revolutions of the Heavenly
¶Bodies 39 52 Harvey, On the Motion of the Heart and Blood of Animals 38 75 Newton, Preface to the Principia 39 150 Jenner, The Three Original Publications on Vaccination
¶against Smallpox 38 145 Faraday, The Forces of Matter 30 7
¶The Chemical History of a Candle 30 86 Holmes, The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever . . . . 38 223 Lister, On the Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of
¶Surgery 38 257 Pasteur, The Physiological Theory of Fermentation . . . 38 275 The Germ Theory and its Applications to Medicine
¶and Surgery 38 364 On the Extension of the Germ Theory to the Eti
¶ology of Certain Common Diseases . . . . 38 371 Lyell, Prejudices which have Retarded the Progress of
¶Geology 38 385 Uniformity in the Series of Past Changes in the
¶Animate and Inanimate Worlds 38 398 Von Helmholtz, On the Conservation of Force . . . . 30 173
¶Ice and Glaciers 30 211 Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle 29 11
¶The Origin of Species 11 23 Kelvin, The Wave Theory of Light 30 251
¶The Tides 30 274 Newcomb, The Extent of the Universe 30 311 Geikie, Geographical Evolution 30 325
EPolitics
¶FROM the point of view that "history is past politics," it is evident that such historical documents as those in the "Lives" of Plutarch and the "Letters" of Cicero and Pliny are also of value from the political point of view. Many of the problems of politics change their form rather than their essence from age to age, and in these records of the political struggles and principles of antiquity there are many illuminating parallelisms to the conditions of our own day. Even the contrast to modern democratic ideas of government which the theories of Machiavelli afford is suggestive; and in the institutions of Elizabethan England as described by William Harrison we may often find the germ of practices which persist here to-day.
¶More's "Utopia" and Bacon's "New Atlantis" have the value belonging to any sketch of ideal conditions drawn up by men of capacity and experience; and, with much that is fantastic, both books still afford considerable practical suggestion for political progress. Those of Bacon's "Essays" which touch political topics contain abundance of acute observations on the conduct of public men, though the advice is sometimes, but not always, more suited to forming politicians than statesmen.
¶Though dealing with the special subject of unlicensed printing, Milton, in his "Areopagitica," handles with a noble eloquence many of the fundamental questions affecting free government. Defoe's pamphlet treats in ironical strain the situation during a later period in the progress of England towards freedom and equality—in this case, religious equality; while Voltaire, coming from France a few years later, expresses his admiration for English tolerance. Of Rousseau's "Discourse" we have already spoken (I. A ) .
¶"The Wealth of Nations" may be regarded as founding the [43]modern science of political economy; and it remains the greatest general treatise on the subject. The present edition has been relieved of those passages which are out of date and no longer of value.
¶In Burke's eloquent "Reflections" we get the view taken by an English constitutionalist of the principles of the French Revolution while it was still in progress; and in his "Letter to a Noble Lord" a vivid glimpse of the workings of politics in England at the same period.
¶Mill's treatise "On Liberty" is a classical argument on the relation of the individual to the state.
¶The poetry of the nineteenth century contains much political as well as philosophical thinking; and the pieces by Goldsmith, Wordsworth, and Tennyson are favorable examples of the impassioned treatment of these themes in verse.
¶The interest and importance of the American Documents here collected are obvious; and a careful study of these alone will go far to give a basis for an intelligent understanding of contemporary politics.
