Harvard Classics, Volume 28

Harvard Classics Volume 28, by
Various

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Title: Harvard Classics Volume 28 Essays English and American
Author: Various
Editor: Charles W. Eliot
Release Date: June 29, 2007 [EBook #21962]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARVARD
CLASSICS VOLUME 28 ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: Thomas H. Huxley]

THE HARVARD CLASSICS
EDITED BY CHARLES W ELIOT LL D
ESSAYS
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
WITH INTRODUCTIONS, NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

"DR ELIOT'S FIVE-FOOT SHELF OF BOOKS"

P F COLLIER & SON
NEW YORK

[Transcriber's note: This book contains a number of Greek fragments.
Most of these fragments (the smaller ones) were transliterated into their
English equivalents using the guidelines in Project Gutenberg's "Greek
How-To". The three largest fragments were scanned and inserted into
the HTML version of this e-book as images. Those three fragments are
all in Matthew Arnold's "The Study of Poetry" section of this book,
with translations (not transliterations) of them in footnotes 3, 4, and 5.]

Copyright 1910 BY P. F. COLLIER & Son
Copyright 1886 BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
By arrangement with HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Copyright 1889 BY THE TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY
OF HARTFORD, CONN.

Copyright 1891 BY THE TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY

CONTENTS
JONATHAN SWIFT WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY I. WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? II.
SITE OF A UNIVERSITY III. UNIVERSITY LIFE AT ATHENS
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN
THE STUDY OF POETRY MATTHEW ARNOLD
SESAME AND LILIES LECTURE I--SESAME: OF KINGS'
TREASURIES LECTURE II--LILIES: OF QUEENS' GARDENS
JOHN RUSKIN
JOHN MILTON WALTER BAGEHOT
SCIENCE AND CULTURE THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
RACE AND LANGUAGE EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE SAMUEL PEPYS ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON
ON THE ELEVATION OF THE LABORING CLASSES WILLIAM
ELLERY CHANNING
THE POETIC PRINCIPLE EDGAR ALLAN POE
WALKING HENRY DAVID THOREAU
ABRAHAM LINCOLN DEMOCRACY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

William Makepeace Thackeray, one of the greatest of English novelists,
was born at Calcutta, India, on July 18, 1811, where his father held an
administrative position. He was sent to England at six for his education,
which he received at the Charterhouse and Cambridge, after which he
began, but did not prosecute, the study of law. Having lost his means,
in part by gambling, he made up his mind to earn his living as an artist,
and went to Paris to study. He had some natural gift for drawing,
which he had already employed in caricature, but, though he made
interesting and amusing illustrations for his books, he never acquired
any marked technical skill.
He now turned to literature, and, on the strength of an appointment as
Paris correspondent of a short-lived radical newspaper, he married.
On the failure of the newspaper he took to miscellaneous journalism
and the reviewing of books and pictures, his most important work
appearing in "Fraser's Magazine" and "Punch." In 1840 his wife's
mind became clouded, and, though she never recovered, she lived on
till 1894.
Success came to Thackeray very slowly. "Catherine," "The Great
Hoggarty Diamond," "Barry Lyndon," and several volumes of travel
had failed to gain much attention before the "Snob Papers," issued in
"Punch" in 1846, brought him fame. In the January of the next year
"Vanity Fair" began to appear in monthly numbers, and by the time it
was finished Thackeray had taken his place in the front rank of his
profession. "Pendennis" followed in 1850, and sustained the prestige
he had won.
The next year he began lecturing, and delivered in London the lectures
on the "English Humourists," which he repeated the following winter in
America with much success. "Esmond" had appeared on the eve of his
setting sail, and revealed his style at its highest point of perfection, and
a tenderer if less powerful touch than "Vanity Fair" had displayed. In
1855 "The Newcomes" appeared, and was followed by a second trip to
America, when he lectured on the "Four Georges." After an
unsuccessful attempt to enter Parliament, the novelist resumed his
writing with "The Virginians" (1857-59), in which he availed himself of

his American experiences.
In the January of 1860 the "Cornhill Magazine" was founded, with
Thackeray as first editor, and launched on a distinguished career. Most
of his later work was published in its pages, but "Lovel the Widower"
and the "Adventures of Philip" have not taken a place beside his
greater work. In the essays constituting the "Roundabout Papers,"
however, he appeared at his easiest and most charming. After a little
more than two years