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Plutarch, Lives of Greeks and Romans 12 5 Cicero, Letters 9 81 Pliny the Younger, Letters to Trajan 9 356 Machiavelli, The Prince 36 7 Macaulay, Machiavelli 27 363 More, Utopia 36 135 Harrison, Elizabethan England 35 217 Bacon, The New Atlantis . . • • • • _ • • • 3 M5 Essays: Of Unity in Religion, Of Great Place, Of
¶Nobility, Of Seditions and Troubles, Of Empire,
¶Of Counsel, Of Delays, Of Cunning, Of Innova
¶tions, Of Despatch, Of the True Greatness of
¶Kingdoms and Estates, Of Plantations, Of Ambi
¶tion, Of Usury, Of Negotiating, Of Followers and
¶Friends, Of Suitors, Of Faction, Of Judicature, Of
¶Vicissitudes of Things 3 7 Milton, Areopagitica 3 189 Defoe, The Shortest Way with Dissenters 27 133 Voltaire, Letters on the English 34 65 Rousseau, Discourse on the Causes of Inequality . . . . 34 165
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Smith, The Wealth of Nations 10 9 Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution 24 143
¶Letter to a Noble Lord 24 381 Goldsmith, The Deserted Village 41 509 Wordsworth, Political Sonnets 41 675 Tennyson, Locksley Hall. 42 979
¶Maud 42 1015 Sydney Smith, Fallacies of Anti-Reformers 27 225 Mill, On Liberty 25 195 Emerson, Politics 5 239 Lowell, Democracy 28 451
¶The Present Crisis 42 1370 American Historical Documents, especially
¶The First Charter of Virginia 43 49 The Mayflower Compact 43 59 The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut . . . . 43 60 The Massachusetts Body of Liberties 43 66 Winthrop, Arbitrary Government Described . . . 43 85 The Instrument of Government 43 106 Sir Henry Vane, a Healing Question 43 118 Declaration of Rights 43 147 Declaration of Independence 43 150 Constitution of the United States 43 180 The Federalist, I and II 43 199 Opinion of Chief Justice Marshall 43 208 Washington, First Inaugural Address 43 225 Washington, Farewell Address 43 233 The Monroe Doctrine 43 277 Lincoln, Gettysburg Address 43 415
FVoyages and Travels
¶THE story of travel has always held a general fascination; and little is needed to introduce to the reader such a list as follows. Beginning with the account of ancient Egypt by Herodotus, the collection gives the narratives of the early voyages to America of Leif Ericsson, Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Cabot; the campaigns followed by the French surgeon, Ambroise Pare, in the sixteenth century; the voyages, partly for exploration, largely for plunder, of the great seamen of Elizabeth's time, Drake, Gilbert, and Raleigh; and, in striking contrast, John Eliot's "Brief Narrative" of his travels in the attempt to propagate the Gospel among the American Indians. Goldsmith's "Traveller" describes many scenes in eighteenth century Europe; and in Dana's absorbing "Two Years Before the Mast" we have the double interest of a picture of life on a sailing vessel two generations ago, and an admirable account of California as it was under the Spaniards, and before '49.
¶Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle," apart from its scientific importance, is a highly interesting and modestly told story of exploration in remote seas. Emerson's "English Traits" is a penetrating description and criticism of England, its people and its institutions, as the American philosopher saw it in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Herodotus, Egypt 33 7 Voyages to Vinland from Saga of Eric the Red . . . . 43 5 Pare, Journeys in Diverse Places . . . . . . . . . 38 9 Columbus, Letter Announcing Discovery of America . 43 21 Amerigo Vespucci, Account of his First Voyage . . . . 43 28 Cabot, Discovery of North America 43 45 Sir Francis Drake Revived 33 129 Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World 33 199 Drake's Great Armada . . . . 33 229
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland . 33 263 Raleigh, Discovery of Guiana 33 311 Eliot, Brief Narrative 43 138 Goldsmith, The Traveller 41 520 Dana, Two Years Before the Mast 23 7 Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle 29 11 Emerson, English Traits 5 315
GCriticism of LiteratureAnd the Fine Arts
¶WILLIAM CAXTON , the first printer in England, took a much more personal interest in the productions of his press than does the modern publisher. He himself made several of the translations which he printed; and to other books he attached Prologues and Epilogues, which, if not quite literary criticism after the modern manner, are yet interesting indications of the qualities which made the works which Caxton selected for publication the favorite reading of the end of the Middle Ages.
¶Of the three critical writings selected from the sixteenth century, Montaigne's is a delightful talk on his personal tastes (see essay by Sainte-Beuve below); Sidney defends imaginative literature against the assaults of an extreme Puritan; and Spenser explains to his friend Raleigh the plan and purpose of "The Faerie Queene."
¶Shakespeare, as is well known, paid no attention to the printing of his plays; and it was left for two of his fellow actors to make the first collected edition of them, seven years after his death. The unique importance of the volume makes the address of its editors to the readers a matter of curious interest. Of more real significance are the opinions, friendly yet candid, which Ben Jonson has left of his great fellow dramatist, and of his patron, Bacon.
¶But it is with Dryden that we come to the first English critic on a large scale; and in his discussions on Chaucer and on Heroic Poetry we have him, both for style and matter, at his best. Swift's "Advice" is slighter, and, like all his work, displays his ironic temper. Fielding, in a prefatory chapter, defines and expounds his idea of a novel. Dr. Johnson's famous essay on Shakespeare originally formed the Preface to his edition of the plays; and it remains one of the [48]most important estimates of the genius of our greatest writer. In the "Life of Addison," Johnson was dealing with a subject where his eighteenth century limitations hampered him less, and the result is a delightful piece of appreciative criticism.
¶So far the criticism in this list has been wholly literary. The next four writers are concerned with .esthetic principles in general, with, perhaps, a special interest in painting and sculpture. Goethe, in this manifesto of a new periodical to be devoted to the Fine Arts, gives impressively his view of the fundamentals of artistic training. Schiller, on a more extensive scale, treats of the cultivation of taste and the nature of the pleasure to be derived from art; while Hume and Burke deal with similar problems from different points of view.
¶The "Prefaces" of Wordsworth and Hugo express in different but equally characteristic terms the revolt of the romantic poets of England and France respectively against the classical conventions that dominated poetry and the drama. Coleridge discourses in his own profound and often illuminating fashion on the essentials of poetry, as does Shelley in his eloquent and philosophical "Defense." Those who know Shelley only as the most exquisite of lyric poets will find that this essay will increase enormously their respect for his intellectual power. In the essay "On the Tragedies of Shakespeare" Lamb utters some of the most penetrating criticism ever passed upon the tragedy of "King Lear," and presses to an extreme his view of the inferiority of the stage to the study for the enjoyment of Shakespeare.
¶Thackeray's lecture on Swift is a fine example of the biographical essay, and may be compared with Carlyle's estimate of Scott with interesting results. Both men deal more with character than style, and both care passionately for moral quality.
¶Walt Whitman's "Preface," like his poems, stands by itself, the outspoken plea for an astounding extension of the limits of form and matter in poetry. His poems in the third volume of "English Poetry" in The Harvard Classics should be read in connection with this "Preface."
¶Sainte-Beuve is generally placed at the head of European criticism in the nineteenth century; and the two papers here given are good examples of his manner. Renan, one of the most eloquent of [49]modern writers in any country, discourses on "The Poetry of the Celtic Races" to which he himself belonged. Mazzini, purest of patriots, is represented by a paper which shows his fine power of generalization and of taking large views. An Italian nationalist in feeling, Mazzini was continental in the range of his intellect. Taine's famous "Introduction" expounds his formula for explaining the characteristics of a literature. Whatever objections may be raised to his theory, there is no question of the brilliance of the presentation.
¶Few critical writings of our own day have influenced the study of poetry so much as this of Matthew Arnold's. It is an excellent example of his style, and exhibits both the strength and the weakness of his critical thinking.
¶"Sesame and Lilies" consists of two lectures, largely hortatory, but incidentally containing some notable criticism. Bagehot, best known as a writer on finance, appears here as a specimen of a strong non-literary intellect applying itself to the discussion of a literary topic. At the opposite extreme is the paper in which Poe, a master of the technical side of his art, treats of what he regards as its essence. In three essays, Emerson discourses suggestively, if unsystematically, on "The Poet," on "Beauty," and on "Literature." Finally, in Stevenson's essay on "Samuel Pepys," one of the most expert of literary craftsmen of modern times sketches the personality of the writer who wrote the most remarkable "Diary" in English Literature.
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Caxton, Prologue and Epilogue to the Histories of Troy . 39 5 Epilogue to Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers 39 9 Prologue to the Golden Legend 39 J3
¶39 15 Epilogue to ^Esop Epilogue to ^Esop 39 17 Proem to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales . Proem to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales . . . . . . . 39 18 Prologue to Malory's King Arthur 39 20
¶Prologue to Virgil's Eneydos 39 24 Montaigne, Of Bookes 32 87 Sidney, Defense of Poesy 27 5 Spenser, Prefatory Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh on the Faerie
¶39 61 Heminge and Condell, Preface to the First Folio Edition of
¶Shakespeare's Plays . . . . 39 148
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Jonson, On Bacon 27 56
¶To the Memory of Mr. William Shakespeare . . 40 301 Dryden, Preface to Fables (On Chaucer) 39 153
¶Dedication of the .iEneis (On Heroic Poetry) 13 5 Swift, Advice to a Young Poet 27 104 Fielding, Preface to Joseph Andrews (On the Comic Epic
¶in Prose) '. 39 176 Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare 39 208
¶Life of Addison 27 155 Goethe, Introduction to the Propylaen (On Fine Art) . . 39 251 Schiller, Letters upon the /Esthetic Education of Man . . 32 209 Hume, On the Standard of Taste 27 203 Burke, On Taste 24 11
¶On the Sublime and Beautiful 24 29 Wordsworth, Prefaces to Various Volumes of Poems . . 39 267 Appendix to Lyrical Ballads 39 292
¶Essay Supplementary to Preface . . . . 3 9 311 Coleridge, On Poesy or Art 27 255 Lamb, On the Tragedies of Shakespeare 27 299 Shelley, A Defence of Poetry 27 329 Hugo, Preface to Cromwell (On Romanticism) . . . . 39 337 Thackeray, Jonathan Swift 28 7 Carlyle, Sir Walter Scott 25 393
¶Inaugural Address (On Books and Reading) . . 25 359 Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass 39 388 Sainte-Beuve, Montaigne 32 105
¶What is a Classic? 32 121 Renan, The Poetry of the Celtic Races 32 137 Mazzini, Byron and Goethe 32 377 Taine, Introduction to History of English Literature . . 39 410 Arnold, The Study of Poetry 28 65 Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies 28 93 Bagehot, John Milton 28 T65 Poe, The Poetic Principle 28 371 Emerson, The Poet 5 161 Beauty 5 297
¶Literature 5 432 Stevenson, Samuel Pepys 28 285
Class II
¶OF the large variety of literary types represented in The Harvard Classics, only a few of the more prominent have been selected for classification here. Others stand already grouped in the volumes: for, example, the three volumes of English Poetry, along with the works of Milton and Burns, contain most of the Lyric Poetry in the collection; and the Prefaces regarded as independent documents, are in one volume. Still others, such as Allegory, Oratory, the Dialogue, occur in the lists made up according to subject matter; and readers interested in these as forms can easily collect them from the Tables of Contents and the General Index.
ADrama
¶IN dramatic literature the palm of supremacy lies between Greece and England, and it is natural that these two countries should be most fully represented here. Both countries at a culminating point in their history expressed themselves in this form, and much of the intellectual and imaginative vitality of the Age of Pericles in Greece and the Age of Elizabeth in England can be apprehended from these dramas. Eight of the most distinguished masterpieces of the other countries of Europe have been added; so that the present list represents not unworthily the best in this form that the world has produced.
¶These thirty-seven plays exhibit a great variety of dramatic form —classical and romantic tragedy, satirical and romantic comedy, chronicle history, masque, and cantata. No less varied are the themes; from gods to beggars all types of character appear, and every variety of human motive, human effort, and human suffering is shown. No other literary form could present in so few pages so just and so impressive a reflection of the pageant of human life.
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶GREEK: ^Eschylus, Prometheus Bound 8 166 Agamemnon . . . . . . . . 8 7 The Libation-Bearers 8 76
¶The Furies 8 122 Sophocles, CEdipus the King 8 209
¶Antigone 8 255 Euripides, Hippolytus 8 303
¶The Bacchae 8 368
¶Aristophanes, The Frogs 8 439 ENGLISH: Marlowe, Doctor Faustus 19 205
¶Edward the Second 46 7 Shakespeare, Hamlet 46 93 King Lear 46 215 Macbeth 46 321
¶The Tempest 46 397 Dekker, The Shoemaker's Holiday 47 469 Jonson, The Alchemist 47 543 Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster 47 667 Webster, The Duchess of Main 47 755 Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts . . . . 47 859 Milton, Comus 4 44
¶Samson Agonistes 4 414 Dryden, All for Love 18 23 Sheridan, The School for Scandal 18 115 Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer 18 205 Burns, The Jolly Beggars 6 122 Shelley, The Cenci 18 281 Byron, Manfred 18 407
¶Browning, A Blot in the 'Scutcheon 18 359 SPANISH: Calderon, Life is a Dream 26 7 FRENCH: Corneille, Polyeucte 26 77 Racine, Phxdra 26 133
¶Moliere, Tartuffe 26 199 GERMAN: Lessing, Minna von Barnhelm 26 299 Goethe, Faust 19 23
¶Egmont 19 253 Schiller, William Tell 26 379
BBiography and Letters
¶MOST of the titles in this list have already been the subject of comment; those that remain speak for themselves. Here are a number of records of actual human lives, all of them of notable people, chosen either for their representative or for their intrinsic value. Some of these records are by skilled biographers like Plutarch; in other cases, by letters, or confessions, or in set narratives, the story is told by the man himself; still others are summaries and estimates rather than detailed biographies. Perhaps the formal autobiographies are the most interesting and significant of all; and of these the personal revelations of St. Augustine, of Benvenuto Cellini, of Benjamin Franklin, and of John Stuart Mill stand in the first rank.
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 12 5 Pericles 12 35 Aristides 12 78 Alcibiades 12 106 Demosthenes 12 191 Coriolanus 12 147 Cicero 12 218 Caesar 12 264
¶Antony 12 322 Cicero, Letters 9 81 Pliny the Younger, Letters 9 187 St. Augustine, Confessions 7 5 Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography 31 5 Roper, Life of Sir Thomas More 36 89 Walton, Life of Dr. Donne 15 3 23
¶Life of George Herbert 15 373 Johnson, Life of Addison 27 155 Burke, Letter to a Noble Lord 24 381
Reader'sSubject and Author
GuideVol. Page
¶i 5
¶i 169 27 363 28 7 25 393 25 7 28 429
cEssays
¶HERE is almost no limit to the variety of theme which
¶Tmay be treated in the essay, and few rules can be laid down to regulate its form. Montaigne, who may be said to have originated this type of literature, remains one of the greatest masters of it; and in the specimens from his work in the present list one can find the ease and grace and the pleasant flavor of personal intimacy which constitute much of its charm.
¶A large proportion of these essays deal with books, and of these something has already been said in the section on Criticism. Some, like those of Milton, Swift, Defoe, Newman, and Huxley, fall also under the heading of Education. A few treat of political matters; such are those of Sydney Smith, Mill, and Lowell. Others, such as some of Montaigne's, Ruskin's, Carlyle's, Emerson's, and Stevenson's, deal with matters of conduct, though not in the formal manner of the ethical philosopher. Bacon's "Essays" are concerned with so great a variety of subjects that classification is difficult; but the largest group form a sort of handbook of the principles on which success in public life was achieved in his time. Yet these more severe themes are mingled with others of more charm, where he chats pleasantly on an ideal palace or garden, or on the contriving of courtly entertainments.
¶Of all prose forms, the essay is that which gives most scope for pure expression of personality. Those in the present list which rank highest as essays do so, not by virtue of the weight of their opinions, or arguments, or information, but by the spontaneity with which the author gives utterance to his mood or fancy. Thus the delightful essay of Cowley "Of Agriculture" is hardly to be recommended as a guide to farming; but as a quarter of an hour of graceful conversation it is charming. Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Lamb, De [56]Quincey, Thoreau, and Stevenson (in "Truth of Intercourse") all exhibit this individual quality, and reveal personalities of different kinds and degrees of attractiveness, but none without a high degree of interest.
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Montaigne, That We Should not Judge of our Happinesse
¶untill after our Death 32 5 That to Philosophise is to Learne how to Die . 32 9 Of the Institution and Education of Children . 32 29 Of Friendship 32 72
¶Of Bookes 32 87 Sidney, Defense of Poesy . 27 5 Bacon, Essays 3 7 Milton, Tractate on Education 3 235 Cowley, Of Agriculture 27 61 Dryden, Preface to Fables 39 153
¶Dedication of the JEneis 13 5 Addison, Westminster Abbey 27 78 Steele, The Spectator Club 27 83 Swift, Hints towards an Essay on Conversation . . . . 27 91 On Good Manners and Good Breeding . . . . 27 99 A Letter of Advice to a Young Poet 27 104
¶On the Death of Esther Johnson (Stella) . . . . 27 122 Defoe, The Shortest Way with Dissenters 27 133
¶The Education of Women 27 148 Fielding, Preface to Joseph Andrews 39 176 Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare 39 208 Preface to English Dictionary 39 182
¶Life of Addison 27 155 Hume, On the Standard of Taste 27 203 Burke, On Taste 24 u Goethe, Introduction to the Propylaen 39 251 Sydney Smith, Fallacies of Anti-Reformers 27 225 Wordsworth, Preface to Various Volumes of Poems . . 39 267 Appendix to Lyrical Ballads 39 292
¶Essay Supplementary to Preface . . 3 9 311 Coleridge, On Poesy or Art 27 255 Hazlitt, Of Persons One would Wish to have Seen . . . 27 267 Leigh Hunt, Deaths of Little Children 27 285
¶On the Realities of Imagination . . . . 27 289 Lamb, On the Tragedies of Shakspere 27 299 De Quincey, Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow . . . . 27 319 Shelley, A Defence of Poetry 27 329
Subject and Author Vol. Pace
¶Channing, On the Elevation of the Laboring Classes . . 2 8 311 Hugo, Preface to Cromwell 39 337 Macaulay, Machiavelli 27 363 Sainte-Beuve, Montaigne 32 105
¶What is a Classic? 32 121 Thackeray, Jonathan Swift 28 7 Renan, The Poetry of the Celtic Races 32 137 Mazzini, Byron and Goethe 32 377 Newman, The Idea of a University 28 31 Arnold, The Study of Poetry 28 65 Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies 28 93 Taine, Introduction to the History of English Literature . . 39 410 Bagehot, John Milton 28 165 Poe, The Poetic Principle 28 371 Carlyle, Characteristics 25 319
¶Sir Walter Scott 25 393 Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass 39 388 Emerson, Essays 5 5
¶English Traits 5 315 Mill, On Liberty 25 195 Huxley, Science and Culture 28 209 Freeman, Race and Language 28 227 Thoreau, Walking 28 395 Lowell, Abraham Lincoln 28 429
¶Democracy 28 451 Stevenson, Truth of Intercourse 28 277
¶Samuel Pepys 28 285
DNarrative Poetry andProse Fiction
¶IN this section we have the largest proportion of what frankly professes to be the literature of entertainment. All these titles belong to works which are in the first place good stories; and most of them have lived largely by virtue of this quality. They come from all centuries within the historic period, and from all the countries within our range. They deal with war and peace, love and hate, gods and men and animals, angels and demons, historic fact, modern observation, and pure fancy; some mean no more than they seem to—simple tales of the action and suffering of men; others carry mystical significations hidden under the surface.
¶But, though they may profess no more than a power to entertain, they, in fact, do far more for us. Each of these tales, in proportion to its truth to human nature and the effectiveness with which it is told, helps to make us more fully acquainted with our kind, broadens our sympathies, deepens our insight, serves us, in fact, as a kind of experience obtained at second hand. No less than the most weighty philosophy or the most informing history or science, then, do these stories in prose and poetry deserve their place among the essential instruments of mental and moral culture.
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Homer, The Odyssey 22 9 Virgil, The ^neid 13 73 /Esop's Fables 17 1 1 Beowulf 49 5 The Song of Roland 49 95 The Song of the Volsungs 49 257 The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel 49 199 The Arabian Nights 16 15
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Dante, The Divine Comedy 20 5 Chaucer, Prologue to the Canterbury Tales 40 n
¶The Nun's Priest's Tale 40 34 The Gest of Robyn Hode 40 128 Traditional Ballads 4° 5 1 Malory, The Holy Grail 35 I 0 5 Cervantes, Don Quixote 14 17 Drayton, Agincourt 40 222
¶To the Virginian Voyage 40 226 Milton, Paradise Lost 4 &7
¶Paradise Regained 4 359 Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress 15 13 Addison, The Vision of Mirza 27 73 Steele, The Spectator Club 27 83 Goethe, Hermann and Dorothea 19 337 Cowper, The Diverting History of John Gilpin . . . . 41 546 Burns, Tam o' Shanter 6 3^8 Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi 21 7 Wordsworth, Michael 41 615 Ruth 41 607
¶Laodamia 41 662 Coleridge, The Ancient Mariner 41 682 Christabel 41 709
¶Love 41 704 Scott, Rosabelle 41 748
¶Lochinvar 41 751 Hogg, Kilmeny 41 756 Byron, The Prisoner of Chillon 41 801
¶The Destruction of Sennacherib 41 785 Campbell, Lord Ullin's Daughter 41 773 Battle of the Baltic 41 779
¶Hohenlinden 41 jS 1 Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes 41 883 Landor, The Death of Artemidora 41 902
¶Iphigeneia 41 903 Grimm, Household Tales 17 47 Andersen, Tales . . . . . . . 17 221 Tennyson, Maud 42 1015 Morte d'Arthur 42 986 The Lady of Shalott 42 967 The Revenge 42 1007 Rizpah 42 ion Locksley Hall 42 979
Subject and Author Vol. Page
¶Browning, My Last Duchess 42 1074
¶How They Brought the Good News . . . . 42 1066 Macaulay, The Armada 41 915 D. G. Rossetti, The King's Tragedy 42 1153 C. Rossetti, In the Round Tower at Jhansi 42 n 83 W. Morris, The Defence of Guenevere 42 n 83 Dobell, The Ballad of Keith of Ravelston 42 n 14 Poe, The Raven 42 1227 Longfellow, Evangeline 42 1300 The Wreck of the Hesperus 42 1269
¶Paul Revere's Ride 42 1295 Whittier, Randolph of Roanoke 42 1341 Barclay of Ury 42 1347 Maud Muller 42 1351 Skipper Ireson's Ride 42 1357 The Pipes at Lucknow 42 1360
¶Barbara Frietchie 42 1362 Lowell, The Courtin' 42 1376 Lanier, The Revenge of Hamish 42 1393